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“Your shirt,” Rhys mumbles.
My fingers unbutton my buttons. Nine buttons until my shirt is open. He slides it off my shoulders and it hangs from my elbows. He steps back a little, looks at me. I’m not wearing a bra, but then I remember he’s seen this before. He brings his palm against my skin, against my collarbone. He’s shaking and I’m dizzy. He kisses me again, hard. Finally.
The sky cracks open, thunder, and then all I can think about is the rain, the smell of the pavement after it rains. That musty beautiful smell that coats your lungs. A mild spring day, two girls in blue raincoats with yellow buttons shaped like flowers. Lily taking off her boots, grabbing my hands, and trying to drag me through all the puddles she could. I was always too scared and—she always let go of my hand.
“Sloane?”
Rhys’s voice brings me back, pulls me out of the memory. My hand disappears from Lily’s hand, the puddles disappear under my feet and it’s just me and him, but it’s not really me and him. It’s just this emptiness between us, the stupid idea I could kiss it away, and I’m crying before I can stop myself and then we’re on the floor and his arms are all around me and I keep saying I can’t because I don’t know what else to say. He tries to calm me, quiet me. Brings his hand to my face, tells me it’s okay. It’s not okay. I’m dying. I am dying. I have finally achieved what I set out to do. My heart is splitting open and I breathe in but no air gets into my lungs. I push against Rhys but he won’t let me go, so I lean into him, curl my fingers into his shirt and sob and the only thing that makes me feel okay about it is the fact that Cary broke down before me, Grace, she broke down before me, Harrison. But still, every second like this hurts, it hurts so bad I can’t stand it. I want it to stop, that’s all I’ve wanted. I let go of Rhys’s shirt when my fingers start to ache. I let him go, but his hold on me never wavers and it is so quiet.
And then he asks, “Why can’t you?”
The floor in the locker rooms is cold.
The floor is cold and Rhys is warm.
“Because she couldn’t.” I say it so quietly, he has to rest his head against mine to hear me. “She told me she couldn’t do it anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Be my sister.”
These words cut me, feel like they cut me when they come out. They tear up my lips, make them bleed. I’m your sister, Lily. I never stopped being your sister.
“Why?”
“Because—our dad beat us. We were going to leave together. We had this plan but she left me with him instead because being stuck with me made her feel trapped … she left me and—” I think of myself sitting on the edge of the bathtub and it was so long ago, too long, and I start to cry again. “I’ve been here so much longer than I was supposed to be—”
He tells me it’s going to be okay until all the words blur together into a hum that makes me close my eyes and I start to go away and five, ten, fifteen minutes later, I’m aware of my hand sliding down to his lap and then nothingness and then the gentle sensation of his index finger pressing into my open palm and then his hand is at my face, ru
“Sloane, wait—”
My shirt is still undone, wide open. My face burns. I button it up so hastily, every button is one button off. I have to get out of here. I push out of the locker room and run. His voice chases me down the halls. I duck into the girls’ room and lock myself in a stall and then I just sit there with my head against the side of it. I don’t even realize I’m not alone until I hear my name and then I freeze and lift my feet off the ground, like this could make me invisible.
“Sloane?” Grace pushes against the stall door. The lock rattles. “I know you’re in there. I saw you run in. What’s wrong?” I press my lips together. “Sloane.” The lock rattles again. “Open the door.”
I reach forward and unlock it. Grace steps back.
“I saw you with Cary,” I say.
“What—” She stops. “That’s why you’re upset?”
I leave the stall, push past her. “So the last few weeks were just a total game to you? You just—you and Trace make it hell to be in here, you push Cary until he’s broken and then we all have to pick sides but then you’re basically fucking him in the nurse’s office—”
“Sloane—”
“That is not cool, Grace!” I want to break something. I storm toward the door and then double back. She stares at me, her mouth hanging open. “Give me the keys.”
“What?”
“Give me the keys to the nurse’s office.”
“Why?”
“I want to see Cary. Give me the keys or I’ll tell Trace what you were doing—”
“What is your problem? I came in here because I heard you crying and I wanted to see if I could help—” I hold my hand out, cutting her off. She looks at me and she knows I am not going to talk about this with her anymore. She digs into her pockets and gives me the keys along with a pleading look. “Please don’t tell Trace about this.”
I promise her nothing. I go back to the nurse’s office. My hands are shaking so badly it takes me forever to unlock the door, so it’s not like I surprise Cary or anything. He’s laying on the cot and I think he looks satisfied. I hate him. I slam the door behind me.
“I thought you loved my sister.”
He sits up. “What—”
“I saw you with Grace. I thought you loved my sister.”
He has to separate the sentences before he can tackle either of them.
“Sloane—”
“I saw you with Grace.”
“Sloane—”
“And you were wrong about her anyway,” I say. He gets up and steps toward me and I step back. I wish I had a switch, some way I could turn myself off. And now I’m just lying, I don’t know why I’m lying. I’m lying because I’m the only one that can say the things I need to hear. “You were wrong about Lily. You were wrong about her. I’m her sister. I would know. She was—she wasn’t like—she was free. She wasn’t trapped—”
“Okay, but—”
“You were wrong—”
“Sloane—”
Cary stops. His gaze catches something behind me. I turn. Rhys stands in the doorway, staring at us. I shove the keys in his hands and leave them both standing there and all I can think is how she left me when I needed her and that I need her. I still need her.
I sleep. I refuse to be awake. In the afternoon, Trace asks Rhys if I’m sick. I open my eyes and ask him if he’ll shoot me depending on my answer, which goes over about as well as I expect it to.
“Sloane, get up,” Rhys says at one point. “Move around.”
I stare at the skylight. It’s raining again. A rainy spring that will turn into what kind of summer? It’s hard to imagine it summer, everything bright and alive and someone, somewhere not having sorted all of this end-of-the-world stuff out.
I go back to sleep.
Eventually, Rhys prods me awake and volunteers me to take Cary his di
“She never took her shirt off,” he says at my back. I stop. “When we were together. I thought it was cute because she was usually so confident. I never thought she was hiding something.”
I see them in my head. They’re in a car, the backseat, they’re all over each other. He’s trying to push her shirt up, she’s pulling it back down and playing coy to hide the bruises.
I turn. “Rhys shouldn’t have told you.”
“Maybe but you need to bury it,” Cary tells me. “All of that’s over. You have to be here now.”