Under the comforter, the little bullet is switched on, trembling in my hand. It’s pink and smooth and cool to the touch. It makes a low white-noise sound as it moves. I’m sure Shea would have bought me one if I’d asked, but it was easier to steal it from the novelty store in the mall. I touch myself with the bullet, and it feels even better than using my fingers, just like Clarisse said it would.
Now I’m imagining I’m in Andy’s cell, and it’s just the two of us. He takes the bullet from my hands, pushes it inside me. The end feels like fireworks—so much bright light, so many bursts of colorful stars. I turn it off, and roll onto my side. I look out the window and into the dry morning.
A text alert chimes on my phone, a new incoming message.
Hey, are you home? It’s from Clarisse.
Yeah, I’m home. Why?
Want to go for a ride? I’m actually near your house.
Sure. My hands shake as I type the word, my entire body excited and nervous to see Clarisse. My heart ticks like a windup watch. My mother and Shea have been asking about her so I invented a calamity, a vague “family emergency” Clarisse has been going through during the last weeks, a way to explain her absence to them, her sudden pulling away from my life.
I get dressed and brush my teeth, before going out to the patio to tell Shea where I’m going. She’s listening to music through her earbuds, removing one from her left ear to talk to me.
“Where’s Mom?” I ask.
“Back in bed. She got up early and went for a run. Then she came home and crashed.” Shea takes a sip of her coffee, steam rising from the mug, and then dissipating, dissolving into the air.
“Of course she did.” My mother does this every year when the end of school is near—takes up a predawn running ritual. The endeavor usually fizzles out by the Fourth of July, but Shea and I always humor her, pretending we’ve forgotten her history.
“Have fun and be safe,” Shea says, and then I hear Clarisse beep the horn outside, three quick blasts to let me know she’s here. “I’m glad things are getting better for Clarisse and her family. I’m sure you two have a lot of catching up to do.” Shea blows me a kiss and puts the earbud back in, nodding her head rhythmically to music that only she can hear.
Clarisse is parked in front of my house in George’s car, the small blue hatchback we rode in on a day that feels light-years away to me now. She waves at me through the front windshield as I get inside. The interior smells like citrus, an orange air freshener shaped like a tree hanging from the rearview mirror.
“Where do you want to go?” Clarisse asks.
“Um, the causeway is nice. Do you know how to get there?”
“No, but I can punch it in.” Clarisse’s phone is mounted on the dashboard, clipped to a little stand. She taps in Courtney Campbell Causeway and hits Go. The causeway is a bridge that crosses Old Tampa Bay, connecting Clearwater and Tampa. On one end of the bridge, there is beach access, and you can park right by the water.
Clarisse and I don’t talk much on the way there, the weight of time warm and heavy between us, filled with all the things we haven’t said to each other since that night on the beach at Treasure Island. We drive with the windows down, and let our hair dance in the hot summer breeze. We turn the radio up loud enough to drown the sounds of the other cars as we cross the blue bay.
When a women’s mechanical voice says we’ve reached our destination, Clarisse finds a parking spot facing the water. I look into the distance and see men wading in the shallow foam, casting out nets to catch crabs. I see a group of young mothers walking along the shoreline with children of various ages. The women wear bathing suits and wide-brimmed hats to protect their faces from the sun. The children carry plastic pails with shovels to dig in the wet sand.
A pop song is on the radio, synth beating like a heart and a young girl’s voice too perfect to be human. Clarisse taps her fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music for a few measures, and then turns the car off. She’s wearing sunglasses so I can’t see her eyes.
“We need to talk about Oliver,” she says. Her voice sounds cooler than I remember.
“What is there to talk about? He’s alive. That’s all that matters.”
“He’s a fucking vegetable, Evelyn. You call that alive?” Clarisse asks. She doesn’t wait for my answer. “What if he wakes up? Have you even thought about that?” She looks straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the low chop of the water, the small waves glittering in the sunlight.
“He doesn’t even know our real names, Clarisse. He has a brain injury. So even if he does wake up, he might not be able to talk, let alone pick us out of a lineup. He probably won’t even remember anything anyway. His brain is mush.” I reach over, and place one hand on her shoulder, my touch so light on her skin I can barely feel her at first, can only sense the presence of her body near mine.
“You don’t get it, do you?” She spits the words at me, pulling her body away from my touch. “You just don’t fucking get it.” Her voice is louder now, angry. “I came here to tell you that I never want to see you again.”
“But he’s alive. Oliver’s alive. We didn’t kill anyone.”
“You went inside Emerald’s house. You thought about killing her. I know you thought about it.”
