18. age sixteen
age sixteen
Nearly four months before Nat disappeared, I sat on the edge of my bed, curled in the fetal position.
It was past one in the morning. My ears strained for sound, and my eyes were locked on Nat’s bedroom door across the hall.
It was closed, but it would rattle slightly when she came back into her room.
We’d fallen into a dangerous routine of weekends like this.
Mom and Dad went to bed by ten o’clock, so long as they weren’t arguing, and Nat snuck out approximately fifteen minutes after their bedroom door shut. I promised to cover for Nat if one of them happened to wake in the middle of the night and checked her bedroom.
I didn’t imagine either of them would do such a thing. Mom took sleeping pills. She’d be out until the morning. Dad sometimes got up in the middle of the night, but only to get a glass of water or go to the bathroom. They wouldn’t check to make sure Nat was where she was supposed to be.
If they did, I didn’t realistically know what I’d say. I’d have a better chance of distracting them, of keeping them from entering her room at all. My plan—my very half-baked plan, honestly—was that I’d pretend to be sick and demand all the attention for myself.
I had no idea if it’d work. I had no idea what my punishment would be if Dad discovered I was covering for Nat while she went out with friends. This little system of ours had started over a month ago, but I’d yet to feel secure in it. I had yet to fall asleep before she came home.
We agreed on midnight. That was when she was supposed to be back, dropped off by Michael or Shayna or whoever else she was with. Nat promised she only ever got into the car with a sober driver, but I wasn’t sure I believed her.
I didn’t know when it happened, but I’d started questioning everything my sister said.
Tonight was only more confirmation that she couldn’t be trusted.
It was twenty minutes past one o’clock, more than an hour since the time she promised to be here.
If this went on much longer, I was going to have to reschedule with Atlas.
We had morning plans—he’d found a cool hiking trail he wanted to show me, and I’d convinced him we needed to bring a breakfast picnic.
He’d agreed, because he was the best boyfriend, the best friend I’d ever had.
Unlike with Nat, I never questioned his promises.
My eyes burned with exhaustion, and eventually, I had to get out of bed to keep from falling asleep. I paced my room for what felt like hours. In reality, it was less than forty-five minutes. Just before two a.m., the telltale sign of Nat’s arrival stopped my pacing.
A small screech for the window lifting, too quiet to hear unless you were listening for it. Another screech as it went back down.
I crept to my doorway, stealing a glance at Mom and Dad’s bedroom. The only sound from that direction was their fan. We were in the clear—
Something heavy fell in Nat’s bedroom, followed immediately by her high-pitched giggle.
In the past, I hadn’t gone into Nat’s room after she returned.
It felt too risky, so I only waited until she got home before going to sleep.
Now though, she was being too risky all by herself.
It sounded like she was rummaging through her drawers, clanking the metal handles, occasional laughter bursting from her.
I rocked on my heels, then forward onto my toes. Indecision pulsed through me. When she dropped something else, laughed louder, my mind was made for me.
I hurried across the hall, heart beating so loud I was sure that might be the reason Dad woke up. He’d kill us if he found out what was going on. At the very least, he’d kill Nat. Yell at her until he was purple in the face. Punch a wall. Shake her until she got some sense inside her thick skull.
When I entered Nat’s room, it took her a moment to notice me.
She was throwing random articles of clothing out of her dresser, letting the shirts and pants litter her rug.
A half-finished wine cooler sat on her nightstand, and her window wasn’t fully closed.
A sharp breeze filtered through the crack.
I eased her door closed, careful not to make a sound. That was when Nat realized I was there, and a goofy grin took over her determined expression. She slammed the drawer she’d been searching and stumbled toward me, tripping over a pair of discarded jeans.
“Sissy!” she slurred, far too loud. Before I could respond, her arms were around me in a deadweight hug.
I had to adjust my stance to keep us both from falling.
In the past few months, I’d outgrown my sister.
We’d both been five foot seven since I was in the eighth grade, but I’d randomly gone through a growth spurt this summer.
I was now five foot nine, and with her glomming on me, our heights seemed farther apart than ever.
She felt almost child-like, aside from the fact she reeked of alcohol.
“Shh,” I hissed. I grabbed her shoulders and peeled her off me, working double-time to keep her from toppling over.
Her cheeks were flushed, and there was something weird about her eyes.
