Free All We Left Behind by Ingrid Sundberg Page A

wraps over her chest and I can’t shake her expression.It looks exactly like Josie’s did when we found out about Mom. Eyes puffy. Red. Like the world fell out, and it’s all my fault.
    â€œI’m gonna move,” I say, adjusting my weight. “I’m going to—” But I stop explaining and just do it, crawling into the driver’s seat and ignoring the fact that I simply have to touch her because there really isn’t enough room.
    She puts my shirt on and uses it like a tent to fix her bra, then looks in the back for the shirt that’s inside out. I stare through the windshield and I don’t move. I want to ask her if she’s all right. But obviously she’s not.
    If she were Josie, she’d be telling me to fuck off right now. She’d yell at me to get out of the car and leave her alone. But Marion doesn’t do any of that. She doesn’t say anything.
    Air crawls over my back from the open window and I think about the extra jersey in my practice bag. But I don’t move. I don’t dare do anything. Not till she tells me to.
    â€œThanks,” she whispers, placing my shirt on the dash.
    I grab it and stretch it over my head as fast as I can. My hands shake and I need to get off this ridge. We shouldn’t be here. I throw the key in the ignition, click on my seat belt, and turn us back around. The gearshift rumbles and the trees blur as I pick up speed. The road spits rocks and dirt at me, but I don’t ease up on the gas.
    I peek over at Marion and she isn’t wearing a seat belt. She’s curled up with her arms around her knees, and I want to ask her to buckle up. But I can’t.
    There’s no way I’m asking this girl for anything.

Marion
    Kurt guns it down the road, accidentally hitting the horn, which blasts, shaking the car and the trees. I feel like I am that sound, loud and hollow and screaming through.
    I squeeze my eyes shut. My face is wet and everything is caught in my throat. Mud in my toes.
    Creek water under my toes.
    All I can think about is that man from the barbecue with his wrinkled shirt and untidy shoes. His mouth was no longer on mine, but his hand was in my hair.
    There was a jangle of metal and buckles, and the rose hips on the other side of the creek dipped in and out of the water, halfway between holding on and drowning under.
    My toes were cold, dug into the sand.
    Metal jangled and that man’s shadow crawled over me. He stood up with me sitting beside him on the log, the taste of his tongue still in my mouth. His belt was open and the top button of his pants undone. The leather strap of hisbelt curled forward and the metal buckle tapped against my face as he breathed.
    His hand in my hair.
    Tangled.
    As he unzipped himself.
    â€œAre you all right?” It’s Kurt’s voice in the car beside me, and my hands shake as I grab the door handle beside me.
    â€œI’m fine,” I whisper, but I can’t bring myself to look at him because I’m not fine. “Pull over,” I say, shoving the door with my shoulder. “Please, stop the car!”
    He slams on the breaks and I spill out of his car. I gobble down breath after breath, but everything’s caught in my throat, being up here, his hands, my skin, the throbbing, all of it.
    I walk into the woods, because being in that car with him reminds me too much of my dad driving me home after the barbecue yammering on and on about what a nice time he had.
    I wasn’t listening to my father. My eyes were glued to the plate of leftovers on my lap, wrapped in tinfoil with the sharp edges poking my thighs. It smelled rotten, like pork-belly meat, slathered in barbecue sauce, caught in my throat.
    I gagged.
    Vomit burned my mouth. But I clenched my jaw tight and forced it back down.
    I opened the window for some air, but everything wassticky-meat-smell, and I chucked the entire plate into the street.
    â€œJesus Christ, Marion!” Dad