I didn’t know if he was talking to me or to himself.
When he looked over at me, he said, “Don’t give me that face.” Then he reached over and pressed his cigarette onto my back. At first I didn’t know what was happening, then I felt it all at once, right through my nightgown, a sting and burn and sizzle. I jerked away, and quick, he was on me, holding me down, my face into the pillow with his arm on the back of my neck. And another burn and another. I screamed but the pillow filled my mouth. I couldn’t hear myself screaming, even in my own ears. He pressed harder on me and I couldn’t breathe. Then he burned me again and I felt myself drifting from the pain. It didn’t hurt anymore because I was just floating up, like there was a big wave under me, carrying me far. Carrying me far.
CHAPTER 14
I GOT THROUGH THE afternoon of shopping, woodenly saying “yes” or “no” to items she picked out—clothes my real sister would never wear, fabrics she would never let touch her body. When we walked back through the atrium to the parking lot, she suddenly stopped, shying away from a guy who bumped her accidentally. “Sorry,” he said under his breath, and kept going. Mom put her arm around Sarah’s waist and guided her to the door as I walked behind them, trying to make sure no one else came too close.
We got home without any problems—no one following us, no news crews outside. I could tell Mom was relieved as she pulled the car into the garage. If she had her way, Sarah would never leave the house again. When we got into the kitchen, Sarah took one look at the clock and her face blanched. “I’ve only got an hour before he gets here?”
“You look wonderful, what’s wrong?” Mom asked.
Sarah rolled her eyes, exasperated with Mom, and I thought I saw a glimpse of something, the old Sarah. You don’t get it, none of you. Maybe I just wanted to see it, to convince myself.
“Nico, you’ve got to help me.” Sarah raced upstairs, carrying her bags of new clothes.
I followed her into her room, where she dropped the bags on the floor. Sarah sat in front of the mirror and dumped out her old makeup bag, poking through it. “This stuff . . .” She shook her head and started to say something, then caught herself. I saw her pick up the metal eyelash curler and set it to one side. The rest of the old makeup—eye shadow, powder, lip stain—she pushed off the side of the table with the back of her hand into the garbage.
She pulled over a small white bag and started unpacking the new products Mom had just bought at the department store: a really expensive face cream, foundation, eyeliner, and lipstick. All of it came in fancy-looking boxes, which she lined up on the side of the dressing table, her eyes as big as a kid’s on Christmas morning. “Well, it’s showtime.” She opened the lotion and smoothed it over her face carefully as I watched, noting the small pocks where pimples must have left scars. “Maybe this stuff will do the trick.”
This stuff will do the trick. Sarah would never say that.
“You’re in charge of music.” She nodded to the speakers on the bookshelf. I pulled my phone from my pocket and plugged it in, scrolling to a playlist. Nico, I heard you listening to that stupid boy band. What are you, like, seven or something? You really like that crap?
“Nice,” she said, bobbing her head to the first song as it played. I sat on her bed, uneasily, and watched as she expertly applied a thick layer of eyeliner.
“I’m thinking the skinny jeans and the black top, the one that ties up here?” she said. “Can you dig those ones out for me and cut off the tags?”
I did what she asked and laid the clothes on the bed, then started to leave so she could dress, but she stripped off her pants and slid into the new jeans before changing her top, giving me a glimpse of how empty her bra was, stretched over her ribs.
She leaned into the mirror and fluffed up her hair. “You’re so quiet—is it because I look terrible?”
“No.” I shook my head. She actually looked good, almost like Sarah used to, although with a bit more makeup than she used to wear. “You look really great.”
She smiled at herself in the mirror, as if I wasn’t there, a perfect imitation of the Sarah pictures on the bulletin board—head tipped down just a bit, eyes narrowed. “Do you think he’ll look the same? Just as cute?” She moved over to the photos and studied them closely.