Delilah
Saturday morning, I sat in my room, my chemistry textbook in front of me. My eyes traveled over the same sentence for the seventh time. I still couldn’t tell you what it said. It was yet another beautiful day—impossibly blue skies dabbed with wispy clouds, the air just nippy enough for the mug of hot tea cradled in my hands to taste even more delicious than usual. Not that I was in the mood to enjoy any of it.
My phone rang, and I scrambled to pick it up before the noise could irritate Brandon. He wouldn’t be able to hear it, since he was in the garage blasting his shitty music, but still. Part of me was convinced he could detect the sound of my breath from across the street.
“Hello?” I said.
“Dee? You there?” Aisha was yelling over the background noise.
“I’m here,” I said as loudly as I dared.
“I can barely hear you. Ugh, hang on. Lemme get outside.”
I waited while she made her way out of what was presumably the school gym, smiling when I heard her snap, “Excuse you!” a couple of times.
“Phew! That’s better. Dude, why aren’t you here? I thought you were gonna play today!” she said.
Sourness bled through my gut. I should be in today’s volleyball match. I’d been working hard on my spike, and Coach had told me I’d be able to play today. It was only a friendly match; she could afford to let the second-tier players have a go. But instead, here I was, sitting in front of my biology textbook, not reading, not playing volleyball, not anything.
“I have the flu,” I said feebly. It was what I’d told Coach. The flu would be a blessing compared to how my body was feeling this morning.
Aisha knew me well enough to hear right through my lie. Her voice became heavy with sadness. “Oh, Dee. What happened?”
Oh, Dee. That was what my life had become, a sad, Oh, Dee said over and over. I was one of those kids that made people tilt their heads to one side and go, “Aww, poor thing.” Poor, pathetic, broken creature. Secretly, they were all thinking, Better her than me.
I closed my eyes and thought of last night. I saved all those moments, to replay over and over in my head like some sick movie. I added scenes of my own, where I didn’t freeze up like a fucking hamster, where I got a hammer, a kitchen knife, a corkscrew, and stabbed them into Brandon’s eyes, ears, mouth, whatever.
But what really happened was that Brandon had come back in a foul mood. He hated his partner, Mendez, a.k.a. “that Mexican bitch who thinks she’s a real cop.” Apparently, Mendez had this silly notion that cops were meant to help everyone, not just rich white people. And she mistakenly thought that solving cases meant doing actual investigations instead of trying to get them closed ASAP. The drug case at Draycott was an itch she’d been dying to scratch for two years. She’d insisted on questioning everybody at the school again now, which was earning them a lot of disapproval from high places.
I hated Mendez. She seemed nice enough the few times we met, but she was making my life a living hell without even trying.
“The usual,” I said.
“You should report him. I’ll go with you—”
Not this again. Why did everybody assume reporting Brandon would be this straightforward thing without repercussions? What would happen to me or Mom if Brandon were to get his cop buddies involved? We’d be two women who were already hated by the community making accusations about a cop. Care for a game of Guess What’ll Happen to Delilah Wong, Cop Accuser? Nothing good. And Brandon? Paid vacation, he’d said. Oh, he was joking, he was always so full of jokes, good ol’ Brandon, that was why his buddies at the precinct loved him so.
Paid vacation.
“I gotta go,” I said.
“Dee—”
I hung up on her and let my forehead fall gently onto the table. On the bright side, Brandon didn’t like to leave visible bruises. At least I didn’t have to turn up at school with stories about walking into doors or falling down the stairs.
Mendez and her aspirations were giving my kidneys a run for their money. I was trying, and failing, to find a position that would make my back hate me less, and all the while I was wondering how much vacation Brandon would get if my body turned up one day, bloated and blue.
