Between Never and Forever by Brit Benson

2

Savannah’snot at school for over a week.

I heard she got suspended. That’s not a surprise, but it’s bothering me that I haven’t seen her. I’ve kept my curtains open and my window unlocked since the day of the fight, but nothing.

Sav disappears often. Usually, I just wait around until she decides to return. She’s kind of like a stray cat. Unpredictable and wild. She comes and goes as she pleases, but I always feel a little lost when she’s gone.

I don’t even know how it happened. Sav’s always been around. The girl my parents warn me about. The one everyone sneers at and whispers about. I used to watch her out of the corner of my eye. I’d study how straight her back was, how high she held her head, even when everyone was talking about her. I’d watch her, but never outright, until one day she pushed me off the swing without any explanation. I didn’t tattle. I just watched her skip off from my place in the dirt. Then, the next day, she sat down beside me at lunch. That’s where she’s been sitting ever since.

I don’t have any other friends, but I don’t really have an interest in other people.

Just Sav.

My mother is cheery as ever. She’s all smiles every morning I have to wait at the bus stop alone. The bus sucks, but the only time I really miss my bike is when Sav is absent.

Connor comes back after a week with greenish bruises under both eyes and his lip still swollen and purple. I heard someone in the hall say Sav broke his nose with the math book, and one of his teeth cut through his lip.

I smile a little at that. I shouldn’t, but I do.

Sav is like five foot nothing, and Connor plays varsity baseball. She beat him up without even breaking a sweat. Not for the first time, my fear for Sav mixes with my awe of her, creating something that makes me feel a little confused. I shouldn’t like her attitude so much—it’s wicked and sinful—but that doesn’t stop me from wishing I could be a little more like her.

If I had her nerve, I’d stand up to my mother and father.

If I was brave like Savannah, I wouldn’t be pushed around so much at school.

Sometimes, I want to be a little more reckless, even just a tiny bit like her.

My stomach twists with guilt while my brain scolds me for being ungrateful, for being blasphemous and immoral. I shove my books in my backpack, slam my locker shut, and walk slowly to the bus. I don’t need to rush. I’ll be riding it alone.

The storm outside gets louder as my window is pushed open slowly, and it startles me awake.

The rain splatters on my floor, making rapid tapping noises, and I sit up quickly. My heart beats fast, but my shoulders relax for the first time in almost two weeks.

I look at the clock. Two in the morning. This is late for her, but I don’t say anything as Savannah crawls through my window, then pulls it closed before slipping her shoes off and scooting them up against the wall.

I kick my comforter off and go to my dresser, pulling out a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt. Without a word, I walk them to where she waits, soaked with rain and creating a puddle on my floor. A jolt of lightning flashes through the night sky, making her glow, and I hold the bundle of clothes out to her. She takes them, sets them on my desk, and I turn around as she wriggles out of her wet clothes and into my dry ones.

Her clothing plops onto the floor, one by one, and when I hear her moving toward my bed, I turn and follow.

Just like all the other times before, she crawls in first and scoots over just enough so I can get in behind her. My bed is a full, so there’s room, but I pull her against my chest, ignoring the way her cold, wet hair seeps through my shirt, and rest my chin on her head anyway.

The first few times she showed up here, I laid stiff as a board the entire night. Afraid to move. Afraid to touch her. I’d stare at the ceiling, reciting Bible verses in my head and listening closely as she’d fall into a deep sleep, and I’d pretend to be asleep when she’d sneak out at sunrise.

Then, one night, she showed up crying.

I’ve never seen anyone cry the way she does. She cries without making a sound. No whimpering, no sniffling. Just constant tears streaming down a blank face. That night, I pulled her close to me and held her. Not because it felt like what I was supposed to do, but it felt like what I needed to do. She didn’t push me away, and since then, that’s how we sleep. Wrapped up and silent.

I do the same tonight. I listen to her breathing for a sign that I can let myself drift off, but it doesn’t come. Instead, her quiet, flat voice cuts through the silence.

“Do you think bad things happen for a reason?”

I consider it for a minute. My mother says bad things are God’s will to punish the wicked. I don’t say that to Savannah.

“I don’t know.”

She’s quiet for so long that I think she might be falling asleep. Then she speaks again. This time, her voice is angry.

“I don’t think bad things happen for a reason. I think sometimes life is just shitty, and sometimes it’s shittier for some people than it is for others. And I don’t think there’s any reason behind it besides where you just happen to be born. And you and me just happened to be born in different shit piles.”

I think over her words. They jumble up inside my head, my mother’s voice fighting them with her acid tongue.

“What about God?”

Sav doesn’t even hesitate.

“If God is real, then I hate him.”

I don’t say anything else. I just pull her tighter against me, and we fall back into silence. Soon, her breathing goes slow and steady, so I close my own eyes and let myself fall asleep, too.

