With Nick missing, I stood in as villain: a human sponge that soaked up all blame in the room, bloating beneath my hideous peace sign tankini from absorbing every inch of desperation and confusion. Harrison grabbed on to a bed post and stared at blood pooling around his feet. Bigs and Teeny hugged. Better together than apart, they always fit into every ridge of each other until it looked as if they formed one person.

They all looked at me that day as if every bad thought they’d ever had about me had been proven right. I was bad news. I could kill someone.

Of course, I didn’t do it. No one knew that yet. Aidy continued her 911 call and futile resuscitation attempts. The iPod played mindless music. I howled big ugly cries over and over until finally an adult appeared: Old Mr. Jimenez.

“Dios mío,” he whispered to himself. He sounded as young as one of us, his words reduced to desperate whimpers. He ran over to help, muttering prayers and pressing harder on the bullet wound, trying to stop the blood.

Nobody knew what to do.

I needed to throw up. Another terrible reaction to the terrible, terrible mess I’d made. It didn’t seem right to use the bathroom connected to the room where Marley lay dead, and I didn’t have time to make it to the other one, so for some unexplainable reason I ran out to the pool and pushed up on the ledge. Overshooting my jump, I ended up face-first in chlorine and my own vomit: regurgitated red freeze pop mixed with Coke.

Once the day finished emptying itself from my insides, I scooted along the ledge to dunk my head in an untainted area. Opening my eyes underwater, I saw the blue of Marley’s skin and eyes in the abyss around me. Flashes of her golden hair in the streaks of sunlight streaming in like thin daggers. The soaked crimson floral of the pillow in my vomit floating overhead. Primary colors summed up Marley’s demise, linking her to everything I’d ever see again.

She was everywhere.

I let my head sink lower, considering what it would be like to stay under and erase all of it. Her blue wouldn’t let me. It screamed for justice, floating me back up to the surface for air. I emerged with a huge gasp, slumping down alongside the pool to drain my nostrils of chlorine and mucus. In a violent fit of cough-crying, Marley’s final words wove into the incessant noise inside my head.

Pull the trigger. Nothing’s gonna happen.

I saw Nothing happen to her. When the light went out in her eyes, Nothing crept in.

That day, Nothing took hold of Marley and kept her.

13