Of Hustle and Heart (24 page)

CHAPTER 41

ZINA

T
his past weekend, an hour after he left my house, Shannon began posting statuses about me.

Zina Cochrane and Shannon Smith together 4ever
, his Facebook status read.

Then Twitter lit up
:

@queen_carmelcochrane
my new one and only.
2 days ago. 126 retweets. Sixteen favorites.

@queen_carmelcochrane
is mad at me y’all, but she still the one. Retweet if you think she should get ova it.
1 day ago. Fifty-six retweets. Twenty-three favorites.

And then Robert joined in.

@queen_carmelcochrane
my boy is fucking unhappy. His green eyes are watery.
20 hours ago.
Thirty-seven favorites. Eighteen retweets.

This stuff continued through Sunday night and carried over to Instagram. Prom pics of Shannon and I, Rocky and Bee, and my birthday party flood my IG timeline. I dreaded Monday. I was scared to believe Shannon. If Beatrice starts to cry about something else, he’d leave me again. I have no reason to think anything different. But I didn’t leave Shannon hanging.

I tweeted,
@the_greeneyedmonster
boy, you’re on probation. C u Monday.
#niggapleez

In the hallway between classes, I hear the fugazis are looking for me, and I don’t give a crap. It’s the last day of school. Bee, Rock, and I, along with Bradley and Robert, hang out in the almost-vacant courtyard. All nostalgic and whatnot. Excited as we are, we all know we’ll miss each other like crazy. I’m glad Blanca and Rachel are sticking with me through the summer. And hopefully for the rest of our lives.

“Hey, Bradley,” I say. “You seen Shannon?”

“Nope. Have you?” Robert asks.

“I guess I’ll wait for him,” I tell Blanca.

“With the fugazis looking for you?” She frowns. “It’s the last day of school. No telling what they’ll try, Zee.”

“But I wanna wait for him.”

“I’ll wait too, then,” she says.

Rachel agrees to do the same.

“Heads up, ladies,” Bradley says as he spies Beatrice coming our way. Rocky slips from underneath Bradley’s arm and jumps down from the railing.

“Maybe she’ll keep walking,” Rachel says.

“She’s walking toward us,” Blanca says, “but she’s alone. She won’t try us by herself.”

“You see Shannon?” I yell out, knowing she won’t like me asking. My heart’s in my throat.

“He’ll be back with me soon,” she says, smiling. “Trust me.”

“Aww, Tris. Don’t be mad.” Her smile fades; I hit a nerve.

“My name is
Beatrice
.” She steps closer. “Only my boyfriend calls me that.”

“You need to take your medicine…Tris.”

“Don’t call me that!” She reaches for me, and I knock her hand away, desperately wanting her to get a grip.

“But Shannon said I could call you whatever I want,” I taunt her, knowing Shannon would never say this. “
And
he says he doesn’t want you anymore.”

She tears at me, wild and uncoordinated. I step away from the railing and pop her between the eyes. She stumbles back as two arms grab me. I should’ve known the fugazis were around. From the corner of my eye, I see a brown-haired girl, a basketball player who sits behind me in homeroom. I’ve never seen her with Beatrice. She isn’t one of the originals. I jerk away and slap the shit off her. Then Blanca runs up and snatches her off me. The girl screams as Bee drags her to the ground, yanking her by her hair. She gives up and lies on the ground, looking at Blanca, her hands up in surrender. When Beatrice comes at me again, we swing at each other furiously. Finally, I grab her by the head, and using all my weight, I pick her up and slam her to the ground. I kneel down on top of her and pound on the bitch for all the shit she’s ever talked about me.

I know it’s Shannon the second I feel strong arms wrap around my waist. He pulls me off Tris, allowing her to get up. She moves slow and wobbles like she’s dazed. She charges me again, screaming and wailing as she tries to get past Shannon who stands between us.

“No!” He shoves Beatrice away.

Rachel steps in as Beatrice tries to shove her way around Shannon. She grabs her by her hair and shirt and flings her away.

“Go home, you crazy-ass girl,” she says. “Beatrice, he does not want you! God! I’m sick of this. Leave us alone!”

Rachel walks toward me, not seeing Beatrice pull something from her backpack. Beatrice runs at me full speed, scissors raised, until Shannon grabs her wrist in midair. He squeezes the scissors from her grip, and I hear them clatter to the floor. Beatrice struggles against Shannon as he clutches her to his chest, trying to calm her.

“No, Tris, stop it. You can’t.”

She bangs her fist against him and cries as Shannon grapples at her arms and torso, struggling to contain her. Suddenly, I see the redheaded fugazi charging Rachel, whose back is turned. Hearing the girl coming, Rachel spins to face her, and the girl plunges Beatrice’s scissors deep into Rachel’s neck.

“Rachel, no!” I shriek. “Rachel, move!”

She puts her hands up, attempting to push the redhead away, but the girl slices through the air, cutting her in the face repeatedly. I run toward them, but Blanca gets there first. She grabs the girl from behind, wrapping her arms around the girl’s face, pulling. The redhead gives four final thrusts with the weapon Beatrice had intended to use on me. She stabs Rachel blindly in the face twice and then in the chest and again in the neck.

I scream as Blanca tries with every bit of her 116-pound frame to pull the girl away from Rocky. I charge, knocking into the five-foot-seven, 189-pound, rabid girl. She finally stumbles away, and Blanca and I are able to wrestle her to the ground. She falls on top of Blanca, still holding the scissors. After Bee slides from underneath her, I clutch a handful of her curly red hair in both fists and smash her head into the pavement until she drops the scissors. I pick them up and jerk the scissors back, holding them over the girl’s chest. As I plunge them forward, Shannon grabs my arm. He twists hard until the scissors fall free again.

