Tell Me Something Real

  “See you.”

  Ford doesn’t acknowledge her, even when she waves to him on her way by. “Did you check your levels?”

  I raise my brow and cross my arms over my chest. “Is that why you magically appeared in this class—to make sure I don’t eat something without proper bolus procedure?”

  “Needed a new elective,” is all he says.

  “Right. Well, welcome. And yes, I checked my levels and did the math. No death by tart today.” It can’t be a coincidence that Jackie shows up at this moment. “At least not for me,” I mumble. He hides it well, but I swear his lips just twitched.

  “Hey, you,” Jackie says, ignoring me one hundred percent. “I was wondering where you were. We’re on our way to Hasty Freeze for lunch. You coming?”

  Ford hesitates, and I think he’s about to tell her he can’t, but then he nods. Disappointment is stupid, but it hits me anyway. Since I don’t want either of them to see it, I look down while I start my way past them and out of the classroom.

  “Oh, hey, Lincoln,” Jackie calls out to me. I want to ignore her, but I never do. I turn and raise a brow. Her smile is candy-coated sweet. “I just saw Colt leaving campus with Evie, in case you were going to find him. I know you guys usually eat lunch together.”

  It’s a blow—and Jackie knows it. Ford’s eyes narrow, but I slap a smile on and hold up my phone. “He already texted to ask me if I needed anything while they go visit the Hasty Hos—he’ll be super disappointed you’re not working the counter, by the way. And thanks, Jackie, it’s super nice of you to be so worried about me.”

  “I was just helping in the front office and I saw the lunch bag with your name on it. You know, the sack lunch they give to people who can’t leave campus or buy their own food? Might want to get it before they give it away.”

  Ford opens his mouth to say something, but I shoot him a look. “Girl, you are too good to me today. I hope you snuck me some extra chips.” I go to leave and then stop. “Oh, and I was so out of it the other morning I never got to say thanks. For letting Ford spend the night with me when I got out of the hospital.” My smile is so wide it might split my cheeks, because Jackie—she’s not smiling anymore. “I couldn’t have recovered without him by my side, and I guess you knew that. You’re a really considerate friend to both of us, Jackie. We appreciate it.”

  I wink at Ford—and this time he actually smiles. I kinda hate him for it, and for making me feel like we’re sharing a secret, especially because when I leave, he stays.

  I wait until I’ve gotten my lunch from the office, and I’m safely tucked into Mrs. Wright’s classroom that she leaves open for people to eat a quiet lunch in, before I take out my phone and text Colt.

  Me: Different lunch plans? Jackie stopped by my culinary class to let me know.

  Colt: Where’s Ford?

  Me: With Jackie—like normal at lunch.

  Colt doesn’t text back right away, and I get a weird feeling in my stomach—like he’s somehow rearranging his plans when he wanted to be with Evie… and like he was counting on Ford to keep me occupied so I didn’t feel alone. His words from the other morning come back to me, slapping me hard.

  Me: Don’t text him and cuss him out for not babysitting me. I’m fine—just wondered where you guys were. Have fun. Tell Evie I said hi.

  Colt: You good?

  No, no I’m not good. I’m floundering, because for some reason things are changing and I don’t understand. You’re my best friend and we’ve eaten lunch together since we were in elementary school. Why did you leave without saying something? And why does your cousin act like he cares, but leave with a girl whose life mission is to make me feel small?

  That tightness in my chest returns, and I breathe once, twice, and then blink my eyes before typing out a small response.

  Me: All good.

  Evie’s mom walks in at that moment, smiling when she sees me. “Hello, Lincoln. Are you here to finish your essay?”

  I have no clue what essay she’s talking about, but I nod my head. “Thanks, Mrs. Wright.”

  She brings over my booklet, and sets it down. “I thought you ate lunch with Evie?”

  I nod, keeping my eyes down. “Normally, but, uh, today I knew I needed to work.”

