"I think you're forgetting that volunteers serve so that you don't have to," Josh finally interjects. "The organization that rewards its members’ loyalty will find itself able to attract better applicants. The organization that thinks there is nothing more important than money will not continue to recruit the same quality of individuals."
I want to ask him about Noah. Where is he? Is he okay? But I don’t.
"People are motivated by rational self-interest. You can't put a price on loyalty," Parker says.
"That's where you're wrong. Employees motivated by monetary reward are less productive, less motivated, and less trustworthy. Organizations would be smart to figure out how to optimize employees’ emotional ties to their companies." Josh looks right at me, his expression filled with blame and anger, and something else. There is no mistaking that Josh is pissed. And that anger is directed fully, completely, at me. "In a functioning society, relationships are reciprocal. Exchange relationships only exist as a condition of trust. Trust is the foundation of every relationship, business or otherwise. You can’t buy it."
The discussion fades, and I can't hear it anymore. All I can think about is the harsh judgment in Josh's eyes.
It takes me the rest of class to summon the courage I need. I catch him in the hall. At first I think he’s not going to stop walking but then he does. He refuses to meet my gaze. "Is he...is..." I can't say the words. Fear closes of my throat.
"Ask him yourself." He starts to walk off then stops and turns back. His body radiates violent tension and I take a step back. Josh notices. "You know what? That's the fucking problem with people like you. You hear all the stuff about PTSD on the news and you rush to judge all of us as crazy fucks one bad day away from snapping."
His comment strikes a nerve, one that is really fucking tender after the last week. "You don't actually get to say you people to me. I've been taking care of my father - a veteran - since he came home from the war."
"Well, good for fucking you," Josh snaps. He takes another step into my space. "You get to be the fucking martyr taking care of the disabled vet. Spare me your heroics, sweetheart."
"What the hell is your problem?"
"My problem? You want to know what my problem is?" He advances toward me, stopping an inch from my face. I can feel the violence radiating off him. I try to back up again, but I'm against the wall. "You wrote Noah off. You saw the pills and you immediately decided junkie. You never talked to him about it. You never said 'hey, maybe this shit isn't a big deal.' You just saw the pills and looked at the shit with your dad and said 'nope, not doing this.' You're a fucking coward for running out on him. He deserves better."
"You don't actually get to judge that," I whisper.
"Yes, actually I do. I'm his friend. I've been there. Like he was for you that week with your dad. But oh no, not you. You fucking bolt at the first sign of trouble."
"He's got a goddamned cabinet full of hard drugs, Josh. What am I supposed to do? Turn a blind eye and pretend everything is fine? Until when? Until it isn't?"
"You're supposed to trust him enough to talk to him. To give him a chance to figure out what the hell is going on in his life." He looks down at me with disgust and it hurts worse than anything else. "You're supposed to stand with someone you love, not cut and run the first time things get a little rough."
He might as well have slapped me. His words stab me in the heart and rip open my chest.
I stand there bleeding from the harsh, ugly truth.
Noah
I've fallen behind in stats. Just like I suspected I would. I can barely understand what the hell regression is, let alone what residuals are and why they're important. But I'm too damn stubborn to ask Beth for help.
I saw her in class after the fight at the bar. Just once. And then I stopped going. I can see her clearly in my memory and it haunts me. She's frozen. She doesn't smile, doesn't acknowledge me. She’s gone to a place where I cannot reach her. Does this hurt her as much as it's killing me? Hell, I want to fix this but I have no idea how. So I retreat. Because there’s nothing else I can do.
There is an e-mail from Professor Blake after I miss my second class. See me. God, but those notes haven't gotten any easier since the first time I was in school. I want to ignore her but she is the one person on campus that I will not blow off. Fear is a sick knot in my belly as I knock on her door.
"Things aren't working out with the tutor?" she says by way of greeting. There are barriers between us that need to be there when we’re around people. I pretend to be just another student; she pretends I'm an anonymous face in the crowd. But we both know better.
"Not exactly."
She takes off her glasses and comes around her desk and pulls me down onto the small couch in her office, the barriers gone. She's no longer Professor Blake. She's LT’s mom and she's been a surrogate mom to me since I first met her years before.
There is earnest concern looking back at me and it nearly breaks me. "Talk to me, Noah. You were doing so well. What happened?"
"It's complicated." I can’t bear to see the disappointment in her eyes.
"It always is." She cups my chin, forcing me to stop hiding from her.
Her smile is kind and warm. You'd never guess that she makes the meanest scones on the planet from looking at her in Stats. She's cold and hard and demanding in public. In private, she's warm and loving and...she's the mom I wish I had. Her hand slips from my chin to rest on my shoulder. She is patient comfort and I am tempted to let myself fall completely apart. But I can’t. Because I’m terrified I might not ever put the pieces back together again.
"I kind of screwed things up with Beth."
"Tell me something I don't know, Captain Obvious," she says dryly. I can practically hear LT in her voice. The same tone. The same dry sense of humor. "What happened?"
"She's been dealing with her dad's medical issues."
"His addiction issues, you mean."
