The Nowhere Girls(91)

“Don’t get blood on anything,” Erin says as she closes her bedroom door behind them.

Otis’s laugh quickly turns into a grimace. “Ouch,” he says. He unzips his jacket and pulls up the side of his T-shirt to inspect a bruise the size of his hand forming on his ribs. “Well, that doesn’t look good.” He collapses into Erin’s desk chair.

“Don’t move,” Erin says, and runs out of the room.

She returns with a pile of wet washcloths and enough first-aid supplies for a small hospital. Without saying anything, Erin sits on her bed facing Otis. With slow and gentle hands, she commences to wash his blood away. Spot follows her lead, licking Otis’s hand as it rests on his knee.

“Spot is a very empathetic dog,” Erin says.

“I can see that,” Otis says.

“Stop smiling,” Erin says. “It’s making your lip bleed more.”

“Are your parents going to hear us and freak out? Because I don’t think I can handle getting my ass kicked twice in one night.”

“Their bedroom is downstairs on the other side of the house,” Erin says. “So, we’re fine unless you start screaming at the top of your lungs.”

“Be gentle then.”

Erin notices that she feels strangely comfortable with Otis in her room. She likes being so close to his face. She likes dabbing it with hydrogen-peroxide-drenched cotton balls, likes soothing his little twitches with antibiotic gel and pressing Band-Aids on his warm skin. She likes the silence and the stillness of this touching, how it feels like they are talking even though no one except the noise-machine whales are saying anything.

“This is trippy music,” Otis says.

“It helps me relax,” Erin says.

“You’re pretty good at this. Have you thought about being a doctor?”

“Doctors have to talk to people.”

Erin leans back and admires her work. All cleaned up, Otis’s face is starting to resemble its usual symmetrical self again, at least as much as it can with a quarter of it swollen.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Erin says.

“I was wondering when you’d ask me that.”

“I was busy taking care of you.”

“Does that mean you care about me?” Otis says with a smile so big it makes both of them flinch.

“Stop smiling,” Erin says.

“Since you’re dying to know, I’ll tell you.”

But Erin doesn’t know if she wants him to. She’s enjoying this too much. This being with him in the silence. This bubble of stillness before the bad news.

“I went to the Quick Stop,” Otis begins. “I wasn’t thinking. It was like ten o’clock and I just finished writing that big paper for Ms. Eldridge’s class, and I was fiending for a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, which is like my favorite late-night snack. Do you like Honey Nut Cheerios?”

“I don’t know,” Erin says. She can’t remember the last time she had them. “Do Honey Nut Cheerios have anything to do with why your face got smashed?”

“We were out,” Otis says. “So I decided to walk to the Quick Stop to get a box.”

“At ten o’clock at night.”

“Yes. Like I said, I needed them. Desperately. You don’t understand my relationship with Honey Nut Cheerios.”

“That’s weird.”

“So I walk through the door, but I guess the doorbell dinger thing was broken, because no one noticed I was there. The place was empty except for Spencer Klimpt behind the counter. And guess who else was there? Eric Jordan. And they were talking all serious, so my detective instincts took over and I knew I had to listen to what they were saying.”

“Why do you have detective instincts?” Erin says.

“I’m going to be a journalist when I grow up. I like asking questions and making people uncomfortable.”

“Oh.”

“They were talking about a girl named Cheyenne who lives over in Fir City, and it sounds like—” Otis pauses. He looks Erin in the eye. She does not look away. “It sounds like they did the exact same thing to her that they did to Lucy.” Otis looks away before Erin does. “I don’t know if I can say it out loud.”

“You have to,” Erin says.

Otis takes a deep breath, looks up. Spot licks his wrist. “I remember Spencer’s exact words,” he says. “He said she should feel lucky they even wanted her. Then Eric said she just laid there.” Otis looks like he’s going to be sick. “Eric said he likes it better when they fight a little.”

Erin realizes she’s holding Otis’s hand.

“Then Eric started complaining about how Spencer always gets to go first, how he wants to go first next time. Like they’re planning a next time. And then Eric started talking about Ennis and asking Spencer if he thought Ennis was going to tell, how he never should have been a part of it, how he’s a pussy and they can’t trust him. But that’s when I fell over where I was sort of crouching in the cereal aisle, and I knocked some boxes off the shelves.”

“Oh no,” Erin says.

“Oh yes.”

“Then what happened?”

“Spencer said something like, ‘What do you want?’ and Eric said, ‘Oh, shit, do you think he heard us?’ and then I just sort of ran away.”