At first, I’m not sure what I’m looking at. They’re pictures of photos. Photos of dry grass, little yellow plastic triangles, grid markers and rulers. A plastic bag with … something in it. Something that my brain can’t resolve into a thing. It looks like a ham covered in jelly, or maybe the broken end of a baseball bat with paint on it. Or … no, none of that is right. I squint, and then, finally, the red pulp in the picture resolves itself into a recognizable shape.
It’s an arm.
It’s a half-eaten arm.
I drop the phone. It clatters across the tile and comes to a rest against the base of the already-full trash can. Roya stoops to pick it up and checks it for cracks before tucking it back into her pocket. “So,” she says.
“What the fuck, what the fuck? What the fuck?” My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking. Maryam wraps an arm around me and takes a few deep breaths, trying to make me match her rhythm so I’ll calm down. Another trick Iris has taught us over the years. I struggle to breathe with her. My throat feels too narrow to admit all that air.
“They found it last night,” Roya says. I look up at her and realize that she has the wide-eyed stare of someone who hasn’t slept. Her hair is in a tangled bun, and the outline of yesterday’s headband is still creased across the top of her head. I was so busy staring at her legs that I didn’t even notice how exhausted she is.
I feel like an asshole. What kind of friend am I, to miss that kind of thing?
“I overheard my mom talking to my dad about it after she got home,” Roya continues. Now that I’ve noticed how tired she is, I can hear the fatigue in her voice, too. “They got a call from someone who thought they’d found a body, but it turned out that it was just the arm. I guess it was chewed up by something. They matched a birthmark to a picture of Josh. I don’t know about, you know. DNA or whatever. But there’s going to be a search party. They’re canceling classes tomorrow. You’ll hear about it in fourth period.”
The rest of the girls immediately start talking over one another, talking about the search party. About where it will be and what the searchers might find, and whether we should go. While they argue, I try to remember a birthmark. I didn’t notice it. I was going to sleep with that boy, and I didn’t even know about his birthmark. I fed his arm to a coyote, and not once did I look closely enough at it to see the damned birthmark. I swear, every time I think I couldn’t possibly have screwed this up worse, I discover some new way that I’m a disaster.
“It’s my fault,” Paulie whispers. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” Roya snaps, making Paulie flinch. “We just need to fix it. What are we going to do?”
Someone tries to pull open the door to the restroom, then pounds on the metal when they realize that it’s locked. Maryam shoots out a hand and, faster than gasping, the light of her soft, suffuse magic etches mascara trails down Marcelina’s cheeks. Paulie and Roya wrap their arms around Marcelina, and Roya hisses “Cry!” as Iris unlocks the door.
“I just—can’t—believe—he—said—” Marcelina is choking and sobbing, and the twin streams of mascara on her cheeks cover for the fact that her eyes are dry.
“Do you mind?” Roya snaps at the sophomore standing in the doorway.
“Oh god, I’m sorry,” the girl says. “Is she okay?” Marcelina wails, and the girl holds up both hands like she can ward off the tears. “Never mind,” she says. “I’ll leave you guys alone. Um, I hope things get better soon?”
“And—then—he—said—” Marcelina puts a high wobble into her voice, and the girl closes the door fast. As soon as Iris has slid the lock home, Roya and Paulie straighten. Roya pats Marcelina’s cheeks with her fingers, and the mascara trails vanish.
“You’re amazing,” Maryam says.
Marcelina grins. “I know.”
Roya snaps her fingers. “Hey, you’re both amazing. But we gotta figure out this arm thing, like, now.” She’s being Iris-levels of bossy, but nobody so much as glares at her, because if Roya being abrupt is ever warranted, now’s the time.
“Can you get rid of it? Like, just grab the bag and throw it away?” Paulie asks, then shakes her head hard. “Never mind, that’s stupid.”
“Yeah, that’s a terrible idea,” Roya says. “If it goes missing, they’ll know for sure that someone is trying to cover something up. I don’t think that they are saying he was—” She stops short and looks at me with an apologetic grimace. “I don’t think they’re calling it murder yet. I’m pretty sure they’re trying to figure out what happened before they make an announcement. But they definitely know that it’s Josh’s arm.” Her mouth flattens into a grim line.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” Marcelina says. “Maybe it’ll be okay.”
“Maybe it’ll be okay,” I repeat. My lips feel numb.
“That search party,” Iris whispers. “We have to go. We have to.”
Marcelina whips around to stare at her with stark incredulity. “We can’t do that, are you crazy? It’ll look so suspicious.”
Roya shakes her head. “No. They’re canceling classes so that everyone can join. Everyone will be there. We have to go.”
“We can’t go,” Paulie says, her face white. “Are you kidding?”
Maryam clears her throat. “You have to go.” She looks around at everyone. “I mean, I’ll be there too, but you guys really have to go.”
It’s Iris and Roya and Maryam versus Paulie and Marcelina. Normally, Iris and Roya on the same side of an issue means that the whole group goes with whatever they say. They’re individually strong-willed enough that the two of them together feels indomitable.