From the garage came the sound of Pink Floyd blasting on Brandon’s old-school stereo. He thought old-school stereos were more authentic. There was the occasional clank as he switched tools. Brandon spent Saturday mornings blasting Pink Floyd, knocking back beer, and working on his asshole car. That was how I secretly thought of his Camaro, because it seemed like it was specifically geared toward assholes. Mom had gone to the farmers’ market to buy some local salted anchovies that Brandon said would go beautifully with the pizza she was planning on making for dinner. My eyes crawled over the sentence in my textbook again. Something about stoichiometry, and why do I care about stoichiometry, literally what did stoichiometry have to do with my life?
“Dee!” Brandon’s shout jerked me out of my seat, and I stood there for a few moments, my heart jumping, wondering if I’d imagined him yelling at me. Three seconds later, the shout came again, louder this time, tinged with anger. “Delilah!”
I hurried out of my room and down the stairs. It wasn’t a good idea to keep Brandon waiting. When I opened the door to the garage, Pink Floyd drowned me. God, I hated Pink Floyd. I was sure Brandon only listened to them because he thought they were, like the stereo, more “authentic” than pop music. The garage was where Pa and I used to store our badminton rackets and baseball bats. Now all of our stuff was stored in boxes and shoved out of the way to make room for Brandon’s shit. I walked over to where Brandon’s legs were sticking out from under the hood of his Camaro. The music was so loud, he didn’t hear me come in.
“Delilah!” he yelled again. I jumped again. Pathetic.
“Um—yeah?” I bent over, wincing as my back protested, and waved to catch his attention.
“About fucking time,” he snarled. He pointed at a spot behind me, where four empty beer cans sat. “I’m out.”
I looked at the cans strewn about the floor. That would be why he was no longer bothering with the niceties. “I’ll grab you another pack.”
“Get me a sandwich while you’re at it. And be quick. Don’t dawdle like you always do. Hang on. Hey, c’mere.” He leered at me from under the car. “You think I don’t know what’s going on? I saw you walking with that kid the other day.”
I blanched and straightened up instinctively.
“Hey! Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
I took a breath. Bent over again.
“The Chinaman might not have given a shit how you behave, but my house, my rules.”
This isn’t your house, I screamed silently.
“I’m not going to have you whoring around, making a fool out of me.”
I’m not the one making a fool out of you, I thought.
“You get me? No boys, Delilah. I mean it. Don’t make me tell you twice.” He gripped his wrench hard and gestured with it for effect. “Say, ‘Yes, Brandon.’”
The rage rose up, blooming, spreading out of control. Stop that, Dee. Control it. Control yourself. My back trembled with the effort staying bent over was costing me. “Yes, Brandon.”
He held my eyes for a second longer, while blood pooled in my head, then he smiled. “All right, now go get my beer. That’s my girl.”
Later, when I finally had some time to let things digest, I’d pinpoint those words as the ones that pushed me over the edge. “That’s my girl.” Pa used to say that to me, usually followed by an affectionate noogie on my head and a proud grin. “That’s my girl,” he’d say when I told him how I completely destroyed my opponent during debate or how I solved the quadratic equation when nobody else could.
And hearing it from Brandon was what made me snap.
I straightened up, my brain buzzing as the blood rushed from my head. And Pink Floyd was still screaming in my ears, that hateful screech of electric guitar scratching my eardrums.
Go get my beer. That’s my girl.
I stared at Brandon’s legs sticking out from under the Camaro. Listened to his off-tune hum. The beer cans that littered the floor, which I would no doubt have to clean up. This was it. My life. It was to be at the beck and call of this man. Even if I were to survive long enough to leave for college in two years’ time, Mom would be stuck with him. No matter how hard I tried to write Mom off, I couldn’t stop playing the movie of her life in my mind. Spoiler alert: It’s not a happy one. It would be a typical Oscar-winning movie—gritty, slow-moving, hard to watch. The leading actress’ performance would be described as “emotionally wrenching” and during interviews she’d talk about how she had to talk to all sorts of trauma experts about various forms of abuse to really get into the damaged head of Ally Moore-Wong. He would tear at her, rip into her, peel her apart layer by bloody layer, until one day I’d come home and she’d be gone, the Mom I knew replaced by some brittle, shrilly bright housewife I wouldn’t recognize. Or maybe she’d just be gone, and Brandon would be on paid vacation.
