Warning: This chapter contains horrible and disturbingly graphic scenes.
Chapter 18
It was only by a stroke of luck that the four of us – Becca wanted to take Yuri, who wanted to take Tamara – managed to get into the private visiting area of the Alistair General Hospital. Daddy hadn’t thought he was needed at work that day, but the accident caused him to be paged in immediately.
My Daddy could do anything. I just hoped that he wouldn’t be able to revive Cora.
That wouldn’t do.
We weren’t the only ones in the visiting area – a tall, balding man in a stark grey uniform paced up and down in front of us, refusing to pay us the slightest bit of attention. He knew that we were here. He just didn’t have the energy to care. The entire atmosphere was bated and tense, and I knew by the way Tammy was digging her nails into a cushion that she was trying hard not to break down.
The whole afternoon had been quite a shock on everybody. Cora, while being the quietest and most reserved person in the world, was still loved by many in Alistair. It had only been a couple of hours, but news of her episode had already spread like wildfire.
“Arthur!” A woman cried nearby. My head turned towards the sound; the woman was in her early 40’s at least, her hair dishevelled and her high heels clutched in her hands. She might have been beautiful if it weren’t for the ugly mascara streaks down her face, and how her square jaw didn’t suit her hairstyle.
She must be Mrs. Grey. Cora’s mother.
“Oh, Arthur,” she wailed, clutching her husband tightly, breathing as heavily as Cora had before her collapse. “Oh God, how is she? Have you been to see her? Is she okay? What-“
“Shh, shh.” Arthur’s hands shook as he wiped the mascara stains from her cheeks. His voice was soft, and yet very dry and husky. Cora must have inherited it. “We can’t see her yet. But Theodore Griffin’s said that it was a cardiac arrest.”
The woman couldn’t take it anymore – the news brought her to her knees. She seemed to have aged in a split second. Her fingers clutched her head desperately. “Jesus, no. No, no, no.”
Yuri stood up, making her presence known, and helped Mr. Arthur Grey pick his wife up from the ground and into an armrest. “Would you like some tea, Charlotte?” she offered kindly.
Charlotte’s glassy brown eyes blinked a couple of times, seemingly unable to focus on anything. “Oh, Yuri, you’re here. Thank you. You were there when it happened, yes? Tell me what happened.” There was a tone of desperation in there, mingling with dread.
She looked down at her toes, putting on a strong face. Her chin jutted out. Her voice, however, still cracked when she spoke, “We were in the middle of a volleyball game. Cora wasn’t handling it well - in fact, she hadn’t been handling sport well at all in the past couple of weeks. All of a sudden, she just collapsed. I wish we could have done something, Charlotte, I really do-“
Charlotte burst into tears once more. “Oh god. We couldn’t save her, could we? She didn’t want to be saved!” Her sobs turned into wails, and Tammy’s hand moved from the cushion to my arm, where she dug her nails in to stop from breaking down herself.
Arthur embraced his wife, crying now himself, overcome with the grief of a child who was destroyed by her own administrations. They obviously loved her very much, and did everything in their power to fight Cora’s mental disorder and restore her health. All those dieticians and therapists and protein shakes – in the end, it was worthless.
They were right. How could you save someone who didn’t want to be saved?
***
Cora died, of course. Unfortunately, Daddy was given the task of breaking the news to Mr. and Mrs. Grey. Cora Grey had dealt with a negative body image her entire life, and had begun dieting at the age of thirteen. By fifteen, it was no longer a six-week plan to lose some extra weight – it had become something serious.
The damage it created was irreversible – her bones hadn’t developed properly, her blood cell levels decreased, her muscles starved of nutrients, and her heart just couldn’t cope. Her menstrual cycle also stopped, and had ceased permanently for over two years.
Even if she had survived, Cora would never have been able to produce children.
This brought forward an onslaught of heart and respiratory complications, most of which she took medicine for, on top of excess amounts of laxatives. Just as when she began to show signs of recovering – just when she finally begun to eat carrot cubes and tiny sips of Coke – she relapsed yet again into her old ways.
