"Why does it happen? Why does it always happen to you?"
She looks up from her book. Black Beauty again. She puts it down without saving her page. She knows what happens next. This is more interesting.
Deborah.
Talking to her.
Actually looking her in the eye for the first time since she woke up to find a dead janitor at the foot of her bed almost seven years ago. The grownups said he'd had a heart attack. The kids said he'd been "skunked". She's been left alone ever since.
She plays with a lock of her hair, twirls it around her finger looking right back and Deborah breaks away first to glare down at the book.
"That's baby readin'…"
She braids the white into the brown. "Then y'all do just fine with it. Unless a' course there's too many big words fo' ya, in which case th' new Highlights just came in."
"How come?"
"'Cause they subscribe to it."
"Ah mean why's it always you?"
"...'Cause Ah can't be no one else...?"
Deborah's eyes flash, her lips puckering into a frustrated corkscrew. "Stop pissin' me off!"
She flips the braid over her shoulder, leans in close to Deborah until her big brown eyes widen with fear, and says calmly, "Ah haven' touched nobody since ol' Bruce, Debbie… That was a long time ago… Maybe y'all are forgettin' who ah am. Ya need me t'remind ya? Cause lord knows ah'd love ta…"
"Ah… just wanted ta know…"
"What?"
"Why they always pick ya! Ah've been here long as you easy an' Ah've… Ah've neve' left. Ah wanna know why. Issit cause o' yo' magic?"
"Don't be stupid, Ah ain't got no magic."
"Then how ya do it? How ya kill that sonofabitch and how ya get outta here?"
"Y'askin' the wrong questions. It ain't important how Ah did it, Ah just did it. Ya should be askin' me if Ah still can."
"Can ya?"
She reaches for Deborah's face with a "Lessee," and the girl shrieks falling back into her chair and nearly tipping it over as the librarian shooshes them disinterestedly.
"An' ya shouldn' be askin' how come Ah got out, ya should be askin' how come Ah kept gettin' brought back."
"How come then?" she asks keeping her eyes on her hands.
"Cause Ah ain't nothin' special. If Ah had me some magic dontcha think Ah'd a' done somethin' so someone'd keep me?"
"No, Ah don't think you would." Deborah squints at her. "Ah don't think y'd care enough ta try. You a strange one skunk-head. Ya never cared 'bout bein' anywhere but where ya were cause ya thought there wasn' nuthin' y'could do about it anyway. Ya know what ah think? Ah think you're a lifer at heart, Ah think ya wanted to come back all those times. Ah think ya sabotaged yo'self cause y'know what y'gettin' here. Ain't no surprises, ain't nothin' to knock ya off y' high horse-"
"Why y'even talkin' to me?" she interrupts annoyed and surprised that Deborah has put any thought into her at all.
"'Cuz someone come by today askin' fo' ya an Ah want ya ta try an' get 'er to take me too."
"Ah ain't goin' with Ms Darkhomes or whatever her name is."
"Why not?"
"Cause Ah'm gonna be eighteen in a month an Ah won't need no guardian no more anyway."
"Ah'm gonna be eighteen too."
She throws up her hands exasperated and smirks when Deborah flinches.
"Then why you complainin'? You be outta here soon. What ya want that lady fo' anyway? She was weird, kept starin' at me… She from The City, y'know? New York. Starin' at me like she never seen nothin' like me when Ah bet people don't look twice at girls with two-color hair up there."
"She starin' at ya cause ever'one stares at ya."
"They stare cause they afraid."
"They stare cause y' prettier than all th' pretty girls at school put t'gether. Don't matter none 'bout yo' hair o' yo' reputation. No one really believes you a killer anyway."
"'Cept you."
"'Cept me 'cause Ah saw y' face that mornin'. An ah saw what ya did to Fogie's tabby."
She reaches for her book and opens it again pretending to read, done with this conversation. She hadn't meant to kill Mrs Foggerty's cat. She had been here in the orphanage's library studying for an English test a few months ago and the cat had been there too lying on the table right in front of her. The thought had come over her so suddenly and so strongly, Ah have to touch him. Maybe she had wanted to see if it was still in her, the bad thing. Maybe she had just wanted to pet the stupid cat. So she did. And it went to sleep and never woke up. She had scooped the body up off the table and put it on the rug in front of the fire where she thought it would be more comfortable and then went to the kitchen and made herself a tuna sandwich and three glasses of milk.
