by Jeyn Roberts
“Okay,” I say. He turns and races off down the street and I follow. It must be killing him to have to go so quickly after that coughing fit. We run for several blocks before he stops in front of an alley. It’s similar to the one I found her in, just as dirty and smelly. Just as dark.
“She’s in there,” he says. “She won’t listen to me and I can’t call her parents. She managed to score some stuff off a guy. She was talking all funny earlier. Said she doesn’t ever want to wake up.”
“Okay,” I say. “Anything else?”
“Nope,” he says. “I made her promise to wait until I found you. I didn’t know where else to go. You helped her the last time. I just thought …” He pauses. He doesn’t know what else to say. He’s not even sure why he thought to look for me. In a city of a million souls, finding a single one is almost impossible when you don’t exactly know where to look. “You knew what to do before. Can you do it again?” he finally says. With the sleeve of his jacket, he angrily wipes away the tears.
“You did the right thing.” I reach into my pocket, pulling out a few bills. “Go get us some coffee,” I say. It’s a good distraction for him and it’ll warm us all up.
He takes the money and heads off toward the closest all-night store.
I turn and step into the alley, slowly, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. There isn’t much there. A few large garbage bins, a pile of used carpet, soggy and slowly melting into the concrete. Several darkened doorways. Halfway down, I spot Beth’s form. She’s cowering in a corner between several black garbage bags and some waterlogged cardboard boxes.
She’s got her knees pulled up into her chest, her thin arms wrapped around them. As I get closer, I realize there’s no coat around her shoulders. Just a thin shirt that’s soaked through. She’s shaking terribly. In her fingers is a bottle and I can see the silver liquid shimmering even from a distance.
“Beth?” I keep my voice low and calm. The boy said she wanted to kill herself. I need to approach this carefully. She may not remember me.
She looks up and I can see she’s crying. Through her white shirt, I can see the faint traces of spiderweb-like scars. I wonder how her parents reacted to her overdose. Did they take her in with open arms, forgiving her for her mistakes and offering to get her help? Or did they toss her out on her skinny ass and announce to the world that she no longer exists?
“How are you doing?” I say. “Do you remember me?”
She nods. “You’re the girl who saved me. You brought me back.”
“Yes.”
“You should have let me die.”
A slap to the face. And a harsh déjà vu. For months after Gazer saved me, I used to feverishly wish the same thing.
“Do you want to die now?”
“Yes,” she says quickly. Then she pauses and thinks it over. I wait patiently. “No,” she finally says. “I don’t know.”
“I understand.” I open my jacket and pull down my shirt so she can see my scars. “You’re not alone. I’ve been there myself.”
She looks at me in amazement. “When?”
“I was eleven.”
She’s blown away. She continues to stare at my chest even though I’ve closed up my jacket again. Part of me wants to give it to her, to keep her warm, but it’s the only good rainwear I have. If I hand it over, I might not get it back. I’m generous to a degree but I really, really need my jacket. So I live with the guilt of seeing her shiver.
“Why did you do it?” she asks. “I mean, what made you want to do it?”
I shrug. This isn’t the time to tell the truth. I might lose her if she finds out it wasn’t my own doing. If I tell her I was jumped by monsters looking for payback, it will only make her guilt that much worse. She needs to find a way to relate to me. “I was curious, I guess,” I say. “There were a lot of bad things going on in my life. I was tired of being alone. It seemed so easy. Why did you do it?”
She nods several times, water dripping off her chin. “Same here,” she says. “I’m always alone. No one ever pays attention to me. Except Joshua. I don’t know where he is. He left when I told him what I was going to do.” She holds the bottle of Heam up in front of her and her eyes fill with tears. It’s not her face that keeps my attention. The silver liquid calls my name. There is enough inside for five doses. If she takes it, she’ll be gone in minutes. “He left me to die.”
“No,” I say, and I gently take the bottle from her. She allows it, her fingers tightening around the vial for only a second before giving it up. “He left you to find me. I sent him to get you some coffee. I’ll bet you could use a cup.”
“They kicked me out of school,” Beth says. “I undressed for gym class and they had a huge fit. Hauled me into the office and screamed at me. Threatened to call the police. Told me I was destroying everyone’s education and that people like me didn’t deserve chances. And at home Mom was furious. She says I’m useless now. She won’t even let me look after my little sisters anymore. She said she can’t trust me and I might end up killing them. She wanted to throw me out but Dad wouldn’t allow it. He says I have to get a job, though, to earn my keep. But that’s impossible ’cause I’m not old enough.”
“You’re lucky,” I say. “My mom made me leave. I haven’t seen her since.”
“And my brother slapped me in the head,” she says. “He’s older and married and really mad at me. He said it’s a shame I didn’t die because I’m dead to him now. His wife used to be really nice. Now she won’t talk to me.”
I nod because there’s nothing else I can say.
“I stole the money tonight from my mom’s purse. To buy the drugs. I figured she can’t call me a thief if I’m dead. She’ll probably be happy.”
“I don’t think she’d be mad at you.”
We look down at the bottle between us.
“Does it get easier?”
