bed, trying not to muss the perfectly smooth green bedspread. She stared around at the neat rows of kung fu movie posters on the walls.
I wonder what David keeps under his bed.
Charlie’s breath caught in her throat. Had that been her own thought, or her shadow’s?
“Are you there?” she whispered, aching for a cigarette. “Damn you, David’s a good guy, there’s nothing bad under his bed.”
Are you sure?
Charlie sat very still, muttering anagrams to herself while she tried to ignore the dreadful curiosity building inside her. She could hear the hiss and spatter of water from the shower.
Are you afraid? If you don’t look, you’ll always wonder.
“Damn you.” Charlie slid off the bed, got down on her hands and knees, and peeked under the bed. She pushed aside a baseball mitt and a pair of cleats and saw a wide, flat cardboard box. She pulled it out and opened it up. Inside was a stack of comic books in plastic sleeves.
“See, it’s just comics,” she said, starting to rifle through them. “Batman, and Nighthawk, and the Hulk, and … oh shit.”
At the bottom was a Swedish magazine, unsleeved. She couldn’t understand the words, but the pictures of naked prepubescent boys were clear enough. The center spread showed an elevenish boy giving a slightly older boy a blow job. And tucked inside the back cover were three Polaroids of a naked boy in different poses on David’s bed. On the same green bedspread she’d tried not to wrinkle.
Charlie felt completely and utterly numb. Defeated. She put everything back exactly the way she’d found it and reassumed her perch on the bed. A few minutes later, David came in, freshly dressed and toweling off his short brown hair.
“You’re right, I shouldn’t be nervous about Corpus Christi,” she announced. “I changed my mind; I’ll go to the tournament.”
His face broke into a broad grin, and he leaned over and gave her a quick hug. “That’s great! We’ll have a terrific time, I bet.”
In her mind, Charlie could see David, the only real friend she’d ever had, being torn apart in the waves. Her shadow felt smug, satisfied.
Was her whole life going to be like this?
Despite her depression, Charlie did well at the tournament, placed tenth in her belt class out of a field of seventy competitors. David did even better, placing third. In fact, most of Master Kim’s students did quite well, so he took all eight of them out for pizza that night, and drove them to the beach in his big van the next morning.
The sky was overcast, and though it was a hot day, the strong, salt-greasy wind from the ocean carried a chilly bite.
“Watch out for undertow!” Master Kim admonished as they piled out of the van in their flip-flops and big T-shirts. “It take you down like that.” He hit his palm with his fist for emphasis. “And watch out for what lifeguard say. If he yell ‘shark,’ get out of water, fast as you can.”
Charlie walked across the sand and set down her beach bag. She pulled out the single-edged razor blade she’d hidden in the folds of her towel. Hiding it in her hand, she kicked off her flip-flops and headed out to meet the waves.
David had run ahead of her and was already paddling around, happy as an otter. The water was dark, a gray like decaying headstones. Then Charlie waded out away from the others until she was in chest-deep.
He’s in over his head, her shadow whispered. Let me have him.
“No.”
For a moment, nothing happened as her shadow considered this new rebellion. Then Charlie felt a sharp cramp, deep in her womb.
Give him to me. The shadow’s little-girl voice was ominous.
The cramp got worse, and bile rose in Charlie’s throat. “No.”
I saved you! the shadow shrieked inside her head. Without me, you’d be less than nothing, and this is how you repay me?
“Maybe I am nothing. But it’s better than what you are.”
I’m your God, and don’t you forget that.
The cramping became a wrenching pain in her stomach and intestines, and she cried out.
“Charlie?” David called, paddling toward her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, please don’t come over here,” she managed to call back.
You’ll do as I say. And today we’re going to start with that little boyfucker over there.
“You haven’t proved to me that he’s done more than look, and even if he has, I won’t let you. Not today.”
She began to slit her left wrist with the razor blade. Her blood was invisible