“No, that’s cool.”
They headed for Crystal’s bedroom. I turned up the music in the living room, grabbed the last cigarette from Crystal’s pack on the coffee table, and lit it, taking long drags and blowing the smoke out in lazy puffs as I sprawled on the couch. I didn’t really enjoy smoking, but I was kind of annoyed at my aunt.
I’d finished my cigarette and had my eyes closed—letting the pulse of the music wash over me, tapping out a beat on my leg—when I heard noises in the bedroom, kind of a thump, a muffled scream. I jerked up.
Crystal was shouting something. Larry was yelling too, but I couldn’t make out the words.
I stood up and turned down the stereo so I could hear better.
Another scream, then a crash like something had been knocked over.
I raced down the hall to the bedroom, pushed open the door.
Crystal was kneeling naked on the side of the bed, punching at Larry’s arms and legs as he tried to get his clothes on. The lamp was on the floor.
“Get out! Get out!” she yelled.
“I’m trying to, you crazy bitch!” he said, pulling his pants up and grabbing his shirt off the floor.
“Get the fuck out of my house!” Crystal jumped off the bed, came at him with fists flying, caught him in the corner of the jaw.
“Stop it!” I yelled.
Larry cocked his arm, smacked her hard across the face. She fell backward, hitting the wall and crashing into the night table. She tried to catch herself, but the side of her face slammed into the edge with a thud that made me feel sick. Between sobs she clutched at her face and said, “You fucker.”
Larry spun around and pushed past me, knocking me sideways onto the bed. “I don’t need this shit.”
He walked out of the bedroom, still cursing as he went down the hall. The front door slammed shut.
I turned to Crystal. “You okay?”
She was huddled against the wall, crying hard, makeup in black streaks down her face, blood dripping from her nose and the corner of her mouth.
“The door!” she said.
I ran back into the living room and locked the door, then jogged back to her room. Crystal had pulled the top sheet off her bed and wrapped it around her.
“What happened?” I said.
“I couldn’t breathe. He had his hands around my throat.…” She reached up, touched her neck, rubbed at it. “He thought … he thought I liked it.”
I didn’t know what to say. Her face looked so sore. I wanted to give her a hug but didn’t know if she wanted to be touched. “I’ll get you some ice.”
I went to the kitchen, put ice cubes in a towel, and brought it to Crystal’s room. She was in the bathroom, now in shorts and a tank top, looking at her face in the mirror. Balls of bloody Kleenex were wadded all over the bathroom counter. Her hands shook as she touched her cheek and her bottom lip, which was puffy. I handed her the ice pack. She stared at it.
“It’s for your face,” I said.
She pressed it to her cheekbone, where I could see a red mark. She was still staring at herself in the mirror. Her blue eyes huge, almost black.
“I smoked your last cigarette,” I said, trying not to cry. “I’m sorry.”
She looked at me and started to laugh, but then her laughter turned to tears. She sat on the edge of the bathtub.
“I’m such a mess. He was right. I’m crazy.”
“No, he was an asshole.”
She wiped at her face, stood up. “I need a drink.”
Over the next hour, Crystal drank every wine cooler in her house and finished off the remains of a vodka bottle. She kept getting up to look out the window, stumbling into everything. Then she’d stare out at the street like she was checking to see if Larry was outside.
“You sure you locked the door?” she asked several times, and even when I swore I had, she still checked. She went around and made sure every window in the house was closed and latched, though it was still hot.
I’d never seen her like this. I didn’t know what to do.
“Maybe we should call my mom, or Dallas,” I said.
“You can’t tell them what happened!”
“Okay, but will you please sit down?”
She sat, and before long her head started to drift lower, jerking a couple of times as she tried to fight off sleep, her chin almost touching her chest.
“You should go to bed,” I said.
“Come with me,” she said.
I led her down to her room and covered her with her sheet—it was a little cooler there with a fan blowing. Then I lay down beside her and drifted off.
*
Later, unsure of the time, I woke and glanced next to me—Crystal wasn’t in bed. I sat up, looked around. The bathroom door was open slightly, letting some light into the bedroom. The drawer on her night table was open.
I headed for the bathroom. “Crystal?”
No answer.
I pushed open the door. She was on the floor, her back against the side of the bathtub, her eyes closed and her head lolling to one side. She had a gun in her hand.
“Holy shit!”