This time, all the interventions in the world wouldn’t have worked. The only way Cora could’ve gotten thinner was to be a skeleton, and that’s exactly what she became.
Cora’s heart stopped beating in the middle of that volleyball game, much like Michaela’s had. Just as Cora made impact on the hard ground, her spine, having been weakened to the point where it had the strength of a dry sponge, fractured severely. Several blood vessels burst inside the cerebral cortex of her brain.
She had been a corpse long before that ambulance had come.
As the grief spilled open in the room like ripe yolk, I contemplated whether I really was the source of her death. Even if I hadn’t complimented her that day, and I hadn’t complimented her regularly ever since, would Cora still have died? Would her heart still have collapsed, and her bones fracture?
Absolutely.
And the thought brought an itch under my skin. An itch that I couldn’t scratch.
I stayed in the hospital until daylight broke out. Tammy, having cried herself hoarse, had fallen asleep on my shoulder. Arthur, Charlotte and Yuri wanted to see her body for the last time. Yuri had left a while ago, but Cora’s parents were still in there. The ten cups of coffee inside my stomach prevented me from sleeping. Daddy would take us home whenever his shift ended, which was soon.
Tammy sniffled suddenly, shaking me out of my trance. “Renee?” she croaked, overcome with grief. Cora’s death, along with her own situation, must have been having a tremendous effect on her. “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
Her question sounded so childish, so utterly vulnerable and naïve, that I was taken aback for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“Look at us – look at all of us. It’s only been a couple of months since school started, and now Shanelle’s in jail, Georgia’s in a convent, I can’t afford a bus ride home, and Cora’s dead.” At this, she broke into tears. “I just want it all to stop.”
I hesitated very briefly, before stroking her hair. A strange feeling settled over me, and I had yet to decipher whether it was good or bad – yes, I had built up quite a collection in Alistair. But having them listed off, one by one, was something I hadn’t been used to hearing. I cleared my throat, deciding to dodge her question. She wouldn’t like my answer. “Daddy’ll drop you home, sweetie. In fact, I’m sure he would drive you around for the rest of his life, if you were okay with it.”
She frowned. “You missed my point.”
Had I? I sighed. “Look, we have to take the good with the bad in life.” It was a trashy, new-agey bullshit thing to say, as it did no help to anyone. A line like that was something I expected to come from Gwen. “All these things… these horrible things keep happening because, well, they just have to.”
She flinched. “Do they really have to happen, though?” There was a steely sharpness in her voice. “Did I really have to be robbed in order to solve the mysteries of the universe? Do you think Cora’s parents are sitting in that room, thinking, ‘Oh well. Guess it had to happen. We did the world a favour.’”
“No, of course not,” I almost snapped, but managed to control myself just in time. “I didn’t mean it like that. But who am I to know why these things keep happening? It’s not like I’m doing them.”
“Poppy? Tammy?” Daddy came out of the emergency rooms, out of his scrubs and fully cleaned, looking like he hadn’t slept in a hundred years. “I’m so sorry, guys. I did everything I could to keep her breathing.”
Tammy shook her head. “S’not your fault, sir.”
He smiled, albeit sadly. “My name is Ted, Tammy. You can call me Ted.”
“Are you finished with your shift?” I asked him, standing up and stretching my legs. I still kept a mask of grieve and mourning over my face, and Daddy reached over, rubbing my shoulder.
“Yes. Let’s go home.”
***
I opted to stay home the next day, feeling too burned-out to walk around school with fake tears down my face. I watched the news with Gwen instead, thinking about all the other things I could be doing than staring at her piece of shit television.
“Are you okay?” she asked for the billionth time, making me grind my teeth. I wished more than anything that she would shut up. She’d offered me three cups of tea so far. She couldn’t sit still for more than a minute.
“Tired, is all. I don’t really feel like doing much,” I mumbled, closing my eyes.
