She stopped breathing. That was how she knew it had all gone wrong.
Hellie wanted to stay there, lying on her side, watching Alex sleep. When men slept, it was as if all the violence drained out of them, the ambition, the trying. Their faces went soft and gentle. But not Alex. Even in sleep there was a furrow between her brows. Her jaw was set.
No rest for the wicked, Hellie wanted to say. But the words died even before they could form on her tongue. She knew she’d been about to laugh, but it was as if the laugh had no place to take root in her. No belly to brew in, no lungs to gather breath with.
Hellie could feel herself breaking apart now that she had no body to hold on to. She wasn’t sure when it had happened.
Not soon enough. Not fast enough to spare her all the pain that went before. Last night was a bad night in a string of bad nights. She somehow knew the memories would start to fade as soon she let go of the world. She wouldn’t have to think of Ariel or Len or any of it. The shame would go, the sorrow. All she had to do was leave. She would empty like an overturned
cup. The pull of that glorious nothing was almost irresistible, the promise of forgetting. She would shed her skin. She would become light.
But she couldn’t go. Not yet. She needed to see her girl one more time.
Alex’s eyes opened. Fast, no stutter of the eyelids, no easy road out of sleep.
She looked at Hellie and smiled. It was like watching a flower bloom, the wariness gone, leaving nothing but gladness behind. And Hellie knew she’d made a terrible mistake in staying, in holding on to say a last goodbye, because God, this was bad. So much worse than knowing she was dead. She wanted to believe she wouldn’t miss any part of her sad, wasted life, but she would miss this; she’d miss Alex. The longing for her, for one more moment of warmth, for one more breath, hurt worse than anything in life had.
Alex’s nose wrinkled. Hellie loved the sweetness in her, that it hadn’t shriveled in the relentless hailstorm of shit that was life with Len. “Good morning, Smelly Hellie.”
Dimly Hellie realized that she had vomited in the night. Maybe she had choked on it. She couldn’t be sure. There had been so much fentanyl in her system. She’d needed it. She had wanted to obliterate herself. She’d thought she’d feel clean, but now that it was done, she was still stuck with this weight of sadness.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Alex said. “For good. We’re done with this place.”
Hellie nodded, and the ache was a wave that just keep growing, threatening to crest. Because Alex meant it. Alex still believed something good was bound to happen, had to happen to them. And maybe Hellie had believed too, not in the loopy dreams of college classes and part-time jobs that Alex liked to get lost in. But … had Hellie believed that none of this shit would stick to her? At least not permanently. None of this tragedy belonged to her. It was trouble she had picked up, but she would set it down again, get back to the real business of being human, of the life she was meant to have.
This apartment, these people, Len and Betcha and Eitan and Ariel and even Alex—they were a pause, a way station.
But it hadn’t worked out like that, had it?
Alex reached for her, reached through her. She was weeping now, crying out for her, and Hellie was crying too, but it didn’t feel the way it had when she was alive. No heat in her face, no hitching breaths, it was like dissolving into rain. Every time Alex tried to hold her, she glimpsed flashes of her life.
The desk in Alex’s little-girl bedroom, carefully arranged with dried flowers and dragonfly barrettes. Sitting in a parking lot with the older kids, passing a bong around. The crumpled wing of a butterfly lying on damp tile. Each time, it was like stepping out of the sun into a cool, dark room, like sliding underwater.
Len slammed into their bedroom, Betcha close behind. She felt a pang of fondness for them, now that she could see them at a distance. Betcha’s belly stretching his T-shirt. The smattering of acne on Len’s forehead. But then Len had his hands on Alex, his palm shoved over her mouth.
Everything was going the way it always did, from bad to worse. They were talking about what to do with her body, and then Len backhanded Alex, and Hellie thought, Okay, that’s enough. Enough of this life. There was nothing more to see here. No happy memory to leave on. She felt herself drifting and it didn’t feel good, but it did feel better than what had come before.
She slipped through the wall and down the hall to the living room. She saw Ariel on the couch in his undershorts. But she didn’t want to think about him or the things he’d done to her. The shame felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. That was okay. She liked that.
What was she waiting for? No one was going to speak for her; nothing was going to change. There would be no real goodbye, no sign she had ever been in the world. Her parents. God. Her parents would wake up to a call from the police or the morgue telling them that she’d been found in an alley.
She was so sorry, so terribly sorry, but soon the guilt would be gone too, as if all that was left of her was a shrug.
Len and Betcha were fumbling with the apartment door while Alex cried, and Ariel said something. He laughed, a high-pitched giggle, and it was like being thrown back into her body, hearing him laugh as he pushed his way into her. This wasn’t supposed to be the end of it all.
Alex was staring at her. She could still see Hellie when no one else could.
Hadn’t that always been the way with them?
But had Hellie ever really seen Alex?
Because now that she was looking, really looking at her, she could see Alex wasn’t just a girl with warm skin and a clever tongue and hair shiny as a mirror. A ring of blue fire glowed around her. Alex was a doorway, and through her, Hellie could see the stars.
Let me in. The thought comes from nowhere, a natural thing: She sees a door, and so she wishes to walk through it.
Alex hears her. Hellie knows this because Alex says, “Stay.” Let me in. Is it a demand?
Alex extends her hand.
Hellie is ready. She is pouring into Alex. She is baptized in blue flame.
The sorrow is gone and all she knows is how good the bat feels in her hand.
She is stepping out onto the field, and her teammates are chanting, “Give
’em hell, Hellie!” Her parents are in the stands, and they are beautiful, copper bright, and kind. This is the last moment she remembers before everything started going wrong and kept going wrong, when she still knew who she was.
She is standing at the plate in the sunshine. She knows how strong she is.
There is no confusion in her, no pain. She flexes her gloved fingers over the handle of the bat, testing its weight. The pitcher is trying to give her eyes, psyche her out, and she laughs, because she’s that good, because no one and nothing can stop her.
“Do you get nervous?” her little sister asked once.
“Never,” Hellie said. “What is there to be nervous about?”
She doesn’t want to die. Not really. She just doesn’t want to feel anything anymore because everything feels bad. She wants to find her way back to this moment, to the sun, and the crowd, and the dream of her own potential. There is no worry about college or grades or the future. It will all come easy as it always has.
She shuffles her feet against the plate, tests her swing, the weight of the bat, watches the pitcher, sees the sweat on her brow, knows the girl is afraid.