That’s my girl.
I walked toward the back door. As I passed by the jack that was holding his car up, I swung my foot out and tripped the lever. The car sagged to the floor with terrifying swiftness. Despite the loud music, I heard the crunch as three and a half thousand pounds of solid metal sank into Brandon, crushing his bones. There was a scream, cut short as his ribs cracked and stabbed into his lungs. I stood there, frozen, reality nothing but an abstract concept. Time seemed to stop. Pink Floyd continued blasting in my ears. And still I stood there, staring at the car, registering nothing.
Then I saw it. A puddle of blood creeping out from under the car, so dark it was almost black. I watched numbly as it expanded, its edges crawling toward me. Right as it was about to touch the tips of my sneakers, I leapt back, as though I were a kid playing The Floor Is Lava. Except this puddle wasn’t lava. It was blood, and it was as real as the Camaro in front of me. The Camaro that had my mom’s boyfriend crushed underneath it.
Reality came rushing back in a sickening wave, an uppercut straight to my gut. I leaned over to one side and puked. Oh god. Oh shit. Oh god. What have I—
I glanced back at the growing puddle and heaved again and again. I sank to my knees and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Oh my god. I made the mistake of looking back at the car. From where I was kneeling, I could see Brandon’s arm under the car. The rest of him was bathed in darkness, a blanket of blood and shadows covering him. A scream escaped my mouth before I clapped my hands over it.
It took a while to realize I was gasping, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” over and over and over. I scrambled toward the car on my hands and knees. My fingers scrabbled over the car jack, and I pushed myself back up and heaved at the lever, putting all of my weight on it. The car raised from the floor a few inches, then the catch swung loose and the car fell back down with a sickening squelch. I screamed again. From Brandon there came no sound.
Brandon was dead.
Because I killed him.
With his Camaro.
His car that crushed him.
With a bit of help from me.
Which made me a killer.
When the shock from killing Brandon stopped overwhelming me, I staggered back inside the house and sat on the sofa. I picked up the phone and called 911.
The ghost of sirens wailed in the distance. They were soft at first, and then they were suddenly loud, suddenly here, suddenly my life was over. I stood up to let them in.
I recognized the cop who stood at the door. He was someone I’d seen when Brandon had the department over for a barbeque. Derek. Or maybe Dennis?
“Hey, Delilah. We received a nine-one-one dispatch call.”
I stared at him.
“Delilah? Is your mom home? Brandon here?” Derek-Dennis peered at me. “You okay?”
I stepped aside and pointed toward the garage.
Derek-Dennis stepped inside and walked in that direction. He paused and looked over at me. “You wait there, okay?”
I continued staring at him.
He opened the garage door. Pink Floyd flooded the living room. “Brandon? It’s Davian.”
Ah, right. Davian.
“Brandon—oh, shit. Control, officer down, over.” His walkie-talkie crackled a response. “It’s Brandon Jackson. There’s been an accident. He’s under his car. It looks bad. I’m gonna need an ambulance.” He paused. “Negative. I’m at his house. Her kid’s here. She seems pretty shaken up. I don’t blame her. Jesus. All right.” He walked over to Brandon’s stereo and turned it off.
Sweet, blessed silence. It revived me, brought me back to my senses. I blinked. Davian’s words trickled through my consciousness.
“I’m so sorry you had to see that, Delilah,” he was saying, and his eyes were full of pity for me. There were no traces of suspicion or anger that I’d killed one of his colleagues.
It hit me then—Davian’s first assumption was that Brandon’s death was an accident.
I’d assumed that when the cops arrived, they’d immediately know what had happened, how I had murdered one of them on what was pretty much a whim.
“Don’t worry, the ambulance will be here soon,” he said, his eyes full of pity. “Where’s your mother?”