“No,” he growls, trying to calm me the same way he did Beatrice, who is now standing over Rachel’s body with Blanca. Shannon holds me as he instructs Bradley to pick up the scissors. “Wipe them,” he says as I wriggle out of his arms and run to my wounded friend. She’s gasping, coughing, choking on blood. Blood. It’s everywhere.

Blanca and I bend down over her, scared shitless. Rachel looks at us, her eyes big as saucers, trying to talk. She mouths the words
hurts
and
breathe
. And then my name. Then her head falls back, and her body goes limp.

Bradley scoops Rachel up and runs to the parking lot, panicking and desperately trying to save her life. Bee, Robert, and I follow, as we argue stupidly about who should drive. Bradley disregards us and runs straight to his forerunner.

“Just shut the fuck up and get in the car, you idiots!” he barks as he lays Rachel’s unconscious body across the backseat. Rachel and Bradley have a lot of blood smeared all over them. As Blanca and I pile in, I can see Bee’s bottom lip trembling. Rachel was bleeding too much for us to tell where her wounds were. I saw the biggest gash in the middle of her neck and covered it with my hands.

“Rocky?” I plead, my voice sounding dry and salty, “I need you to say something.” Bee looks at me, her eyes flooding with tears. “Please! Please answer me, Rocky.”

Robert, riding shotgun, looks over his seat at us, scared as shit, as Bradley barrels out of the school’s parking lot.

“Is she…” he asks. I shake my head. Then her chest rises again, for the first time since Bradley handed the scissors to Shannon after he’d wiped them. And now, there’s hope.

Rachel’s been critical for two days, and Blanca and I have not left the hospital. We’ve spent the night in the waiting room, with Antonio, my mama, and Leidys all rotating shifts. They watch over us, bringing us food we don’t eat and clothes we don’t change into. The whole thing’s too surreal. Bee and I have lived in a constant cloud of trauma and grief. We want to pray, but we don’t know how. So we sit in the farthest corner of the waiting room together, huddled in a twosome, hoping beyond everything for the best.

Rachel’s parents don’t bother much with us, too concerned and ravaged by their only daughter’s deteriorating condition. From time to time, her father will come over to us with coffee or water and stoner-red eyes. He doesn’t say much, asks if we’re okay, and thanks us for staying. He tells us how much it means that we love his daughter so much. Every time he comes to sit with us, I wish he hadn’t. He looks like Rachel is dead already. The three of us rarely stop crying. And Mr. Ghalichi always makes a mad dash for it when he gets too overcome.

On the third morning of our stay in the hospital, while Blanca and I are hovering in the hallway outside Rachel’s room, Tony comes to remove Bee and I from the hospital. Well…he tries, anyway. Of course, we refuse.

“You guys smell,” he says after Blanca and I blast him from trying to take us away from the hospital and from Rocky. “You don’t have to go home. I booked a room for y’all right down the street. In walking distance.”

We glance at each other.

“I don’t smell anything,” Blanca says, moving toward the open room door. We watch as Rachel’s doctors evaluate and consult with the nurses, their faces grim. The false hope they’d been giving the Ghalichis…there was no truth to any of it.

Rachel was stabbed eleven times, two of those wounds fatal: an injury to her lung, and the injury to her neck that reached her left vertebral artery. She has been on life support for three days. She has never once breathed on her own during that time. They unplug the machines, hoping she will respond. When she doesn’t, no one is surprised. Except for me and Blanca. We can’t believe she has left us like that. Two days before graduation.

Even after she dies, we don’t go, because she’s still there—her body is, anyway…downstairs in the morgue. I want to see her before the rest of our friends come. I want to be special.

“Will you come with me?” I whisper to Bee.

The two of us remain crouched in the same corner of the waiting room for three hours after they roll her body from the room.

“To the morgue?”

“I want to see her, don’t you?”

Tears flood our faces. Blanca shakes her head. “I can’t.” She sobs and coughs, trying to catch her breath. “I c…can’t.”

I understand and feel stupid for asking. We throw ourselves into each other’s arms, sobbing and making such a racket that the hospital staff will kick us out for sure. And then Antonio finds us and pulls Blanca from the floor first.

“Zina,” he says. I look up. “I told your mom I would bring you home. Is that what you want?”

I’m not sure what he’s asking as I stare at him, my lip quivering, my vision blurred. I don’t know what I want. Pathetic.

“I don’t—”

I stop talking as Tony turns away, distracted by something behind me. I feel two arms wrap around me.

“Zina,” Shannon says, pulling me from the floor. His eyes are red, his hair a curly mess of grayish-brown curls. He’s been crying. “You have to leave.”

“
You
have to leave,” I say, pushing away from him.

He looks at me, his face twisted in grief. “What? What are you doing?”

“Where were you?” I ask, referring to his absence from the hospital. “I haven’t seen you…I haven’t talked to you…in three days. Why didn’t you call? You don’t care about Rachel?”

“You know that’s not true,” he says. “Don’t do this. C’mon.” He holds his hand out to me. When I don’t take it, he kneels in front of me as Tony watches, Blanca pressed close to his chest.

“I love you,” he whispers.

“I needed you.” I place my hands over my chest. He lowers his head, unable to speak. “You were with Beatrice,” I cried. “This is her fault.”

“It’s not,” he says.

“She tried to stab me!”

“You know Beatrice is sick.”

“You can’t tell me you love me,” I cried. “Y…you…you don’t. You would’ve been here.”

“I do,” he says. “I really, really do.”