Hannah
Oh my god, we are in so much trouble. The whole house—her parents’ house—smelled like weed and spilled beer; someone had knocked over the bear statue that her dad had bought in Alaska and it lay on the living room floor, decapitated. He loved that thing. Hannah bit back tears as she moved through the rooms—which didn’t even seem like her home, lights dim, full of strangers.
“Everybody needs to leave,” Hannah shouted over the blaring of music, Eminem asking the real Slim Shady to please stand up. But nobody heard or paid attention if they did.
“I’m serious,” she shouted louder, sounding whiny and shrill. “I’m calling the police.”
“Chill, bitch,” someone said, and whoever heard him laughed.
Hannah looked around for who but couldn’t determine in the crowd of losers and stoners who might have spoken.
People were gathered in the foyer, many of whom she’d never seen before—where had they come from? Other high schools? A couple was making out in the downstairs powder room. The boy had his hand up her shirt; the girl was working on the boy’s fly. The boy’s neck was flushed red; the girl’s pink bra strap had slipped down her shoulder. They hadn’t even bothered to close the door. God—seriously? Hannah had never even been kissed.
Hannah pushed her way up through the kids hanging out on the stairs to find Mickey, who she was going to absolutely kill. How could he do this?
She’d left Cricket drunk and weeping in the basement. Her friend had watched Mickey kissing another girl, when he and Cricket had just broken up days earlier.
How could he do this to me?
So there was that drama to deal with. And somehow, when the plan was to have “a few friends over,” now the house was full of high schoolers drinking from kegs in the backyard. There was a gathering of punk wannabes sitting on her mother’s dining room table, cheerleader and jock types making themselves at home on the sectional. Oh my god. How are we going to clean this place up? Hannah felt sick. She would not cry. She would fix this, another Mickey mess.
Upstairs it was quieter, the hallway lights out. She heard voices from behind closed doors, but luckily her bedroom was empty. She reached inside and pressed the little button lock, then pulled it closed. She’d worry about how to open it later. In the meantime at least no one would be getting it on in her virginal bedroom.
She pushed into her brother’s room to find a group of people sitting on his bed, in his bean bag chair, playing video games.
“Get out,” she said flatly. “The police are coming.”
“Oh, shit,” said one kid who she recognized from school. He was tall with a large nose, floppy hair. The rest she’d seen around, as well, in the hallways, in the cafeteria—the spotty redhead graduated last year and now worked at the local convenience store. The one with the shaved head was on the remedial track in her grade. The other two were strangers—both slovenly and looking like they were up to no good with heavy brows and ripped jeans.
“I think I hear the sirens,” she said, cupping a hand to ear.
They all cut and run. She heard them thundering down the stairs, yelling about the cops. It sounded like that got people moving—voices raised, doors opened and closed. She heard more voices out on the lawn and went to the window to see a line of people moving out the front door. Car engines started up.
Okay, that was good.
Another noise down the hall caught her attention. It sounded like someone crying.
Hannah moved down the long hallway toward her parents’ bedroom door which was shut.
“Get away from me! Don’t touch me!” A girl’s shriek followed by a wail so miserable that Hannah burst in through the door without knocking.
The scene revealed itself in pieces. A skinny girl, naked in the fetal position on her parents’ bed. Blood on the sheets, a lot of it. Her brother standing naked over the girl, arms akimbo.
He jumped, rushed to cover himself with a pillow, when Hannah walked in.
“What the fuck, Mickey,” she said. “What the fuck?”
“Do you not knock?” yelled Mickey.
“He—he—he raped me,” the girl managed to push out between sobs.
Mickey looked at Hannah wild, desperate, lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. The pillow dropped and she averted her eyes. “No, no, no. She wanted it. She came on to me.”
Then Cricket was there, screaming at Mickey. The girl vomited on the carpet, retching and sobbing. And Hannah felt the world spin—the house, her parents, this girl in their bed, her brother. And then she was shrieking.
Shutupshutupshutup!
Mickey and Cricket fell silent, stared at Hannah with mouths gaping.
The girl in the bed—Libby. It was Libby from school. A senior like Mickey who smoked back by the dumpsters with the hipsters. She was part of the artist/theater kids clique with asymmetrical hair tinged pink, dressed in black all the time. She always looked so cool, so put together to Hannah. She was a girl with a thing—like she knew what she wanted to do, wanted to be. Her art was always in the student shows; Hannah heard she was going to the Cooper Union in New York City, a famous art school.
Now she looked as slim and helpless as a child. She was a child.
Hannah went to her. Cricket and Mickey started arguing more quietly, voices angry. We broke up, Cricket. I don’t owe you anything.
They took it out into the hallway.
“He raped me,” Libby whispered to Hannah. “I was a virgin.”
