All the Rage(69)

Look at me, look at me, hey— “Romy—”

Wake up, wake up. Wake up from this, wake up from this. But it’s never over and she can’t stop making those sounds and he says—“Romy—” and I push at his shoulders and his eyes are on me, lingering on my mouth and my nails but he sees past them, he sees the dead girl and says “Romy” and brings her back.

“Don’t look at me,” I whisper.





leon sits beside me on the couch.

It has been—minutes. And I want to fade out. I want to fade out and be on my feet, past this, but every ugly moment is one I have to live and so I’m sitting beside Leon, on his couch, waiting for my heartbeat to decelerate and the ache between my legs to disappear. He’s waiting for me to speak and if I can talk—if I can figure out how to do that—then I can figure out how to walk, I can leave.

“I have to go.” My first words in this after.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Leon.”

I stand. My legs are stiff, trying to work around the ache, my body’s betrayal. I pass the couch and step into the kitchen. I see the door I came through.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Leon says. “Talk to me, come on—”

“I have to go.” My tongue feels as thick as my head, nine shots thick, and these are the only words I can get out. I reach the door and I say, “This was a bad idea. I’m sorry.”

He puts his hand on my arm. “No. I don’t know what just happened—”

I pull away slowly. I don’t want to be touched because I feel too touched. I have to go home. There are miles ahead of me. I press my head against the door and Leon stands there, so helplessly, all this beyond anything I could or want to explain to him.

“I don’t want to talk. I have to go home.”

“I don’t know what I—” He breaks off. “You don’t look—”

Don’t tell me what I look like. I fumble to open the door, don’t coordinate enough at first, to get out of my own way. I squeeze my eyes shut and then I open them and I put all I can into making myself sound steady.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Don’t follow me.”

I step outside, closing the door behind me but he catches it, holds it open. I wish he wouldn’t. He doesn’t follow me, but I feel his eyes on my back, on the awkward, uncomfortable way I’m carrying myself, trying to move in spite of how sore my body wants to believe it is.

When I’m outside of Ibis, I get a text from him.

WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT WHAT THAT WAS

And then I know what I need to do.

I head for Swan’s. Tracey is shocked to see me and tells me I look awful. We sit in her office, where it’s too hot and the fluorescent lights above us make my head hurt. I tell her I need to quit. I tell her there’s too much school and missing girls. She tells me she understands but that it could’ve waited, that Swan’s is the last place I need to be right now. She seems to want to say more, but doesn’t.

“There’s always going to be a place for you here,” she says. She frowns. “There’ll be some people pretty sad they missed their chance to say good-bye.”

“I have their numbers,” I say.

She gives me a hug and tells me to check my apron pockets before I leave. I find a few hair bands, a bracelet that must have slipped off my wrist at some point, and a crumpled napkin, with black markered numbers on it. I shove it all into my pockets.

It starts to rain on the way home. I’m drenched by the time I get there, cold, shivering, but not numb. I feel the prickling of my skin, the way it has me.

“Romy?”

Todd was in the recliner in the living room, but he’s on his feet by the time I’m at the bottom of the stairs. He takes one look at me and gapes. I feel wet strands of hair stuck to my neck and face. My shirt clings to me.

“Where the hell did you come from?”

“Where’s Mom?” I don’t know if I want her close or the assurance she’s far away.

“She wanted to take the flowers for Penny over to the funeral home herself.” Todd peers at me. I’m dripping puddles onto the floor. “You okay? Where were you?”

“I’m fine.”

I drag my feet upstairs and lock myself in the bathroom. I start a bath, running the water as hot as it will go because I want to stop shivering. I let the water get dangerously close to spilling over while I strip out of my clothes, avoiding the mirror. I turn the tap off and step into the bath without testing it first, letting it burn. This. This is what pain feels like when it’s happening now and I beg my body to know this difference.

It won’t listen to me.

I lower myself in, but that ache persists and I can’t. I can’t. I open my legs, resting the outside of my knees on either side of the tub. I put my hands in the space between, exploring with my fingers, pulling skin apart, half expecting it to feel the way it did then.

It doesn’t.

This isn’t then.

But I can still feel it.

I lean my head back and cover my face, let the water get cold around me. I wait until I’m shivering again before I pull myself out. By the time I’ve dried off and crawled into bed, I’m sweating. I lick my lips and they taste like dirt. I pull my sheet up over my head and cover my body. Her body. I wish I didn’t have a body.