by DM Sharp
She’s going to win again. My boys are all cheering and a heavy hand pats me on the back. I can finally relax and sit back in my seat.
My Olivia sets the pace. This is her pool and her race.
Something’s wrong. I only took my eyes away for a second and she was leading the first 25 yards, but off the turn, one of the other girls pulls in front while it looks like she’s treading water. This cannot be happening. I can feel bile burning the back of my throat as I swallow it down again.
Everyone else around me is stunned and the whole place goes silent. Fuck, she’s choking or having some kind of seizure in the water. Someone fucking help her. She’s sinking. Everyone is just standing still. Morons. My legs move so fast that I don’t even think to breathe, slipping down the stairs three at a time, my stupid Oxfords sliding all over the damp concrete floor. I need to get to her in the water.
Coach Duggan has jumped in fully clothed. Thank God. Olivia’s not even moving. Duggan’s mouth is on hers. Call 911.
I need to get down there. Preston Carter is already down there. I need to be there.
Chapter Five
Olivia Carter
A panic attack. That’s what they said at the hospital. Lucky I hadn’t drowned during the swimming competition, they said. She’s a gold medalist swimmer, Uncle Preston had said. She’s being pushed too hard and needs some time away from the pressures of swimming, they said. He said, she said, they said. Everyone was slamming their own version of what happened onto the table except the one person who knew exactly what was wrong. Me. I pleaded to not have my swimming time taken away. It was all I had, but no one listened so I plugged in my iPod earphones, turned up the music full blast, rocked back and forth, screaming silently in my head.
Dr. Eldred said to my uncle, “It’s a common situation, Preston. High achieving youngsters are simply not able to cope with the pressures of life that we were able to in our day. Olivia will benefit from a short course of Xanax to prevent another meltdown. In the meantime I would advise that she avoid any high pressure situations, especially her swimming.”
And so it came to be that I was sentenced once again to a drug-induced stupor where I couldn’t have given a rat’s ass if a mammoth was chewing on my leg.
It didn’t last for long though. Lucien wrote about a hundred long, drunken emails—basically saying that he only realized I was upset after he saw me freak out at the swimming competition, so I blocked him from emailing me, but then he persistently texted me. I turned my phone off.
Then one day, he followed me into the gym hall.
“Olivia, what the hell is wrong with you?”
I could barely muster the words, “Get away from me.” His close physical presence making me feel like my lungs were filled with polystyrene, choking me.
“This is getting boring. You’ve completely blown everything out of proportion and you’re really pissing me off, Carter.”
My protective friend has now become a threatening enemy.
“You raped me, Lucien.”
He steps back in shock, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s the one in pain, “Have you completely lost your mind you stupid bitch? Rape? Jesus, is that what you call it these days? Don’t you dare ever use that word again.”
“Move out of my way and stay away from me.”
“You look here.You’re obviously having some kind of mental breakdown. Jesus, you really are like my mother.”
He steps back towards me again with his arms outstretched like he wants to hold me.
“I’ll scream if you come any closer.” There’s no oxygen in the room and my scalp is prickling all over.
“You came over to my house, you wore a new dress, you drank and danced with me. That sounds like rape, doesn’t it? I’m not even going to discuss this any further because you’re obviously not feeling very well. You’d better not say anything to anyone. I’m going to Harvard and then I’m coming back to marry you. You try to spoil my plans and see what happens. Jesus, like I need this shit at the moment.”
I run out of the gymnasium and hear him shouting behind me.
“You need to clear up all the tears and snot running down your face or someone will think you’re a whack job.”
Being confronted by Lucien Borgia every day in class, in the library, at the dining hall, in nightmares at night is awful. I don’t know how much more I can take.
He wouldn’t leave me alone, always watching me, always turning up everywhere. He was constantly there with the rest of his guys in the cafeteria, whatever time I went, so I just stopped eating. Sharp pains like a thousand knitting needles pierced my arms in the places where they had been held, even weeks after the event. This would happen every time I saw Lucien. My head ached continually and my stomach churned where I’d been shoved.