That explained the blood—but so much? “I have my period,” she said when Hannah helped her to sit. “I told him no, over and over. He was so—strong.”
She was very, very drunk, slurring her words, her gaze unfocused, eyes swollen shut from crying.
“I’m going to take you home, okay?” said Hannah, pushing her hair back.
“He hurt me. He just took what he wanted. It was like I wasn’t even there.”
The girl was so disconsolate, sobbing, words coming jagged.
“I’m—so sorry,” said Hannah. “It’s okay now. You’re okay.”
Mickey. Was he capable of raping a girl? Hurting her? Deep in her heart, she knew the answer. He’d done other bad things, dark things. Even Cricket had said that he was cruel sometimes, nasty, hurtful when he didn’t get his own way, that he was sexually aggressive. That was the phrase she used.
“I want to call the police,” said Libby.
There was a moment—a breath, where she almost said, Okay, of course. Let’s do that.
But it passed, and she couldn’t bring herself to support that. Mickey was her brother. Things were bad enough. The house was trashed. Maybe the police had already been called. Their house was set apart from the other houses, not on top of each other like they were in subdivisions. They were on a full three acres, but maybe one of the neighbors had heard the music or seen all the cars. Their closest neighbors, the Newmans, knew that Sophia and Leo were away.
We trust you guys. We know you’ll take of the house and each other, her father had said.
Of course, Dad. Don’t worry, had been her honest answer.
Her mother would rage—that she could handle. But her Dad would be so disappointed in her, in them, and that she couldn’t handle. They had to get this whole mess cleaned up like it never happened. They had twenty-four hours before Sophia and Leo got back. She had to fix this. She was going to fix it.
“Let me take you home,” said Hannah.
Libby’s head lolled. How much had she had to drink? Hannah shepherded Libby into her parents’ walk-in shower, where she helped the girl wash up, getting herself soaked in the process. Hannah watched as blood swirled the drain, then washed away. Then she helped Libby into her skimpy black dress, her shoes. The girl was so out of it, definitely not a good judge of what had happened between her and Mickey, right?
“I’m going to need help,” she said to Cricket, who sat in the chair over by the window. She had her head down in her hands, crying softly.
Mickey, naturally, was nowhere to be seen. Just like him to take off and leave her to clean up this mess.
“Cricket,” said Hannah, her voice sharp as a whip crack. “Help me get her home.”
Cricket nodded, looking up, mascara running down her cheeks. She got up and they flanked Libby and helped her down the stairs.
The house had quieted down. There were just a few people in the kitchen as they came down, practically carrying Libby between them.
“She is wasted,” someone said with a derisive laugh.
Mickey was in the hallway, fresh beer in hand, watching as they took Libby out the front door. He was dressed in fresh clothes, looked relaxed and happy, just another party, another Saturday night for Mickey. He and Hannah locked eyes. His face. She had never forgotten it—a lidded look of apathy, almost a dark glee. It sent a little pulse through Hannah.
He did it, she thought. He raped her.
But then the look was gone, and it was just Mickey sheepish and embarrassed. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
At the sight of him Libby started shrieking. “You raped me! You bastard!”
But people were drunk, and the music still blasted, and as Hannah and Cricket dragged her out into the night, no one acknowledged her or even looked in their direction for very long.
“Shh, shh, Libby,” said Hannah. “You’re okay. You’re just really drunk, okay?”
In the car, the girl just passed out cold across the back seat. Hannah covered her with a sweatshirt from the trunk—one of Mickey’s. They drove her home.
“He’s a monster,” said Cricket. “How could he do this to me?”
Hannah blew out a breath. “To you?”
Cricket gave her an incredulous stare. “You don’t believe her. She was all over him. She’s wanted him for years.”
They drove in silence, the radio off, Libby breathing heavily in the back, the car winding through the dark rural roads. Just around a bend, a doe ran out into the street, pausing in the beam of Hannah’s headlights as she put on the breaks. She honked her horn, and the doe bounded out of sight. She drove more slowly. They did not need to have a car accident right now.
“You always cover for him,” said Cricket. She was resting her head against the window, looking like a sad clown with the mascara rivers and her hair wild.
“That’s not true.”
“He told me about Boots.”
Their mother’s cat. The cat had been ancient, no one even knew how old. Boots was mean, only liked Sophia. He bit and hissed and smelled horrible.
“Boots ran away.”
“He didn’t. Mickey told me what happened.”
Hannah gripped the wheel, stayed silent.
“He killed it, right?” said Cricket when Hannah didn’t say anything.
“It was an accident.”
She didn’t like to think about that, how she found Mickey in the garage with his friends, blood on his hands. And that smile, that same lidded look of dark glee. What? It was a science experiment. Now we know. Cats do not have nine lives. It was better if Mom thought the cat ran away. Hannah had almost convinced herself of that.
“It wasn’t an accident,” said Cricket. “You know it wasn’t.”
