Natalie Sypolt

In the Grass

Into the kitchen. Glasses, ice, pitcher of lemonade. I look out the window and out there, that’s Jessie, my best. She’s in the grass, and that’s my dog Bloomy licking her face. We started school together, shared graham crackers and cartons of chocolate milk. In first, she stuck a bean in her ear and I went with her to the Emergency Room after school cause she was scared and her dad didn’t know how to handle a crying girl. (Jessie has a dead mom and has ever since we met.) Now we’re 11 and I’m all skinny long legs and scabs and bruises. She’s all blond and soft and sunshiny. Sometimes I think how we’re just backwards from each other, but that’s why we work, why I tell her and she tells me and we’re the best of the best.

She has a brother, Brian, older, and he’s here too, front stoop, listening to music and reading a guide to driving. Muscle shirt cause he’s 16 and a football player and so much boy that sometimes when I stand next to him, my throat gets itchy dry, my heart feels like an unleashed exploding thing, and I don’t like him, then.

Bloomy needs a drink; her pink tongue is hanging out the side of her mouth and she’s rolling on her back. Jessie rolls too and I can almost hear her laughing from in here, but can’t because the air conditioner is humming. I get Bloomy’s big bowl and go to the bathroom. I don’t see Mom, but don’t think about it. Jessie’s dad’s here and is borrowing something. Our folks have been friends too, ever since Jessie and I became what Dad calls “the inseparables”. I figure they’re out in the garage, getting the thing for the yard, something of Dad’s. Dad is late shift, line worker, comes home when I’m in bed but not asleep. I go out some times when he eats his dinner, old, warmed, and I watch him. Mom doesn’t get up and he doesn’t tell and when I’m tired in the morning for school, I say “bad dreams.”

Mom’s room and the door’s open a crack. I hear something, whispers, moving. I look in, see bare parts like elbows and knees and the place on somebody’s back that you hardly ever see. I know not to make a noise.

In the bathroom, I fill Bloomy’s bowl.

Jessie is still in the grass. Her hair is in pigtails because it’s long and thick, but mine is a skinny ponytail. Bloomy comes when I put down her bowl and she drinks like she’s never had a drink before, like that’s the last water on the Earth.

“Didn’t you get the lemonade?” Jessie says. She looks the same, but I see different. I blink and blink and the bright sun bounces white off everything. Jessie is brightest. I blink again and feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Brian and he’s saying something. I see his lips move, but I can’t tell words. His hand burns me and I go hot and red. I take off and before I know it, I’m running at Jessie. I see her face first go confused and then scared, but she doesn’t try to get up. She doesn’t try to run because she’s just a kid and I’m her best. I fly at her, knocking her hard onto the ground, hitting her with my balled up hands, straddling her stomach and beating her. For once I’m glad my legs are long and that I’m not pretty.

“Lizzy, Lizzy,” she says, but I don’t stop until I feel arms around my waist and somebody strong is pulling me. It’s Brian and he’s saying my name over and over, “Lizzy! Lizzy!”

Jessie is crying and so am I. She’s got blood coming from her nose. She’s hurt because I hit her, because maybe her nose is broken.

I want to say a million things, to make deep, gashing cuts.

“Your mom is dead!” I scream. “Dead mother! Dead mother!” I make another lunge for her, but I’m not strong and so skinny that I might break in two, like some brittle twig, the way Brian’s arms crush me. I hope I will. I’m already ugly, terrible and broken.