“She went to the farmers’ market,” I heard myself say hollowly. “To buy anchovies for Brandon—” The feel of his name rolling off my tongue made bile rise up my esophagus. I cleared my throat.
“Do you want some water?” Davian said.
My immediate reaction was to say no, because it had been so long since anyone thought to offer me something as simple as water, when I realized that yes, I did. I was parched, actually. I nodded and sat there watching as Davian went to the kitchen and looked in the cabinets for cups. I couldn’t summon enough energy to tell him where they were. When he came back with a full glass, I chugged it gratefully. Takes a lot out of you, murder. The thought made me choke, and I coughed while Davian said, “Take it easy, you’re in shock.”
I nodded slowly, wondering how rotten my mind was, that it would think up something so irreverent right after I killed somebody. I killed somebody. Jesus. That was a reality I was going to have to live with. But the thing was…I didn’t feel bad about it. I felt bad in the general sense of oh, shit, I might go to prison, but there was no remorse. In fact, I was just now realizing that if I had the chance to do it all over again, I would.
“You’ll have to give the team an official statement when they arrive,” he said when I finished coughing. “I know it’s the last thing you want to do, but keep it concise and you’ll be done before you know it. Have you called your mom?”
“Oh, shit. I didn’t even—I totally forgot.” The thought of Mom finding out what I’d done, the gruesome remains of Brandon, after everything that’s happened, after Pa, tipped me over the edge. Suddenly I was crying, huge ugly sobs that wrenched their way out of my guts. They were so strong, it felt like they might rip me apart. But they weren’t tears of sadness. Not over Brandon, anyway. They were tears of shock. I couldn’t believe that I’d finally done it, finally broken out of my frozen, terrified hamster state and killed the asshole.
Davian patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “I’ll get your mom.” He walked out to the porch, and I heard him radio for someone to contact Mom.
I forced myself to take a deep breath. And exhale. I was okay.
Right before I tripped the lever, my entire future had rolled out before me and I’d seen myself in that orange jumpsuit and I’d been okay with it. I’d really been okay. If that was the price to pay for the satisfaction of pushing Brandon out of our lives, I’d take it. But now, unexpectedly, I had so much more to lose. Now that I knew prison wasn’t a given, suddenly I had my freedom to fight for. If I played this right, if I didn’t screw things up, I might actually get to walk away from this.
I tuned Davian out—I was in shock, after all, he couldn’t possibly blame me for being all quiet and glassy-eyed—and jump-started my mind. Sifted through the events of today with meticulous care. I had to rewrite my role from killer to unfortunate eyewitness. I had to add details—the most believable characters were given all sorts of minute detail with loving patience by their writers. All I had to do was be an unlucky teenager who stumbled upon a grisly accident that had absolutely nothing to do with her.
Right.
I was doing my chemistry homework upstairs in my room when I heard Brandon calling for me—
No. I had to change that part, because it would put me in the same room as Brandon when he died.
Okay, I was…
“I was doing my chemistry homework—something about stoichiometry—and I wanted a snack, and I thought I’d go to the store to grab some food. I went to the garage to see if Brandon wanted anything, and…” It took no effort at all for me to summon the tears. The shock of Brandon’s death saw to that. The tears came in a generous rush, warming my cheeks, trembling through my shoulders. The cop who was taking my statement—her name tag read Hoffman—made a sympathetic tsk-tsk sound and shook her head.
“Take as long as you need,” she said, giving me a you’re-so-brave smile.
I blew my nose and continued. “I opened the door and called out to him, but he didn’t answer. I thought maybe he couldn’t hear me cause of the music, so I walked in, and that was when I saw the blood.” The puddle of blood, growing, reaching out for my feet. I didn’t have to fake my shudder. Hoffman gave me an encouraging nod. It was now safe to segue back to the truth. I told her how I’d looked under the car and saw Brandon, who wasn’t moving, and I’d tried, really I did, to lever the car up with the jack, but I didn’t quite know how to work it—
“Oh, honey,” Hoffman said.
