“Still. Here,” I mouthed.

“TifAni!” Mr. Larson shook me off and crawled out onto the floor, ignoring my manic signaling to come back. He used the chair to hoist himself to his feet, and I slunk back deeper underneath the desk, readying myself for the hot pop of the gun, the soggy inside of Mr. Larson’s head. But I just heard “He’s gone.”

Mr. Larson dropped to his knees and peered under the desk, at me, a feral cat in a cage. His brow splintered, and he seemed contrite, ready to cry for me. “He’s gone. We’re okay. He couldn’t have done anything to us.” When I didn’t move, he dropped his head and sighed. The sound was full of remorse. “Tif, I’m so sorry. Shit, I wasn’t thinking . . . the desk . . . I’m sorry.” He held out a hand and pleaded at me with his eyes to take it.

All this time with Andrew, I’ve worn my victim’s mask, thinking this was what he wanted from me. But there was no performing in my arms, gelatinous and quivering, as I reached for him, the limbs themselves so useless he had to take hold of my elbows, the only sturdy points he could find, the only way he could get me to my feet. My lower half wasn’t doing much better, and he propped me up against his chest. We stayed pressed together much longer than we needed to, well after I got my legs back, the not doing anything the most dangerous part. Eventually, his hand asked the question on the tender small of my back, and then we were kissing, the relief that much greater for all the terror that came before it.

CHAPTER 14

In my memory the hospital is green. Green floors, green walls, gangrene hollows under the officers’ eyes. The retching even produced a dull chartreuse substance that sunk to the bottom of the toilet. I flushed, thinking about all those times Mom told me to wear clean underwear, “because, TifAni, what if you’re ever in a car accident?” Not that the underwear I was removing at the moment wasn’t clean, but it was old and there was a hole above the crotch, big enough for a few pubic hairs to wiggle through. It would be many years before I regularly spread out for the Indian women at Shobha. “Everything?” “Everything.”

I stuffed the ratty underwear in the leg of my khakis before stuffing those in the clear evidence bag and handing it off to the female officer, the one who looked more like a man than Officer Pensacole. In there already was my J. Crew cardigan and Victoria’s Secret tank top, both ombréed with blood that hadn’t completely dried yet. The smell of it so nostalgic and familiar to me. Where had I smelled that smell before? In cleaning supplies, maybe. Or at the Malvern YMCA, where I first learned to swim.

Whoever received that plastic evidence bag, with clothes that held the DNA of several dead teenagers, would no doubt find the underwear in the leg of the khakis. It wasn’t some brilliant hiding place. But there was something about my underwear bouncing around in that plastic bag, on display for all it passed, that filled me with despair. I was so tired of everything that was embarrassing about me being on display.

I wrapped myself in the flimsy hospital gown and tiptoed across the hospital room to sit down on the hospital bed, holding my arms across my chest, trying to contain my breasts. They seemed enormous and unpredictable without a bra. Mom was in the chair next to the bed, under strict orders from me not to come near me or touch me or anything, and she was weeping. It was infuriating.

“Thank you,” Officer She-Man said to me, and she didn’t sound like she was grateful at all.

I folded my feet underneath me. It had been weeks since I’d shaved, and I didn’t want anyone to see the black prickles around my ankles. The doctor, also a woman (no man shall pass. Even Dad was in the hallway) came toward me to do the examination. I insisted I wasn’t hurt, but Dr. Levitt said that sometimes we’re in so much shock that we don’t realize we actually are hurt, and she just wanted to make sure that wasn’t the case. Would it be okay if she did that? I wanted to scream at her to stop talking to me like I was a five-year-old about to receive a tetanus shot. I’d just stuck a knife in someone’s chest.

“I’m sorry”—Officer She-Man stepped in Dr. Levitt’s path—“but I have to swab her first. You could destroy evidence in the examination.”

Dr. Levitt backed away. “Of course.”

Officer She-Man came at me with her little evidence collecting kit, and I suddenly realized how good I’d had it when it was just pretty Dr. Levitt who wanted to examine me. I still hadn’t cried yet. I’d seen enough Law & Orders to know this was probably because I was in shock, but that didn’t make me feel any better about it. I should have been crying, not thinking about dinner, how Mom would probably let me eat wherever I wanted after a day like this. Where should we go? My mouth watered as I considered the possibilities.

Officer She-Man swabbed the skin beneath my fingernails and that part was fine. But then she went for the opening of my hospital gown, and the tears came steady and fierce and I gripped Officer She-Man’s sausage wrists. “Stop!” I heard that word over and over again, and at first I thought it was Officer She-Man telling me to stop, but then I realized it was me and I was fighting her off like she was Dean, kicking, thrashing, biting. My gown opened and my titanic breasts spilled everywhere and when I realized Mom was over me now too and she was seeing my naked body I rolled on my side and threw up again. Some of it got on Officer She-Man’s dykey black slacks, and that almost made me smile.

When I came to I felt like I’d gone back in time. I thought that I was in the hospital because I’d had a reaction to the pot I’d smoked at Leah’s house. I thought, There must be so many people who are mad at me.

I patted my body down before I even opened my eyes, relieved to feel that someone had retied my hospital gown and pinned me in on both sides with a thick white blanket.

The room was empty and still, dusk shading the windows. Dinnertime. I wanted to go to Bertucci’s, I’d decided. Their focaccia and cheese bread was exactly what I was in the mood to eat.

I pushed myself onto my elbows, my triceps shaking in a way that made me realize how involved they were in everyday moments that I took for granted. There was a film coating my lips that my tongue couldn’t crack. It was stuck on good and I had to rub it off with a fist.

Suddenly the door swung open and Mom walked in. “Oh!” She took a step back, startled. There was a coffee cup and a stale pastry in her hand. I didn’t even drink coffee yet, but I wanted both I was so hungry. “You’re up.”

“What time is it?” I sounded raw. Like I was sick. I swallowed to make sure, but my throat didn’t hurt.

Mom shook her fake diamond Rolex out of her sleeve. “It’s six thirty.”

“Let’s go to Bertucci’s for dinner,” I said.

“Sweetie.” Mom hunched to sit on the edge of the bed but remembered my warning and snapped upright. “It’s six thirty in the morning.”

I looked out the window again, this revelation making me see the light outside as blossoming, rather than waning. “It’s morning?” I repeated. I was starting to feel woozy and weepy again. I was just so mad that I couldn’t understand anything. “Why did you let me sleep here?” I demanded.

“Dr. Levitt gave you that pill, remember?” Mom said. “To help you relax?”

I squinted, trying to see back through my memories, but I couldn’t. “I don’t remember,” I wailed. I covered my face with my hands. I was crying silently for something and I didn’t know what.

“Shhh, TifAni,” Mom whispered. I couldn’t see her, but I imagined she reached out before remembering again. Her sigh was resigned. “Let me get the doctor.”