A Danger to Herself and Others(19)

The drinks were soda and juice, by the way. Rebekah was a good girl. Her parents didn’t even lock the liquor cabinet before they left the apartment that night. They didn’t worry about their little girl sneaking sips of alcohol.

I wore a tight, black, off-the-shoulder top and skinny blue jeans. I was still so flat-chested then that I didn’t need to wear a bra. Not like Rebekah. You could see her bra peeking out from under her tank top. It was February, but she insisted on wearing a sleeveless shirt. She thought it was sexy.

I have to look sexy tonight, Han, she insisted, using a nickname no one else ever used because it sounded so absurd. Or maybe the absurdity was Rebekah’s little-girl voice saying the word sexy without a hint of irony.

I had helped her with the guest list, but the whole point of the party was to invite Gavin Baker, the boy Rebekah had a crush on for more than year.

You can’t invite April, I told her.

But she’s my best friend! I raised an eyebrow. Was my best friend, Rebekah corrected.

Rebekah and April Lu had been inseparable before I came along.

April Luuuser, I used to call her, which always made Rebekah giggle. At first, Rebekah dropped April like the bad habit she was, but as the party got closer, she faltered. April had been at every birthday party Rebekah had ever had. Even her first birthday, when Rebekah was too young to have any sway over the guest list. She and April had been in the same Mommy and Me class, and their mothers were friendly.

Gavin isn’t interested in the kind of girl who hangs out with April Lu, I insisted, and that shut Rebekah up.

All Rebekah wanted was a birthday kiss from Gavin Baker. She’d never kissed anyone before, and she wanted Gavin to be her first. I promised to help. Even after April showed up at the party. (Rebekah took me aside and said she just had to invite her in the end. I said I’d still keep my promise.) The couch in Rebekah’s parents’ living room was an antique, covered in ancient floral brocade and miserably uncomfortable. I slid to the ground dramatically.

We should play Light as a Feather, I suggested, tapping the floor beside me.

Rebekah’s eyes lit up. I’d told her that games were part of my plan to make sure Gavin kissed her. Start with Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board and then move on to more advanced games like Spin the Bottle and Seven Minutes in Heaven.

Most of the boys and even a couple girls had never heard of Light as a Feather, so I explained how it worked, just like I did for Agnes’s mother.

One girl lies in the middle of the room and the rest of us crouch around her. We slide our hands beneath her and chant the words light as a feather, stiff as a board over and over again.

So we just lift her? Gavin asked. I rolled my eyes. Even Rebekah’s fantasy crush was dull.

You’ll see, I answered mysteriously.

Since Rebekah was the birthday girl, I insisted she go first. We pushed the coffee table aside and arranged ourselves around her. There was some giggling about where the boys would go. If they stood in the right (or the wrong) places, they could use the game as an excuse to touch her butt, maybe even graze some side-boob. I noticed that Gavin didn’t try to put himself in any of those places.

Rebekah with a K. Since I was most familiar with the game, I stood by her head. I placed my fingers beneath her shoulders, one hand on either side of her neck.

When Rebekah fell, her stick-straight, light-brown hair spread out beneath her. She landed with a soft thump at my feet, nothing like the crack when Agnes landed. Rebekah fell onto a carpet so thick and so plush it was probably softer than the mattress beneath me now.

Still, the girls screamed. The boys bent down to help her up.

Give her some air, I shouted. Rebekah rolled onto her side. I crouched beside her and put my hand on her shoulder.

You okay? I asked.

Rebekah blinked. Her face was bright pink and there were tears in her eyes.

I helped her up, held her hand to lead her to the bathroom, and closed the door behind us. I brushed away her tears. I knew she wasn’t crying because she was hurt—she hadn’t fallen far, and like I said, the carpet was soft. She was crying because her party was ruined, and even though I assured her everything would be okay, we both knew there was no way Gavin was going to kiss her, not with a bump on her head and mascara running down her cheeks. April knocked on the bathroom door, offering to fix Rebekah’s makeup, but Rebekah shouted No, she wanted me to do it.

I never should have invited her, Rebekah whispered to me fiercely.

When we finally emerged, no one wanted to play games anymore. Gavin put his arm around me.

Accidents happen, he said. It wasn’t your fault.

I leaned into his embrace for just a second, then quickly spun away. Rebekah looked at Gavin longingly, but her eyes were still teary and her cheeks were blotchy, and there was a tiny piece of tissue stuck to her upper lip from when she’d blown her nose.

Beks is tough, Gavin added with laugh, making a fist and knocking the top of his own head with his knuckles.

Rebekah, I corrected, though I suspected she wouldn’t have minded Gavin giving her a nickname.

I slept over at Rebekah’s that night. When I closed my eyes, I saw her long hair hitting the ground beneath her. My fingertips were still warm from brushing away her tears. Her breath in the sleeping bag beside me was steady and even, just like Lucy’s breath across the room.

It wasn’t my fault.

Accidents happen.