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  Sarah and Donny were screaming at each other. About Charlie. About how to get Lee out. About what-kind-of-people-would-fucking-do-this?

  And then Sarah was at my side. She reached down, picked up the rock, and threw it at the window. The glass shattering sounded like an explosion, a bomb, a cannon. When the lights flipped on in the house, I saw jagged edges of glass, still embedded in the window frame, staring back at me like sharp, angry teeth.

  “What the fuck did you do that for?” Donny yelled.

  “Somebody had to do something!” Sarah screamed.

  The door flew open and Charlie grabbed Donny by the front of his shirt and yanked him into the house like water being sucked through a drain. Donny struggled and then the two of them, pushing, hitting, yelling, stumbled back outside.

  “You’re gonna pay for the fucking window!” Charlie yelled.

  From somewhere in the house I heard Jittery Man scream, “I’m cut, I’m cut, I’m cut! My foot is bleeding!”

  When Charlie and Donny staggered back into the house, I ran over to the door and saw Lee inside, standing against the wall, dressed, backpack at her feet, her head tilted down and her long black hair hanging over her face. One of the straps of her white tank top had slid off her shoulder and rested halfway down her upper arm. And then Sarah was behind me, and when Lee lifted her head, we gasped.

  Swollen flesh bubbled out of Lee’s sliced open upper lip. She stared at me, her eyes open so wide that I saw tiny red blood vessels to the sides of her pupils.

  “What did they do to you? Lee?” Sarah asked. “We’re calling the police!”

  Donny, whose forearm was wedged under Charlie’s throat and pinning him to the wall, hissed, “You don’t call the police, not on these guys. Just get out of here.”

  Chaos. Confusion. Jittery Man screaming and crying. My foot. My foot. Owen telling him to shut up. To sit still. Dog still barking. Siren in the distance. Throbbing pain in my shin. A neighbor yelling. And what was that on Lee’s cheek?

  “They’re not going anywhere.” Owen, stepping out of the dark, grabbed Donny around the back of the neck. But Donny turned so quickly that he broke Owen’s grip and then punched him in the face. Owen staggered and fell into the wall.

  I grabbed Lee’s backpack and Sarah took her arm and we ran with her out the door, across the yard, and into the car. Ducky, passed out in the back seat, didn’t move as we slammed the doors and Sarah sped down the street. Lee, curled into a ball on her right hip in the passenger seat, dropped her head into her folded arms that rested against the window. I turned in the back seat next to Ducky and watched the house grow smaller and smaller and then it was gone.

  “Oh, my God, are we good?” Sarah asked. “Are they coming? Are we good? Are you sure? Are they coming? Are we good?”

  “No one’s coming,” I said. “No one’s coming!”

  A thick mist hung in the air in front of our headlights. The street was deserted and the houses were dark and quiet, shrouded in fog. Water arched high above the side windows every time Sarah crashed through a puddle. Every so often she took her hand across the windshield, clearing the glass.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. “I don’t know where I’m going. What the fuck are we doing? What are we going to do? Lee?”

  Lee didn’t move.

  Sarah tossed the map back at me and turned onto a main road, also empty. Stores were closed, metal gates pulled down over the windows and doors. A car, its frame charred, sat abandoned in a parking lot next to the street. Sarah kept asking me over her shoulder, should I turn? Which way? I didn’t answer because I couldn’t remember. I began to shiver—the air-conditioning was running full blast in the car—and then shake so much that the map bounced on my lap.

  And still Lee didn’t move. Didn’t talk. Barely seemed to be breathing.

  “We have to come up with a plan,” Sarah said as she turned onto a side street. “We have to do something. Lee should go to the hospital. We should do that first.”

  “If we go to the hospital, will they call the police?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sarah said. “Lee? Lee, what do you want to do?”

  Lee began to weep softly.

  Sarah slammed on the brakes—we’d come to a dead end— and began beating the steering wheel with her palms. “Fuck! Where in the fuck are we? Clare?”

  “I don’t know!” I yelled. “Just turn around!”

  “She’s hurt.” Sarah spun the car around and glanced at Lee. “Oh, God, Clare, I don’t know what to do!”

