Tigers, Not Daughters - Samantha Mabry Page 0,71
looking at the wisp of paper edging out from Iridian’s fist. There was static in the pre-storm air, causing the strands of Rosa’s hair to lift and stick to the headrest.
“Is it from your notebook? Were you able to save something?”
Yes. It did feel like Iridian had saved something. It felt like she was keeping something alive and warm, egglike, in the palm of her hand.
“Read it,” Rosa said. “I’d like to hear it.”
Iridian said nothing. Outside, a bright ragged line cut across the sky, and the corresponding boom of thunder made Iridian’s head throb.
“Please,” Rosa urged.
Iridian looked to her sister, her kind sister, who was waiting patiently—as if Rosa would wait any other way. Her static-puffed hair was a brown halo. Rosa had captured the energy of the oncoming storm, sucked it inside her, and made it beautiful. Just minutes ago, Rosa had attacked John, and possibly Rafe before that. That had also been beautiful.
When Iridian glanced down at her fist, she again saw the long, angry scrapes on her leg, extending from her knee up to the middle of her thigh. The blood was dry, but the scrapes still stung. The hurt was deeper than it looked. She’d been struck by a boy, and she’d never forget it. Her stomach hurt. Her head hurt. It beat like a heavy heart. Her tongue hurt. It was swollen and, if she read out loud what was on the paper, her words would maybe sound funny.
“I was jealous,” Rosa said.
Iridian looked to her sister, confused.
“When you told me about the hyena,” Rosa clarified. “I was upset that you saw it and I didn’t. I didn’t know what I was feeling because I don’t think I’ve ever felt it before. I was mad at you and wanted to pull your hair. I’m sorry. I don’t feel that way anymore, by the way.”
“Oh,” Iridian said. “Okay.”
“Will you please now read what you have?”
Iridian loosened her fist a fraction, then all the way. The paper was wadded and damp from her sweat, but in the glow given off by the lights in the parking lot, she could still make out her handwriting—chicken scratches, an ugly mash-up of print and cursive she’d attempted to make beautiful with bright blue ink. She hadn’t even looked at what was on the paper until now. She could’ve torn anything from her father’s grasp. It could’ve been a long description of how a tongue feels against another tongue or a series of incomplete sentences. It could’ve been blank.
It wasn’t blank. Or about tongues.
On one side there was a cut-off sentence that started with I want, but then after that, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry was written at least ten times.
Iridian passed the paper up to Rosa and then told her the story—about finding the pregnancy test, about turning Ana’s crisis into her crisis, about calling her favorite sister a dumb whore. She could barely get those last words out. She hadn’t said them for a year, since saying them to Ana.
“I tried to tell her I was sorry, like right then,” Iridian said, “but she wouldn’t accept it. She told me I’d fucked up. Sometimes it’s all I can think about.”
Rosa put a cool hand on Iridian’s knee and was about to say something when Jessica opened the car door and tossed a plastic bag into the back seat. Iridian folded the scrap of paper and smashed it back into her fist, and with her free hand searched through the bag. She found cotton squares and hydrogen peroxide and Band-Aids that were too small for her cuts. There was no pen—no notebook, either.
She was going to tell Jessica to go back, but then she saw the pink tracks of tears that streaked down her sister’s cheek, and the way she was white-knuckling the steering wheel.
“What happened?” Rosa asked.
“Nothing,” Jessica replied.
As Jessica pulled out of the parking lot, tiny raindrops started to fall, but neither Jessica nor Rosa rolled their windows up. Iridian quietly tended to her wounds in the back seat, while Rosa extended her arm out the window to wiggle her