JENNY HELD HER SHIN, staring at the driver, not capable of reacting first.
Ms. Willoughby finally reached for the door.
“Jenny?” She rose from the car, the interior light still the only source of light between them.
“Ms. Willoughby!” Jenny exhaled, running to her and throwing her arms around her waist. It wasn’t something she planned; it was just something she had to do once she heard her voice. Ms. Willoughby held her close, and Jenny felt such a relief her legs almost gave out. She knew a million questions were coming, but Ms. Willoughby let her have these precious seconds to just exist.
“Oh, Jenny . . .” Ms. Willoughby let Jenny stay resting against her, the girl so desperate for her touch. “This isn’t happening,” she muttered. “It’s not you. It can’t be you.”
“What?” Jenny asked, trying to push back and create enough space to look up at Ms. Willoughby, but the counselor held Jenny tight, not ready to look her in the eyes.
“Ms. Willoughby?” Jenny asked, concerned and confused.
The woman maintained her hold on Jenny. It was enough time for the cuts on Jenny’s cheek to register as uncomfortable, pressed against her jacket.
“Ms. Willoughby!” Jenny yelled to snap her out of it. She jerked her arms out and broke Ms. Willoughby’s grasp. Jenny didn’t trust her groggy brain enough to know if the aggressive move was justified.
Jenny inched backward, slow movements disguised as adjustments instead of a retreat. She needed guidance more than ever and waited for Ms. Willoughby to tell her what to do in the moment . . . that night . . . in life.
Ms. Willoughby stepped forward and rested her hands on Jenny’s arms. Jenny allowed it. It wasn’t threatening; it was intended to be comforting. She bent at the waist to match Jenny’s eye level. “Come get in the car, OK?” Her expanding eyes waited for an answer.
“OK,” Jenny whispered.
“OK,” Ms. Willoughby echoed, robotically standing back up and breaking physical contact. “Come on.”
This didn’t feel right. Jenny glanced down at her nightgown, tattered, covered in dirt, drops of blood from where she had wiped away the scratches on her face. She reached to her hair, what was left of it, with cold mud clumping the short pieces in groups, nothing like the blonde waves she’d had only hours earlier. Nothing about this felt right. Why didn’t Ms. Willoughby ask her what happened? Why wasn’t she calling the cops?
“Come on,” Ms. Willoughby insisted as she stood at the driver’s side door.
Jenny stood still. She clenched her jaw, begging her brain to wake up, but when she tried to think, to figure out why it all felt so wrong, her thoughts just evaporated and she had to start over. It was enough to keep her from stepping toward the car, but she didn’t know why. Was it just paranoia? She had been through so much. Was she crazy now? The whole world wasn’t out to get her. She wasn’t that special.
Jenny swallowed the saliva that had pooled in her mouth while she stood paralyzed.
“Jenny,” Ms. Willoughby insisted. “Let’s go. C’mon.” She walked back to Jenny once she realized her words weren’t working. “Jenny!” she shouted, as if the problem was that Jenny couldn’t hear her.
“I . . . I . . . I don’t want to,” Jenny managed to stammer.
Ms. Willoughby reached out and grabbed the girl’s wrist, tugging her toward the car.
Jenny yanked her arm way. “Stop,” she pleaded. “Ms. Willoughby, you’re scaring me.”
Ms. Willoughby rolled her eyes. “I didn’t want it to be you. This is making it harder for me, you know? This isn’t easy for me.”
“What are you talking about?” Jenny asked. How could Ms. Willoughby know anything about what was going on? She hadn’t asked her one question.
“I know it feels like you’re special. He does that, but he doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t love you. He’s your teacher. What he is doing to you is not OK. This is not your fault. Do you hear me?”
It finally clicked with Jenny’s dulled brain what she was talking about. “No,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “I’m not . . .”
Ms. Willoughby grabbed Jenny’s arms again, holding her body still and pointed at attention. “I don’t blame you. I’m not mad at you. This is his fault, not yours. He makes mistakes.”
That was putting it mildly. Mistakes. Virginia was one of his mistakes. Ms. Willoughby was one of his mistakes. Now his mistake, Christine Castleton, was passed out in his bed. It would be easy to make Ms. Willoughby understand it wasn’t Jenny. March her back to his house and show her Christine, but how would Mr. Renkin react? What he had done to Jenny over a few notes from ten years ago could pale in comparison to being caught red-handed with an underage girl drunk and naked in his bed.
“I just want to go home,” Jenny whispered.
