Love Bites

Hard Landing

"We don't know how it happened," Prue was shrilling to one of the detectives that arrived on scene. "We'd just left Mean Queen and were headed to Sawmill when he—he just fell onto our van from the treetops..." She buried her head into Ethan's shoulder, while I leaned against an old elm, trying to catch my breath.

Amberlyn was clinging onto Jeremiah's jean jacket, while the guy himself was now looking every bit as close to upchucking his dinner as Roland had. Katelyn looked more bemused than ever on how to comfort Roland, who was sitting on the curb with his head crammed into his knees, though she herself didn't look much better off. Heatherlyn was crying and squawking into the phone to a still very likely inebriated Cortez.

As awful a thing it was that he'd done to me, I wondered if he had enough heart left in him to even care about Heatherlyn's obstinate distress, after betraying her so openly just an hour before. Ethan was the only one of us who appeared to have retained his wits about him, as he took over explaining things to the police.

"Did you kids know the victim?" asked Detective Neil, the shorter, younger of the two men interviewing us.

"Yes, sir, he was our history teacher last year," Ethan explained, cooly. "He was supposed to teach senior history this year, too, but we were told he wouldn't make it this semester. We just assumed he was sick or something."

"He was—he was a great teacher," I murmured, but the night had become so eerily still that I was sure the detectives heard me, "a great man. Always has been." Memories of Mr. Davenport sparing many kind words during my struggles with Sheri's relapses, offerings of extensions on homework assignments, and encouragements to keep at my studies despite my problems at home, came to mind.

He was one of the few people I'd confided in during this time, and one of the even fewer who was really of any help. Now he was gone, and any recollections of him would be tainted by horrible images of his seeping face and gutted body.

I slammed my face into the crook of my arm, looking up again only when I felt Ethan's presence at my shoulder.

Detective Cavanaugh, the taller, older of the two men handed Ethan a card. "I know this night's been extremely distressing for you and your friends, but if you're able to remember anything else about what you saw, please give us a call."

Ethan skimmed the card briefly and nodded. "Of course, detectives. Thank you."

It was in that moment that I caught Detective Cavanaugh eyeing Ethan critically, a white brow twitching in stealthily concealed bemusement. I was shaken by this, and I didn't think it was possible to feel anymore bereavement than I did at that moment.

"We'll be getting in contact with your parents, seeing as their vehicle will be taken in for a thorough search. But we'll have one of the officers give you all a lift home." Detective Neil then left to speak with the policemen standing guard outside the yellow crime tape.

"Thank you." Prue retreated from her boyfriend's arm to wipe her face dry with the sleeve of her windbreaker. "I really just wanna get the hell out of here, now."

✧✧✧✧✧

No one said a word as the two officers assigned to give us a ride home dropped each one of us off at our houses. I hadn't realized how tightly wound Prudence's hand had been in mine until I made to pull away when we reached my house. I looked back to her, lips tugging down apologetically. I'd never seen her this freaked before.

"I'll call you later?" I told her, and she nodded once as Ethan gave me a wave.

"We'll see you tomorrow, Didi. Shoot me a text if you need anything."

Despite my pit mood, I perked at this and grumbled an indecipherable affirmation, avoiding his and Prue's eyes, which I could feel drilling into the side of my head like they did whenever Ethan showed me the teeniest bit of attention. I didn't know the reason for it, because I could never detect jealousy in Prue's expression, and it made sense.

What reason could rich, beautiful, desirable Prudence Livingston have to be jealous of little "Drabby Didi," as she so affectionately dubbed me in middle school?

As he did with the others, the officer waited until I'd reached my door to pull away from my house. I noticed the living room light was on but only had a few seconds to think positively until the door opened, hoping against all odds that it would be Uncle Liam inside and not—

"Where the hell have you been?" David practically spat from the front stoop, the light that poured out into the chilled air from the living room wasn't enough to cut through his shadow that had engulfed me so completely from where he towered over me in the door.

With the exception of Katelyn—me, Prue, and every one of her friends are no longer minors. So I knew the cops wouldn't have tried to reach our parents.

Still, judging by the outward hostility that riddled his otherwise polished exterior, I couldn't help but wonder what had my dad so irked at this time of night. I didn't exactly have a curfew. As long as I didn't pop up at three AM, completely wasted with a tramp stamp of an arrow pointing downwards, I was okay.