"Right. Those." Shame crawls hot and prickly up my neck. The panic dances in my gut. The words are stuck somewhere between my lungs and my throat.
"You know you can talk to me, right?"
I cover my mouth, but not before the sob I’ve been fighting breaks free. It's been building for days. "I don't know how to fix things. I used to have a purpose. I used to know how to fix everyone's problems. And I can't even figure out how to call her and say I'm sorry. I fucked up."
"Mike always talked about you. You were the platoon's white knight. Always saving people from themselves."
"Yeah, well, what I did mattered. People trusted me. Here? Here I'm just a fucking college student who can't even do stats without someone explaining it in crayons."
"That's not true, and you're selling yourself short."
"It damn sure doesn't feel like I'm selling myself short. I'm in over my head, and I should just get out now. Go back to doing something I'm good at."
"Would you join the army again? Go back to war?" I suck in a hard breath at the harsh reality that her words slap at me. "I'm not trying to be cruel, Noah. But maybe you just haven't figured out why you're here yet."
Anger snaps past the blockage in my throat. "Don't pull the ‘God has a plan’ bullshit on me."
She holds up her hands. "I wasn't going to. I was going to tell you that there's a reason you're here and not back in Afghanistan or Iraq. And maybe that purpose is to be here for Beth. And me. Because knowing you're here, knowing that you meant so much to Mike means the world to me. I don't know what your purpose is, but I do believe you'll find it again." She reaches out and covers my hand with hers. The bones in her hand are fragile, her skin soft and cool. "Maybe you're here for others, just like you've always been."
Tears burn behind my eyes once more. They're hot and tumbling down my face. "Why did it have to be Mike, Sheryl? Why him?"
"I don't know.” Her arm slides around my shoulders and I lean on her because I can do nothing else. “But I still have you and that has to be enough."
; I cover my mouth with my hands, trying to bind the emotion back before it crushes me. "That's a pretty shitty trade-off."
"Maybe it is. Or maybe your time here on earth isn't done yet, and maybe Mike's was."
She leans her head against the top of mine, and I remember why I love her. "I will miss him every day of my life. But knowing I've still got one son in this world is enough for me."
"I'm not your son." I’m not trying to be cruel, but the words are necessary and true.
"Maybe not by blood, but you are the son of my heart. Don't try to get out of it, either. You're stuck with me."
I smile because it's the kind of thing she's always said. The first time I met her was when Mike brought me home for Christmas like a stray puppy. And Sheryl welcomed me into her home and made me feel like...like I belonged.
"I've screwed up pretty bad," I whisper.
"I'm sure it's not as bad as you think."
"It's on the level of really not good shit." I don't have the words I need. Even now, trying to confess my sins to the one person in the world who won't judge me, I'm stuck on how to say it. "I've got a small pill problem."
She doesn't move, but I feel her stiffen. "The kind of small where you're just taking a bunch every day or the kind of small where you're robbing children of their lunch money for drugs?"
I'm horrified, but I laugh anyway. "You should break this terrible sense of humor out in class. You'd be less terrifying."
"The whole goal is to be terrifying, silly boy. People won't take me seriously if I'm cracking jokes all the time." She takes both my hands in hers. "What kind of pill problem?"
And finally, I find the words.
Chapter 31
Beth
"You're not going to make shit for tips if you don't get a smile on your face. You can look like someone died after your shift," Abby says.
My phone is a solid weight in my hands and it is silent. "Noah hasn't been around for a week."
"Which is good because that means the break is clean and you're moving on. Take table five, for instance. Tall, dark and drop-dead sexy. He's been checking out your ass all night."
"Table five is yours, he's more your type, and holy cow, can you have a little sympathy?"
"No, I can't, because I'm your best friend, and my role in this scenario is to push you out of your heartbreak to a tall, dark, soothing balm like table five."
I smile and shake my head. "Don't ever change, Abs."
"I hate it when you call me that. Ab-by. 'Abs' is my least favorite body part."
"Ha."
"Seriously, take table five. Make small talk. Remind yourself that there are other men in the world."
"Says the woman who hasn't dated since she broke up with her ex?"
"My middle name is hypocrisy." She shoos me toward the table. "Now go."
I love Abby but I'm not in the mood to flirt. Still, she's given me a table and I have to make the most of it. I need the money. My call to the woman Dr. Zahid recommended has actually not ended in disaster. Except that I’ve got to pick up three hundred dollars in prescriptions in two days when my dad gets out of the hospital and I'm about eighty bucks short. So I kind of have to be nice to Mr. Tall, Dark Soothing Balm.
"Hi, what can I get for you?"
He looks up at me and up close, I can see that Abby isn't joking. His eyes are a dark, dark brown, the color of molten chocolate. His skin is light caramel. He's got a strong jaw and shoulders that are made for that suit. "Gin and tonic and your phone number."
I smile and try to make it genuine. "You'll have to do better than that to get my number."
There are tiny dimples in his cheeks. If my heart wasn't already bruised and broken, I might flirt with him. "Who was he?"
"Who?"
"The guy who broke your heart."
"Are you psychic or something?"
He lifts one broad shoulder. "Not exactly. You just look like you could use a good laugh. I assumed it was because of a guy."
