About a Girl

chapter thirty

The phone was ringing. Lily didn't move to answer it. She was curled in a ball on the couch, breathing shallowly, completely exhausted. She had been crying for hours. She couldn't stand to swallow the truth, so she had gagged and heaved and coughed until there was nothing left in her.

Kurt was on heroin. The thing that had killed her sister – the only person in her family that loved her, that tried to protect her, that took care of her – was also slowly killing the man she loved. The night of Tessa's death played on a constant, gut-wrenching loop in her head.

Tessa had come home late, drunk and high like usual, but that night her dad had stayed up, determined to catch her. Tessa had been acting out a lot more lately, whatever drugs she had been taking had given her some confidence and she'd been standing up to her parents more and more. Because of this, her dad wanted to kick her out. But he needed a good reason to, otherwise Tessa could go to the police and tell them everything. But if she was proven to be on drugs, he'd be able to get her out of his house and have plausible deniability. If his daughter accused him of abuse, he could just say she was crazy or blame the drugs.

So when she stumbled through the front door at 2a.m., there was nothing stopping her father from taking her by the hair, slamming her head against the wall, and screaming at her to get the fuck out of his house. He saw the track marks on her arms, saw the blue tinge on her lips, saw the barely-there pinpricks of her pupils. When Tessa lashed out, calling her father a bastard and spitting in his face, he lost it. He started hitting her, beating the skinny teenage girl until she was bruised and bloody. Tessa managed to escape his hold and ran out of the house. She ran to her car and sped away into the night.

Lily cried and cried, muffling the sound of her sobs with her blankets and begging for the strength to leave her bed and go help her sister. She'd know about Tessa's drug use for months. Tessa had told her about the special snow that made everything bright and joyful and fun, and she told her about the shots that made everything bad in your life disappear. She told Lily why she needed her "medicine", as she called it, because without them she didn't know how to get through the day. Lily was no stranger to her father's abuse and her mother's neglect. She understood that Tessa wasn't doing anything bad, she was just doing what was needed.

The next day Lily opened the front door to see a police officer standing in front of her. The officer told her that her sister had died in a car crash. She had smashed into a tree, slamming into the steering wheel and dying almost instantly as her heart, lungs, and ribcage were crushed. Tests showed that she had heroin, cocaine, and alcohol in her system.

The cop spoke in a monotone. Every word fell from his tongue calmly, without any emotion, but they stabbed through Lily's heart like so many knives. The only person in the world that loved her was gone. And it was her fault for not trying to save her.

Lily sniffled as she pulled herself off of the couch and went to pick up the phone. "Hello?" she said, her voice dull and empty.

"Hey, baby!" Kurt said. In spite of everything, his voice soothed the pain in Lily's chest. "How are you?"

"Uh..." she didn't know what to say. "I'm ok. How was it today?"

"It was great, everything's coming together really well! Are you feeling any better yet?"

"Not really," Lily sighed.

"Aww I'm sorry, baby," Kurt said. "I miss you like hell."

Lily smiled sadly. "I miss you too. Come home soon, I need you." She couldn't stop the words from slipping out of her mouth. Her whole body ached for him, even if she was terrified and angry and upset.

"Is everything ok Lily?" he asked, his voice laced with concern.

"Uhm, yeah, I'm fine," she mumbled. "Just having a bad day."

Kurt sighed. "I'm sorry honey, I wish I could be there for you. Get some rest, ok? I'll be home soon."

"Ok. I'm gonna go to sleep. Goodnight. I love you."

"I love you too. Sweet dreams."

Lily hung up and went to the bedroom. She crawled between the blankets and curled into a ball, holding herself as the tears started to fall again and she cried herself to sleep.