Jessica
(early Monday, June 17th)
The passenger door opened, and John was being yanked from the car. Jessica could see Iridian behind him, her arms around him, tugging him backward. John quickly found his feet, however, then spun around and backhanded Iridian across the face. She fell hard against the side of the car, her head whacking the metal frame, and then crumpled to the curb.
All the air left Jessica’s body. She couldn’t have possibly seen what she’d seen. She blinked, and there was Iridian, on the ground, grimacing, her hand coming up to press against her temple and her thigh scraped from where she’d skidded against the concrete.
Jessica was out of the car, stalking John around the front end. There was a sound in her head, like a pulse, like a whomp, whomp, whomp. Pressure was building behind her ears, in the palms of her hands. She was about to explode.
“I will fucking kill you,” she said to John, her voice hoarse. “You hit my sister, and I will fucking kill you.”
Jessica shoved John in the chest with both hands, but all he did was stumble, laugh, then spit on the street. Too fast, John reached out and grabbed a chunk of Jessica’s hair, right at the root. She yelped as he gripped her hair tighter and attempted to push her back into her car.
Jessica’s eyes watered from the sudden burst of pain, but she could still recognize the blur of red fabric that had suddenly appeared in her vision. Rosa was there, swinging some kind of weapon at him. After the sickening thud of metal on meat, there was a noise, a grunt. John fell away, yanking out strands of Jessica’s hair. Again, Rosa brought her weapon up over her head and swung it at the soft part of John’s side, right under his ribs. This time, John bellowed, gripped his torso, and landed hard on one knee.
Jessica heard the bang of a storm door, then another. She looked around and saw her wish from before had come true. Her neighbors were out of their houses. Mrs. Moreno from next door was on her front porch in her bathrobe, yelling into her cell phone and gesturing wildly with her free hand. Teddy Arenas was out in the driveway, cradling his little dog. Mrs. Bolander was at the front edge of her yard in a matching pajama set—pink with watermelons.
Hector and his friends were there. They were out of breath, like they’d just sprinted down the stairs. Peter wasn’t with them. He must’ve been at the pharmacy.
At last, Jessica turned to her own house and saw her father, standing in the open doorway clutching paper in his hand. He hadn’t come out to help—he never, ever helped them.
Rosa was still gripping her weapon—a lamp without its shade, Jessica now realized. Its cord dragged across the patchy grass. Rafe slumped against the doorframe, placing his hand over his heart, and that’s when Jessica noticed he was wearing one of Ana’s old bracelets on his wrist. It was made out of yellow string and a couple of beads. Where on earth had he found that?
It had just been a little over a week ago that Rafe had been in the middle of the street, bruised and crying out, needing help. Jessica had rushed to his side. She’d stopped her car in the middle of the road and had thrown herself at her father. And this is what she got in return, when she was the one who needed help—nothing.
Jessica could see, at the edge of her vision, her neighbors taking slow steps closer to her house, to her yard, to her and her sisters. She remembered, half-remembered, the night that Ana died. It was sticky out—just like now. Rafe was slumped in the doorway—just like now. Jessica and her sisters had needed help, and the neighbors had come rushing from their houses. She remembered screaming against a woman’s body. She still didn’t know whose. She just remembered the woman’s shirt smelled a little bit sour-sweet, like red wine.
“We’re leaving,” Rosa said to her sisters, dropping the lamp in the grass. She bent to pick up Jessica’s phone and keys from where John had pitched them in the yard, and climbed into the passenger seat. “Iridian, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Iridian muttered. She hauled herself to standing.
“In the car, then,” Rosa commanded. “Now.”
Iridian did as she was told. Jessica started the engine, and Rosa leaned out the passenger window.
“John, hey,” she called out.
John scowled up at Rosa. It was the scowl of a wounded animal. He had his hand pressed against his side. Jessica knew there would be a bruise there. She wanted his whole body covered in bruises.
“You broke my ribs, you little bitch!” John spit out.
“Good,” Rosa said. “And if I ever see you on this street again, I will break your spine.”
Iridian
(early Monday, June 17th)
When Iridian’s head had hit the side of her sister’s car, she’d accidentally bitten down on her tongue. There’d been a gush of hot blood, so sudden Iridian had nearly choked. She’d turned her ringing head and spit bloody gobs onto the curb. Now, as she sat in the back seat of Jessica’s car, her tongue was swollen and tender, still bleeding. She had nowhere to spit, so every so often, she was forced to swallow a mouthful of blood. Somehow those mouthfuls of blood went down easier than when her dad had called her a “nothing person.”
Of all the insults Iridian had hurled at herself in her bathroom mirror, she’d never thought of calling herself “nothing.” It was the worst insult of all—worse than being called ugly or miserable or bird-thin or stupid. It was as if Rafe had taken a hot metal spoon and cleanly scooped out her insides. She’d been left feeling hollow and hungry.
Then, when the TV screen had shattered and Rosa had come to her rescue, Iridian hadn’t felt relief. Or fear. She had cried out in desperation and grabbed for paper as if paper could save her life. Rosa had told her to leave and go outside, and Iridian had the time for one last attempt. Rafe had been disoriented, and Iridian had leapt forward. Her fingers had closed around a page from her notebook. There’d been ripping—holes being torn from the metal spiral. She’d been left with a shred, less than half a page. She’d held on to that shred as she’d bolted outside. She’d still held on to that scrap of paper as John’s knuckles had crashed into her cheekbone and her head had chimed with the impact.
That scrap of paper was still wadded up in Iridian’s sweaty fist, where it was safe, and where no one else could reach it.
Jessica’s phone rattled gently in the cup holder in the center console. It had been doing that off and on since they’d left the house.
“You should have left it in the yard,” Jessica told Rosa.
Iridian clenched her fist tighter and looked out to the flashing night sky. Cool winds buffeted the car. Jessica’s windows were rolled down like they always were, and little leaves were blowing into the cabin. They would come in one window, spin in a tiny roller-coaster loop-de-loop, and then go out the opposite window. Jessica’s car had always been as much of a mess as her room, so bits of trash—plastic straw wrappers and old receipts—were flying around in loops as well. Outside there was a storm coming, and inside it was a mini-cyclone. It had rained so much over the course of the last week, Iridian half hoped that by the time she and her sisters returned to their house, there would be no house, or that maybe just the peaks of the roof would be visible. She imagined the soft, rain-soaked ground swallowing the wood and the bricks, sucking it all down with a burp.