  “I don’t either!” I cried.

  There were three of them. Three grown men. Three dirty, mean grown men. With needs. And experience. I imagined them on top of her. Behind her. In her mouth. I gripped Sarah’s headrest so hard that my fingers burned. I didn’t want these thoughts. I couldn’t have these thoughts.

  Sarah turned the corner and we saw a stop sign ahead. As she sped toward it, she asked, “What happened? I don’t understand. What happened?”

  Lee didn’t respond. I sat back in my seat. My stomach was sour and so in knots that I had to talk myself out of throwing up again. And still I shook.

  Sarah turned at the stop sign and suddenly we were in a better neighborhood. Single-family houses. Lawns. No trash or burned-out cars on the street. The stores didn’t have bars on the windows, either. Up ahead I saw a gas station, lights blazing. Sarah pulled in and Lee buried herself into her arms.

  “I’m going to get some ice for your lip,” Sarah said.

  “Find out how to get to the highway,” I said.

  When Sarah opened her door, cool, tropic air, mixed with overpowering wafts of gasoline, rushed into the car. I watched Sarah run up to the store, hurry inside, and talk to the attendant behind the counter. Above him on the wall was a portrait of President Reagan next to a sign that read WE’RE FLORIDA AND PROUD OF IT. I glanced at Ducky, asleep next to me.

  “I got turned around.” My voice felt weak and shaky. “I couldn’t find Donny’s house. And then it took forever for Charlie to come to the door. I’m so, so sorry.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “What happened, Lee? What did they do?” It hurt to ask this. It hurt my tongue, my teeth, and my cheeks. My shin was throbbing again. Did I hurt it jumping out the window? Then I started to cry because I knew what they did to her, didn’t I? I was scared and had a searing headache behind my eyes, like a knife, embedded, that twisted deeper with every blink, every turn of my head.

  Still she didn’t say anything. She was mad at me. I could feel it. Oh, God, she was mad at me because I left her. How could I do that?

  Then Sarah was back in the car. “Okay. We’re close to both the hospital and the highway. What do you want to do, Lee? Lee!”

  Lee sat up, wincing as she brought her hand to shade her eyes from the gas station lights, and turned her head to look at Sarah. “What?”

  Sarah handed her a cup filled with ice. Lee stared at it for a moment before slowly reaching out to take it. Then she just held it, arm outstretched. Sarah said, her voice steady and didactic, “Take out a piece of ice and put it on your lip.”

  But Lee just stared at the cup. I scooted forward, took out a piece of ice and put it up to Lee’s face. With her free hand she took it and held it to her cheek.

  “No, Lee, put it on your lip,” I said. Lee didn’t move.

  Sarah glanced back at me and I knew we were thinking the same thing: Lee was completely out of it. Sarah shook her head and said, “We should go to the hospital. Lee, you need help. And you need to tell somebody about what happened.”

  Lee shook her head. “No.”

  Sarah turned to me, her eyes begging for help.

  “Let’s find a motel off the highway,” I said. “I’ll use my dad’s credit card. And we can rest and think about what to do. Lee?”

  Lee stared at something through the windshield. I wasn’t sure she heard me.

  Sarah frowned and sighed. Then she pulled onto the road.
/>   We stopped at a motel ten miles outside of Daytona. It was worn out with nicks in the bedside tables, brown carpet worn to the cement below, and curtains so thin they barely kept out the flashing neon lights in the parking lot. But the bathrooms were clean, no sludge in the corners, and it was cheap. I left our backpacks in the room. Then I went back to the car, slung Ducky’s arm around my shoulder and walked her up the stairs. Sarah and Lee followed.

  Once inside, I dropped Ducky—who was mumbling, eyes open—into a bed where she fell back asleep. Now, lights on, we saw each other more clearly.

  “Where’s your other flip-flop?” Sarah pointed to my feet.

  I looked down. Both feet were covered with dried mud and grass clippings. But I wore only one flip-flop, on my right foot. A bruise, the size of a golf ball, bulged from my shin. Why didn’t this hurt? Or did it hurt? Where was my flip-flop?

