Canteen Full of Sins

Content Warning: Mentions of drug use and child abuse.

Ivy gave me three days to give her an answer.

I couldn’t on the first day because it was too soon to consider anything. I had a lot of homework to do after school, not to mention the amount of beer cans and cigarettes I had to clean in the living room since Mom would have too much of a headache to do it herself. I told Ivy to let me think about it but she was adamant I give her an answer soon.

Three days, she reminded me.

I think she was trying to sound threatening, but nothing ever sounded threatening when it came from her pretty lips.

“I did it for you,” she told me. “I’d do it again because I love you, and I couldn’t let Heather say all those nasty things about you.”

That made me smile. Ivy reminds me of Mom sometimes. Mom said almost the exact same thing when I saw her in the garage cleaning Dad’s car a few years ago.

He doesn’t have any right to treat you like that. I’m doing this for you because I love you.

Love means a lot of things, that’s what Mom told me that day. She told me love means not hitting your child. It means forgiveness but it also means protecting those you care about from harm. That’s what Mom did for me. I’m sure Ivy was protecting me too.

Ivy opened her mouth to say more, but Mr. Langly told her to go back to her seat so he can call attendance. Heather would be absent.

***

On the second day when Mr. Langly called for attendance, Heather was still absent. So was Toby Mickelson and Gabrielle Hernandez, but Toby was out sick and Gabrielle was on a family road trip. No one knew where Heather was except me and Ivy, but I wasn’t going to tell Mr. Langly that. He didn’t have any business knowing what we knew.

That’s exactly what Ivy reminded me when she caught me at my locker after history class. It was no one else’s business except ours, but she also reminded me I need to give her an answer. Two days now.

I felt bad about what happened to Heather but it wasn’t Ivy’s fault. How could it be when it was Heather who ambushed us that evening? And all because of those dumb little bags Ivy sold during lunch. She always had them in her backpack, hidden in a fake textbook hollowed out to hide them.

When Ivy leaned in to whisper in my ear, I could’ve died happy with the way her soft breath brushed against my skin.

“If you don’t help me, I’ll tell the police about the canteen if they come for me.”

I’d forgotten about that canteen. It was a gift from Heather’s father after he came home from the war. It was his promise to never go back, to stay home with Heather and her mom. She didn’t shut up about that canteen for weeks, showing it off whenever she could, hiding it in one of her inside jacket pockets whenever a teacher walked by.

It was that stupid canteen that had my fingerprints all over it, because Ivy told me to search Heather’s pockets for any “evidence” she might have about Ivy selling to our classmates. There was no evidence. Just that dumb metal container.

When I found out about what Ivy was doing, it didn’t bother me as much as Heather.

The day before the incident, I told Ivy I knew about the plastic bags. I wasn’t going to tell anyone about them or the powder inside. I was just curious why she sold them and what she wanted to do with all that cash. But before I could ask, she told me she’d kiss me if I kept my mouth shut. Maybe she knew I had a crush on her since Freshman year, that’s why she bribed me with a kiss, but I wasn’t embarrassed about it since she promised we could act out one of my fantasies.

That’s how we ended up beneath the bridge over Matten River. We had to bike a few miles behind school, then walk down a hill to get to a decent spot under the bridge where no one would see us. It was called Matten River, but it was more like a creek, shallow and dirty. I didn’t feel shallow or dirty when Ivy kissed me there. I’d seen her kiss an older woman here too when I followed her after school sometimes. Ivy was a great kisser, probably because she practiced with that woman.

I didn’t want anything to ruin my first kiss, but Heather followed us that day. She stomped down the hill just when Ivy’s tongue moved to lick my neck. I thought Heather was there to ridicule us, but she was there only for Ivy, to blame Ivy for killing her brother. All Ivy did was sell him one of those plastic bags. None of it was her fault.

Thinking on it now, there was a hundred different ways things could have ended. I could have told Ivy to ignore Heather and we could have left back to my house. I could have found a way to calm Heather down, even when she started calling me names and saying how disgusting I was for spending time with someone like Ivy. I could’ve stopped Ivy from picking up that rock, but I didn’t.

When Heather fell, blood trickling down the nasty cut on her head, Ivy had a thought to throw the rock into the creek when she realized what she’d done.

I don’t think Ivy has ever seen a dead body before. She vomited. She screamed. She cried. I gave her a napkin to wipe her tears, but she used it to wipe her mouth instead. That pretty mouth that was all over my lips and neck only five minutes before Heather came and ruined everything.

Just like Dad ruined everything, but he can’t now because he’s gone. Mom had to identify his body after the car accident, and she didn’t have a nanny so I went along. It was strange seeing his pale face and broken body on that metal table. But Heather wasn’t pale or broken. She just looked like she was sleeping, despite the red flowing down her temple and cheek.

Don’t tell anyone, Ivy had said. We need to leave, right now.

But I didn’t leave. Not yet anyway. I couldn’t understand how Heather looked so peaceful. Not like Dad. When I didn’t budge, Ivy ran up the hill, got on her bike, and left me behind.

***

On the third day, I finally made up my mind. I would help Ivy.

I wasn’t going to help her because she would tell the police about the canteen if they came for her. If anything, I’d gladly go to prison with her. The problem was, she was eighteen and I was three years younger, so she’d be tried as an adult and we wouldn’t be going to the same prison. The police would take her from me. Just like Mom took away Dad, just like alcohol was taking away Mom. But if I had any say in it, no one would take Ivy from me. Not even Heather could do that now.

We went back to Matten River. Made our way down the hill to get beneath the bridge. Heather was still there, looking more like Dad, all pale but at least she wasn’t broken. The blood on her head now covered her face, dried, dark, and reddish brown. Ivy looked like she wanted to vomit again, but she handed me one of two shovels and told me to get to work.

We worked quickly, digging deep enough to place Heather into a hole. I had the decency to fold her hands over her chest. Ivy gave me a look I couldn’t read, but then we went on with placing back the dirt we dug to hide Heather and her canteen.

It was almost intimate the way we worked together. Like doing a school project. I couldn’t stop staring at her. I couldn’t believe she wanted my help, that she needed me. She didn’t have a clue how much I adored her. She didn’t know what I’d do to keep her safe.

She didn’t know Heather woke up ten minutes after the incident, bloody, crying, and cursing through gurgled breaths. Ivy didn’t know that to protect her, to keep her from getting snitched on and going to prison, I held Heather face down in that little creek to make sure no one knew what really happened that evening, because I couldn’t bare the thought of losing Ivy.

Mom told me love means a lot of things. It means you have to protect those you care about from harm. It means you have to be ready to give your life for them. Love must be important to Ivy too. She said she loves me enough to kill for me.

And I love Ivy enough to bury a body for her.