  Evie must get her super-observation powers from her mom, because when I glance up, Mrs. Wright is looking at me like she knows I’m not telling her the truth. I look down at my booklet again.

  “Can I use my text?”

  Mrs. Wright gives a small sigh, nodding. “Take your time. I can answer any questions you have about the prompt,” she adds, before settling in at her desk.

  I work for the entire forty minutes, but I only write a few sentences. My brain is mushy and unfocused, and it has nothing to do with my glucose levels. Loneliness sits heavily on me the rest of the day, and because of it, I avoid both Evie and Colt, leaving campus during my open, calling in sick to practice and getting to work early.

  When I get home at just past midnight, I walk up the squeaking front porch steps, keeping my eyes down and ignoring the people who float in and out, or the voices that echo through doors and out into the hallway.

  This place that I live, it doesn’t keep secrets. The walls are thin, the conversion from home to apartments definitely not up to code. But it’s a building that houses the forgotten, the less, the needy and in between, so no one really pays attention to it.

  Like me.

  I slip into the room that’s been converted into a two bedroom “apartment” that I share with my mom and her current boyfriend, Phil. She’s passed out on the couch, but he looks up from the blaring television when I close the door.

  “Rent’s due,” he says, and it’s there, the constant undertone that was offered in words the first time he moved in. “I’ll pay your rent—you can work it off other ways.”

  I never took him up on it, and he only said it the one time. Now, he always just mentions rent, and I always put my cash on the counter. That’s the end of it. I slide through the minimal space to my makeshift bedroom that I think used to be a closet or pantry, and I close the door. It’s dark, but not quiet, and when I lay down on the mattress that serves as my bed, I listen to the opening and closing of doors, smell the smoke from someone’s joint, and more from a cigarette, and not for the first time do I understand how loneliness can drive someone to live a life like this—oblivious and high, working to be unaware of everything they don’t have.

  Not me, I think, knuckling a tear from my eye when it threatens to spill down. I will not let someone else choose for me, and I will not succumb to the loneliness.

  But, while I lay there and hear everything from the apartments around me, I curl into a ball and let my tears come.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Colt nods, tipping his can back for a deep swallow. We’re sitting in a couple of old camp chairs near the fire, beers in hand, with sounds of the party echoing around us. The football team won tonight—and despite both of our epic blow ups at practice, Colt and I only sat the first quarter. After that, we played both sides of the ball all night long, ramming one play after another down their throats, and coming out with a major victory, which means the crowd is a little more rambunctious than usual, the beer going down a little quicker, couples finding each other a little sooner.

  Every time a truck or car pulls up, and more people get out, a cheer raises up from the crowd, and the music is pumped higher. Colt and I got here less than an hour ago, hitching a ride with some of the other guys so neither of us had to worry about drinking, and while both of us had offers from several females for more than the Coors can they handed us, our focus has been on one female in particular.

  “Why does she do this—drink, smoke, flirt with guys I know she won’t talk to tomorrow? I saw her mom—and I saw Lincoln looking at her mom. She doesn’t want to be this person.”

  I don’t take my eyes off the fire, just watch the flames dance while I wait for
Colt’s answer. He takes a second, finishing his beer and crushing his can, sending it into the flames—not because he thinks it’s going to burn, but because throwing shit into fire and watching it hiss and pop is always fun. If anyone knows that it’s me.

  “Sometimes,” he finally says. “It’s easier to embrace the devil, face him head on and challenge him to take you, instead of waiting for him to sneak up on you and ruin what you’ve made yourself.”

  I turn my head away from the flames now, so I can focus on Colt. “I don’t understand.”

  “Lincoln has always been the daughter of an addict—she’s never known anything else. Drinking, smoking a little weed, flirting with guys she won’t talk to in the morning, just so she can tell them no after a certain point tonight… she’s testing herself to make sure she’s always strong enough to walk away.”

  I swallow, my own beer sitting untouched in my hand. “Is she?”

