The Insomniacs
Page 25
—Wilson
That was unexpected. And embarrassing. Though I had to admit it was nice.
I crumpled up the paper, rechecked the time, and was about to start my run in the dark.
I could take care of myself.
“Ingrid!”
I whipped around. “Wilson.” He’d scared me to death. He must have just slid the note beneath my door and was walking back to his house when he saw me exit.
Wilson stepped over the untrimmed hedge and walked into the light of the doorstep. He looked freshly showered.
“Hi,” I said tentatively. I really didn’t want any contact with another human being, but we had shared that terrifying night and I hadn’t spoken to him since we were bent over Max four days ago.
Wilson lifted his chin in the direction of the note in my hand, then tucked a damp lock of jet-black hair behind his ear. “Do you need a jump?”
“No, I’m fine. It’s all fine.”
Wilson still didn’t walk away and we stood together, the rattle of cicadas in stereo around us.
“How are you?” I finally asked. I kept my tone even so I wouldn’t offend him. He didn’t need me feeling sorry for him. I knew what that felt like.
Wilson wiped his nose quickly with his sleeve. “So-so. I think I convinced my moms I don’t need a scared-straight wilderness school.” He laughed but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“What about Max?” I asked. “Where is he? I haven’t seen him anywhere.”
“At home. ‘Resting.’ He’s fine now. Completely fine. You know Max.”
“Are you?”
“Yeah.” Wilson shuffled the leaves around at his feet, then met my eyes. “I just showered because I woke up and everything was soaking wet. Isn’t that crazy? I didn’t understand why I kept sweating. Then Van said, ‘You’re going through withdrawal, stupid.’ Fuck, I didn’t even know I was addicted.”
“It’s scary how fast it happens.” As if I had any idea.
“I didn’t think it would happen to me. I’m not that person. It was a weekend thing.” Wilson blew into the air, maybe mistakenly thinking he would see a cloud of his own breath. But it was spring now.
“I’m sorry about your coach,” Wilson said suddenly. “I didn’t know who he was when I saw him at the house.”
At the mention of Caroline and Mike, I immediately wanted to get away yet I couldn’t help but say, “At the very least, you couldn’t tell your best friend his girlfriend was cheating on him?”
Wilson winced. “I was so shocked to see him standing there that night, I didn’t know what to do. Max and I felt like shit. When we invited you and Van to the house, that wasn’t one of our times to use it—we were weekends when Mary Seitzman was gone and Van was usually with the band. We wanted to surprise Caroline that night so Van would find out on his own. Seba was so pissed. In his own messed-up way, he’d do anything for Caroline.”
I was about to make my excuses and start running when Wilson flared his nose in disgust—at Mike, at Caroline, at himself, I wasn’t sure.
“But I should have done something. For her. The thing about the drugs? What was almost worse than doing them was what I did because of them. I didn’t tell anyone about Caroline and this old dude because I was having fun and I didn’t want it to end. That night, when we accidentally came face-to-face in the house? The thing was, Caroline was wasted. Just a kid drunk off her ass. When your coach looked at us, he seemed completely sober. He took off sprinting like an Olympic athlete. Or a guy with a lot to lose.”
“I gotta go, Wilson.” My voice cracked. No more. It kept getting more appalling. How many ways could your hero fall?
I put a hand on Wilson’s shoulder, squeezed, then wordlessly left him on my porch and began running into the dark.
* * *
Mid-workout, there was the first tingle in the back of my throat. I ignored it as I practiced from the springboard into the foam pit, dragging myself up and out, again and again.
By the end of the workout, I was hot and my throat was scratchy. Nothing that couldn’t be overcome by a trip to the convenience store.
My car was a lone soldier in the school parking lot when I’d come to her rescue earlier. By some miracle, the car had started when I gave it one last try. Now, I lucked out again when I returned to it after my workout. For thirty seconds, I allowed myself to rest my head on my arms, draped across the steering wheel.
Pain is weakness leaving the body.
I hated that phrase. Both Mike and Caroline had used it, I realized in hindsight. I wondered who had said it to the other first. Coach Mike had trained me to keep moving, to ignore pain. Now I was going to use his advice and erase him. Wherever he was, he hadn’t even reached out to make excuses or to apologize.
Before school started, I made a quick trip to the convenience store. I stocked up on ibuprofen, a coffee, and splurged on orange-flavored vitamin C powder to add to my water bottle. Twenty minutes, I told myself, and I’d feel like a new person.
* * *
“Are you okay?” Izzie deigned to ask me later that day in English. She had willfully ignored me since her tirade. I lifted my head from the cool desk to answer her. Van was talking with a friend across the room before class started. Back to how things had been. He was a stranger again. He felt me look at him and we met eyes. He looked away first and continued his conversation.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I answered Izzie, straightening my posture. My answer seemed to annoy her. Her usually friendly, excited eyes flattened and she didn’t say another word.
Popping three more ibuprofen before class had seemed like a good idea at the time. On the one hand, I quit sweating, but my stomach wasn’t happy. I knew I should leave in case I threw up all over the floor. In one motion, I rose and hooked my backpack over my shoulder. More eyes on me as I slipped out mid-class.