"I'm sorry?" I said, not sure on how else to respond.

David sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the backs of his fingers, suddenly looking less menacing and instead just about ready to collapse into a coma. "It's fine, just get inside."

As soon as I stepped through the door, I was hit with the sour, stagnant odor of peppermint vomit, which forced me to shield my nose with my hands. That explained David's outward exhaustion and off mood, and I immediately forgave him for his outburst.

"Mom managed to get clobbered again? Where'd she find the money this time?" I asked him, hanging my coat onto the wall hooks.

"I don't know." He closed and locked the door behind me, resetting the alarm. He was already in his pajamas and bathrobe despite it only being nine o'clock. "Must've guilt tripped one of the neighbors for a surgical donation on your behalf again."

"Honnnnnney," came my mom's nasal voice from the back end of the house. "Where'd ya gooooooooo?"

Hearing this again didn't make it any less strenuous. My mom would be willing to claim she had been afflicted with any illness, struggling with any number of nonexistent debts, or combating grief from the loss of a living relative if it meant squeezing out a few pity dollars for a pint.

I was exhausted—mentally, emotionally, and physically drained to my very bones. After all that had happened tonight, I just wanted to crawl into bed and lapse into a death-like slumber.

But it was only through moments like these, when David and I shared in the distaste of my mother's inebriated condition, that I could say we were ever on the same page. He hadn't so much as blinked in my direction all summer, and as much as I didn't want to admit it to myself, I missed him.

"I'll take care of her, Dad. You go on to bed." It's a routine I'm familiar with. And I knew Sheri wouldn't plunder me with prying questions, so I'd be allowed to grieve in silence.

"David?"

We both looked over to see my mother leaning heavily against the single love seat in the foyer, a hand clutching her stomach. "Oh, Didi, honey, I'm glad you're here. Listen, maybe you can talk to your dad? You see, I got a letter today from the bank saying one of our accounts had been drained. Mommy made a little oopsie and she's worried Daddy will be really mad."

I chose to ignore the grating baby talk she'd always use with me when she was this out of it. David, on the other hand, was looking as if he was trying to sand away at his jaws, he was clenching them so tightly.

"What account, Sheri?" he ground out.

"Oh...Well, the one we opened a couple of years ago when Didi was two. Remember honey?" Sheri was either so drunk she couldn't smile properly or was sobering up enough to feel genuine anxiety over her own admission. "We talked about how Didi would need it someday after she granulated--graduated high school?"

The realization struck me first with a resounding force. "What?" I yelped like a wounded dog.

"YOU CLEANED OUT DIDI'S COLLEGE FUND?" David boomed, the force of his voice practically rattling the walls.

Sheri sprawled herself against the frame of the living room archway and began swinging her hips in a lucid sensual motion. "C'mon, baby, I didn't mean it. Why don't we go back to bed and I'll show you how sorry I am?"

I flinched away from her drunken ditty, unable to even look her in the eye, and felt my dad almost inflate to twice his size by the sheer gravid condition of his anger. "That's it!" he screamed with finality. "THAT IS IT! I want a divorce, Sheri! DO YOU HEAR ME? Can you get that through your f*****g fried head?"

"Wha—?" Sheri seemed to be in either total disbelief or was just generally confused altogether.

"You heard me, you insatiable, little bottle blower! Eighty-three thousand dollars down your useless gullet! And for what? How could you do this?"

Sheri blinked, and seemingly with it came another dose of sobriety. "David, what're you saying? You wanna leave me?"

"I should've left you years ago, you selfish cunt."

"Don't talk to me that way, you asshole! I'm your wife—"

"I'M SEEING SOMEONE!"

Both Sheri and I stilled, now the only source of movement coming from the muted commercials on the TV.

"You're what?" I breathed, feeling my legs shaking with a force that threatened to topple me over.

"There's someone else," he said, his tone reigned in again. "There has been for a while. We met at the hotel, she was a guest there for a weekend vacation from her correspondent position in New York. She's twenty-eight, put together, successful—everything you used to be." The venom was back in his voice when he turned to my mother. "We're in love, and we've been planning on starting a life together back in the city. I'm moving out next month." He turned to me, eyes now as subdued as his voice. "I'm sorry, Didi."

"You...heartless bastard." Sheri looked about ready to pounce on him.

