Idle Read online

“I know, mama.” She winked.

  She did my makeup for me and did her best to cover up my yellowing bruises. Ansen laughed at something on the television and Katie rolled her eyes playfully at me.

  “I’m glad Ansen has you,” I told her.

  “I’m glad I have Ansen,” she said.

  “You’re lucky,” I admitted.

  “I know. He works hard and he’s kind to me,” she said with a smile.

  I put my underwear and cutoffs back on but borrowed a shirt and kimono from Katie.

  “Do you feel pretty?” she asked, fixing a curl.

  “Kind of,” I answered.

  “Good,” she said. “That helps, I think.”

  “It shouldn’t matter,” I laughed.

  “Regardless, it makes you feel confident, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “True.”

  She smiled at me. “Let’s go then.”

  “Let’s,” I told her.

  We pulled up to the market at nine because I knew that was when he usually started work. Ansen squeezed my shoulder when I got out of his car and Katie waved.

  “We’ll be in the back of the lot making out,” Ansen told me and I laughed.

  Katie shook her head but laughed as well.

  I took a deep breath and walked into the store.

  “Damn, Lily,” Danny offered.

  I nodded at him. “Is Salinger here?” I asked.

  “Yeah, in the back,” he said. “Coming to break his heart?” he joked.

  “I’m here to apologize.”

  “Well, I forgive you,” he flirted then laughed.

  I waved over my shoulder at him and made my way toward the music in the back. My stomach dropped to my feet when I saw him breaking down boxes, his back to me. There were five other guys there with him, most of them I’d gone to high school with. I’d caught their attention and I pointed at Salinger. They nodded their heads toward me and Salinger turned around.

  I swallowed my nerves. “Hi,” I said.

  He didn’t answer me, just stared and finished breaking down a box. He tossed it on the floor with the others. “Hey,” he greeted quietly, making my blood race through my veins. I was so unbelievably aware of myself it was painful.

  “I, uh, did you get my message?” I asked.

  “I did,” he said, picking up another box.

  He was the only one working, though. The others had stopped what they were doing and were watching us.

  “I’m so sorry, Salinger,” I told him sincerely.

  “No problem,” he replied, waving it off, making me feel really guilty.

  I felt my eyes start to burn, but I held back. “I really am.”

  He tossed down the box he was working on and stood tall, literally looking down on me. “What happened?” he asked.

  “I, uh, I was over at Trace’s,” I began to explain, “and I got, uh, I got high and I think it was laced with something. I don’t remember.”

  His brows narrowed. “Hmm,” he said.

  Two tears slipped through. “I’m pretty embarrassed.”

  “Listen, no problem or whatever,” he blew me off.

  One of the boys I went to high school with, Alex, spoke up. “Someone showed us some pictures, Lily.”

  “What?” I asked, shocked.

  “Yeah,” he continued, “there are pictures of you circulating around.”

  “What’s in them?” I asked, my heart racing. I wrapped my arms around my waist.

  “Well, like, not cool stuff, Lily. You were so high you didn’t realize they’d set you up like a prop, dressed and, like, undressed you.”

  “Oh my God.” I blew out a breath, bent over slightly, then righted myself. “Do you have them?” I asked him, my arms still wrapped around my waist.

  Salinger watched me intently, his brows still knitted together.

  Alex walked over to me and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He scrolled through at least twenty pictures of me, some in really violating positions.

  “Oh my God, stop, I’m going to vomit.”

  “Do you even remember what happened last night?” he asked me.

  I had no idea. My hands climbed to my shoulders and I hugged myself, wondering what wasn’t recorded.

  What in the hell is going on?

  “You should probably press charges,” Salinger suggested, looking on me with pity.

  All of them, but especially Salinger, looked at me like I was the biggest mess they’d ever encountered. Salinger gazed at me like he didn’t want anything to do with me. I was mortified.

  “Are you okay?” Salinger asked, trying to be nice, but it humiliated me worse.

  “I-I’m fine,” I whispered and turned.

  I could feel his stare on my back as I fled. Danny watched me come toward him, his expression leant to one of disbelief.

  “You okay?” he asked as I ran past him.

  I bolted through the parking lot toward Ansen and Katie but, true to their word, they were too busy with one another to notice me.

  Gutted, I turned toward the street and made my way toward my house. I was desperate to see my mom, desperate to fall in her arms and have her fix me.

  “Just fix me,” I begged no one. Fix me. Someone fix me.

  ***

  It didn’t look like anyone was at home when I finally climbed the steps to the house, but there was a note taped to the front door. It was my mom expressing her disappointment for leaving my car but not leaving the keys so she could take it to work that night. She went on to say that Sterling was dropping her off and the girls were next door.

  I crumpled the paper in my hands and threw it to the side, punching my keys in the lock and opening it. When Sterling took my mom to work, he would go to the gaming room down the street. That was what she was really pissed about. She knew she’d be working her fingers to the bone only for him to spend it at the digital slots before she’d even really earned it.

  “What a loser,” I thought out loud.

  I took my phone out to text Trace.

  I saw the pics. Your ass is grass. You didn’t think I’d find out? What’s wrong with you???

