Unspeakable Things(9)

“Cassie?”

I squeaked and jumped three feet off the ground. “Lynn?”

She’d been hiding in the dead space between the shelves and the hidden room’s door. Seeing it was my former best friend didn’t soothe me, though. She looked terrible, her face all ashy and streaked with tears. She and I had cried a bunch around each other back when we hung out, but not like this. These tears looked like the result of scared crying. My tummy twisted further. I did not have the hair to handle crisis.

She nodded, which confused me. Was she agreeing that she was Lynn?

“What are you doing back here?” I asked, hearing my jagged heartbeat in my voice. “Band’s going to start any minute.”

She leaned forward a little bit, keeping her lower body out of sight. “I can’t go out there.”

I glanced over my shoulder and out the door. The instrument room was level with the top tier of the band room, which meant the only people who could see in were the drummers who ringed the back of the U-shaped practice space. “Did you forget your instrument?”

She shook her head, like no, that’s not it.

I tried to think if I had seen her yet today. My follow-up thought chilled my blood. Had Lynn also been raped this past weekend by the gang from Minneapolis? She’d given me my first friendship pin back in fourth grade. We’d never fought over a boy. When she liked Larry Wilcox, I took Erik Estrada. She wanted Bo Duke? I was fine with Luke. We’d sworn we’d be friends forever until last fall, when she stopped calling.

My voice came out like sandpaper. “Did someone hurt you?”

“I got my period.”

I blinked. “Just now?”

She nodded. “I think so.”

She stepped into the light. The front of her tan cords had a darker spot. It could almost pass as a shadow if you weren’t looking straight at it, but when she turned around, I saw there was no hiding the blood.

“That all came out at once?”

She ignored my question. “What am I going to do, Cassie?”

I tore my eyes off the stain. “We have to get you to the nurse’s office. She’s got supplies.”

I’d never had to use them. In fact, if the circumstances were different, I’d be jealous of Lynn for getting her period first. She looked too scared now to feel anything but sorry for her.

“I can’t go out like this! Everyone will see.”

I glanced over my shoulder again. It was still chaos in the band room. “Maybe not. Mr. Connelly hasn’t shown up yet.”

She started crying again, softly.

It hurt to see it. She was right. Everyone would see. And in a town like Lilydale, they don’t let you forget those things. I slipped out of my pretty aqua jacket, the one I only wore once every nine days so it wouldn’t stop being special. “Here.”

“You love that coat.”

My smile surprised me. She remembered. “It’s okay. My mom can sew another one. Tie it around your waist, and no one will see from behind. I’ll walk in front.”

She cinched the jacket at her waist and rubbed at her cheeks. “Can you tell I’ve been crying?”

“Only a little bit,” I lied. She looked like her face had been stung by killer bees. “But if you look away from the main room and toward the clock, like you’re really concerned about the time, I bet no one will notice.”

“Thank you.”

She grabbed my hand, and it felt like Christmas to have someone need me.

Except we weren’t safe, not anymore.

Sergeant Bauer had made that clear.





CHAPTER 6

Little John’s was one of four bars in Lilydale. It was the only one with Pac-Man, but that wasn’t why it was Dad’s favorite. He’d been going to Little John’s since before they’d put in the game. I guess there were just some places that felt more welcoming to a person than others.

With Little John’s, I almost understood. It was a corner bar with a private feel to it, close and smoky, the counter featuring bottles of pigs’ feet and pickled eggs floating in murky liquid, and behind that, shelves of amber, green, and clear liquors. Dartboards lined one wall, Pac-Man flashed from another, and even though the men at the bar always stared at me and Sephie, we felt like we were part of something secret when we stepped inside.

“Can we each have four quarters?” I asked Dad, blinking to adjust to the dark cave of the bar after the brightness of the May afternoon. “Tupelo Honey” played in the background.

When me and Sephie had stepped off the bus, Dad’d seemed looser than usual. Not happy, exactly, but like he wasn’t so deep in his head that he couldn’t hold a conversation. He needed to cruise into town to pick up some welding supplies, he’d said, and Sephie and me would have to come along to help load them into the trailer. I hadn’t wanted to go. I had mountains of homework, and besides, Betty’s warning and then the awful symposium had me feeling jumpy. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to town.

Dad’d said we didn’t have a choice.

Once we reached Lilydale, he’d suggested stopping into Little John’s almost like an afterthought. “It’s a warm one,” he said. “Be nice to cool off with a drink.”

That was A-okay with me. More often than not, when we’d stop by Little John’s, he’d buy us a soda—grape for me, strawberry for Sephie—and in any case, he rarely stayed long enough to get drunk, not when it was daylight, not in public. But when my eyes adjusted and I spotted only two people in the bar—the bartender wiping his counter and Sergeant Bauer leaning against a wall holding a can of Pepsi—I knew better.