At my checkup with Dr. Eldred I said, “My whole body aches and I feel so exhausted. I can’t sleep or concentrate on anything.”
“It’s growing pains, dear. It will pass. Let’s try a medication. OxyContin. It’s a time-released tablet so you take it every twelve hours. It’ll release a narcotic into your bloodstream steadily throughout the day and night, but it is really important that you follow the dosing instructions carefully.”
“But it’s my life that’s the problem. Something happened to me.”
He smiles kindly as he says, “Puberty happened to you, young lady. Trust me, when you are a lot older, none of this will matter one iota. Lots of my ladies take this tablet and it helps them.”
“But … You don’t understand.”
Chuckling, before he pats me on the head like a puppy. “Oh, I understand a lot more than you could imagine, Olivia. I’ve been treating your family for many years now and there’s not an awful lot that I haven’t seen. But yes, I will be honest with you, I do think that growing up as a teenager these days is substantially harder than in my day. Oh and swimming is a no-no for a while yet, young lady.”
As I watch him scrawl out a prescription with his fountain pen, I don’t bother to say anything else. I thank him and decide which local pharmacy to fill it out in on the way home.
The tablets not only dulled the pain, but something else began to happen, slowly at first. I noticed a new sensation of feeling energized and mellow at the same time. Euphoria, I think they call it. Dr. Eldred was right and had started me onto something amazing. I was in the zone—something I’d never been in before. I began shaving a few hours off between doses, and even though I knew this went against Dr. Eldred’s advice, I kept doing it. The more of the drug I had in my system, the better I felt. The pleasurable sensations would ebb and flow, and I remained in a constant state of perpetual bliss. I became so attached to this feeling that one day I wondered how much better I would feel if I took two tablets at a time. Before I consciously realized what I was doing, I put two tablets in my mouth and swallowed quickly. I went to my room and lay down on the bed, preparing myself to enjoy the rush that would inevitably come. I reached a new level of intoxication, and it was amazing. I didn’t know it then, but that was the moment I stepped over the line from a legitimate pain patient, on my way to full blown addict and that my grotesquely beautiful world was starting to spin out of control.
It helped a great deal that Uncle Preston and Aunt Victoria had gone to Europe for a cruise, so no one, well apart from Annie,could see what was going on, but I knew that Annie would never say anything. I used the drug this way for a few more weeks.
When school was closed for spring recess and my guardians were away in Bermuda, I sometimes took so many pills that I was semi-conscious most of the time. I became isolated in my home like a prisoner. Most days, I was way too wasted to drive anywhere, and when I wasn’t sleeping, I’d sit alone in my living room, slumped over on the couch, barely able to register what was playing out on the television. The moments of clarity when my rational brain would scream at me to stop were becoming less and less and had started to be overtaken by the compulsion to keep taking more. Dr. Eldred believed me whe
n I told him that I had lost the pills and was only too happy to issue me repeat prescriptions.
Over spring recess, I stopped showering, brushing my teeth, and I slept in my clothes. My bedroom looked as if a tornado had hit it, with stacks of DVDs, CDs, magazines lying on the floor and dirty underwear all piled up. I stopped Annie from entering my room all together, and I forbade her from cleaning my room.
When I did stop it was because I ran out of pills and excuses to get more. Frantically looking through my calendar I saw that my appointment with Dr. Eldred wasn’t for another six days and I had to do something about it.
Dialing a number in my phone that Lucien had programmed in for me, I waited, heart sounds pulsing in my ears for someone to answer.
“Hello?”
“Er, Evander. Um, Hi.”
“Who is this?”
“Oh, yes. It’s Olivia. Olivia Carter.”
“Hi there, is everything okay? Lucien isn’t over here today.”