"I'm heartless? ME?" David screeched, pounding a hand to his chest. "The man who's spent every waking hour of his marriage tending to his useless drunkard of a wife who nearly plunges her family into debt, neglects her maternal duties, and squanders her daughter's college money on liters of Guinness?"

I couldn't hear anymore, couldn't bear another onslaught of pent up decade long grievances and sickening admissions. I dropped my school bag at the foot of the living room recliner and sprinted for the stairs, ignoring David's calls for me.

As soon as I had locked myself into my bedroom, I yanked my phone from my back pocket and swiped for Prudence's face in my contacts. She picked up after two rings.

"Hey, Didi," Prudence, to my brief surprise, sounded considerably cheery, if a bit breathless. "Listen, I can't talk right now."

"Prue, please, I really need you. Something horrible's happening—"

"Didi, I'm sorry—Ahh!"

"Prue?" I was alarmed by the ache in her voice. "Are you all right?"

"Ahhhh...yeah."

Another few moans and the sure squeaking of a mattress was all the answer I needed. My stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch.

"Ethan's here and...mugh...we're kinda in the middle of something. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Prue—wait—" I was cut off by the end click of the phone. I turned with an aggravated shriek and threw it against the closet door, uncaring of the cracking sound it emitted, slid down onto the foot of my bed and let the weight of the night splatter me into a broken mess underneath it.

✧✧✧✧✧

When my phone's alarm went off the next morning, I let it ring until the automatic snooze was activated. I didn't want this. I didn't want to remember Mr. Davenport, or be pummeled with the onslaught of gossip I was sure would be making its way through the school halls.

There wasn't a doubt in my mind that the school had already gotten wind of what had happened to him, and it just made the fact that I'd been one of several eyewitnesses much worse. I didn't want attention from this, I just wanted to forget.

But every time I closed my eyes, all through the night, all I could picture were his mangled features, the remainder of his blue lips widely parted and dipped to the side, as if in a slanted scream, eyes opened and listless, but everything relatively muted against the gruesome exhibit of his hollowed center.

His stomach had been savagely ripped open, the incision unclean as if he was torn apart by someone's bare hands, though I knew such a thing wasn't possible. An animal attack seemed like the most likely prospect, but then, I wasn't an expert.

A sickening detail I remembered that I couldn't stop running through in my head was the fact that his stomach had been emptied. There were no intestines, no organs of any kind, and barely any blood. It was like someone had scooped his insides out as if prepping a jack-o-lantern for Halloween. I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my hand to my mouth, fighting to keep the images from re-spawning in my memory.

I didn't want to face them.

I didn't want to go to school and see Cortez's stupid, smug face amongst his other stupid, smug-faced friends. We may have been at odds, but I never thought he'd take things so far. I could never forgive him for what he almost did to me.

I wasn't up for standing around like the born to be third wheel and watch Prudence smacking lips with Ethaniel for another day.

And I didn't want to face my parents—my dad who just confessed to me that he was leaving, and my mom, who I was sure was at this very moment drowning her sorrows with a bottle of Chianti.

A part of me was happy for David finally putting his foot down—albeit it was so far down that he found himself standing in the arms of a woman only a decade my senior. Still, another part was remorseful for the relationship I knew we'd never be able to mend between us, now, and felt betrayed for him wanting to leave me here alone with my alcoholic mother to start a new life without me.

I picked up on Sheri's and David's garbled voices from downstairs, and I realized it was the first time that I could remember Sheri being up this early in the morning with the rest of us. Usually, she'd be up in bed, as lively as the dead.

My phone beeped with a text, and I looked to see an unknown number with the message:

Picking u up in 20?

I texted back: Who's this?

Another text: Amberlyn :D See u soon!

It'd been the first time any one of the Three Lyns had communicated voluntarily with me by phone, which meant Prue must've been running late. Bed lag was probably taking its toll. I sighed, feeling the guilt beginning to seep in again. It wasn't fair to be pissed at Prue for having s*x with her own boyfriend.

This deadly green thing, I had to reign it in.

By the time I rolled out of bed, showered and changed, I had less than eight minutes to grab something to eat. I'd been dying for my own car, a reprieve from a daily time crunch, but until I found a part-time job to afford insurance, my parents wouldn't budge in helping me to purchase one.

I heard Sheri and David talking in the kitchen and thanked my lucky stars that I'd managed to slip through the front door without being noticed. Though I knew I was in for an earful when I got home tonight.