  I sat back on the sofa, crying with everything I had, so disappointed that I’d lost any chance with Salinger. If I’d only just called him. My whole world would be different right now, I thought. My mind went back to Salinger’s face at the market. Lost interest. That was the expression he gave. If I’ve lost interest had an expression, that was it. And that. Completely. Wrecked me.

  I laid down across the sofa and breathed deep. You know that feeling when you’ve lost one hundred percent to something? Like, you’re literally out of chances to get something you want so, so badly? That was Salinger for me, and it felt really awful because it wasn’t even like it had been out of my control. I knew I’d had a chance. I knew it would have worked out if I’d only just been good on my word. I should have just called him that night. I wouldn’t have been vulnerable to Trace and I still could have avoided Sterling.

  For all that beautiful talk about integrity from him, I forgot he deserved the same. I forgot to fight.

  “Nothing I can do about it now, can I?” I told myself and headed for my tray under my bed.

  I brought it out to the living room and sat down. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and turned on a video game. I rolled a blunt, cracked the lighter, and tried to forget.

  I exhaled smoke from my lungs and laid my roach on the glass tray on the crowded coffee table, picked up the remote and clicked buttons. My head rolled onto the back of the couch and stayed there, my feet propped on the table. My phone rang, but I ignored it, then it stopped only to ring again. It annoyed me enough to look down to see it was my mom.

  “Of course,” I complained.

  I tossed my remote on the cushion next to me, grabbed my vibrating phone off the table, and hit answer, noting it was after midnight.

  “Mom?” I asked.

  “Lily, Sterling and I are broken down by Granger’s Steakhouse. Can
you come get us?”

  Granger’s was in the next town over. It’d be over an hour before I got back home.

  “Mom, I’m busy. What happened?”

  She sighed. “Lily, don’t do this. Turn off the game or leave whatever party you’re at, get in your car, and come pick us up!”

  I felt my blood race hot through my veins. “Can’t you figure this out? You can’t know how disappointed I feel right now. My day has sucked so bad and—”

  “Lily!” she huffed then paused. “You haven’t been disappointed yet, Lily. You’re too young to know that pain yet. Just wait, though. It’ll come.”

  Her words hit me hard for some reason, but I shook them off easily.

  “You need a new car already. Just spring for one,” I told her.

  I could practically hear her shaking her head, and I rolled my eyes.

  “We can’t afford it, and I’m tired of having this argument with you. Come pick us up. It’s gone dark and there aren’t any lamps on this stretch of highway. Hurry up,” she ordered and hung up on me.

  I hit end on my phone and threw it back on the table, picking up my remote again. “Annoying,” I told no one before pressing pause.

  I rolled a blunt and took two more hits. Next thing I knew, I’d passed out on the couch.

  ***

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  I startled awake to someone hitting our front door with a fist. Panicked, I thought of Sterling and my mom, so I hauled into my room and slid my tray beneath my bed. I shook my head to wake up and to prepare myself for the incredible fight I was about to get into.

  Why wouldn’t they just use their keys? I thought, still a bit groggy.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  “Smithfield Police!” someone yelled through the door, making my heart race.

  I threw the door open, fully awake at that point. “Can I help you?” I asked, confused.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you so late,” an older cop soothed, “but may we come in?”

  “Of course,” I said, opening the door wider.

  They stepped inside and I shut the door after them.

  “Can we sit down?” he asked.

  My blood coursed so quick and so hot, I felt sick to my stomach.

  “Uh, sure,” I said, offering the crap wool sofas we owned.

  They waited until I sat then did the same for themselves.

  “Please, what’s going on?” I begged, shoving my hands between my legs.

  “First, I just need some information,” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered.

  Oh my God, this is about the pictures. Someone must have turned Trace in.

  “So sorry, but this is a formality. Would you mind stating your full name?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I barely spoke, “I’m Lily Hahn.”

  The older office nodded as if I confirmed what he’d expected.

  “Thank you,” he said, then scooted toward the end of his seat. “Miss Hahn, uh, I don’t know how to tell you this, but we answered a call early this morning about an accident.”

  “Accident?” I spoke out loud, feeling really confused.

  “Yes, this evening your mother—” he began, but I didn’t let him finish.

  I stood and slowly backed up into the wall. “Don’t,” I said. “Is she hurt? Is she hurt?”

  “Miss Hahn,” he tried to offer, standing himself.

  “She’s hurt, right? Just hurt, right? Only hurt.”

  “Miss Hahn,” he said, edging toward me.

  “Oh my God, she’s not hurt, is she? She’s not. I can tell by the look in your eyes. Is-is she dead?”

  “I’m so sorry,” he offered. “She and a man named Sterling were hit by an oncoming car that didn’t see them.”

  I screamed then. Something unrecognizable lifted from my chest. I will never forget that scream, never as long as I live will I forget my own scream. I fell to my knees, bones cracking hard against the rotted wood floor. I barely registered the two officers helping me to my feet and over to the couch.

  I just remember the screaming.

  I couldn’t stop crying.

  It was all so unthinking.

