*14*

"Tess," he says shakily, "Tess wants me to help her kill somebody."

I'm thinking dead people.

I'm thinking life in prison.

I'm thinking big mistake.

...

And I say: "Oh."

Would it be extremely horrible of me to say I told you so?

Probably.

"Liz?"

"Umm...what did you tell her?"

"I didn't tell her anything..." Max is seriously freaking out. "Liz...she's.....God, have you seen her arms?"

I think about Tess's arms. She's been covering them up. "Max, she's been staying at my house....I don't see how.."

"Just look at her arms."

I hear a noise from below. "When did your guys' date end?" I ask.

"A few minutes ago."

"Fuck, she's here, I gotta go."

"Liz, what the hell am I gonna do."

"Your gonna...calm down..."

I'm not big on comfort.

"And your gonna, breathe. God, I dunno, go watch TV or something." I slam the phone down before Tess walks into my room.

When I look at her, I think about those after school specials where the wrinkled over-sexual woman gets this young stud to kill her husband. I think about Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuco. Bitter revenge and bullets and paralysis and facial disfiguration. People that treat people like puppets, scapegoating, weak people taking the fall for the weaker.

Tess has got this look in her eye that I could imagine people getting when they're dead. I've only seen one dead body before, my grandmother. Fortunately, her eyes were closed.

Correction: Two dead bodies. I saw Tess's dead body once, covered in blood and walking around like a zombie. Maybe she was never really brought back to life.

I open my mouth not knowing what the hell I'm gonna say. My guess is that it will be mean. It doesn't matter because she speaks before I do.

"You talked to Max," She says.

I nod.

"You don't get to be mad," She says.

When she talks, the top of her lip curves up like she's holding something in, tears or screams or something along those lines.

Her eyes drift downward and she stands in my doorway, clutching at the frame. She seems paralyzed. Rigermortis must be setting in. Even her hair is dying, It used to be so bouncy and fair, now it just hangs there in wavy, broken off pieces, taking on a sheen of piss yellow.

"I can't even feel anymore," she says. "I'm numb."

Even her outfit is dying. She has this long jacket that ties at the waist and flares out at her hips. She always used to give me these fashion tips: Wear long jackets 'cause they make you look taller. Her jacket just hangs on her like a dead animal. Even the outfit is dying.

"I won't let him take the fall," she says, "I'll take the fall, one hundred percent. I don't care, I just can't do it by myself."

Even her eyes are dying, turning yellow. She used to tell me: Wear white eyeliner to make your eyes look bigger. Blush, she used to say, is instant pretty. She used to tell me I didn't need to wear blush. She said I was a natural blusher. Her cheeks are pale, even her cheeks are dying.

"So you don't get to be mad," she says. "At least you can still feel."

Even her voice is dead.

"If you tell anyone, I'll deny it. Cheerleading practice was a real doozy sheriff. Fell on my ass and got bruised up and down."

I say, "Why."

She says, "Because I don't want Kyle to know."

"Kyle does know, Tess."

"No," she says, "He doesn't know everything."

Jesus Christ.

I walk up to Tess with my wide eyes. I think both of us are about to cry now. I push the jacket a little bit off her shoulder. I don't need to push it much to see that even her arms are dying. Dark purple, almost black, dead, that's all, just dead. I clench my eyes when I see it and she pulls her jacket back up, probably thinking she's a disgusting monster.

"Tess, when did you go home?"

"I went yesterday, to get some things."

"Is it your dad?"

"I'm not telling you."

This one's a no brainer, she lives alone with her dad.

"Take off your jacket," I tell her, "I'll get some ice, okay?"

She shakes her head.

"It's okay Tess," I say, "It'll feel better."

And when I make it down to the Crashdown ice bin, that's when the tears come. They're not selfish tears. They're tears for her. I don't want her to die.

I don't want her to hurt.

I want her to be normal Tess, walking around without a care in the world. Treating me like a social leper. Making the school into a caste system. Making fun of my fucking outfits, giving me fashion tips. I don't care. I just want her to stop hurting.

I can do this for her. I can swallow my pride and do this. I can comfort her and take care of her and become her fucking bodyguard if that's what it takes. I can try to convince her that there's another way to go about this. I can try to convince her that Kyle won't care what the hell has happened to her.

And no one is going to lay a goddamn finger on her again. I'm willing to bet money on that, lots of money. I'm willing to bet my life on that.

And no one is going to freaking die. Not her, not her dad.

Though, I would give my left arm to kick him in the face.

I fill a plastic bag full of ice and bring it back up to my room. She's sitting on my bed crying with those dead arms of hers. It's hard to believe they're really arms.

I lightly place the bag where the bruises are the most swollen, wipe some tears out of my eyes, and say, "Tess, Kyle won't care."

She just shakes her head and says, "Kyle can't know."

Then she breaks down, completely. Kyle is her weakness. "I love him," she says, her tears pouring over the shoulder of my shirt, "I never meant to hurt him."

And I swallow my own tears and stroke her hair, "It's not your fault, you didn't do anything wrong."

We stay like this for an hour. Me trying to convince her she's not a monster, me trying to convince her that she doesn't deserve this, me trying to convince her that I'm not just saying all this.

She tells me she feels ugly, that she doesn't want to talk about this anymore. We go into the bathroom and sadly sit around on the sink, I put some hot oil conditioner shit in her hair, and she paints my nails lavender.

She likes doing girly things like this. I'm not having such a bad time, maybe she's rubbing off on me. We do a load of laundry and she says, "You should wear more dark red and warmer colors, you're an autumn."

I smile.

We give each other pedicures and she slathers some green shit all over my face. She says, "You should do this more often, keeps your pores clean."

I smile again. Fashion tips, beauty tips, keep them coming Tess. I know that this isn't such a big step. I know there's more to her than fashion tips and beauty tips. But it's a start.

So I go to bed. I let Tess sleep in my bed, it's big, and I don't care 'cause I like her now.

And I feel numb too. Probably not in the same way that she feels numb, but numb nevertheless. 'Cause I don't know how I'm supposed to feel.

I can't be jealous of her anymore. Nobody could.

I don't want to be her anymore.

But I still don't want Max to have anything to do with this.
I don't think he would kill anyone for her, I don't think he's that stupid. I used to, not anymore. But this situation, it's bad. And it's starting to spin out of control.

And it needs to stop, before somebody does something they regret.