Deborah humors her for a moment and then flicks her nails at the spine of the book, "Ah can't stand it here no more…"
"So run away. Y'coulda done it a million times ovah already. It's not like we in prison."
"Ah'm afraid."
She stares at her, Black Beauty forgotten.
"What?"
"Ah'm afraid to go out there by mah'self." Deborah looks at the floor, her face red, furious that she's admitted it. "Ah ain't never been nowhere mah whole life..."
"Y'll be fine. Ah seen ya. Ya beat the stuffin' out o' anyone that looks at ya funny. Ya don't need no bodyguard."
"Ya think ah want ya t'be mah bodyguard? Ya think that's why Ah'm talkin' t'ya?"
She frowns. "Innit?"
"Shut up," Deborah grumbles and pushes her chair away from the table with a scrape.
-/-
She sits on the hood of Deacon James' car peeling an orange. She digs her fingernails in and tosses the spongy shell aside watching all the other seniors picnicking on the grass. She's sticking to the parking lot as usual. Distance is good. Not that anyone would try and talk to her. Not the girls anyway. Sometimes one of the boys would come up to her, try to chat her up. ("Hiya sexy-" "Fuck off Joe", "Lookin' goo-" "Fuck off Monk", "Hi." "Fuck off Kevin.") Only Deacon ever kept coming back. He was a bit of a Cody that way. Her impulse is to be especially nasty to him because of it but instead, she finds herself eating lunch on his car every day. Not with him of course. He sits on the grass with his friends a few yards away, but always makes sure he can see her. He likes that she's there, and as long as it's understood that he doesn't approach her, talk to her, anything her, she's more than happy to oblige him with sticky fingerprints on the hood of his car.
She almost likes that he likes her sometimes, almost wishes that things were different, she was different.
She licks the juice off her fingers feeling stupid and that gnawing in her gut starts up again. It always comes up when she thinks about Deacon. Or Cody. Or even the Bennett's. She thinks about Toby sometimes, wonders what he looks like, if he remembers her at all which is dumb cause she was only there for a few months, but she'd almost been his sister so maybe-
"Hey…"
She jumps, startled that Deacon has gotten so close without her realizing. Just a second ago he had been all the way over there on the lawn and now he's leaning against his car right beside her and she thought she'd quit that zoning out crap. She resists the urge to shimmy off the car and away from him even though her heart is pounding, her palms are sweating and everything inside of her is screaming at her to do it. She doesn't want him to know how freaked out she is by his closeness. People already think she's weird enough.
She bites out a tense, "Whatcha want?" as he watches her yank her gloves back on.
"Why you always wearin' those?"
"Cause Ah'm cold."
"It's hot out."
"Ah'm a strange girl, Deacon."
He smiles at his shoes.
"Yeah."
"Whatcha want?"
"Ah was just wonderin' if ya wanted ta sit with me, y'know, over there? Sara and Lou gotta go ta class an Ah'm free this period an Ah know you are too so Ah dunno. S'no fun eatin' lunch by y'self. 'Sides Ah got an extra sandwich Ah thought ya might want. All ya ever eat are oranges… Ah thought maybe ya'd like somethin' diff'rent's all." He dares a quick look before returning to his sneakers and she frowns at him.
She's never been anything but horrible to him and here he is acting all shy and sweet and nervous and hopeful even though he knows what her answer is. "No" is the only thing she's ever given him and he keeps on coming back for more. She shakes her head. She doesn't understand him at all.
"Why d'ya even like me?"
He looks up at her again, this time holding her gaze. "'Cause Ah ain't seen nothin' like you in all my life," he whispers and she swallows feeling her eyes start to burn. She can't cry. That would be stupid. Deacon's full of shit.
She crosses her arms in front of her chest and glares at him instead and he stares back, his eyes as soft as hers are hard and he says, "Ah mean it."
"Deacon."
"Yeah?"
"You remember that poem in English last week? That Keats one? La Belle Dame Sans Merci?"
"Yeah."
"Read it again. An don't talk to me no mo'."