  Colt’s eyes narrow, and I know it’s because he’s pushing past the fire to see Lincoln. “She’s the strongest person I know. A hell of a lot stronger than you or me.”

  I nod, knowing he’s right. Still, I watch her, wishing with every breath she didn’t have to test herself, that she knew, without a doubt that she was strong enough.

  “Remember what I said last week, about trusting her to you?”

  I look to Colt. He’s no longer staring at Lincoln, but at me. I nod, the familiar racing of my heart happening. “I still do—but I can’t much longer. Make a move, Ford, or tell me you’re not going to, because Lincoln deserves more than your worry. She deserves it all—and you and me? We’re part of the reason she’s testing herself tonight.”

  I swallow, easing my dry throat. “What’d you do?”

  He looks away, staring at the fire again. “It’s what I can’t do. Don’t do what she expects, Ford. Don’t take the easy way out.”

  We don’t talk any more after this. Eventually, Colt stands, slapping me on the shoulder before stumbling off to find more beer and maybe a female. Idly, I wonder if that female will be Evie.

  When he goes, I stay where I am, booted feet flat on the ground, hood of my North Face pulled over my Mariners cap while I nurse the one beer, never really drinking from it.

  Staying sober wasn’t my plan tonight—the exact opposite, actually. It’s been a tense week, and even though Colt and I have recovered from wanting to beat the shit out of each other, I still feel restless. My eyes wander across the fire to find Lincoln again.

  She’s laughing, but I know it’s not a real one—it’s the one she uses when she and Jackie face-off, or when someone says something asinine about her diabetes or her mom. Lincoln’s real laugh is nothing like this—it’s warm and rich, not fake and brittle.

  I wonder if she laughs because it helps her fight those pieces of her life that are so dark and ugly, they threaten to bury her if she doesn’t. I wonder if she laughs because it makes her stronger, when all of her life she’s been vulnerable.

  Lincoln walks the edge. She taunts the darkness to take her, teasing it each time she dips her toe into the fountain of risk and indulgence, but she never succumbs.

  From what I can see, Colt is right: she challenges the dark, but she never lets it take her.

  Not like Colt. Not like me.

  I flash to last year at this time, to Alyssa and the fighting and the racing, the speeding. I flash to the guy I was who gave zero-fucks about anyone, and the girl he let hang on anyway. Because it was easier.

  Like it is now.

  “Guess who?”

  Speak of the devil.

  I’m jolted back by the feel of cold hands, and the squealing sound of a toddler in my ear. My beer sloshes over my hand and drips onto my jeans where it soaks in right away. The toddler laughs, and I lean forward under the guise of putting my beer down, taking a huge breath when my head is down and no one can see me.

  “Good game, baby. Did you hear me cheering?”

  Jacqueline. Explains the toddler squeals.

  On a large exhale, I pull myself together and look up, fixed half-grin in place. “Why do you think I played so hard?”

  More squealing, and then she’s in my lap, her wet lips pressing against mine, her freezing hands sneaking inside of my hood and grabbing my cheeks. I try not to react, to play it cool and let her kiss me, but the urge to dump her off my lap and swipe my hand over my mouth is strong.

  She tastes like stale beer and something else… my guess is vape.

  I ease back, hands holding her shoulders so she doesn’t fall—or come with me. Her face tells me she’s been partying for a while, and her voice is a pitch that only the truly high can achieve. Her lopsided smile tells me she’s more than amused with herself.

  And she should be. A part of me wishes I could pull her close, take her mouth, pound four beers, and ask her for a smoke from her stash—I’d even settle for an edible. But stronger than that part—the part who wants to check out and disengage, find that hazy spot between a good time and I don’t give a fuck, is the guy who looks at her and sees the girl across the fire.

  The girl who is probably just as high, the girl who is just as drunk, the girl who will flirt and maybe even kiss the boy she’s toying with, not because she actually wants to kiss him, but because it’s easier to kiss him and feel something than to feel nothing.