Ms. Willoughby closed her eyes and took a deep breath, internalizing something Jenny couldn’t understand. “All right, sure,” she said, letting go of Jenny’s arm. “C’mon, I’ll give you a ride.”
“I’m going to walk,” Jenny said, attempting a smile that she was sure came out crooked.
“No, that’s ridiculous. It’s late.” Ms. Willoughby took a few steps closer to Jenny. She rubbed at one of her arms—nervous, twitchy.
“Are you OK?” Jenny asked. The question just came out. It was an instinctive reaction to this unrecognizable behavior from her previously reliable confidant. It was a question Ms. Willoughby should have asked Jenny a hundred times by now. It was as if she couldn’t even see Jenny.
“You have to know I didn’t want it to be you,” Ms. Willoughby insisted. “I didn’t think this of you. Even when Mallory tried to warn me, it didn’t click. I trusted you; you’re good,” she said, shaking her head. “Or I’m just so, so stupid. Jesus Christ, you look just like her. A fucking reboot.” She smiled at Jenny with big empty eyes, like her whole face was glitching.
“I didn’t do anything!” Jenny pleaded, starting to back away but not quite pushed to flee yet. There was something intoxicating about seeing Ms. Willoughby like this. Her vulnerability, her madness, it made Jenny feel the maturity she so craved. In that driveway, in that moment, she wasn’t a student or a child. She was another woman, the other woman.
Ms. Willoughby shook her head. “No use in lying. I’ve told them all before, and they won’t work on me anymore.”
“I’m not lying! Look at me,” Jenny begged. “Look at my hair. Look at me!” She reached for the knife in her underwear and pulled it out, an escalation she didn’t plan, but Ms. Willoughby was blinded and she needed to make her see.
“Mr. Renkin is horrible,” Jenny yelled, holding the knife in front of her as insurance to make sure she could get her words out. “I’m not having sex with him. All those things you’re saying are true, but it’s not about me. It’s about you! You are the one he doesn’t love. He’s a jerk and he’s a liar and you shouldn’t like him anyway. He did this to you. He was your teacher too and now you’re all messed up just like Virginia.”
Ms. Willoughby’s face hardened, her lip quivering. “And so are you! You’re just like Virginia. It was supposed to be her. I came here for her and it was you. Save me your speech. You have no idea.” She paused to be alone with her thoughts for a beat, her eyes glued to the ground. “The damage is already done. You’re already ruined,” she whispered, much softer than anything else she had said that night.
Ms. Willoughby moved closer. Slowly.
The knife became irrelevant. Jenny wasn’t going to hurt her. She let her arm drop.
With every step Ms. Willoughby took, she morphed back into the lady who sat behind her desk listening to Jenny, chatting like a confidant, acting like Jenny was special. Jenny could see a way out of this, a good night’s sleep, a lot of therapy for them both. Then she was slapped—fast, across her face—stinging the cuts from the glass her mother had thrown at her. Jenny turned and ran.
It was difficult to run on her shin.
It was difficult to run in that nightgown.
It was difficult to run toward the pitch black.
JENNY COULD HEAR footsteps behind her, propelling off the gravel driveway. Ms. Willoughby was gaining on her. She had to get out of the open driveway, so she veered to the left and her feet barely entered the woods when a force hit her from behind. She plummeted toward the ground, releasing the knife in order to brace her fall with both hands.
Twigs and acorns dug into Jenny’s back as she rolled over to see Ms. Willoughby over her, crouched and grabbing the knife. She stood back up, looking a hundred feet tall to Jenny on the ground. She looked crazy. And sad. Mr. Renkin made her like this, but Jenny still felt guilty. Ms. Willoughby was nice to her. She was the one who listened to her. The one who wanted to help her. If she could go back, she would never have talked to JP. She would have gotten in the car with Christine Castleton. She would have had her mother call the school and change her to Mallory’s block. It sounded cool to say you have no regrets, but Jenny regretted everything as she looked up at Ms. Willoughby, completely ruined.
A part of Jenny never thought Ms. Willoughby would actually hurt her. Even when she was waiting in the driveway, hidden, stalking. Even when she wouldn’t let her go. Even now that she stood over her with a knife. To Jenny, they had a bond. Ms. Willoughby cared, she listened, she understood Jenny wasn’t like the other kids. It was naïve. She was beginning to see that now.
It was then that the muffled music from Mr. Renkin’s house became clear. He had opened the front door. The porch light shot down the driveway, illuminating the navy Accord but doing nothing to the darkness of the woods. Ms. Willoughby whipped her face toward the sound. Impeccable timing. Life-saving timing.