She can feel his eyes on her as she slides off the hood and crosses the lawn trying to keep from breaking into a run. When she finally pushes open the doors to the school and steps inside she stands there for a moment in the cool darkness of the stairwell, her heart still thumping in her chest, and tells herself to breathe.
She hears the metal crunch-squeak of the door being pushed open again from the other side and runs up the steps to the girl's bathroom on the next floor. If it's Deacon and he catches her she doesn't know what she'll do. Punch him probably. Or kiss him. She thinks she wants to kiss him. She crashes into the girl's bathroom and there's a freshman inside mid-lipstick-application who stares at her.
"Get out," she snarls and the girl blinks and then scurries past her nearly running into Deborah as she shoves the door open.
"That wasn't very nice," Deborah says.
"This's a senior bathroom, it's on the senior floor."
"Ah meant Deacon."
"Deacon's stupid."
"Ah know. He could have anyone an' he wants you. That's stupider than stupid."
"Well, just plain ol' stupid's enough to get him hurt."
"Oh please, you'd never use y' death ray o' whatevah the hell it is on that boy. You a bitch but ya ain't no puppy-kicker."
"Ah can't control it. Ya think Ah dress like this cause Ah like it? It's hotter'n hell under all this crap!"
Deborah shrugs.
"Ah just thought ya had no fashion sense."
"What ya want anyway? Why ya botherin' me?"
"Ah'm leavin'. Today."
"So?"
Deborah sighs, exasperated, her bangs blowing up off her forehead.
"So Ah'm askin' skunk-head, do ya wanna come with me or what?"
She looks at her, assessing the seriousness of the offer, and for the first time notices how small Deborah really is. The top of her head would barely come up to her nose if they were standing side by side.
She remembers how scared she'd been of all those girls, Deborah especially, until she realized they couldn't hurt her anymore. She hadn't been scared of Deborah for a long time, but she'd never stopped thinking of her as someone bigger, stronger. It's weird looking at her now and just seeing a girl. Weirder still having this girl ask her for anything let alone companionship.
"But ya hate me."
"Well if Ah do it's y'own damn fault! Ah never understood why ya never… let it go. We all went through it… it's not like Ah liked beatin' on ya-"
"Then why'd ya keep doin' it?"
"'Cause Ah was jealous okay? 'Cause ya kept gettin' picked and Ah stayed where Ah was… ugly, worthless, Deborah. It wadn't 'til ya killed Bruce Ah started ta… not hate ya so much."
"That was years ago, why ya talkin' ta me now?"
"Cause it's taken me that long t'realize you worthless too!"
"Thanks."
"Well look at ya! Ya don't do nuthin', ya don't have no friends, ya come to school, go back to the orphanage, work at th' stupid library. What kinda life is that? Not that Ah got anythin' better but at least Ah'm finally ready ta do sumthin' about it! An Ah know we ain't friends… but Ah known ya my whole life almost an where Ah'm goin' it'd be nice to have somethin' familiar around… So just gimme ya damn answer 'cause Ah'm leavin' now, Ah'm leavin' the stupid orphanage an Ah'm leavin' the stupid state."
She turns away from Deborah to look at herself in the mirror, making the girl sweat a little. If she gives in too easy it'll look like she wants to be friends which isn't the case at all. Lately she's been kicking herself about turning down that lady Darkhome's offer. The only reason she hadn't accepted was because the woman had been looking at her like she wanted to take her apart and see how she worked. It had made her paranoid. And she hadn't wanted to be someone's experiment again, someone's Band-Aid, someone's babysitter. She had just wanted to get away from Mississippi. Because Cody's all over it. He's in the air and the trees and the grass. He's in the river. She has too many memories that aren't hers about that river, about that tree… And sometimes when she's lying in her bed at night, she knows exactly what each and every girl looks like in the dark and it makes her sick. The voices are long gone but the triggers are everywhere, and she's been tumbling in and out of losing herself in them for years. It hadn't really occurred to her that she could just leave on her own, go someplace else and escape from them. Maybe it was true what Deborah'd said about her being afraid to leave what she knows, as horrible as it is. Maybe she was right about her sabotaging herself.
She meets Deborah's eyes in the mirror and she takes a deep breath, willing her voice not to shake when she asks,
"So where we goin'?"