Finally, they pulled in front of Libby’s house and brought the car to a stop in the short driveway. Hannah half helped, half dragged Libby from the back seat. The house was dark and quiet, the porch light burning. Hannah knew where she lived because she used to go to Camp Fire Girl meetings there; Mrs. Cruz, Libby’s mom had been the group leader.
“Help me,” said Hannah, breaking Cricket from her fog of self-pity.
Cricket came and helped Hannah drag Libby up the walkway.
“Stop,” said Libby in a hoarse whisper. “Let me go.”
“You’re almost home,” soothed Hannah.
They were sweating from the effort in the spring evening when they got to the front door, which they found unlocked. Together they struggled to get her inside, knocking loudly against a console table, tripping heavily over a runner. Finally, they lay her down on the couch. As they were doing that, a light came on and Libby’s mom came down, even roused from sleep she looked pretty, put together in a floral robe, thick hair nearly perfect. Mrs. Cruz taught ballet at a studio in town.
“What’s going on?” she asked, flipping on the living room lights.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cruz,” said Hannah. “We were at a party. I think Libby had too much to drink.”
“What?” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “Libby doesn’t drink. She’s sixteen.”
Hannah nodded. “She did tonight. Maybe that explains why it hit her so hard.”
Mrs. Cruz moved over to her daughter, kneeling down beside her. “Libby? Libby honey.”
“Mom,” Libby said, and started to cry. Mrs. Cruz took her daughter into her arms.
“She got sick,” Hannah said. She was only half aware that in putting Libby in the shower, she was washing away evidence of Mickey. “We cleaned her up and brought her home.”
Mrs. Cruz turned angry eyes on Hannah. “Whose party was this? Were there adults present? I thought she was at her friend Beth’s studying.”
“We have to go, Mrs. Cruz,” said Cricket, pulling Hannah out the door. “We’re past curfew to bring Libby home. I hope she feels better.”
Libby drew her mother’s attention by throwing up again, and Mrs. Cruz turned back to her daughter. Cricket and Hannah ran for the car, got in and drove off quickly.
They drove in silence, Hannah’s mind spinning. Mickey, Libby, Boots, the house, the party, how screwed they were.
“I hate him,” said Cricket softly. “I was a virgin when we met. He was my first.”
“I know,” said Hannah. “I’m sorry.”
Second time I’ve heard that tonight, she thought but didn’t say.
She wanted to tell Cricket other things about her brother, things she’d carried since they were little, things she’d seen. But she couldn’t. It was all locked up in a box labeled Do Not Tell. Your number one job as siblings is to always protect and take care of each other. One day your father and I will be gone and you’ll be everything to each other. Her mother had said that a hundred, a million times.
“Why do you do it?” asked Cricket. “Why do you cover up for him all the time?”
“He’s my brother,” she said.
“Blood is thicker than water?”
“What does that even mean?” Hannah said, thinking of the blood all over her parents’ bed.
“It means that no matter what he does, you’ll always side with him, like tonight. Clean up after him, cover for him.”
The roads were quiet, dark. It was late, after midnight. The headlights cut the night as they wound up her street.
“You said yourself that she was hitting on him. We don’t know what happened,” said Hannah.
She felt Cricket’s eyes, the weight of her silence. The truth was that they both knew what Mickey was capable of. They both knew that Libby wasn’t lying. Neither one of them said another word.
Back at the house, everyone had left, including Mickey. Hannah and Cricket stood in the foyer and surveyed the damage. Every surface was littered with empties, garbage, cups used as ashtrays. The floor was sticky beneath Hannah’s feet. In the bathroom, Hannah found a used condom floating in the toilet.
“Oh. Wow,” said Cricket.
They exchanged a look and silently got to work cleaning up.
By 3:00 a.m., the house was back to a somewhat recognizable state. There was a stain on the carpet that Hannah treated and hoped she would be able to eradicate in the morning. There was the broken bear. Something had exploded in the microwave. Hannah wasn’t even sure what; it was pink and viscous.
Eventually, Cricket passed out on the living room couch. The sheets from Hannah’s parents’ bed were in the wash, the scent of bleach filling the laundry room. Hannah picked the lock on her bedroom door with a bobby pin she found in her parents’ bathroom, and fell onto her bed still in her clothes, falling immediately to sleep. Maybe an hour later, she was awakened again by voices.
When she went to the top of the stairs to see what was happening, she saw Cricket and Mickey making out in the foyer. How could she? Hannah thought. After what they just saw? Libby crying in the back seat. Why was Cricket so under Mickey’s spell? Why for that matter had Hannah cleaned up his mess?
Hannah watched them for a moment, Cricket’s arms around Mickey’s neck, Mickey pressing her against the wall. She turned and went back to her room, filled with a strange mingling of anger and longing.