A couple hours later, a noise wakes me for the second time. I crack my eyes open and see Savannah near the window, struggling to get back into her wet clothes. I start to roll over, so she has some privacy, but my attention is grabbed by a large mark on her side.

My skin prickles and I stare, hoping it’s a shadow or a trick of light, but the longer I look, the more I want to throw up.

Savannah has bruises often. On her arms and legs, usually. A few times on her cheeks or a busted lip. She always says they’re from falling off her skateboard or fighting at The Pit. I believed her at first, but I don’t anymore. I haven’t for a while now. I keep my mouth shut because anytime I try to talk about it, she slugs me and tells me to shut up or calls me a weenie.

But this bruise is different. It’s ugly, so deep purple in places that it looks black, and it covers most of her side. Stretches from the bottom of her bra to the top of her underwear. Maybe even farther, but she pulls her jeans up before I can be sure. She’s moving so carefully, and now I know it’s not just because she wants to be quiet. It’s because she’s in pain.

“What the heck happened, Sav?”

My voice breaks the silence and Savannah freezes.

She stays still, facing the window, for three whole breaths before looking over her shoulder at me with a scowl.

“Nothin’.”

She pulls her damp shirt over her head, grunting a bit when her arms have to rise higher than her shoulders. I swing my legs out of the bed and stand.

“That’s not nothing, Savannah,” I whisper. “You look like you were kicked in the side with a steel-toed boot.”

The way her shoulders jerk tells me I’m probably right.

“Who did it?”

“Shut it, Leviticus,” she spits, then starts to open my window like she’s going to leave.

I step up and place a hand on her shoulder, turning her back to face me.

“Savannah, who gave you this bruise?”

My whisper is louder, my eyebrows scrunched. She looks into my eyes, then clamps hers shut.

“Just forget it, Levi.”

I reach down slowly and grab the hem of her shirt. When she doesn’t bat me away, I carefully lift it until I can see her entire side. My breath catches, and I swallow hard.

“Savannah...”

I can’t say anything else. My tongue is numb.

The bruise looks even worse up close. Purples, blues, and blacks swirl together. There are areas of raised swollen flesh. I squint at it, and I think I can almost make out a boot tread mark, but it might be my imagination. I use my other hand to trail my fingers lightly over her skin, and Savannah sucks in a harsh breath, stepping away quickly. My hands drop to my sides.

“Savannah, that’s...this is bad. This is worse than before.”

“Just leave it alone. Please.”

“You can’t stay there anymore.”

I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know what I can possibly do. How can something like this happen? How can God let something like this happen to Savannah?

“You have to leave,” I stress, and she laughs.

It’s hollow and eerie. When she speaks, she sounds defeated.

“And go where?”

“You have to tell someo—”

“No.” Savannah’s eyes go wild, and she shoves my shoulder. “You can’t tell anyone, Levi. You can’t. You have to swear.”

“Savannah, someone kicked you so hard half your body is black. You have to tell someone.”

“You know what happens if I tell someone, Levi? I get sent somewhere worse.” She closes her eyes and tilts her head to the ceiling. “At least I know what to expect with him.”

I shake my head. How can she think that? He’s unpredictable.

“He’s going to kill you, Sav. You know that, right? He’ll kill you. You could have internal bleeding or something.”

“This happened days ago,” she says with a sad smirk. “If I was bleedin’ internally, I’d be dead already.”

“Dang it, Sav, how can you be so okay with all of this? How come you’re not trying to get some place safe? You need to protect yourself.”

“Why do you think I’m here?” she snaps. “Why do you think I come here? You think it’s just ‘cause I wanna be closer to the Lord?”

I bite my tongue. I want to tell her that if she told my dad, he could help. That’s what he does. He helps people. It’s his job as pastor. He could help her, but apparently, she’d rather let her mom’s boyfriend beat her to death.

“If you don’t want me to come here anymore, fine,” she says, turning back around and walking back to the window. “I don’t need you, ya know. I can j—”

“Shut up, Savannah. You know that’s not it. Stop being a brat.”

“Did you just call me a brat?”

She laughs, then tries to hide the wince that follows.

“You gonna kick me after I’ve already been kicked?”

My mouth drops open. I’m horrified. I feel terrible. I start to apologize, but she rolls her eyes.

“I’m just kiddin’, Leviticus.” She slides the window back open. “Stop bein’ such a weenie.”

Now I roll my eyes.

“That’s not my name.”

She smirks.

“Close enough.”

We don’t say anything else. Savannah thinks the subject is settled, and I let her. I stand and watch as she inches out my window, and I don’t lie back down until she disappears into the semi-darkness. I stare at the ceiling until my alarm goes off, and then I make up my mind.

“Mom,” I say when I step into the kitchen. “Where’s Dad?”