In the gloriously cold bathroom, riddled with graffiti on the beige stall doors and on the mirror above the trough sink, I texted my mom. Just to touch base. Kevin must have reached her. Or another diving parent, most of whom were crazy-involved. Surely my mom had heard by now. I gazed unseeing in the mirror and wondered when I’d spoken to my mom last. I couldn’t recall.
I waited a few minutes for her reply. She was always home at this hour, though she could be asleep. I replaced my phone in my backpack when two girls burst into the bathroom—all loud, mischievous, freshman glee.
“Your shirt’s on inside out,” one of them said in greeting after looking me up and down, purple vaping pen in hand.
In response, I held my white T-shirt away from my body to check it out. Sure enough, the threads around the V-neck were on display. “Oh,” I said lamely.
The two girls had stopped talking to watch me, obviously waiting on me to leave so they could get to it. Just to piss them off, I took my time splashing cold water on my face, then slowly patting it dry with stiff, brown paper towel. Then I kicked the door open with my foot and made my exit.
I was doing better. The nausea had passed. It was perfect—I’d leave school early and try starting the car when no one was around to witness my humiliation if it died again. At home, I’d take advantage of the ibuprofen and go on a run. If I timed the run just so, I could arrive back home right before my mom needed to leave for her shift and there wouldn’t be enough time to get into things too deeply. Then I’d finish up the list of assignments. If I could just keep pushing, stay on my schedule, everything would be okay. I did my best work when I pressured myself hard.
On the one hand, I knew I was being insane, driving myself like this. On the other, it didn’t matter. Because if I didn’t keep up with my plan, I would dissolve into nothing.
When I arrived home, I knew I had missed my mom by minutes since the garage light was still on. I texted again, giving her a little more information this time, informing her I was home and going on a run. I didn’t let her know I was sick because what was the point? There wasn’t anything she could do besides be concerned. Or annoyed.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
SATURDAY, APRIL 23
My dream was an endless torture loop.
I stared at stains in my carpet, the green-and-gold-leaf spine of Anne of Green Gables on the bookshelf, the babyish elephant art on the walls, taking in their detail for the first time in years from my sweaty mess of tangled sheets. I knew I was sick, I knew I was in my room. Coach Mike was entering in and out of my half-conscious state.
I was on the springboard. About to do the dive again. The reverse two and a half on the three-meter. Coach Mike was below, watching.
I’d remember I was in my room, not at the swim center, not about to dive, then, a second later, I was about to dive again. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t move.
Mike was lecturing me, “You have a block. You are allowing a psychological obstacle to subvert you.”
“Why did you do it?” I asked him. He looked like my dad from the recent photo Izzie had forwarded: tattoos, shaved head, black jacket hooked with a thumb over his shoulder. He looked around distractedly and then removed his sunglasses. His eyes were the same as mine and he appeared like he had ten years ago, younger than he must look now. But, while he might seem like my father, I knew he was really Coach Mike.
“It had nothing to do with you,” Mike said to me. I could see in his eyes that he believed that.
All of the noise in my head, the warning bells telling me something was off, undermining my trust in him, the team’s trust in a beloved adult. My trust in what he’d told me about myself: that I was strong, powerful, special. Mike had informed how I saw myself in this world.
The fact that he had not only looked at one of his divers that way but acted on it was a betrayal of all of us.
“How am I going to do this without you?” I asked him. I wasn’t sure if I meant diving or life. Both.
Mike scoffed and looked over at the parents filling the stands. “You’re going to have to.”
My alarm went off, far too loud, scaring me out of limbo. Thank god. Thank god I wasn’t really there on the diving board, frozen. With Mike.
Slowly, I sat up and put my face in my hands. Clammy.
My limbs were weak and when I first stood, I was dizzy, using the wall to get to the bathroom just like I had in those first days post-concussion. Shampooing my hair, getting clean, brushing my teeth all helped. Slowly, carefully, I got dressed. This was going to pass.
I made my way downstairs to the kitchen, almost kissed the bottle of ibuprofen that sat innocently where I’d left it on the clean, smooth countertop, and realized in total horror that we’d run out of coffee. I checked the freezer. Nothing. Not even the frostbitten bag of Swedish coffee from two Christmases ago, stuffed in the way back. I’d polished that off sometime over the past few days.
On the way to the garage, I rested on the leather bench in the hallway to gather my strength. Then I spent so much time just sitting there, weakly, that I was going to be too late to sneak in with the swimmers if I didn’t get up.
This was ridiculous. Once I had coffee in me, I’d feel better. But I was running out of time to make a stop. I used that as my carrot and stumbled my way to the car in the garage. I started the engine and knowing I was short on time, I backed out fast.
Then all was ear-splitting sound. Sounds I’d never heard before. The sound of my car crashing into the garage door and the scraping of metal on metal.
Like a criminal on the run who’d finally been caught, all I kept thinking was: It’s over.
* * *
Mr. Kitchen was the first to arrive on the scene. From my vantage point next to the mangled garage door, my car poking half out, I zeroed in on him with shocked tunnel vision as he sprinted to me on his bike from the end of the cul-de-sac. I stood by my car helplessly, nowhere to hide.