  The girl I know I’m staying sober for, so in twenty minutes or an hour or two hours when she’s in need of someone to step in and make sure that she takes her insulin or eats, that she gets home without trying to drive herself, I’m there.

  I try not to think about how much I want to be there.

  Jacqueline is talking and petting, and, because it’s as good a shield as any, I use her to keep my spot and stare across the fire, only mumbling responses and offering smiles when her actions cue me she’s waiting for them. She settles onto my lap, hands still stroking me, her friends around us, and she talks for the next forty-five minutes.

  Part of this scene is so familiar—the kind of familiar that tells me exactly how easy it would be to sink into it and never come back up for air. But something is holding me back.

  I look across the fire again.

  I’ve known a lot of party girls in my life—girls who say yes to everything because they’re afraid to say no, or because saying yes is what gives them their identity. Much in the same way that doing shots and vaping or smoking or doing a couple of lines cements their status as a good-time girl, the girl always ready and willing to be just a little wild.

  But none of that seems to compare to the reckless abandon I’m witnessing in Lincoln right now.

  For some of us, partying is an escape. A few drinks, some smoke or some pills, and everything is fuzzy, and not so important. For others, it’s just fun. A good time, a way to lose our inhibitions until the next day. And, for the truly desperate, partying is a lifestyle. It becomes who they are and what they need to get from day to day.

  For Lincoln, it’s a challenge. Like running.

  She is challenging her body to stay with her, to keep up, maybe even to break. And it’s pissing me off.

  Without warning, I stand, almost dumping Jacqueline on her ass. I make a grab, but she’s quick to adjust, her feet hitting and her fingers digging into my arms with a surprising amount of strength.

  “Hey!” The word is sharp, and nothing like the past little while of slurs and high pitched squeals. Which brings us to door number five: the people for whom partying is a lie; a way to pretend they’re a different person while they manipulate everyone around them who is actually drunk.

  I stare at her, eyes penetrating until she releases me and takes a step back, and then I watch her shift, go back to being the loopy, happy, but never sloppy girl at the party.

  And then I turn and walk away, stepping around the blaze and over to where Lincoln has herself wrapped around a guy from the team whose name I can’t recall. It doesn’t matter, because he’s not who I’m after.
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  I look around for Colt, and I don’t see him. Doesn’t matter. I’m beyond letting Lincoln go to someone else—I don’t care what that means. She will not be saved by Colt, and she will not be going anywhere with this nameless tool who’s too high to recognize that the brownie he’s trying to feed her can hurt her in far more ways than it can help her.

  “My uncle made them special,” I hear him say as I step over to where they’re crammed in one chair. Lincoln squints up at me, the blaze behind my back not the only thing making it difficult for her to see me.

  “Let’s go.”

  The guy with her is too stoned to even say anything; he just blinks up at me like he doesn’t know why I’m there. Well, you’re about to buddy.

  Reaching down, I haul Lincoln off his lap and over my shoulder. She gives a half-hearted groan of objection, pounding me on the back a few times, but I clamp my arm tight around the back of her thighs, and her struggles die down.

  “Jacqueline and her friends are free,” I call to the guy, as I walk away from the party and toward the cars that line the road.

  When we’re far enough away from the people, I stop and swing Lincoln down, so she’s cradled against my chest instead of hanging over my shoulder. I look down at her hazy eyes and flushed skin, and she looks up at me.

  “Why?”

  I don’t pretend not to hear her, or to know what she means. “Because you deserve better. Because you are better.” She doesn’t respond, but I see it—the doubt. And because I know what it feels like to wonder something like that, I keep my eyes locked on hers, and let her in, just a little, just enough. “Trust me.”

  Something happens between us with those words.

  Neither of us moves, our breaths mingling while we try and figure out what it was and what this moment means. I’m suffocating with need—the need to look away, the need to bring her closer, the need to grab on and never let go. I hold myself rigid, eyes unmoving, waiting for her instead.