She wrapped an arm around me, giving off a strong jasmine smell. Gwyneth had work off, too. I wondered why. “Oh, I’m sorry for your loss. Cora's mother was a very frequent client of mine, actually. They’re good people.” She stared off into the distance, heaving a sigh that seemed to come from deep within her bones. “The poor girl just had too many demons to battle.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. There was no such thing as demons – the otherworldly kind, I meant. Humans were the demons.
I was about to make an excuse about being tired and go back to my room, before the newscaster said something that caught my attention.
“In other news, a rise in eating disorders has doctors terrified in Alistair. Seventeen year-old Cora Grey was announced dead this morning after an on going battle with anorexia that lasted four years. Friends and family are devastated, and the exclusive town is said to be planning on raising awareness for young women about the dangers of extreme dieting. Divinia Nicks has the story.”
It happened 18 hours ago. How on Earth did the media already know? Was it due to Alistair’s notorious past? Or was it something else? I returned back to my room, saying very little to Gwen.
Tammy was next. But as I sat there in silence, staring blankly at an open page in Genesis, I contemplated yet again how I would go about this.
Depression wasn’t far off to what Tammy was going through. That I was sure of. Why else would she need counselling, and why else did we have to physically drag her out of bed every morning?
Carefully, looking up to check that the door was indeed locked, I took out everything that I had stolen from Tammy’s bag and laid it out, one by one, in front of me. The laptop had been more that useful, as well as her diary. Her house keys, phone and lipstick were a little unnecessary, though.
… Or were they?
I flicked over to Tamara Lilley’s page and brainstormed, thinking up a variety of solutions. They were all sorts of ways I could kill her – including the good old-fashion stab in the heart. But hadn’t I been leading to something a little more dramatic? If I wanted to kill her, and if I wanted it to be spectacular, then I needed to use a little creativity. I opened the tube of lipstick absentmindedly, rolling the scarlet tube up and down. Up and down. It took me a while to see the name engraved on the side of the lid.
Luckily, I was nothing if not creative.
Suddenly, what felt like a lightbulb flashed vividly inside my mind. The familiar savage excitement came tumbling back, bringing with it the thrill of a new plan.
I wouldn’t waste my energy on killing her. She could do that perfectly well on her own.
***
I met up with Eli in a tiny café. We sat and brainstormed for almost an hour, looking for the whereabouts of Tamara’s mother.
“She’s in New York City,” he muttered, his breath smelling like tobacco and whisky. I breathed in the smell leisurely. Eli had definitely taken care of himself since he was released from jail – his mother had pulled a hat trick, apparently. This was probably the third and final time that she could have gotten away with paying the police off.
Thank God for Mrs. Lincoln.
“And you know for sure?” I asked.
He nodded, his thick eyebrows furrowed together. He didn’t seem too drunk, but his eyes gave off a dangerous feel. Maybe that was just the way he was. “We tracked her phone number, didn’t we?” He snapped, a little annoyed, throwing Tammy’s phone carelessly on the table.
I glared at him – soon he would learn that he absolutely couldn’t take that fucking tone with me. “What if she comes back?”
“She won’t.” His tone was firm and unsympathetic. He spoke every word he said with conviction, like he was always correct, and that anyone would be stupid to say otherwise.
I had to ask. I hated trusting information I had no way of backing. “How do you know?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked, turning his head towards me. A waitress was eyeing us from the counter, wondering why we hadn’t ordered anything in the past hour. “She’s hiding. Why would she come back to her broke as fuck family who depend on her too much? She doesn’t need to. She doesn’t want to.”
I stared at him heavily. “You seem to know an awful lot about runaway mothers.”
He smiled his secretive smile. “I could name a few.”
But I had to trust his logic. What he was suggesting was probably true – it’s been over a fortnight since everything was stolen from Tamara’s family, and she’s had every chance to come back. Even if she wasn’t hiding, she could have been seriously injured, preventing her to return to her family.
Either excuse worked. In the end, it mattered very little.
It took a while to negotiate when we would strike, and I told Eli everything I could, thinking back to when Tammy and I had had that particular conversation.
I had been watching her cry into her pillow for an hour, trying not to let my irritation show. We were supposed to leave for school any minute, and yet she couldn’t even lift herself out of bed. Her weakness was mortifying. “Are you’re sure they can’t find her?”