“Right. That’s not why I’m calling. I, er, well I need a favor actually.”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Well, I know that you gave that girl Marcie some pills after she had hurt herself at cheerleading practice and I wanted to get some. My doctor’s on vacation at the moment and I’ve run out.”
“Whoa, hold on there. What are you talking about? Does Lucien know about this?”
“Evander, no one needs to know anything, okay? My guardians have been away for most of spring recess and I just need something for a few days to tide me over until we get back to school.”
“Fuck, Olivia, I don’t know.”
“You know I wouldn’t ask. All I need is a few OCs.”
“I don’t think so. Just wait until your folks get home.”
“Fine. I’ll just tell Lucien that I called you for help and that you refused to do anything. You know how Lucien gets when he’s mad.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Fine, I guess I can get hold of my dad’s prescription pad, but he’s only got 80-milligram pills in the cabinet.”
“Uh, sounds okay I guess.”
“They come in a light green color, and go by the name Green Goblin. I’ll drop some around.”
School became so much easier after that, as I floated around above everyone in a sleepy haze.
After a few weeks, I was back to square one, couldn’t eat or sleep again. The worse my concentration and memory got, the less I paid attention in class. I stopped studying and my grades started slipping. Fast.
As time went by, I had lost weight, and there were dark circles under my eyes. My hair was a disheveled mess, and my body odor was pungent. At times I would go weeks without taking a shower. I hated looking at myself in the mirror.
Preston and Victoria thought I was going through some kind of rebellious phase and I’d laugh at the copy of the latest self help book for teenagers that Victoria was reading. Their voices were constant, “Your grades are slipping, Olivia. Annie’s run you a nice bath, Olivia. That shirt is hanging off you, Olivia.” I wished they would all shut up.
I always tried to clean up before going to see Dr. Eldred, so he wouldn’t notice how drastically I had deteriorated. Somehow, it worked. The ten or so minutes he spent with me each month were uneventful apart from him reinforcing to my guardians that they should just ignore my latest phase, as I was simply looking for negative attention.
I was here but I was gone.
*
My insides have rotted away, the stench of Lucien overpowers my every breath and I can’t even manage to do everyday things anymore. It takes everything to just get through each minute of the day now. I hate the way I look because this is why Lucien did what he did. I was always clean, tidy Olivia before. Now my face could be rubbed in cow shit for all I care.
Standing in the deserted stairwell waiting for Evander to deal me some more help, I notice how he looks at me. It wasn’t that long ago people threw me admiring glances at the edge of the swimming pool, but now it’s a definite look of pity and dislike. Thrusting a plastic, orange bottle into my clammy hand he says, “Make this one last, Olivia, or my dad will start missing his script pad.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do when I need more, Evander?” I don’t even recognize my own whiney voice anymore.
“Jesus, Olivia. You’re turning into a junkie. I can’t give you anymore. If we get caught, we’re in big trouble.”
“If I need more? You didn’t answer me?”
I can’t even focus as he scrawls a cell number on a scrap of paper in his spidery boy’s writing.
“Call this dude. Tell him I gave you the number. Ask for Tyler White.”
I stick one of my new stash of pills under my tongue where it fizzes away. while I hunt down a water fountain to wash it down. A jet of cold water gushes into my mouth and the little pink pill happily slides down the back of my throat.
Walking towards my locker, my entire body feels like it’s been rubbed in itchy wool. Jesus, I hope that I’m not having some kind of reaction. Then, suddenly, heaven in a lucid, dreamy fog. I throw the bottle that says Percocet on it into my locker, and float tardily to my next class.
“Have you been drinking, Olivia Carter?” screams my biology teacher, Mrs. James, in my face, as my eyes are about to shut. I had never noticed the spidery red veins on her cheeks before or the overpowering stench of staffroom coffee on her breath. We had always gotten along in the past.
“Nope.” My body is swaying to the smooth rhythm playing out inside my head.