  More officers poured into the house, trying to be of service, but it was of no use. There was no action they could perform to bring her back or alleviate the absolute worst pain you could possibly imagine.

  That pain was permanently etched in that second.

  “No!” I kept yelling over and over, folded into myself, unable to stomach the pain in my chest.

  The older cop sat beside me, his forearms on his knees. He looked at me, his mouth moving, but I wasn’t registering his words.

  “Miss Hahn,” I finally heard, as if he’d been saying it over and over. “Listen to me.” I flinched and his face softened. “Do you have anyone you can contact? Anyone you can stay with?” he asked.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Do you have anyone you can contact?”

  “Contact?”

  “Yes, Miss Hahn, anyone you can stay with?”

  “Oh my God!” I yelled. “My sisters! My sisters!”

  “Where are they?” he asked.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  “Miss Hahn, would you like us to contact them for you?”

  I shook my head, my hand gripping his shoulder. “I don’t know where they are.”

  “How old are they?” he asked, concern etched in his brow.

  “Eight a-and six,” I could barely say.

  My hands shook as I picked up my phone. Where are they? Where are they? Mom wrote down where they were on her note. The note I’d just tossed aside.

  I stood once again but lost my balance. I toppled forward, unable to support myself.

  The last thing I remember was hitting the wood floor.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I SAT ON THE DIRTY FLOOR of our old, decaying home. I’d woken to paramedics checking me out after I’d fainted and waved them off of me. Officers flitted around me, handing me the pronouncement of death forms, quietly asked me to sign the consent for autopsy forms, and let me know that the coroner would call to let me know when I could arrange to have my mother and Sterling picked up for funeral arrangements.

  “How do I even do that?” I asked them.

  The older cop patted my shoulder. “Just call a funeral home, sweetheart.”

  I nodded and they left.

  So I sat on that dirty floor. I laid back, unable to move, no wish to move and just let the tears flow and flow and flow. I wondered where the girls were. I wondered how I was going to tell them.

  Someone had left the door open, not realizing they were the last to leave, so I stared out onto the porch through the screen door and watched the sun crest the earth, shining light on what I’d done to my mother, bathing me in the most profound guilt I had ever and would ever feel again in my entire life.

  I dragged air into my lungs and exhaled, wishing the pain would bend, if even for a moment, leave for even the briefest of seconds just so I could know air again without searing pain.

  I watched the sun rise higher and higher until Ansen came. So entrenched in my pain, I could hardly decipher what he was saying, yelling, when he got out of his car. Like a whirlwind, he and Katie sprinted up the front porch steps. Ansen swung the screen door open hard, sliding into the room on his knees, and gathered me up. Katie was bawling, tears and mascara flowing down her face as she met my other side, wrapping me in her arms.

  They spoke to me, but I didn’t hear them.

  “The girls,” I whispered. “The girls.”

  Ansen stood up, pushed through the door, and headed across the street to Alta Mae’s house, guessing they were there, I thought. Katie pushed the hair out of my eyes.

  “Lily, can you hear me?” she asked. I turned toward her, but my head felt heavy. “We heard what happened, baby,” she said, hugging me close. “It’s gonna be okay,” she lied. “It’s gonna be all right.”

  “No, Katie,” I said, finding my voi
ce. “It’s not.”

  Her face contorted as if fighting back a sob but she couldn’t help herself and it came out as a near wail. She tucked me into her and got a hold of herself.

  “What are we gonna do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I told her the truth.

  I heard my sisters before I saw them.

  “Oh my God,” I said, shaking so hard I could barely stand.

  Katie helped me and brought the bottom of my shirt up to wipe my face, to try and look somewhat together.

  “How is this happening?” I whispered to no one.

  Ansen held both girls’ hands and tears fell so quick and so hard, I couldn’t see well.

  I blinked them away as Ansen brought them in.

  “What’s going on?” Eloise asked, already nervous. I felt sick.

  “Come sit down, my love.” I could barely speak.

  “Lily,” she gritted out, breathing deep, “why are you crying? Are you okay?”

  “Lily, are you sick?” Callie asked.

  Ansen sat down on the sofa and both girls sat on each side of him.

  I sat on the coffee table across from them.

  “I have something to tell you,” I began, and Ansen instinctively brought them tight against him as if he could protect them from the inevitable.

  ***

  The girls were devastated. I refuse to write about it. Hearing them cry for their mommy over and over again is probably the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.

  It’s all my fault, I kept thinking.

  We, all five of us, sat on the couch staring at a random television show no one was watching. The girls had cried themselves to sleep and leaned against Ansen and me.

  I turned to my oldest friend. “What should I do?” I asked him.

  Katie watched us both, her eyes red and swollen; her hand gripped the shoulder of Ansen’s shirt. As if just touching him kept her from floating away; I wondered what that felt like. Having someone to lean on must be such a tremendous comfort.

  “I don’t know what you should do, Lily.”

  “How am I going to feed them?” I asked.

  Ansen breathed deep. “You’re going to figure it out, Lily, like you always do. You’re going to figure it out.”

  Tears sprang forth. “I have no money, Ansen.”