  “Oh, Lee, your lip,” Sarah said.

  Lee brought her hand to her mouth and winced. She turned, walked into the bathroom, and flipped on the dim light above the sink. Sarah and I stood in the doorway, watching, as Lee leaned across the sink to get a closer look in the mirror. Dried blood crusted in the corners of her mouth. Her upper lip was swollen and bloody. Hands shaking, Lee winced again as she touched a red welt, the size of a strawberry, on her cheek. I glanced at Sarah. What the hell was on Lee’s cheek?

  Sarah reached inside the room and flicked the switch. Bright white lights flooded the bathroom.

  “No!” Lee cried as she slammed her palm on the wall and turned off the light. Sarah and I jumped backward.

  “Okay, sorry.” Sarah frowned. “But, Lee. Your cheek looks so sore. And your lip looks worse. I think you need stitches. We should go to the emergency room.”

  “My lip.” Lee fingered the swollen mess. “It’s my fault.”

  “Your fault?” Sarah and I said at the same time. We looked at each other.

  Sarah shook her head. “How can this be your fault? What the hell, Lee? You should see a doctor. And you should keep ice on your lip. Where’s the cup?”

  “The cup?” Lee asked.

  She was so out of it. My heart pounded and my hands were cold and clammy. The hot and stuffy room smelled nasty, like cigarette smoke and disinfectant. Lee looked at herself in the mirror again. Her face was pale, the muscles in her jaw and neck knotted as if she were doing everything possible to not cry.

  “I don’t understand what happened. How did Clare get out and you were still inside?” Sarah looked at Lee and then me.

  Lee stared into the mirror but I didn’t think she really saw herself or us. I reached over her, picked up the plastic ice bucket from the counter near the sink, and handed it to Sarah. She took it, turned, and walked away. Over her shoulder she mouthed to me, talk to her! I nodded.

  I turned back to Lee. My voice felt pained in my throat. “Lee?”

  She touched her lip and winced again. Then she began to cry, not sobs but tiny tears that rushed down her cheeks, one after another, as if relieved to finally escape. She brought her hands to shield her eyes and turned away. In all of our talking and confiding, I’d only seen her cry a few times; two years ago when we found the dying goose on the road. The night we saw Patricia Graceson’s movie. And last January, when we sat in the stairwell at the house and she told me that her aunt, the one who’d introduced her to movies and who’d driven her all the way to Boston three summers ago, had been arrested.

  “Oh, Lee.” I started to cry hot tears that stung my eyes. Lee and I often talked about what Patricia Graceson had said about crying, that it was good, a release and not a weakness, but nothing felt good now.

  She began to sob, her body trembling, her face twisted. I felt so repulsed that vomit shot up my throat and into my mouth. When I swallowed, it made me gag. Inside my head I yelled, Stop crying! Get ahold of yourself, Lee! Don’t make me pick you up off the bathroom floor! I wanted to run, far, far away.

  But how could I be like this? Lee sacrificed herself and I repay her by being repulsed? What kind of a person was I? I needed to be patient. Sophomore year I had to ask five or six times, over the course of several weeks, before she told me what her track coach had done. He touched me. He tried to kiss me. He put my hand on his dick. He fucked with my head.

  Now, I lifted my arms to hug her but she stiffened and backed away. Then she leaned over and turned on the water in the tub.

  “I want to do something,” I said. “I don’t know what to do!”

  She adjusted the water. And then she straightened, lightly pushed me away, shut the door, and locked it. I changed out of my wet clothes and into shorts and a sweatshirt. The moment I sat on the bed, I felt my body release, my muscles relax, and I fell onto my back.

  When Sarah returned, ice bucket in her hands, she gasped and said, “What? She’s in the shower? She’s getting rid of evidence!”

  Rape evidence. Sperm. Fingerprints. Ugly, black, curly pubic hairs.

  I sat up, my stomach churning. The bed cover, faded blue, cheap polyester, scratched the bottom of my thighs. “I couldn’t stop her.”