“Right, I’m calling Principal Gordon now.” Mrs. Jones storms out of the classroom to whoops and catcalls. Everyone in the class turns to look at me. I know that I’ve always felt uncomfortable around most people, but it’s now that I realize that most people feel uncomfortable around me.
“What the fuck are you playing at, Olivia?” snarls Lucien, who has swiftly made his way from the front bench of the classroom to the back as he roughly grabs my arm.
“Get away from me.” I stumble backwards off the high stool in the biology lab sprawling onto my backside. I rub at my elbow where he has touched me, making me feel dirty and damaged.
“Get the fuck up, Olivia. I’m going to speak to your uncle about this. Enough is fucking enough,” he says, spittle flying through his teeth.
The whole class has turned around to watch the show unfolding in front of them. The ultimate matching of two wealthy dynasties, everyone thought when we got together.
The irony of this makes me laugh uncontrollably, further fueled by the look of sheer horror etched on Lucien’s face. It’s good to watch him squirm for once.
A hush descends on the class and everyone turns to face the front again as Principal Gordon strides into the room, his short, stubby legs overtaking Mrs. James.
“Have you been drinking?” Principal Gordon asks, his shiny head reflecting the bright light streaming in through the window.
“No! I already told Mrs. Jones that.”
“Are you telling me the truth, Olivia Carter?”
“Yes. I promise. I haven’t been drinking.”
He studies my face, focusing in. “Why are your eyes so red?”
“My contacts have been bugging me all day.”
His eyes narrow at my explanation. I don’t wear contacts.
“I’m just really tired.” I hope he buys this one.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to need you to come to the infirmary with me. I need to give you a breathalyzer test. School policy.”
Principal Gordon marches out of the room with Mrs. James escorting me behind him, her hand holding me up by my elbow.
As he opens the door to the building, a wave of cold air hits me, stunning me momentarily. A crow shrieks in the distance outside somewhere.
“CAW, CAW.”
I know the crow is telling the Principal, “She’s high! She’s high!”
When we arrive at the infirmary, Mr Gordon leads me inside and tells the nurse on duty why we’re here. Th
e nurse gets out a little black device and instructs me to blow into it on the count of three. I do.
“Hmmmmm,” she says. “Let’s try that again.”
I can barely understand her directions, and now I’m certain I’m giving myself away by screwing up the breathalyzer test.
I blow again, collapsing into a bout of giggles as the image of a zebra with a bright pink bow appears alongside us.
The nurse shakes her head at the principal.
After one more try, the nurse finally shrugs her shoulders. “She hasn’t been drinking.”
I’d passed. And just like that, I’m sent to sit outside the principal’s office while the nurse whispers something into his ear.
Laughing so hard that tears fall down my face, my ribs aching from the hiccups as Principal Gordon and Mrs. Jones march me down the corridor to where the rows of lockers are on the way back to the biology class.
“Olivia, if you would open up your locker please?”
“Sure, Gordo,” I slur as he eyes me disapprovingly.
The locker in front of me sways like it’s made of jelly, causing me to lose focus and drop the key. The clinking sound echoing down the deserted hallways.
“I’ll try, shall I, Olivia?” says Mrs Jones as she bends over picking up the key and opening the locker door.
Books, pens, lipsticks, chewing gum, tampons and the luminous bottle of pills all spill out. There is a satisfying smack as the bottle collides with Principal Gordon’s polished skull before clattering noisily below us.
Principal Gordon brings the bottle close up to his thin wiry spectacles, narrowing his eyes to read the writing, rubbing at the strawberry red mark it has left on his head at the same time.
“Olivia, you’d better come with me. This is an official breach of school conduct, which will result in suspension.”
Somewhere in the distance outside, the stupid crow is still shrieking.
*
The mattress dips where my Aunt Victoria sits down beside me, the alyssum in her perfume smelling like fresh mown hay.