“No, I didn’t think about it. I just wanted to see her. She’s my grandmother. You thought I was going to go all that way and not at least see her? I ran out of her house as soon as she realized I wasn’t her neighbor.”
“You’re such a fucking liar. Stay away from me or I’ll go to the police.” She pounds the steering wheel with her fist. “Fuck, I can’t believe I ever bought into your bullshit.”
“What bullshit, Clarisse? I didn’t do anything to Emerald. And even if I thought about killing her, bad thoughts aren’t the same as bad actions, Clarisse, remember? And by the way, if bad thoughts are a crime, then I guess the police will want to know about yours.”
“Don’t threaten me, you fucking psycho. I don’t ever want to see you again. Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Don’t come near me or I’ll tell the police everything I know.”
“Please, please, Clarisse. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about all of it. But it’s all over now. The tests are over now. We passed. We both passed. We’re both going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay. Let’s just forget this ever happened and start over. Come on, Reesey Cup.” I reach for her, but she slaps my hand away.
“I’m not your Reesey Cup, and I don’t want to see you ever again. You hear me, Evelyn? Do you understand? If you even try to come near me, I’ll go to the police. I’ll tell them everything.”
I nod my head, yes, I understand. A sick feeling begins inside me, the cells of fear dividing and dividing again, blooming like algae in the sea. Fear churns inside me, a storm at sea. My body becomes a small boat tossed within the relentless waves.
I close my eyes and cover my ears. I just need to block everything out for a bit—Clarisse, the sunlight, the children playing at the edge of the water. I just need to blunt the sharp edge of my senses so I can catch my thoughts, which are barreling through me as fast as a bullet train. I’m still here in the car with Clarisse, but in my mind, I’m in an interrogation room, sitting across the table from a man who demands to know where I was that night in May, demands to know why traces of me were found under Oliver’s fingernails, inside his mouth, between his legs.
Clarisse starts the engine and turns the air-conditioning on full blast. “Don’t fucking try me, Evelyn,” she says. “From now on you’re dead to me. And if you don’t stay dead, I promise you’ll pay for what you did. They’ll put you in Raiford with your father, where you belong, you fucking freak.”
I look to the horizon, an attempt to steady my churning stomach. My eyes are blurry, my vision watery as if the world were a snow globe turned on its end.
Clarisse drives back to the other side of the bay, over water that glistens in the sunlight. The whole way home I hold my hands against my chest, feeling the beating of my own heart.
When Clarisse pulls up to the curb in front of my house, she keeps the car in drive. She stares straight ahead through the windshield, keeping both of her hands on the steering wheel. I get out of the car without looking at her, and as soon as I close the car door, she drives off. I go inside the house and straight to my room.
Shea hears me, and comes to the threshold. “Back already? I figured you two would be out all day. Perfect beach weather today. There’s not a cloud in the sky.”
“Oh, well, I’m not feeling so great,” I say. “I think I might be catching a cold.”
“Sorry, sweetie. Can I get you anything?”
“I’ll fight it off. Just going to rest,” I tell her.
“Yes, honey, get in bed and take a nap,” Shea says. “I can bring you some echinacea tea when you wake up later. It’ll help boost your immune system.”
“Okay, thanks,” I say as Shea closes the door.
I peel off all my clothes, leaving them in a puddle on the floor. I grab a can of duster from my nightstand drawer, and take it to bed with me. The sheets are cold against my bare skin, but eventually, my body adjusts. I enjoy the sensation, how it’s slightly uncomfortable at first, almost painful, but then it feels so good, like diving into a cold pool, your lungs contracting hard as you come up for air and gasp, your breath taken away from you for just a second from the temperature change.
I open The Catalog of Everything I’ve Done Wrong, but there are too many entries to add today, and I don’t want to think about them, so instead, I put the duster nozzle into my mouth and pull the small trigger.
I inhale and instantly feel lighter, starting to imagine myself floating away. At first I fight the feeling slightly, afraid to let go, but then I inhale again and finally every muscle in my body becomes weightless, and I let the waves wash me away and away until I’m back in Clarisse’s closet. We’re sitting crisscross, facing each other, our knees touching so that the empty space between our bodies forms a diamond shape.
“Let’s play hot hands,” Clarisse says. She reaches her hands toward mine, her palms facing up, an animal offering me her soft underbelly. I place my hands on top of hers, feeling the silk of her skin.
“Ready?” Clarisse asks.
“Ready,” I answer.
I open my eyes, but I still see Clarisse. She appears to be standing at the foot of my bed now, getting undressed. She slides into bed with me.
“You’re here,” I say, and I turn on my side to face her. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Clarisse reaches over, and wraps a strand of my hair around her finger. “Of course I’m here, Evelyn. Where else would I be?”