A small crowd formed, the bolder neighbors coming onto the property. I watched mutely as Mr. Kitchen, hands on his bicycle shorts, feathers puffed up, inspected the damage to my car and to the garage, leaning this way and that, speaking to the neighbors but not to me. Kevin and Lisa arrived, the adults I knew best on the cul-de-sac.
“We got this, Larry,” said Kevin. They stood face-to-face, two self-appointed neighborhood watchmen. For the first time, I felt gratitude for Kevin.
There was a bit of a stare-down. “I’ll call Elsa,” Mr. Kitchen announced, referring to my mom.
“No need,” Kevin said. “We’ll take care of it, man.” After a pause, Mr. Kitchen huffed off on his bike.
“Come with me, honey. You can sit on my daybed until your mother comes,” Mrs. Connor said, a widow who lived in the pink house next door to Max.
“I’ve got her, Dolores.” Lisa came to my side and put her arm around my shoulders, resting her head against mine.
“Oh, sweet girl,” she said to me.
Her words of endearment caused the tears. I gave a great gulping gasp that came from deep within, containing so much fear. And loneliness.
Kevin came to my other side and gave me an awkward pat. With the Moores flanking me, I looked like I had parents, and the neighbors who came out to inspect the noise began to disperse.
“Come on,” Lisa said. “Let’s go to our house and just sit.”
* * *
Van was at soccer practice so it was only me, Kevin, and Lisa and one of the twins who lay sprawled out on the den sofa in a pair of pj’s with trains on them. Stella scratched in her crate behind where Kevin, Lisa, and I sat at the kitchen table. I held my glass of cold water tightly.
“How are you doing?” Lisa asked.
“Fine.” I’d stopped crying but now my voice cracked. Lisa’s face fell and she reached over again and gave me a squeeze and kissed the top of my head. I could playact for just a bit and enjoy the comfort; pretend this was a way of life.
“I left a message for your mom,” Kevin said, crossing his arms, “but I haven’t heard back.”
“She’s been working a lot lately,” I said. It was past 8:00 A.M. She would arrive home any minute.
“Caroline’s parents sent me an update. They flew in and made sure the coach was suspended immediately. Now there’s going to be an inquiry.” Kevin waited for some response from me, so I nodded. Then he seemed to look at me more closely and said, “Do you want me to tell your mom?”
I wasn’t sure how he knew I hadn’t told my mom yet.
“That’s okay. I’ll do it today.”
Lisa stood to get more coffee, tugging down her white ruffled tennis skirt. With horror I realized she was missing her tennis game. When I started to apologize, she interrupted and looked at me like I was crazy. “Ingrid, we love you. You saved my son when we moved onto this block. Of course we’re staying right here until your mom comes home.”
“Van’s a really good person,” I said to Lisa. It was also for Kevin’s benefit. Though I noticed Lisa wouldn’t look at Kevin, I saw that he was trying.
“That’s really nice to hear.” I could tell Lisa meant it, that it was a relief. Kevin left it alone and didn’t make a snarky comment but he did leave the table and wander to the kitchen sink, looking out the window, onto the street.
“Elsa is home,” Kevin reported from his post. He faced me, resting his bulk against the sink. “Want me to go with you? She doesn’t look too happy.”
For a second, I saw what had drawn Lisa to Kevin: his confidence, his protector attitude, and for a second, I actually wanted to lean on him, of all people.
“No. But thank you.” I had been taught to be self-reliant. It would be strange to stop now.
* * *
“Mom.” I app
roached her back slowly, crossing from the Moores’ side of the world back to mine. My mom stood by her car, staring at the hole in the garage and the wreckage. She wore pink scrubs and dangled a travel coffee mug from one thumb. A thick strand of blond hair was loose from her bun.
It felt like a year since I’d seen her. I anticipated her face when she turned around. This person I loved so much. I realized the thing I dreaded most—more than anything in this world—was that look of stress. I had planned a life around trying to make it better.
But when she turned around, my mom only asked, “What happened?” Her voice contained some wonder and amazement, like she’d pulled up to the wrong house. She searched my face and whatever she saw made her guide me to the front door. “Let’s go inside.”
When I peered behind me, I saw Lisa, the twins, and Kevin, all watching from the kitchen window.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
SATURDAY, APRIL 23
When I finally told my mom about Mike, the first thing she said was, “Thank you for telling me. I know this is really hard.” My mom was doing her best to remain calm but I’d never seen her so upset.
So she could change my sheets, she directed me to her bed. An hour later, my mom put down her cell phone somewhere in the bed covers, having finally listened to the twelve messages from unknown numbers that had rolled in over the course of the past two days.
“What happened? What did the messages say?” I asked.
“There’s a parent meeting tomorrow night with the powers that be. Everyone has a lot of questions about how this could have happened and who knew.” She hesitated for a moment and then looked beside herself when she asked me, “Did you know?”
“I tried to pretend I didn’t.”
My mom covered her face with her hands for a second. When she looked at me again, there was so much self-recrimination in her eyes. “You know you can tell me anything. I will always be there for you. You don’t have to carry everything on your own.”