Raina's Story (6 page)

“But I'm not just anyone. I'm your
brother
. I suppose Kathleen knows too.”

“She's also Raina's friend.”

He hit the door hard with his fist, making her jump. He pushed away, paced the floor. “What a cozy little conspiracy! You knew how I felt about Raina! You knew! And you said nothing. Thanks a lot, Holly.”

She wanted to make him understand. “Listen, Hunter, friends keep secrets for each other. When you two started dating, I was glad for both of you. You don't know what Tony put her through. Just to be mean, he spread lies and rumors about her. It was awful. She couldn't wait to get out of middle school and leave that crowd behind. And when we heard that Tony had moved during the summer before high school, we were jumping for joy. But then he came back this year and he's been lying in wait for Raina ever since.

I'm glad you punched him.” She paused. “You did slug him, didn't you?”

Hunter stopped pacing. “I slugged him, but this isn't about Tony. It's about Raina. And you too, for never telling me about him and her.”

“Well, excuse me for being loyal.”

“Your loyalty should have ended at our front door. It's not right, Holly. You should have told me.”

“It wasn't my story to tell. It was between you and Raina, so don't try to lay a guilt trip on me.” She didn't understand why Hunter, who was usually so quick to forgive and who prided himself on doing the right thing, wasn't grasping her explanation. What was so hard? She was glad Hunter had hit Tony—Tony deserved it— although it was totally out of character for Hunter to get into a fistfight.

Hunter crossed to his bed and jerked the covers to the floor. “Go away, Holly. Leave me alone.”

“Don't throw me out. We should talk about this. Raina's the one who got slammed.”

He ignored her, went to his desk and jerked open his Bible. “I told Pastor I'd lead the youth service in the morning, and I've got stuff to do.”

“You sure you're up to such holiness?” He glared at her, and she felt bad about the dig. “You want some concealer cream to help hide your cut?”

“No. I'll just say it happened at work. What's one more lie among friends?”

“You really shouldn't be taking this so hard. It's not the end of the world, you know.”

“Good night,” he said with a forcefulness that closed the subject.

She left his room, still wondering why he was so wounded by something that had happened to Raina a year before he had ever met her.

Holly woke Kathleen the next morning at seven to tell her the news. Kathleen shook the sleep from her brain to listen. “What a creep,” she said.

“Who? Hunter or Tony?”

“Tony, of course.”

“It goes without saying that Tony's a creep, but I'm mad at my brother for acting like I did something terrible because I kept my mouth shut. You'd think he'd be proud of me for being a good friend.”

“You'd think,” Kathleen mumbled, sleep still making her groggy.

“Mom's calling us to breakfast, then we head off to church, so I can't call Raina until this afternoon.”

“I'll call her a little later.”

“Call her now. From the sound of it, I'm sure she didn't sleep a wink after Hunter left.”

K
ATHLEEN REALIZED
that Holly was correct the second she heard Raina's voice, which sounded thick and raspy, like she'd been crying. “You all right?”

“Not really.”

“Holly told me what happened. I can come over if you want.”

“Don't,” Raina said. “Mom will be home about three and I've got to pull it together before I face her.”

“What are you going to tell her?”

“I don't know yet. I never told her that Tony has moved back and is in our high school, because she would have freaked.”

“You're Queen of Denial.”

Kathleen felt rewarded when Raina gave a short laugh.

“You know what a fuss she raised to the principal back in middle school. I can't have her fly off the handle like that again. I don't want it all over school.”

“Yes, but Tony was out of control and he was smearing you.”

“But I'm a big girl now.”

Kathleen fluffed her bedcovers while she thought of something encouraging to say. “This is going to work itself out.”

“It all depends on what Hunter does.”

“Hunter loves you.”

“I'm not sure he loves me quite as much today as he did yesterday.”

“All because Tony spilled some dirt about you and him? That sounds harsh.”

Raina knew she could never explain it to either of her two best friends. She hardly understood it herself. Hunter's assumption had always been that she was waiting for marriage to have sex, just as he was. Now that he knew she wasn't “pure,” would he even want her around? She said, “How is it that I hooked up with the one guy who's a morality major?”

She didn't expect an answer, but Kathleen said, “Because you'd already been used and abused by a guy who isn't.”

After they hung up, Raina showered and put on makeup. She wanted to look less unhappy when her mother arrived. Raina would have to tell Vicki something, because her mother would know something was wrong as soon as she saw her. She kept hoping that Hunter would call after church and ease her pain, but he didn't. By
the time her mother shouted, “I'm home!” from the foot of the stairs, Raina was desperately sad again.

“Did you have a good time?” Raina called back from her bedroom, putting off the meeting as long as possible.

“I actually snoozed through two of the lectures, but the head of nursing for the Mayo Clinic was sensational.” Vicki's voice bounced up the stairs in front of her footsteps. She was still chattering when she opened Raina's door. “Anyway, I—Raina! What's wrong?”

“I—I had a bad night. Does it show that much?”

Vicki eased into the room. “You look like you've been crying.”

“Good diagnosis.” Raina rose from her bed and crossed to the window. She stared down at the parking lot, at the roofs of cars parked in neat rows like waiting chariots. She wanted to run down, jump into one and drive far away. Maybe not come back.

“Tell me,” Vicki said.

Raina turned, slumped against the windowsill and began telling her story, but at the mention of Tony's name, her mother recoiled. “He's returned? Why didn't you tell me? If he says one bad word about you—”

“Too late,” Raina said. “But I don't care who he talks to about me. Except for Hunter. He told Hunter.”

Vicki rolled her eyes. “For crying out loud, Hunter's more mature than that! Isn't he?”

“It was a shock. I don't want to lose him.”

“Look, you made a bad choice with Tony. Surely Hunter understands bad choices.”