The hardest question on earth to answer. “No,” I tell her. “But”—I try to get the words in before the pain and disappointment destroy her—“I’ve managed to go this long without ever doing Heam again. If I can do it, you can too, right?”
“It’s hard.”
Her lips are shaking. She’s looking at the bottle as if it’s got the answer to immortality. Beth’s eyes hold such longing it borders on lust. I wonder if I get the same look on my face. Best not to find out.
“I know it’s hard,” I tell her. “And it’s going to be hard for the rest of your life. But it does get a bit easier. You’ll see. You just have to be strong.”
“Why bother?”
Now that’s the million-dollar question. Yes, why bother? I search my brain but it’s impossible to come up with an answer that doesn’t sound contrived. I fight my temptation demons because I have purpose. I’m going to get my revenge. But what can I offer her for motivation? I know her future. Her parents are right. She is pretty much useless.
“You need to look inside and find that out for yourself,” I finally say, wincing at the corniness of the answer. Given more time, I might have been able to come up with something better than that. But I’m on the spot here, and trying to keep a girl from finding more reasons to kill herself isn’t as easy as it sounds.
“I guess,” she says, but I can tell she’s not even close to being convinced.
“There are places that can help you,” I say, trying to move in a more positive direction. “I can take you to one of them. It’s not much but they’re willing to help you deal with the problems.”
“Is that what you did?”
I think of the closest local Heam shelter and of the pale-faced worker there who I’ve referred people to in the past. I can never remember her name. She’ll lie for me if I ask her to. “Yes,” I say. “That’s what I did.”
The boy, Joshua, returns with two coffee cups. He kneels down beside me in the alley and thrusts a cup into Beth’s ch
illed fingers. She holds it with both hands and takes a sip. He tries to give me the other cup but I shake my head, insisting that he drink it instead.
“Here,” he says, offering me the change.
“Keep it,” I say. “And you should head home. Your parents are probably worried sick. It’s late and you shouldn’t be out.”
“They never notice,” he says. “And I won’t leave Beth.”
I reach out my hand and Beth takes it. She looks at Joshua and smiles. “You listen to Faye,” she says. “She’s gonna take me to a shelter for help. I can call you tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?” Joshua asks. Even if this idiot dropped Heam alongside Beth, I can’t help admiring his desire to help her. He must really care about her. Good. She’s gonna need him. Hopefully, what happened to her will be enough to make sure Joshua never touches a bottle of Heam again.
“I’m sure,” she says. She squeezes my hand with her cold small fingers.
It’s late when I leave the shelter. The pale-faced worker, Ramona, has promised me she’ll take good care of Beth. She’ll even allow Joshua to stay the night as long as he calls his parents first. He came along with us to the shelter despite Beth’s protests, but I can tell she’s happy he’s there.
It isn’t until I’m almost home that I remember I still have the bottle of Heam in my jacket pocket. I pull it out and stare at the silvery liquid.
So pretty.
I want to drink it. More than anything else in the world, I want to touch the bottle to my lips and taste the strawberry-candy flavor as it coats my throat. I want to let the sensation overcome me, the feeling of absolute happiness that the drug produces. It would be so easy. All I have to do is twist the top. How my body aches to feel my heartbeat slow as my body carefully shuts down and dies.
The desire never goes away.
The liquid sloshes against the glass and my fingers begin to tremble. My heart pounds against my chest, against my scars, and the uncontrollable urge to scratch at my skin overwhelms me. My hair stands on end, producing goose bumps all over my arms.
Just one more time.
My entire body is begging me.
I hold the bottle up and twist open the top. The scent of strawberries hits me and my senses go into overload. It’s better than anything else in the world. An old friend, come to visit me again. It’s brought me dreams of sunflowers and daisies and all the beautiful things that every eleven-year-old in the world wishes for.
I tilt the bottle.
The silvery liquid spills into the gutter.
Even after it’s gone and the bottle is empty, the desire to drop down to my knees and run my tongue along the pavement is strong. I wash the bottle out in a puddle of rainwater to make sure every drop is gone and then toss it in the garbage.
Another day down.
It’s time to sleep.
Eleven
I expect to be expelled Monday morning.
So does Gazer.
Neither of us says anything but the thought is heavy in our minds. We sit together at the kitchen table, not talking, not paying attention, but we both know we’re thinking about it.
There is a very good possibility that someone at the party is going to blab around the school about my antics. If it gets to the teachers, it’ll get to the principal, and that will be the end of my education at Sebastian Clover.
It’s a nice morning. Sunny. Of course it has to be sunny. It never rains here when you expect bad news. That would be too much of a cliché. I leave for school early but by the time I get there, I’m almost late. I guess no one willingly skips along to their doom. Most of us drag our feet.
As I walk toward my locker, I keep my ears open but there don’t seem to be any signs of danger. The teachers that I do pass aren’t paying attention to me in the slightest. I do witness a few students whispering as I walk past, and someone actually goes out of their way to avoid me, but that’s about it. The murmurs and rumors don’t bother me as long as they don’t get any louder. As for the idiot running off in the other direction to avoid me, that’s just funny. Unless he’s a drug dealer or Jesse, he has nothing to fear from me.