No clever plan would help. It was time to scream, scream at a level of bloody murder only a teenage girl was capable of. A scream that would pierce through Mr. Renkin’s loud music and ripple through the woods and down the hill.
A second to part her lips, a second to inhale the necessary air, then one more to release the inescapable scream. It took too long. Just as Jenny began to exhale a sound, Ms. Willoughby lunged to the ground, driving the knife into Jenny’s abdomen, cutting off the scream like she had pulled the plug.
Complete shock drove Jenny to try to scream again, but she couldn’t inhale, not on her back, not with the knife in her.
Ms. Willoughby yanked the knife out. “Shit. Shiiiiit,” she whispered to herself, sitting back on her ankles and staring at the wound as the blood started to show through Jenny’s nightgown.
Jenny took short disjointed breaths, trying to process what was happening. She had finally pushed it too far. She wasn’t invincible.
Ms. Willoughby glared at the knife in her hand, as if this were its fault.
Jenny rolled on her side. That’s as far as she got.
Ms. Willoughby, gripping the knife with both hands this time, plunged it into Jenny’s side.
Jenny fell back with the momentum of Ms. Willoughby pulling the knife out again. She pressed her hand against the new wound. The pain was unbearable, and her hand fell to the ground.
Ms. Willoughby rose to her feet.
Jenny couldn’t even see her face. She was just a silhouette, adorned with a knife and accented by pointed trees that filled the space behind her as if they were her accomplices.
Jenny stood no chance. She closed her eyes and waited for the knife to find another entry point.
“Hunter?” Mr. Renkin yelled into the night, disrupting everything.
Jenny opened her eyes as Ms. Willoughby turned toward the house.
“Is that you? What are you doing?” He couldn’t see. The light didn’t reach them.
Ms. Willoughby looked back to Jenny, then back to Mr. Renkin, then back and forth again, unsure of her next move.
Jenny wished she had options. There was only one thing she could think of. A pointless plan maybe, but she couldn’t just give up. When Ms. Willoughby looked back to the house, Jenny took in as much air as her failing body could hold. She closed her eyes, making sure not to squeeze them, just let them rest. It took every ounce of self-control to lie still through the pain. Being motionless was easy for actual dead people. They couldn’t feel anything; Jenny could feel everything.
She heard leaves crunch as Ms. Willoughby’s attention came back. The sound moved closer, so close the leaves tickled at Jenny’s legs. Jenny held her breath, her body, her mind. It felt like forever. Ms. Willoughby was silent, but she was there.
“Hunter! What the hell?” Mr. Renkin yelled out again.
Ms. Willoughby finally stepped away.
When the soundtrack of her steps switched from leaves to gravel, Jenny inhaled. It was so forceful her upper body rose off the ground. Pain originated at her wounds and shot to her extremities.
She turned her head to the side, watching Ms. Willoughby step onto the driveway and into the light. Jenny couldn’t think even if she wanted to. She crawled to her knees, then somehow back to her feet. She leaned against the closest tree and watched Ms. Willoughby walk back to her car.
“Sorry,” she shouted out to him. “My car was giving me trouble.”
“Do you need help?” he yelled back.
“No, it’s all good,” she answered. “Everything is all right now.”
She slipped into her car and closed the door.
Mr. Renkin went back in the house.
That was it. Like Jenny was never there. Like no one was dying.
Jenny turned away. The blood was spreading over her nightgown, turning it a dark red. She wouldn’t make it far, but she was still on her feet. It was something.
JENNY STUMBLED THROUGH the trees, following the light from JP’s front porch. She pressed her hand against the first wound. Her nightgown was surprisingly absorbent; the blood soaked around her hand, but didn’t drip.
The air was cold and bitter, but her torso was emanating heat. Sharp pains pulsed through her body. If she could just get to JP, everything would be OK.
As she stepped through the tree line, she noticed the empty driveway. Gil’s car was gone. Jenny shuffled toward the house, each step led by her left foot, dragging her fading right side after it. She tried to yell, but all that came out were weak, inaudible sounds. There was a metallic taste in her mouth that she tried hard not to worry about.
JP was gone. He’d taken the car, and probably the body, and left her there. Jenny had few steps left. Each one covered less distance than the one before. She placed her hand on the side of the house to steady herself. Her last eight steps brought her to the backyard. She fell to the ground next to the hose.
Jenny lay on her back, unwilling to move ever again. She stared at the sky in between heavy blinks and tried to find beauty in her last moments, but the stars gave her no hope. They were not romantic. There was no poetic ending. She was just a body next to a hose that her first and only love would use to wash away any evidence of what had happened to her.