I sniffled; had to show some guilt at my utter failure to save the unsavable. But this was where everyday sexism came to my rescue. There were no traces of surprise on her face, because who’d expect some idiot teen girl to know how to work a car jack, right?
“—and I only ended up—I—the car—I ended up crushing him again.” The sobs were real. I honestly hadn’t meant to crush Brandon’s body a second time.
Hoffman’s mouth puckered. “And that was when you vomited?”
I nodded.
She scribbled more stuff down on her notepad and looked up. Belatedly, I heard the sound of heavy footsteps. I turned to see Detective Mendez, Brandon’s partner. Ex-partner. Brandon’s voice boomed through my head. The Mexican bitch who thinks she’s a real cop. A wave of revulsion toward Brandon and his endless racism and misogyny coursed through my veins. I’d done society a favor by killing him, really.
Mendez was shaking her head grimly. “Hey, Delilah. I’m so sorry. I got here as soon as I could.” She opened her arms, reaching toward me for a hug, and even though I didn’t want one, certainly not from a cop, I made myself get up and fall into her arms like a toddler who’d lost her favorite soft toy. Her hug was good, maternal. Maybe I needed a hug after all.
“You’ve been really brave, Delilah,” Mendez said. She gestured for me to sit back down. “How’re you holding up?”
“I don’t know. I’m as okay as I can be, given…you know,” I said. I didn’t even have to make my voice quaver.
Mendez nodded “Is your mom back yet?”
“She’s on her way,” Hoffman piped up.
“Okay. Are you done here?” Mendez said to her.
“Yep. Got her statement.” Hoffman stood up and snapped her notebook shut. “I’m real sorry you had to go through that, kid.”
I managed a small smile. “Thank you.” So brave.
Hoffman walked off, leaving me with Mendez. Mendez, who was watching me closely.
“What time did you find him again?” Mendez asked. Alarm bells inside me went off—shrill peals that made me want to run away.
“Um—” I thought hard. What time did I tell that other cop? Eleven? Eleven thirty? “Eleven thirty, I think. I didn’t really look at the clock.”
Mendez nodded again, and I realized everything about her was calculated. Even the mama-bear hug had been curated to be tight enough to put me at ease and make me think she was on my side. Mendez wasn’t like Davian or Hoffman, didn’t automatically dismiss me as a nonthreat. Do I not look pathetic enough to you? I wanted to scream.
“Did Brandon seem—I don’t know—has he been different lately?”
You mean like, did he lay his hands on me and Mom more often lately? Why, yes, Detective Mendez. Hey, did you know about that, btw? How often your late partner laid into us like we were pillows he had to beat into shape? You’re such a sharp one, so suspicious of everything. Were you ever suspicious of him? Did you care?
I had to steer myself away from my rage and riffle through my memories. The real ones, not the one I’d written out just moments ago. If my story had me being close enough to Brandon to go out of my way to see if he needed anything at the store, I had to have been close enough to notice if he was behaving differently lately.
“Um, he…”
Mendez nodded encouragingly.
I looked down and lowered my voice, because I was speaking ill of the dead and I was nothing if not respectful. “He’s been drinking a bit more lately.” It was true. Four nightly whiskey sours now, instead of his usual two. I’d never thought to wonder why, assuming it was a natural progression of the way things were. Maybe I was wrong.
“Hmm.”
What does “hmm” mean?
I couldn’t read her expression. I was so outmatched. I was some noob trying to play a pro-level game. All of my instincts were poised, ready for her next question.
Mendez opened her mouth. “Did you—”
“Dee!”
Our heads snapped up. Mom was home, her cheeks red, her eyes wet, and already she was flying toward me, her arms outstretched, and what was Mendez about to ask?
But I had to act the part. I had to call out to her in my so-glad-to-have-Mommy-back voice, “Mom!” and then fall into her arms.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Mendez said as Mom and I hugged.
I watched her leave over Mom’s shoulder, her last words haunting me, the unfinished question so close to an accusation.
Did you—