“Yes!” She moaned, almost dry heaving now, having shed so many tears in the past couple of days. “We don’t know where she is. She never said!”
“Do you remember what she was wearing, at least?” I asked. My need to know anything and everything couldn’t help but wonder. I never knew when it could come in handy.
She hiccupped, wiping her face with a tissue and adding to the pile she’d already created on the bed. Her eyes had sunken so low into her face that she might as well have been sixty. “Yeah… yeah, I think so,” she admitted.
I leaned in intently. “What?”
“Her usual gambling dress,” she mumbled. “The Stella McCartney kind. It was green, and I know it came from her ’09 summer collection. That I remember. We bought it together online.” If Tammy could remember one thing, it was anything fashion related. She then began to gesture to her shoulders. “It had big ruffles and a plunging neckline.”
“That’s it?” I asked, wanting to squeeze out as much information as possible.
She laughed once; it sounded painful. “You’re beginning to sound like Dad.”
I smiled. “Sorry. Just curious.”
Thank God for one-day shipping.
Having a small fortune of cash to spend was extremely helpful, too. It only took a little browsing to find the dress Tammy had described to me, and, hoping that it was the right one, I purchased the two-hundred dollar garment and had it delivered to my house the following day.
Daddy was surprised at the sight of my delivery, probably thinking that I was too filled with grief to splurge on a dress that was three sizes too big. “I didn’t know you’d bought anything, Poppy.”
I looked down at the dress bag I was carrying. It hid the dress from prying eyes, so that Daddy couldn't know its design in case he grew suspicious. “Sorry, I forgot to tell you. I purchased it before… well, before – Cora-“
“It’s okay. Don’t worry, I wasn’t accusing,” he eased up, smiling sympathetically. “You can buy whatever you want. You’re a teenager – that’s what you do.”
I offered him a brilliant smile, one that he couldn’t help but smile back to. “Thanks, Daddy.”
“Now, don’t forget,” he called just before he begun to turn to his room. “We’re viewing the house on Sunday. Make sure you remember.”
“I will!” I called back. After closing the door and shutting it tightly, I opened my drawers and prepared everything I needed – scissors, a small little knife, and some dark, gritty mineral eye shadow that closely resembled dirt. Taking the pretty new dress out of its back, I decided that it smelled just a little too new.
Tammy would definitely suspect that something was off.
I hesitated for a moment, before taking action. I opened the door and headed straight for the cosy little laundry room, shoving the emerald dress into the ancient washing machine.
Ew. Chores.
I only set it on quick rinse, and not knowing what the fuck I was doing, poured half a bottle of detergent. The machine rumbled on nicely, so I hadn’t completely stuffed up. But I didn’t feeling quite so satisfied yet – even if I washed it, wouldn’t it smell too clean? Too lemony fresh for a woman to have worn it during her death?
Whatever the cost, I could not, would not, stuff this up.
I began to search high and low, inside every nook and cranny of the laundry room, trying to find something that would smell awful. I found a little tray of cigarette butts – which was odd, since nobody in the house smoked – then ventured around the rest of the house. By the time the machine beeped, telling me that the dress was ready, I had collected travel-sized bottles of whisky (which I kept), one of Daddy’s year-old socks, a small little tin of stove gasoline, and a cologne which Daddy tried once and absolutely hated.
The dress was still damp, so I took the opportunity to artfully spill whisky and gasoline across the front and back of the dress. The fumes made the task unbearable, and I became light-headed before the dress – and Daddy’s sock – even made it to the dryer.
Gwen was out in the supermarket. Thank God.
I took the offending fabric – no longer resembling a chic, stylish little dress, but something of a cloth rag – into my room. In there, I spent almost an hour getting the rips and tears perfected. Suddenly I was a child again, spreading glue on a canvas board with Daddy for the base of our macaroni portrait. Finishing the final touches, I scattered all the cigarette butts and rubbed the ash into the fabric, sprayed patches of men’s cologne, rubbed dirt-like eye shadow into the bullet holes, and, for the final touch, made a clean cut on the palm of my hand and wiped my blood hazardly across the front and back of the dress.
