Rhythms of Grace Read Free Page B

watch. How often did these buses come again? There was nobody to ask, but I’d figured one would come eventually. Then he threw down that cigarette, the one that had never been lit, and smiled at me. It was a cold smile, the scary kind. I could see that, even through the mouth slit in his ski mask. When he grabbed me, I knew that no bus was coming tonight. That he’d only been waiting for me.
    Mom says I should have run then, that I should have known how to get away. I tried to run, but my new boots were cute and pointy. I never was too good with heels and pointy toes. I ran a little while, but I fell behind the oak tree.
    And he covered me.
    The leaves danced like even they couldn’t see, daring to be beautiful while I was dying. Maybe they were giving me something to look at, something to numb the pain. It didn’t help.
    Nothing did.
    No matter how much I bit and kicked and scratched and yelled, no matter how hard I tried to rise up and fly, he just kept on. Fighting just made it hurt worse and I figured I’d die soon anyway, so I tried to think of heaven and stuff like that.
    Mom said that was stupid too. She said that I’m a woman now, and I should have known what was happening. Evidently, women know these things. Information like that would have been valuable beforehand, but being just a girl who died at the bus stop, I really wouldn’t know.
    It doesn’t matter what Mom thinks anyway. Not now. She didn’t see his eyes. Only Daddy could have stopped him and he was in Cleveland. There’s nothing left but this pain between my legs, between my ears. There’s a buzzing sound that won’t stop. They said at the hospital that’s from him slamming my head on the ground. That was the only time I saw Mom cry. She never apologized for not taking me. She never will. She thinks it’s my own fault.
    Maybe she’s right. I wanted to dance, to fly, so bad. It felt so good. Maybe God didn’t want me to have that. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now. I’ll never dance again.
    Miss Joyce doesn’t believe that. She said that I should write it all down. The police said so too. They said to try and remember all of it. I’m trying to forget it. Daddy is still in Cleveland. This morning I walked to the bus, holding my stomach, feeling for the line where he broke me in half. Nobody spoke to me. They’d already heard my story, recounted by the mothers over breakfast. I watched as the gate went up for our school bus. It lowered quickly, letting down the little flag I’d read so many times before.
    Safety is our business .
    I would have laughed but it hurt too much. Someone should tell the people who write dumb things like that or show people in bed on TV and make it look like something wonderful. Some other girl, one without bloody boots and a black eye, one who still had stickers on her Rubik’s cube, should tell them. They were grownups. They should know these things.

3
    Ron
    It always starts fast and horrible like a bug flying up my nose. And usually when I’m sleeping. Brian warns me if he can, but sometimes she comes back walking. Once, after she’d been gone three nights straight, she came back crawling. It’s been six days.
    Sometimes she can’t find me in the dark. Maybe, if I lie real still . . .
    “Run! She’s in the back!” Brian’s voice hissed up through the broken window before the rain drowned him out. I jumped off the bed and was almost under it when a cold hand choked my neck. I vowed not to cry.
    “I missed you, hon. Did you miss me?” my mother said, her warm breath a steam of cheap beer and stale cigarettes. I nodded, swallowed, wondering if she really meant it, if she ever had meant it. Sometimes, at the beginning, it was hard to tell. By the end though, there was never any doubt. She lit up a Marlboro from the smell of it and took a deep drag. I bit my lip, trying to pray to Brian’s God, begging silently for her to put it out. And not on me. After a sweaty kiss on my cheek and an assurance