Free Beating Heart by A. M. Jenkins

Weakly, she tries to slap his face, but he catches her hand, stopping it without any effort, and when she tries to pull it loose, he tightens his grip.
    â€œYou asshole !” Her voice rises into a screech.
    Evan remembers Libby, who wouldn’t stay in herroom, and he realizes that he’s naked, the sheets mostly on the floor, and that there’s no lock on the door. “Will you be quiet!” he hisses; he thinks he does hear his sister, the creak of small footsteps creeping tentatively up the stairs.
    â€œDon’t tell me to be quiet, you shithea—”
    He puts his hand over Carrie’s mouth. Carrie’s super-pissed at that—she’s clawing at his hand and maybe even trying to bite him so she can screech at him some more—but Evan thinks he hears another muffled step outside and presses harder to get her to shut up while he turns his head, listening, listening, for the sound of someone coming…
    Â 
    Â 
    his hand
    against my mouth
    my nose
    Â 
    thrashed kicked bucked
    forehead wet with sweat
    Â 
    his hand
    binding and
    burying the
    narrowest last
    bit of
    air
    Â 
    Â 
    I could not
    breathe

 
    A nd the air cracks.
    It’s a noise, something between a rifle shot and a high-pitched cry. It doesn’t come from Carrie. Carrie cannot speak; Evan glimpses her eyes, wild and panicked above his hand—his hand, which not only covers her mouth but presses up against her nose. He sees it all at once: his hand and her eyes at the same second that a noise like a cry is lost in the shatter of splintering glass.
    Â 
    Â 
    I
    could
    not
    breathe.

 
    H e lets go. There’s a whooshing gasp as Carrie sucks in air, but in the same second he’s off the bed, pulling on his jeans to run out the door, to the stair railing.
    One of the stained-glass windows on the landing has shattered. The last shards are falling to the ground like shining bits of tinsel or snow, and in the middle of them is Libby, frozen in mid-step, eyes squeezed shut, slivers sprinkled over her hair and hunched, frightened shoulders.
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    I saw her under him.
    When he finally rolled off,
    she looked asleep.
    Her pale braid, undone,
    spilled across the crumpled sheet.
    Â 
    I watched him try to wake her,
    give her shoulder a rough,
    impatient shake.
    But her head rolled, limp,
    and came to rest at an odd angle.
    Â 
    I watched him lie there
    next to her, his eyes wide,
    his breath fast and frightened
    in the dark.
    Â 
    Â 
    The moon left a faint and
    silvery gleam across the floor
    as he padded to the doorway.
    Â 
    He looked into the empty hall,
    then left the door open while
    he went back to scoop her up.
    Her arms flopped and dangled.
    Â 
    He carried her across the hall
    to her own room.
    The covers of her bed were
    already pulled back.
    Â 
    He placed her on the sheets,
    then tugged her nightgown down
    to cover her legs.
    Â 
    Last of all,
    he pulled the covers up to her chin,
    as if she had been there all along
    and nothing had ever,
    ever happened.
    Â 
    Â 
    He did not kiss her on the cheek.
    He did not whisper any good-byes.
    He did not pause for one last look.
    He just eased himself
    out of the room,
    careful not to make a sound
    when he shut the door
    Â 
    and
    left
    me
    behind.
    Â 
    Â 
    I
    once
    was flesh.
    Â 
    I once
    had quick thoughts.
    Â 
    Â 
    I once
    had dreams.

 
    â€œ S hit,” Evan says. The floor of the landing is covered with sparkling glass.
    Libby opens her eyes and looks up at him. “I didn’t do it,” she tells Evan in a tight, frightened voice. Then she shivers.
    â€œDon’t move. I’m going to get some shoes on.” He has to go into his room, where Carrie’s going through the motions of getting dressed, but he doesn’t speak to her—in seconds he’s back in the hall, pulling his shirt over his head. Sockless, shoelaces flopping, he moves around the railing and comes carefully down the