There.
Taking the cute little pink box I’d purchased beforehand, I took the rag cloth and folded in neatly, placing it inside amongst the tissue paper. It smelled heavily of gas, alcohol, cigarettes and men – the perfect gamblers cocktail. Before wrapping it all up in a pretty little bow, I took out the tube of lipstick and wrote on the bottom of the lid, emphasising on a bubbly girlish handwriting.
This is what happens when Mommy can’t pay back what she owes. xox
Eli would deliver it to the Lilley residence – with or without a little property damage first.
***
School next day was just as depressing as I thought it would be, as the shock of Cora’s death still radiated across all campuses. The funeral, according to Sal, would be held in a couple of days.
She threw her arms around me as soon as she spotted me, and together we both wept tears of sorrow for the friend we had both lost. Yuri and Becca, both wearing identical faces of misery, joined us. Together, we hugged as a group and took comfort in the fact that Cora had been the closest to us, and she would forever be in our hearts.
Right.
The four of us – three when Sal went off to her own classes – walked around Greymare as a pack. Students and teachers alike were aware of how close Cora had been to us, and were giving condolences whenever they could. Jack and Seb hugged us individually, their faces serious for once. They had never been a time when these two were serious.
“We’re sorry, man,” Seb offered. “Shouldn’t have happened this way.”
“We’re sorry, too,” Becca sighed, the bags under her eyes still visible through her makeup.
Trevor, however, had stopped becoming cute and wholesome, and began to grow clingy. It was his way of showing sympathy, I knew, but that didn’t make him less annoying. Straight after hockey practice, he made his way straight to my locker and cornered me into a hug. “Baby, I’m sorry.”
I pretended to cry anyway, feeling as if I was wasting my tears on someone pointless. “I know. It’s just so- so hard…”
“Shhh.” He held me tenderly, swaying gently from side to side, gaining sympathetic glances from passing students. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ll always be here for you, okay? Always. You talk to me about anything.”
Oh, joy.
Underneath all of my acting was a thin buzz of anticipation. The itch that I longed to scratch. Where was Tammy, and why hadn’t she come to school today? Had Eli delivered the package exactly as we had planned?
The day trudged on unbearably slowly, and by the last period I was on the edge of my seat, ready to bolt out of the room as soon as that bell went off.
“Daddy?” I asked, breathless, as he picked me up from school. The front seat door was still wide open, letting in a blast of cold air. He looked surprised at my hurried expression. “Could we please go to Tammy’s? She didn’t come to school today, and I’m really worried.”
“Of course,” he agreed immediately, his shock melting away. He thought I was just overly concerned for a friend, like the perfect little daughter I was.
Her father wasn’t home – which was lucky. He never seemed to be home lately, and I often found the door being answered by Tim. This time, it took longer for him to get to the doorbell, and I frowned, sensing that there was something wrong.
“Hello?” I asked, pressing the button again. I was practically bouncing on the balls of my feet. My excitement almost made me miss the fact that the front window had, indeed, been smashed through.
After several moments, I turned the doorknob in my hand. It opened without complaint.
I took my time, holding my breath against the increasingly foul smell of Tammy’s house. Dishes were all over the place, some even knocking over candles, and the living room had run amok. Her house was slowly falling apart.
It was incredible how I’d missed the sound of screaming from where I was. The wasn’t screaming so much as shrieking now – the blood-curdling sound of someone who had passed the stage of sobbing and crying, and was now screaming their despair unintelligibly.
It was Tim. Of course it was.
Immediately, I made my way to the sound of his grief-stricken wails, and found myself at Tammy’s door. With my heart pumping furiously in my chest, my blood rushing through capillaries at an unsteady speed, I pushed the door open.
And almost threw up.
Above Tim's shaking, hysterical form was Tamara Lilley - cold, lifeless, eyes still open, hanging from a makeshift rope attached to the ceiling fan.
***