I’d never been drunk before. I’d never even been around drunk people, except for Dad, but that barely counted.
Whenever Dad drank in excess, I locked myself in my room.
Still, I was sure he didn’t look like this when he drank. Nat’s pupils were so big they almost blotted out her brown irises completely. She grinned at me, looking eerily like a character from The Purge.
“Are you okay?”
I wasn’t sure what I’d do if she needed help. I couldn’t exactly go get Mom or Dad. And even though I now had my license, it wasn’t like I could take the car without them realizing. I also couldn’t go to the ER without the bill ending up in their mailbox.
“I am so good,” Nat informed me. “The best ever.”
“Are you drunk?” I asked, even though she obviously was.
“Only a little.” Nat wiggled out of my hold and returned to her dresser. She was moving all the shirts from the second drawer to the first. “But not too much, I promise.”
“Nat, go to bed.” I grabbed her shoulders again, expecting her to fight me, but she didn’t. She stumbled over her strewn clothes and flopped onto her mattress. I rolled her over and started undressing her. As it was, she was wearing a cute black dress that she kept hidden in the back of her closet.
“I’ve had a lot of sex,” she declared as I took off her sandals. I laid her shoes at the foot of her bed and roughly tugged her dress off her shoulders. “With Michael, obviously. And that was fine. But I had it with someone else tonight.”
“You did?” I swallowed. I was so far out of my element I couldn’t think of anything more to say. Nat had been dating Michael for a couple years now, and while I thought their age gap was weird, I never said anything, not since that first time.
“Michael dumped me.” Nat flopped her arms out, and one struck the wall. She snorted with laughter, and I uselessly looked over my shoulder at the closed door. I couldn’t hear anything from Mom and Dad’s room, but that didn’t mean they weren’t hearing us.
“I’m sorry, Nat.”
“It was only a few days ago,” she continued. “I didn’t think he’d be at the party tonight, but he was, and it pissed me off. So I slept with James. Probably shouldn’t have. It wasn’t even very good.”
James was Michael’s friend. He was over thirty, if I remembered right. As much as I wanted to tell Nat that was gross and weird and that she was hanging out with pedophiles, I didn’t. Luckily, she kept talking to fill my silence.
“The stuff he gave me was good though.”
“The stuff?”
“Mmhm.” Nat closed her eyes, but I got the distinct impression she wasn’t tired. I pulled a pair of shorts up her legs, then a baggy T-shirt over her head. I imagined this was similar to dressing a corpse, the way she flopped around, no help at all. “But it was a one-time thing. Promise.”
I froze. She was talking about drugs, I realized. He’d given her drugs. Was it going to kill her? Make her violently ill?
“Is it good with Atlas?” Nat asked, and I was glad her eyes were closed.
“Oh, we um, we haven’t had sex.” I assumed Nat knew that.
Maybe she did. This drunk version of my sister felt like a different person.
When she woke up sober, she’d tell me she knew I was a virgin.
She’d also assure me I misunderstood. She obviously wasn’t doing drugs and having sex with thirty-year-old men.
“Why not?” Her eyes popped open, and that unsettling smile from before returned. “He’s so in love with you, Vi.”
I didn’t have an answer to that. I knew Atlas was in love with me, and he knew I was in love with him. Telling her the truth, that I was nervous and so was he, wouldn’t be satisfying for her. She’d think we were stupid, and I didn’t want to hear it.
“It’s not fair.” She closed her eyes again, mouth set in a harsh line.
I pulled the comforter over her and stepped back, unsure what to do next.
She didn’t seem like she was sleepy, but at least she was quiet.
Nat opened one eye, and squinted at me. “It’s not fair, Vi. That he loves you and no one loves me.”
“Lots of people love you,” I said. But that wasn’t what she meant, and I knew it. “I love you. Mom loves you. Phoebe does too, if you’d just make up already.”
“People only love me sometimes,” Nat said. She closed her eyes again. “They love me until they ruin me, and then they don’t want me anymore.”
“You’re not ruined, Nat.” I brushed a few wayward strands of her hair away from her face. “You’re just…”
I trailed off as I fussed with her blankets. Nat rolled away from me, and even though I knew she was awake, I told myself she’d fallen asleep, just so I didn’t feel guilty for leaving that sentence unfinished.