I offer a wry smile. "Pretty good assumption."
"Any chance I can fix it?"
"What are you, my therapy godfather?" I try to take the sting out of my words. They escape before I can stop them.
He's unfazed, his eyes still warm and kind. "Nah, nothing like that. I just hate to see a pretty girl look so sad."
I roll my eyes. "We really need to find you some better pickup lines."
He laughs then and hands me his card. "Well, if you change your mind, give me a call sometime. No pressure."
"Thanks, but I'll pass. Can I take your order, though?"
The rest of my shift passes without incident or any more stray flirting. My heart hurts from the fight with Josh. I don't know how to wrap my brain around Josh's verbal slap. His was a direct hit. It cut and cut deep.
Not knowing what's going on with Noah, though. It’s killing me slowly.
I'm tempted to take the car to his house. I want to know if he's okay.
I don't know what I'll say if I see him. I just…I just need to know that he’s alright.
Maybe if I keep telling myself that, it’ll be true.
I shoulder my backpack and start on my walk home. Part of me holds out a little bit of hope that maybe Noah will be waiting for me outside in the dark like he used to. That he'll step out of the shadows. That he'll be okay.
The moon is out tonight, making my walk home brighter than it normally is.
His car is in front of my house when I round the corner to my street. My heart beats a little faster when I see it.
He is sitting on my front steps. His arms folded across his knees. Still. Utterly still. And waiting.
There is a rush of fresh air into the space where my heart had been. He's here. He's okay.
And then he looks up at me. And I realize that he is not okay. His eyes are bloodshot and rimmed with red. He's lost weight. He's still. Unnaturally still.
The broken gate creaks behind me as I step into my yard. Fear slows my steps as I approach. I don't know how this story ends, but I'm terrified of the different ways that it could.
"Hey." It's all I can manage.
"Hey." He swallows hard. "How's your dad?"
"He's okay."
"Is he still in the hospital?"
I nod. "Yeah. Detox didn't go so well." An understatement that stands between us, an impassable chasm.
He looks down at his hands. He scrapes one nail with his thumb. "So listen. I'm, ah, I've got to go away for a while."
"You've already been away for a week." I take another step. Because I'm an idiot, but I want to be closer to him. I want to feel his skin against mine. I want...I want him.
I don't know how to do this. So I let the silence stand when I really want to ask him where he's been. How.
"I tried stopping everything two days ago." He won't look at me. "It didn't go so well." My words from a moment ago are a slap. "I'm taking incompletes in all my classes." He finally looks up at me and there is fear and uncertainty in his dark brown eyes. "If...if I come back, will you help me pass Stats?"
"What do you mean if?" My voice breaks.
Noah
I try to swallow the dust in my throat. This is so much fucking harder than I thought it was going to be. My hands are shaking. I lock them together to keep her from seeing. "I don't know what kind of person I am anymore. I don't know who I am without the pills. There's this thing out in Colorado. It's rehab and PTSD treatment and all that."
I hadn’t planned on telling her. I meant to ask her about Stats and then leave. I didn’t want to worry her. I didn’t want to see the pity and the disappointment in her eyes when I admitted just what the war has done to me.
I'm such a fucking liar. I needed to see her. Just once more. And the words just spilled out.
"I've been using since I was in the hospital. I've been abusing for the last year or so." The words are sticking in my throat, but I force them out. They're rough and ragged and raw. Kind of like the sand that carved its way permanently into
my skin in that hot fire. "I've gotten pretty good at convincing myself that I don't really have a problem."
I finally look at her. She is bruised and battered in the moonlight, her pale skin almost glowing. "I'm not asking you to wait for me or anything like that."
"Noah." I can hear it in her voice. The leading edge of sympathy that's not quite pity yet, but it will be.
I have to finish this before I chicken out. "I just thought you should know. I'm, ah, I'm not doing this for you. I was. I was going to try. I kept trying to find the words, and life just got in the way. But..." I look down at my hands again. "If this is going to work, I've got to want it for myself. So I'm not doing it for you."
"Good." A whisper in the darkness. A surprise.
I look up at her sharply. "Well, that's hell on the ego, that's for damn sure."
She makes a horrified sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "That's not what I meant." A pause. "I'm glad you're doing this for you, Noah. Because you're right. You can't do this for me. It has to be for you."
She steps toward me then. Stops when she's close enough that I can see her pulse throbbing in her throat.
She stuns me when she drops to her knees. And leans forward until her head is resting against my shoulder, her arms sliding around my waist. She smells so good, so fucking good. I should leave. I should get the fuck out of here before I ruin this fragile truce again.
But I can't. Because Beth is in my arms again. I never thought I'd smell her hair again or feel it pressing against my damaged skin. She's my lifeline, and I never should have put her in that position.
I shudder and pull her close until she is in my lap. I can feel the wetness against my cheeks, and as long as I live, I'll never know if the tears are mine or hers.
"I miss you. Oh God, I miss you." The words tear from my throat.
"I've worried about you. I didn’t want to but I did." Her arms tighten around me in response. Her words are not a promise. They're nothing.
They are everything.
Chapter 32
Before I Fall Page 19