I turned for the patio stairs and came face to face with a vehicle I'd never seen before.

"Hi!" Amberlyn squeaked from the driver's side, chalk white teeth glimmering. I stood there utterly dumbfounded until she chuckled and unlocked the doors to her black Prius.

"Get in, silly. Prue said I should come get you since Heatherlyn called her last night and asked her to give her a ride to school. She's been pretty broken up about—you know—and couldn't drive herself."

"Oh," I shoved the resentful spurt that'd been building in my throat down and took a seat in the passenger side, its cushion laced in purple textures. "Thanks, Amberlyn." When exactly had Heatherlyn called Prudence? Before or after Prue's trip to Wreck-it-World?

Jealousy, guilt, self-hatred.

I remained silent as Amber talked my ear off.

"So, I never asked you, Dodie; Who're you taking to homecoming? It's Halloween themed this year, too, of course. A monsterish mash-up of everything sexy and spooky. I was thinking of going as Morticia Addams but...everyone's going as Morticia Addams. I might try Lily Munster, and go for a classic Cher motif with my weave. Or maybe just slutty Rapunzel? Hey, you don't mind if I make a little pit-stop on the way, do you? Great!"

I looked away from the window to my lap, my lips still parted from my impending, never uttered answer.

The next thing I knew, we were pulling up to an ivory bricked hacienda styled home, where Jeremiah and Roland were waiting by the curb.

"You coulda let me get in a few slices, man, I'm f*****g starved," Roland was whining to his older brother, as they slid into the back seats.

"I wasn't gonna keep Amber waiting just because you're all set in eating yourself into a hard brick in the pool later, while the rest of us swim circles around you. Hey, babe." Jeremiah leaned in to give his girlfriend a kiss that was, thankfully, less grotesque than the ones shared between...the other two who shall remain nameless.

His look on me was quizzical. "Hey, Dodie, you having car troubles, too?"

"I—I don't have a car."

We were on the road for only another two minutes when someone's stomach growled like a thunderous sky.

"Man, I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE! Can we stop at Cascade for munchies? I feel like my body's sucking itself into its own death—and trust me, it's not as great as it sounds. Like all the nutrients are being slurped in by the gaping hole in my stomach and leaving nothing but winding, empty blackness within my soul—"

Jeremiah whipped around to face him. "f*****g hell, man, if it'll get you to shut-up, then let's stop."

I'd neglected myself again for the second day and skipped out on breakfast, so when Roland hopped from the car while Amberlyn was still trying to find parking, I joined him in search of a few lollipops.

He already had several choice snacks stacked at the register by the time I'd found my candy and was heading for the door before I set my sugared breakfast before the cashier to be paid.

It was there that on the announcement board I saw a poster, the colored photograph of a blond-haired girl, around my age, with the bold heading "MISSING, HAVE YOU SEEN ME?" written in red above her head. I squinted at the picture, but her face sparked to familiarity.

"Catherine Hansen," said the cashier, as he rung up the candy.

I looked at him from the poster.

"The girl in the picture," he explained, unpinning the flyer from the store bulletin board and shaking his head down at her image. "She used to come here all the time with that cousin of hers. It's a damn shame what happened to her."

I felt an immeasurable wave of pity wash through me. "You mean they found her?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah, they did," he answered grimly. "Just a month ago, by the bridge. Pretty mangled up from what I heard."

My brows shot up in surprise, as I looped my bag of snacks around my arm. "Was she hit by a car or something?"

"Oh, no," the cashier shook his head, glancing one last time at Catherine's photo, before tugging it into a drawer under the register, "she was murdered. The f****d bastard left her looking like baked ziti. Tore her guts out like a bunch of weeds. Just sick."

As he turned to tend to another customer, I remained there, frozen in undiluted horror, my brain connecting the two dots like a shot.

Mr. Davenport, Catherine Hansen...Oh. My. Holy. Ganache.

I tore out of the one-stop for all convenience store like the place was set to blow, straight for the space where Amberlyn had parked her car—only it wasn't there.

I whipped around, head swiveling in every direction imaginable in search of the Prius with the purple interior, but I came up empty each time. In my already panicked condition, I was fit to scream, unable to believe this could've happened. Amberlyn, Jeremiah, and Roland—they'd all left the store without me.