Page 347 of Bad for Me

“I don’t like this. I don’t want you to be mad at me, but–”

“But nothing!”The blonde stalked toward her, grabbing her collar with both hands. She yanked her forward, away from the window, and shook her slightly.“You always do what you’re supposed to! Why can’t you live just fucking once?”

“Language!”she gasped, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. She really was the milder of the two of them, and though her friend cursed, she’d never heard her use that word. They were only fourteen, for Pete’s sake!

The blonde threw her head back and laughed, hands still gripping the redhead’s shirt.“Oh, that’s rich. Can you give up the good girl act and live a little?”

“Please, let’s not fight,”she begged her friend, tears forming in the corner of her eyes.“We’re best friends. We can come back out and meet some other time. I promise–”

“Nah, I think not,”the domineering blonde spat.“Either you’re in, or you’re out tonight, you hear me? It’s time to make a decision. Be the good girl your mommy wants you to be, or make your own decisions for once.”

The anxious redhead searched her friend’s eyes, hoping for some sort of sympathy she knew she’d never find there. The tears fell from her lashes now, burning her eyes as she fought hard not to gasp for breath.“I-I’m sorry,”she whimpered, rubbing her nose with the sleeve of her shirt.“D-don’t be mad, please–”

“Ugh, you’re ridiculous, and so predictable,”her friend spat.“If you’re so scared, then just go home!”

The blonde shoved her away with a little force, not enough to send her reeling, but what neither of them realized was that the rain had started falling sideways and had puddled in the space around the window. The wood, worn and old, was slicker than buttered-up cookie trays, and when the redhead stumbled backward, she went sliding toward the open hole in the wall they called a window, unable to stop herself.

Her hands found the window frame and grabbed on for dear life, but the wood was old, weathered, and soaked. The combination had softened it beyond repair, and it couldn’t withstand the force she hit it with. Crumbling like a dry biscuit, it gave way under her, and the redhead plummeted out the opening it created, her shrill scream echoing around her as she disappeared over the ledge and into the dark. It continued as she fell, the weightlessness giving her the impression she might fall forever.

This must be the free-fall thing our teacher was talking about last week,she thought, blinking once, twice, as the night sky lit up in a flash of lightning. The ground rushed up around her, and finally, after what felt like a lifetime but was only seconds, her body landed with a sickeningthudin the wet, slick mud below.

The air left her lungs in awhoosh,her chest on fire, rain pelting her body as she struggled to breathe. Something was jammed into her back, just below her shoulder blade, but the pain was merely a dull throbbing compared to the struggle to breathe. One leg was bent in an awkward position, and the pain was noticeable but not excruciating, like someone had dimmed the lights in the room and left her sitting in the dark. She could still see, but only when the lights in the sky turned on–wait, that was lightning.

“Oh my god, are you okay?”her little blonde friend screamed out the window, peering down at her like some sideshow.“I’m coming down, don’t move!”

As if I could,she thought to herself, coughing painfully. Something was wrong, though. When she coughed, something metallic and wet spewed from between her lips, coating her tongue with the taste of iron.Why does everything hurt so bad? What’s going on? This tastes like . . . blood. Am I coughing up blood?Another round of coughs wracked her tortured body, and she felt the droplets spray from her lips and undoubtedly coat her shirt.Crap. If that’s blood, it’ll stain. Mom will be so mad.

She turned her head to find her friend scrambling off the last rung of the ladder, rushing in her direction with wide, panicked eyes. The blonde skidded to a stop in the mud beside her, falling to her knees with a wail of panic, the likes of which she’d never heard from her before.“Oh my god, I’m so sorry–fuck fuck fuck, please don’t die on me–oh fuck, I didn’t m-mean it, fuck–”

Why would I die on you?she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t make her lips form the words.Why can’t I talk? The sky is so dark; I’m wet. Mom is gonna be so mad that I’m covered in mud.

Nothing made sense, from one sentence to another, her mind whirled and skipped, like a record with deep scratches in the surface of the vinyl, that’d been set to play and forgotten. The needle of life ripped apart the edges, scratching the groove further, making the divot so deep it nearly went through the thin membrane of the record. She stared blankly at her friend, whose hands were on her body, then they weren’t, and she lifted them into the redhead’s view–

They were covered in blood. Deep, dark crimson that made her feel some type of way.Those hands were just on me,she thought dejectedly.Why are they bloody? Am I bleeding? That can’t all be from my lips.

Why didn’t I feel her touch me?

The edges of her vision were dark and dimmed, but she attributed this to the rainstorm blasting above her, carrying away her thoughts on a cold gust of air every few seconds. When the lightning streaked across the sky, it was joined by the thunder, too, a deep crackle that continued for a few moments and sounded somehow unnatural.Weird,she thought, as her friend knelt beside her still body and wept into her blood-stained hands.What’s going on with me?

She tried to lift her hand and place it on her friend’s arm to tell her to stop worrying. She wasfine; therewas no reason to cry. But when she commanded it, the appendage refused to move. She was stagnant, frozen in her own body, unable to give it simple orders that before now were unconscious thoughts.

“I-I’m so sorry, fuck, please forgive me. I didn’t mean for this to happen; how could I know you’d fall out the window and land on a fucking–”

The blonde’s hands again fell to her red-haired partner’s abdomen, gingerly prodding around the giant stick that protruded from her torso. She wasn’t the best participant in science class, and she’d skipped dissection day, so she had no idea whether it’d hit vital organs or arteries or how any of that shit worked.Her momwasn’t the hospital-trained nurse.Her momwas just a homemaker with a nosy predilection and an addiction to coke on the weekends while her dad went off on his business trips. How could she be expected to deal with a situation like this?

“It was an a-accident. Yeah, an accident. I’ll go get help, and–no, everyone will think I did this. We weren’t supposed to be out here. We weren’t supposed to be together. W-we’re not even supposed to call each other–fuck, I’m gonna go to jail–”

It’s okay,her friend lying in the mud wanted to say.It’s all going to be okay. If you just give me a minute and let me catch my breath, I’ll get up, and we’ll go home, and I’ll take my punishment, and this’ll all blow over by next week–

But she couldn’t. Her lips were refusing to move, and even now, as the lightning lit up the sky in a big wave, she realized it wasn’t bright like it had been before. Either the lightning was weaker, or her eyesight was dimmer. Pain unlike anything she’d ever imagined before radiated out from where her friend’s hands were definitely touching her now, and she managed a scream, one that came out like a mouse’s squeak instead of a human sound, before the low, distant rumble of her favorite kind of thunder echoed out around her. Everything faded to black as she closed her eyes and let go.

2

SCARLETT

“Oh,fuck yeah, baby, just like that, you know how daddy likes it!”

“Shake it, toots, shake that money maker!”

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