I seem to be in the clear.
But the day’s not over yet.
I make it through my first few classes without anything major happening. I sit at the back as usual, waiting for the intercom to turn on, or a student to show up with a message, or at worst, maybe the police to escort me out.
But nothing happens.
My last class before lunch is biology and it’s a class I share with Paige. Part of me wants to skip it. I’m still angry at her.
When Paige comes in, I look at her, immediately wishing I hadn’t. She doesn’t look good. In fact, it looks like she’s been crying all weekend. That’s a good possibility, especially if her parents have seen the damage. That is one party she’s not going to get away with having.
I focus on my work but that doesn’t stop her. Luckily for me, she arrived just as the bell rang and had to sit right down. But then she manages to make a silent trade with the guy who usually sits next to me. He gets up and moves toward the front and Paige slides into the seat beside me.
“I’m sorry,” she says with a low whisper. I look up at the front of the class but the teacher has his back to us. She’s talking low enough that he doesn’t hear.
I ignore her. Unless she’s got a handful of money from Jesse, I’m not interested in her apologies.
“I knew nothing about it,” she continues. “I even broke up with Jesse.”
That’s the best news I’ve heard in days. I guess that look of surprise on her face Friday night was real. Although it does make me feel better, it’s still not enough. She’s only trying to make things better because she’s feeling guilty.
“Please let me buy you lunch,” she whispers. “We’ll go out. Leave the grounds. I know this great place close by.”
“Why?” I finally snap, louder than I should have. The teacher pauses, his chalk on the blackboard. Up front, a few students turn around and snicker.
I reach down and pick up my pen, pretending to take notes. Paige does the same thing. For the next few minutes, we focus on copying down all the information necessary to pass this class.
“I want to make things right,” she finally says in an überlow voice.
Maybe it’s the pleading but more likely than not it’s the fact that I’m starving. I didn’t have much of a breakfast this morning. The thought of leaving the school and having lunch in a restaurant is a million times better than the crappy cafeteria food I’ve been eating for four years. Maybe she really is sincere, although I still worry there are ulterior motives behind her friendliness.
But maybe a meal won’t be so bad.
“Okay,” I say.
Paige gives me a brilliant smile and part of me starts that whole fantasy all over again where she’s my friend.
Sometimes I think my imagination is my worst enemy.
Am I really this lonely? I think the answer is yes.
We sit in a very impressive restaurant that’s about a ten-minute drive from the school. I’ve never been here before; it’s not the sort of place I would ever be able to afford. The waiter pulls out my seat and even places a fancy cloth napkin in my lap when we sit down. It takes all my self-control to not slap his hands away in embarrassment.
There’s an actual waterfall inside this place. I look over at it in amazement. Rocks have been built into the wall and water pours out from a cavern near the top and into a pool below. Even from our table, I can see bright orange fish lazily swishing their tails as they swim around. I’ve never seen a waterfall before, outdoors or in. I want to go over and put my hand into it to feel the coldness. But that would probably be considered weird in such a ritzy place.
I discreetly run my fingertips across the tablecloth instead. I have no idea what material it
is, but it’s softer than anything I’ve ever felt before. A waiter comes over and pours us water in real crystal glasses.
Impressive.
Paige doesn’t look out of place here the way I must. She calls the waiter by name and doesn’t even bother to open the menu to order. I look over mine, confused by the dishes. I’ve never seen such things before nor eaten them. Hummus with roasted garden vegetables. Oysters on the half shell served with sourdough bread. Lobster ravioli in white wine. I scan the words but they barely register. Finally, I order the hummus because it’s one of the cheaper dishes and I don’t want Paige to think I’m taking advantage of her. If I were a bitch, I’d order the lobster, which is more money than anyone should ever spend on an afternoon meal. But no, I wasn’t raised that way. I’m polite.
Paige orders the baked brie in balsamic and oil.
“I’m really sorry,” she says after the waiter heads off to the kitchen with our orders. “I think that’s a horrific thing that Jesse did and I want you to know I had nothing to do with it.”
“Okay,” I say.
“And I need to thank you again for helping me with Trevor,” she says. “It’s not fair. The only reason I got involved with him was because of Jesse. I’m so done with all of this. Never again. Why can’t men be decent for once?”
Chael’s name flashes through my mind. It makes me angry that I automatically think of him so I reach for my water glass and suck back an ice cube. I crunch it hard between my teeth.
“He was cool when I first met him,” she continues. “But then he changed. He started hanging out with a bunch of jerks. Doing all sorts of crap. I caught him talking to some guys last week about Heam.”
My eyes widen in surprise and I swear, the scars hidden under my sweater twinge.
“You take Heam?” I ask.
Paige shakes her head. “No,” she says. “No way. There’s no coming back from that stuff, right? It’s one thing to smoke a joint, you know. Heam’s different.”
“Yeah, it is,” I say. There’s a second napkin on the table, wrapped around some cutlery. I pick it up and pick at the paper band that keeps it together.