Lorelei's Secret by Carolyn Parkhurst Page A

think he and Bethany are having sex right now?’
    ‘Probably,’ Lexy said. ‘Probably everyone’s having sex with somebody except us.’
    ‘Yup.’ He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.
    ‘Everyone except the bald girl and the homo.’
    ‘What would you do if Michael were here right now?’
    Lexy asked.
    ‘Probably nothing. I’d probably clam up and be afraid to talk to him, as usual.’
    ‘How drunk are you?’ she asked.
    ‘Pretty drunk.’
    ‘Let’s pretend I’m Michael.’
    He kept his eyes closed. ‘I don’t think it’s possible to get that drunk.’
    She swallowed the rest of her drink. ‘Sure it is,’ she said.
    ‘Come on. I’ll turn out the light.’
    She lay down next to him on the bed and nuzzled
    his neck.
    ‘Lexy,’ he said.
    ‘Quiet,’ she said. She bit his earlobe lightly. ‘Think about Michael.’
    As she touched him, she whispered to him all the things that Michael might do. ‘He’s wanted to do this to you all year,’ she murmured. ‘He’s finally here with you. Just think about Michael doing this to you. Shhh,’ she said as she felt Brian’s body respond to her touch. ‘Just pretend I’m Michael.’
    Afterward, Brian reached out in the dark and squeezed her shoulder.
    ‘Thanks, Lexy,’ he said. ‘That was cool.’
    She waited a few minutes until she was sure he was
    asleep. Then she went into the bathroom and closed the door and put her head in her hands and cried. She paced back and forth in the tiny bathroom, her sobs growing louder and more convulsive until finally she sat down on the edge of the tub and buried her face in a towel so Brian wouldn’t hear her. And it was as she was perched there on the narrow ledge of porcelain with her face pressed to the rough fabric that the thought came to her that she could kill herself, and she was filled with a sudden calm. I could just do it, she thought, and the idea had a kind of beautiful simplicity to it.
    She stood up and began pacing the room again, but she wasn’t crying anymore. She was filled with a clarity of purpose that exhilarated her. I’m just going to do it, she thought, and then it will all be done. But how? She looked around the bathroom for inspiration. Brian had left a small bag of toiletries by the sink, and she considered breaking apart his safety razor, but the blade looked too small and dull to do the job. There was little else in the room that seemed promising - this was a hotel room, after all, and there were no bottles of prescription pills in the medicine chest, no kitchen nearby with a butcher block full of knives to choose from, none of the deadly everyday objects people fill their homes with.
    Then she saw the water glasses sitting on the counter, each one topped with a white paper cap attesting to its cleanliness. She picked up one of the glasses and threw it onto the hard tile floor. It shattered with a loud crash, and she was afraid for a moment that Brian would wake up, but when a minute passed without any sound from the other room, she bent down and picked up a large pointed shard. She stood over the sink and looked into the mirror for a moment, seeing herself in the strange, harsh bathroom light, a bald girl with swollen eyes and mascara smeared on her cheeks. And she didn’t hesitate. She pushed the jagged point into her wrist.
    She didn’t get very far; as soon as the first drops of blood hit the basin of the sink, she grew terrified and pulled the piece of glass away. She ran her wrist under water and pressed a washcloth to the wound until the bleeding stopped. Then she cleaned up the broken glass from the floor as well as she could and opened the door to the bedroom. Brian was snoring lightly on top of the bedclothes, his pants still unzipped. Lexy climbed into bed next to him, cradling her hurt arm beneath her, and cried to think what she had done.
    No one ever knew. The cut on her wrist turned out
    to be fairly inconspicuous in the light of day; she was surprised to see how