I don’t even have to send it, if it’s too overwhelming. But I can finish this. How many times has Inara had to tell her story to strangers?
She was out in the open in the T of space between the altar and the discolored portions of floor where the pews used to be. She was stark naked, but my mind latched less on to the fact that she was nude—she was my sister, I’d seen her naked before—than on the fact that her clothes were neatly folded and stacked on top of her backpack a few feet away. Chavi might as well have been allergic to folding her clothes for as often as she did it. But seeing how utterly clean her favorite shirt was made me realize how much blood was on the floor around her, and I dropped to my knees beside her, pushing at her to wake up, please, wake up. I was still screaming.
I’d never seen so much blood before.
I didn’t hear Frank come in but suddenly he was there, half-dressed and carrying a paint gun. He took one look at Chavi, turned grey, and whirled around in a wild circle. Looking for whoever did it, I realized much later. Then his arm came around me and he tried to tug me away.
I think I remember him speaking? I’ve never been sure.
But I wasn’t going to leave. I fought his grip, and truthfully he was too shocked to put much strength behind it. I was still screaming at Chavi, poking at the ticklish spot on her ribs because she could never sleep through that, and she still didn’t move.
There was a sound at the door, followed by Mum’s yell, my name sharp and shrill and scared, and Frank ran to her. He kept her from coming in, physically barring the way, and he begged her, weeping, to call me to her. Just call me away from Chavi.
I’ll never forget the flowers around Chavi, and in her hair: yellow chrysanthemums like suns.
You know how big news tragedies or events have that one pivotal, iconic photograph? So that years or even decades later, people can instantly recognize the picture?
When a reporter broke the story, they didn’t have a picture of Chavi’s body, just a yearbook shot and whatever they could find on Facebook. So they used a photo of me.
Twelve years old and covered in blood, still screaming and sobbing, and reaching for the church—for my sister—as a grim-faced paramedic carried me away. For months, that picture was everywhere. I couldn’t escape it, and it crops up again every spring when another girl dies with the flowers and a slit throat and someone calls the FBI with the theory that it’s the same guy.
I wasn’t there when they told Dad. It must have been the officer waiting at the house. Dad came to the hospital, where a doctor gave me a mild sedative against the shock, and he moved so slowly, like his whole body ached. Like he’d aged centuries. He’d laughed at our worries.
I don’t think I ever heard him laugh again.
Chavi died, declared the official report, between nine and ten Monday night.
The rest of our family died around midnight, only it took a while to know for sure. Mum and I were phoenixes, rising in our own way. Dad just burned and burned until he didn’t.
The public steals tragedies from victims. It sounds strange, I know, but I think you may be one of the few people who’ll understand what I mean by that. These things happened to us, to our loved ones, but it hits the news and suddenly everyone with a TV or computer feels like they’re entitled to our reactions and recoveries.
They’re not. It takes a while to really believe it, but you owe them nothing.
Our agents are good at adopting strays, but we don’t actually have to let them. They make the overtures, sure, but we’re the ones who allow it to become a real thing. There’s comfort in that, in knowing we can at any moment choose to walk away and they will absolutely let us.
There’s more comfort in realizing we want to stay, that this is a good thing we’re allowed to have.
That we’re allowed to be happy.
I’m still working on that, but in the meantime? We’re allowed to be broken. We don’t have to feel ashamed of that.
Write back, if you’d like. I don’t know that I have any wisdom to impart, but your letters are welcome.
She’s only a year and a half older than me.
I guess it isn’t the years that matter.
Hours later, when Mum leaves for work, I retreat back to my room and wrap myself in my comforter like a burrito. I don’t sleep exactly, just sort of drift until my bladder is bursting and shrieking at me to get out of bed, and it’s probably for the best if I don’t crawl back under the covers. Hunger curls and crawls low in my belly. The thought of eating is . . . worrisome.
I know this mood. If I start eating, I won’t stop. Not even when I’m full and stretching and pained, because that kind of pain makes more sense than this grief and rage that bleed under my skin.
I shower and dry my hair, make a note to ask Mum to refresh the streaks because there’s almost half an inch of root growth, and draw on eyeliner and lipstick with a heavy hand. Chavi taught me all the small tricks that make the difference between a challenge and a tease and a snarl. She always fell somewhere between challenge and tease, softened with shimmering white and gold powders. I usually brush on silver and white, but not today. Today is black and red and about as pissed off as you’d expect from that.
Once I’m dressed and I’m sure I’ve got the pepper spray easily accessible in my outer coat pocket, I leave the house for the chess island. The air’s so dry it hurts, and I have the feeling I’ll be using the tissues in the other pocket for a nosebleed sometime in the next couple of hours.
When I walk up onto the dead grass, Corgi looks up and whistles, soft and impressed. “You really do belong with us, don’t you, Blue Girl?” At my smile, sharp and brittle, he nods. “Come on, then. Happy hasn’t had a victory in weeks. Let him live up to his name.”
So I sit down opposite Happy, who looks sober and haunted, and play until he claims he’s pulled so far ahead of Corgi in their never-ending tally of victories that his friend will never catch up.
Corgi’s a good player, even against people who know what the shit they’re doing. If the tally is anything honest, Happy hasn’t got a chance.
But Corgi smiles, scratches the side of his nose, and says Happy shouldn’t sit too easy.
Landon starts with Yelp, down on the far end of the tables from me. When he shuffles down to take Steven’s challenge, it puts him next to me. I’d more or less decided to give him the benefit of the doubt going forward, and assume that he doesn’t mean to be creepy. Maybe he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. I’m just not going to engage.
Today, though, I’d really like to pepper spray him on principle, so I should probably go back to the instinctive plan of avoid, avoid, avoid.
Bracing my hand on Corgi’s shoulder, I clamber over the bench and stretch out the kinks and aches of sitting in the cold. “Come on, Corgi, show me how it’s done.”
He and Happy give me nearly identical grins, and he scoots over to take my empty seat. I hover over his shoulder for a while, watching the beginning of the game—I can tell by the fifth move that Happy is going to lose—until the men at the other end shuffle around. It’s easy to casually plop down across from Pierce, who tends to stay close enough to Gunny to keep an eye on the old man.