  In the other bed Ducky groaned and rolled over. Sarah dropped next to me and handed me the bucket. “Here. Take some. Put it on your leg.”

  I took the ice bucket but I didn’t deserve it. I deserved a bruise. A broken leg. A busted lip.

  “She’s in shock,” Sarah said. “Could she tell you about it? What happened?”

  I started to cry again and shook my head. I was so tired that it hurt to breathe. I could only take shallow breaths.

  “This must have been awful for you, too.” Sarah’s voice was calmer, stronger. I imagined her in an emergency room treating gunshot and car crash victims. Rapes, too. She took off the bandana around her neck, filled it with ice from the bucket, then squatted in front of me as she held the ice to my shin. Ah, instant relief. This was how you took care of someone, by tending to her physical ailments. My mother never quite got the hang of this. Cleaning a cut. Taking a temperature. Icing a wound.

  And yes, it was awful for me, too.

  I told her about how Charlie, Owen, and Jittery Man prodded us and how Lee had a weird vibe and opened the window. They weren’t going to let us go without payment so I offered money and my dad’s credit card. “But they wanted something else. God, I’ve never been more scared in my life.”

  “They raped her,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “Fuck! How did you get away?”

  “I dove through the window.” I started to cry harder, my heart racing again. “And then I got so turned around. I couldn’t find Donny’s house.”

  This was my crime, wasn’t it? How my seemingly good sense of direction had let me down? Sarah said today—or was it yesterday? —who would’ve guessed that you were so bad with directions?

  “It was pouring and the middle of the night,” she said. “It could’ve happened to anyone. You should feel proud. You saved her from being hurt worse.”

  Maybe if I’d stayed we could have fought them off or talked them out of it. Maybe, together, we could have gone out the window. But I panicked and left her to fend for herself. I abandoned her. How could I be proud of that?

  And what would Sarah and Ducky think if they ever heard this?

  I’d done something else to Lee, too, although my mind was bouncing around so much—I was so, so wired—that I couldn’t remember. They’re like jumping beans. I cringed and fell back on the bed again.

  Sarah went to the bathroom door and knocked. “Lee, are you okay? Lee?”

  “Yeah.”

  She stood at the door for a moment and then came back and sat. “I don’t know, Clare. When I was getting ice I thought that we should call her parents. I’ve never met them. They never come to Mom’s or Dad’s Weekends, do they?”

  “No.” I met them last year when Lee and I drove up to her farm. Her dad was quiet, her mom anxious. They were simple, unsophisticated people and right now her family was a mess over her aunt’s legal troubles.
Even if her parents had money to fly here, which they didn’t, I couldn’t imagine Lee would want them. They have no idea who I am, Lee often told me. I didn’t think that we could call her aunt, either. She and Lee hadn’t spoken in months. “We can’t call without asking her.”

  Sarah nodded. “I just feel so bad. This would never have happened if we hadn’t gone to see Donny. That was stupid. What was I thinking?”

  “This isn’t your fault,” I said.

  “God, it could’ve been you. Or me. Or Ducky. What if she and I had gone over there instead of you two? And how did you think to jump out the window?”

  Let her go. I’ll stay.

  I should tell Sarah that Lee offered herself if they let me go. And that she distracted them by handing Owen her backpack. And that it was easy to dive out the window. It was easy to leave her. But she’d think I was a terrible person and right now I felt bad enough. I’d tell her after we slept. And ate. And figured out what to do. Relief washed over me for the first time in hours. Oh, God, I needed to feel better.

  It was still dark outside although I had a sense, by looking at the sky through a hole in the curtain, that the sun would be up soon. I glanced at the clock next to the bed. 5:15. The only other time I’d stayed up all night was sophomore year when Lee and I sat in the stairwell, talking until the breakfast cooks arrived.

  I closed my eyes but couldn’t sleep. The scene at Charlie’s kept replaying in my mind and every time I felt myself relaxing, something would jerk me awake. But I guess I dozed off because suddenly Lee, dressed in sweatpants and T-shirt, was standing at the side of the bed next to me. I started to say something but she shook her head, climbed into the bed next to Ducky, and whispered, “Let’s try to sleep.”