Boring Girls(114)

I absorbed the situation and saw a f*cking big knife in her hand, the kind with a curved blade that folds back neatly into the handle. She brandished it in her right hand, pointing it at the guy. Her eyes were wide and wild.

“He attacked me,” she said in a high voice.

“I did not,” the guy said, slurring. He was drunk or wasted on something, and he flicked his eyes to me and then back to her. “I did not. I did not.”

“He did,” Fern said. She said the words quickly, never taking her eyes off him.

“Where’d you get the knife?” I asked lamely.

“I bought it in Florida,” she replied.

“I did not. I did not,” the guy repeated. “I did not.”

“Oh god, stop that,” I said.

Then it was quiet. None of us spoke. It was kind of funny, this weird tableau of the guy holding his hands out in surrender, Fern standing there pointing the knife at him, and me, just sort of there. A light breeze rustled the leaves around us. I felt a giggle coming on.

“I’m sorry,” the guy said, startling me.

“I came back here and he grabbed me out of the bushes,” Fern explained.

“I did not. I did not. I did not. I did —”

“Shut up,” I said. I knew where this was going, but somehow it was worse. It was like the polar opposite of the night in Florida. It was bright, it didn’t smell like shit, and I could see this guy’s face. I could look into his eyes. He gave me a pleading look, his brown eyes sad and frantic. This horrible rush of pity climbed right up my throat. I threw up all down my front and my hands. Fern was unmoved.

The guy started to laugh, pointing at me like a little kid. “Fuck, sorry,” I mumbled, wiping my hands on my shorts.

Then, out of nowhere, the guy lunged at Fern. I leaped at him and she swiped with the knife, connecting with his hand. There was a flash of blood and the guy screamed, pulling his hands to his face. She’d cut his fingers — his pinkie looked pretty bad. I didn’t think she’d severed anything. I was right behind him now, and I grabbed him, putting my arms around his neck in a pathetic chokehold.

“Don’t do that again,” Fern hissed.

“I did not! I did not,” he bawled, beginning to cry. I could smell the stink of booze on him.

“Shut up.” Fern stepped forward and punched him in the stomach. The guy let out a gasping grunt, and when she pulled her fist away from him, I saw the knife dripping. It took me a second to realize she’d stabbed him.

As I held him, she took a deep breath and punched him again with the blade. The guy coughed and I let him go. He slumped over into the grass, moving his hands to his belly. I watched his fingers turn slick and scarlet. Blood seeped into the grass. He lay there, gasping.

“There,” she said, as if she’d just finished planting a garden or something, mission accomplished. His breath moved in and out slowly. He held his hands pressed to his stomach, and blood poured over them. Every now and then he would cough, a wet, bubbling sound.

I didn’t like the feeling. I didn’t like standing here covered in my own vomit, watching him die. It was too sunny for a scene like this, too peaceful, with the wind and the silence of the graves around us. I didn’t like the way it was making me feel about Fern. I squashed that feeling, crushed it, buried it. This was not Fern’s fault.

I was jarred from my thoughts by the pressure of a hard object on my hand. Fern was giving me the knife, pushing the handle into my palm. “Do it,” she breathed. “I can’t watch him bleed to death.”

I felt like I was in a trance. Do it. Do what? I knelt down beside him, holding the knife. This was different from smashing a dark blur with a dark brick. Thankfully he was lying on his side, facing away from me, so I didn’t have to see his eyes again. I saw his neck shaking, trembling as he breathed in and out, in and out, faster than he should’ve been breathing.

“Kill him, do it,” Fern’s voice came from behind me. I turned the knife so that the blade faced downwards. I didn’t know how to kill him.

“This isn’t our fault,” I said to no one. I began to cry. It was better than laughing. I stabbed the blade down into the side of his neck, yanked it out, then shoved it in again.

xXx

It was very rare that I would allow myself to visualize Balthazar Seizure. Since it had happened I barely allowed myself to think of his band’s name, let alone the image of his horrible face, because I was afraid that if I did, something inside me would cave in and all the pain and the tears and the f*cking fury would come out and I would collapse in some way, just collapse into something that I couldn’t come back from. But that night, in my bunk, I let that face materialize behind my eyelids. That skinny face, that leering horrible smile . . . Because it was his fault. It was his fault that that guy died. Maybe he had attacked Fern. Maybe he hadn’t. Fern needed to kill him. She needed it to heal. And we both needed it to prepare ourselves for what we now knew we would be absolutely, definitely capable of doing. This shit was his fault. Him, and his horrible friends.