Raina's eyes filled with tears. “I'm not sure.”

Vicki looked both angry and exasperated. “That's why I don't like to see you get so involved with a boy. You have too much going for you, Raina. Don't get hung up on some boy and lose yourself. Or your way.”

Raina had hoped for more sympathy, more understanding from her mother. She hadn't wanted a lecture about the perils of love and dating. “It's not Hunter's fault.”

“Don't defend him. You've always told me he was different. Well, he doesn't seem too different to me. He's acting like a child. You had sex with Tony. It was a bad choice. You got on with your life. He should accept that and not blame you.”

“But it
was
my fault,” Raina said, her anger rising. “I said yes to Tony.”

Vicki studied her with pursed lips. Finally, she said, “What happened with you and Tony is history. You can't change history. But if that kid even
thinks
about bad-mouthing you again, I'll have him expelled.”

“They don't expel people for spreading stories, Mom. Especially true ones.”

Vicki rushed forward and grabbed Raina by
the shoulders. “You are
not
any of the names Tony called you. And if Hunter's going to hold this against you, you're better off without him. You hear me?”

Her mother's passion shocked Raina. When she'd been thirteen and Vicki had gone to the principal about Tony, Raina had been embarrassed. But now Vicki's vehemence seemed out of proportion. “I'll handle it,” Raina said, wrenching free and rubbing her arms, sore from her mother's grip. “It's my problem and I'll handle it. I'm sorry I even told you.”

Vicki closed her eyes, took a couple of deep ragged breaths and stepped aside. “Of course you'll handle it,” she said quietly, as if regretting her loss of composure. She walked to the door. “I hope Hunter will come around. I hate seeing you hurt.” She paused. “For what it's worth, hard work is good medicine for tough times. It's always helped me. Don't sit around feeling sorry for yourself, because it solves nothing.”

Vicki closed the door quietly behind her, and Raina stood staring, bewildered, long after her mother had left the room.

Raina took her mother's advice and spent every free minute in the hospital nursery with the newborns. Being around the tiny babies lifted her spirits. They were new and beautiful and cuddly. Although nothing was said, Sierra and Betsy
must have sensed that she was hurting. They gave her free rein and asked little of her in the time she spent working beyond her regular shifts.

One afternoon, Betsy told Raina to gown up and follow her. Raina quickly put a sterile paper gown over her clothes, slipped paper booties over her sneakers and a cap over her hair and followed the nurse into the neonatal ICU—a rare privilege. Together they washed their hands with antibacterial soap and put on latex gloves. “Time to feed the preemies,” Betsy said.

“Me?”

“You can hold a bottle as well as anyone, and we're short-staffed today. Flu season—please, don't you catch it.”

Raina followed Betsy to one of the plastic bubbles, an incubator that held a tiny baby, born too soon. Gauze pads were taped over its eyes, “to protect them from the light,” Betsy said. Tubes and wires attached to portable machines ran into the baby's body. A teddy bear had been placed in a corner of the bubble. “This one was born at twenty-six weeks. She only weighed sixteen ounces.”

“A pound?” Raina could hardly believe it.

“She's made progress over the last six weeks— three pounds—and once she gains another, we'll be able to bottle-feed her. When she hits five pounds and gets an ‘all's well‘ from her pediatrician, her parents can take her home.”

Betsy led Raina to other incubators, where other premature babies lay, and showed her how to lift and hold one in a nearby rocking chair and how to feed him with a bottle that looked dollsized. “Don't be afraid of them. They're tougher than they look. And don't let them fall asleep without finishing their formula. Thump them on the bottoms of their feet if they doze off.” Betsy smiled. “That's it. Hey, you're good at this. You've got five babies.”

“Thank you,” Raina said.

Betsy shrugged. “You're my best student.”

Holding the babies calmed Raina. They were so small and helpless and they needed her. Well, maybe not
her
exactly, but they needed the care and food she offered. She hummed to them, offering each one a special song. She cuddled every baby, kissed each forehead and traced their tiny features with her finger, a finger that looked gargantuan beside their miniature hands. She already knew that newborns thrived on being held and touched, that without such touching, a baby seemed to wither and dry up.

Grown-up girls need touching too,
she thought. Hunter hadn't called her in more than a week and she missed him terribly. She longed to feel his arms around her. She missed the way he toyed with her hair and the way he rubbed the small of her back when he held her. Hunter was a
toucher, and she thrived on it. Their separation was a physical pain that nested inside her almost every minute she was awake.

The baby in her arms had emptied the bottle, and Raina held him to her shoulder and gently tapped his back. Tears blurred her vision. Although she and Hunter saw each other in the halls at school and spoke, there was a wall between them that she couldn't breach. “He'll get over it,” Holly had told Raina confidently. “I mean, it's not like you cheated on him or anything.” But Raina knew that in Hunter's mind, that wasn't necessarily true. He felt betrayed, not so much by what had happened in her past as by his dreams of what could have been theirs and now never would be.
The first time. The first one
.

The Harvest Ball was coming soon, right before Halloween, marking the end of football season. So far, Hunter hadn't mentioned their going together, and naturally, if she couldn't go with Hunter, she wouldn't go at all. No one at school had picked up on their estrangement yet, but if he asked someone else, everybody would know something was wrong.

As she lowered the baby into his incubator, his little hand caught on the necklace Hunter had given her for her sixteenth birthday. She gently untangled the baby's fingers, shut the plastic lid and fingered the heart-shaped pendant
with a diamond chip at the heart's tip. Nestled inside the heart was a cross bearing a second diamond chip. “The two most important symbols in my life,” he'd said when he'd first fastened it around her neck.

On November twenty-fifth, she'd turn seventeen. With or without him.