I shrugged, which was stupid considering Preston couldn’t see me. “I can get him to come to you. It’s your job to hold his interest.”
After a minute when I was sure he was going to hang up on me, Preston laughed. Loud and hearty, as if we were old friends shooting the shit. “All right. You’ve got my attention, Miss Grayson. I will meet with your friend and his parents. Have them come by my office next Thursday at eleven a.m. sharp. And in turn, I expect to have a meeting with your father the day after that. Shall we say noon? You can specify the place.”
“That’s great,” I said, grinning. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
I hung up, still grinning, and stared at my computer screen. I got Jack an appointment with Noah Preston. I still didn’t know that he’d take on the case, but he had to, right? No one could turn Jack away after meeting him and seeing how badly off he was.
I took a deep breath and pulled up Google. I had one more thing to do, and then I was going to see if Drew wanted to hang out. After he’d fallen, I figured he could use some cheering up.
Chapter Thirty Five
Hey. Have something to tell you. Can I come over?
A minute passed, then two. I went to the bathroom to get dressed. When I came back, Drew still hadn’t answered.
Hello?
Still nothing. I called him, but it turned over to voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me...Saylor. Um, I was wondering if I could come over to hang out. I got discharged a couple hours ago, and I have something fairly awesome to tell you. Call me.”
I tried to remember if he’d mentioned having something to do today, but I couldn’t think of anything. Besides, something poked and prodded at the back of my mind, like a tongue with a sore tooth. This wasn’t like Drew. He wasn’t the kind to not answer texts or voicemails. If he was busy, he’d text me back and tell me that. This silence...something was wrong with it.
My brain began throwing visions at me. Drew on the floor, helpless, fallen, injured. Drew outside in the ice with a broken leg and no one to help him, slowly succumbing to the deep sleep of hypothermia.
I grabbed my car keys and phone and ran down the stairs.
I knew driving like a maniac wasn’t the smartest thing to do on icy roads, but I couldn’t help it. Every minute I wasn’t there was a minute longer Drew wasn’t getting help. My brain had picked over the images so much that I was convinced I’d find him outside in the snow. I just hoped he wasn’t dead when I got there.
My eyes scanning the snow and ice, my breathing heavy and ragged, I pulled into his parking space. He wasn’t outside as far as I could see. I turned off the car and ran to his door, slipping and sliding as I went. How had I never realized how horribly difficult the streets were to navigate in the winter, unless you were completely healthy and sure on your feet? I rang his doorbell, and while it dinged, I began to knock on his door.
“Drew,” I said loudly, checking my cell phone with one hand to make sure he hadn’t texted me back. “It’s Saylor. Open the door, please.”
I could hear sounds through the door, muted and muffled. I pressed my ear against it and realized it was Carousel Mayhem.
There was a soft click, and I watched the doorknob twist, the door open a crack, then another and another. Drew stood in front of me, his plaid shirt rumpled, leaning heavily on his cane. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. He frowned when he saw me, as if the light and my face combined were too much for him to take in.
“Saylor?”
“Yeah. I tried texting you. And calling you.” I held up my cell phone like evidence. “Can I come in?”
Drew rubbed a hand up and down his face, as if he was trying to wake up. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He stood to the side so I could enter.
The sounds of Carousel Mayhem got louder when I walked into his living room. There was a trail of CD cases arranged in a straight line in the center of the room. On the coffee table were two empty forty-ounce beer cans on their sides, a shot glass, and an open, half-empty bottle of Jim Beam. Drew sank down on the floor next to the table and poured himself another shot. He held it up to me in a sort of salute and downed it in one go.
I sat down on the floor next to him and crossed my legs. Passing my cell phone from one hand to the other, I said, “Shitty day so far?”
Drew looked up toward the ceiling, like he was thinking. “Pierce told me you were in the ER and I couldn’t get a hold of you. I was terrified. Like, really fucking terrified. Almost more terrified than I was when they told me I had FA. Then I fell on my face trying to walk out of your hospital room, and the nurse tells me I need a chair. I get home, call my doctor about the incident, and guess what? He says it might just be time.” He looked at me, his eyes bright and hard. “A fucking chair.” He poured himself another shot and downed it.
I watched his beautiful throat as it spasmed while the liquor went down. “Can I have one?”
He handed me the bottle and closed his eyes to listen to the music, his torso swaying slightly.
I did a shot and shuddered from the awful taste. But then the warmth began to spread deep in the pit of my stomach, like a sun-baked ocean wave washing over me. I pointed to the CD cases. “What’re those for?”
Drew glanced in the direction I was pointing. “My own balance and coordination testing center. I failed.”
I could imagine it: Drew trying to walk a straight line using the CD cases as his guide. His big feet tangling, his deceptively muscular legs buckling under his weight, refusing to bend to his will. I saw him fall in a heap, crawl to the liquor cabinet, try to drown himself in whiskey and sound waves.
I scooted closer to him and put my arm around his waist. He went rigid for a moment, staring straight ahead. But then he sank down, lowering his head so it rested on my lap. He hugged me to him, as if he wanted to crawl inside me. He began to cry, soft, quiet, defeated sobs.
I stroked his hair. I said, “I love you.” My tears fell into his hair.
We sat there, not speaking, not doing anything but listening to the music. When the CD ended, I put in Mercury Rev and sat back in my spot, pulled his head back onto my lap. He looked like he was falling asleep. I raked a curl off his forehead.
What was it about pain that made us crave oblivion? We liked to think that we, as a species, were tough, that we could take anything, overpower anything, come out on top every time. But make us face our own individual mortality and we’d lie down and weep, curl in on ourselves, fade into empty space. We couldn’t deal.
I traced the flat, hollowed out spots where my abscesses used to be. I stuffed myself full of bacteria and disease, trying to outrun myself, my anonymous existence in my own house. I numbed myself with physical pain because the emotional stuff was too messy. I knew that. The shrinks had told me a thousand times. What I didn’t know was how to stop.
In that way I suppose Drew and I were the same: we were both defective with expired warranties. They couldn’t send us back, couldn’t exchange us for something bright and shiny and new.
I kissed his forehead as Secret For A Song began to play, inhaling the soft warm scent of boy—detergent and something musky-sweet. His eyelids fluttered open, then fell closed again, a small smile playing on his lips.
“Don’t ever leave,” he said.
“I won’t,” I answered, closing my eyes and laying back against the couch to join him wherever he was.
When we finally woke up, Drew holding his head and wincing, it was pitch black inside the house. I cracked the blinds and looked outside at the billowing gray snow clouds, like the undersides of enormous doves flying overhead.
“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon,” Drew said, behind me, staring at his cell phone screen. “Did we really sleep five hours?”
“I think we did.” My voice was husky, my brain foggy. “That’s the best nap I’ve ever had.”
Drew smiled at me and held out one hand; the other held his phone to his ear. I put my hand in his and he pulled me down to his lap. I could
hear my voice on his voicemail—the message I’d left before.
“What’s this something ‘fairly awesome’ you have to tell me?” he asked, kissing the back of my head.
“Oh,” I said, smiling at the memory. “I almost forgot! You’re never going to believe this, but...” I turned around, straddling him so we were face to face. “I got Jack and his parents a meeting with Noah Preston.”
Apparently distracted by the fact that I was straddling him, Drew leaned forward and kissed me. I was just getting into it when he broke off and looked at me, his face a picture of disbelief. “Wait. Noah Preston the attorney?”
I grinned, loving his “no way” face. “The very one.”
“How? I mean, but he’s—how?”
“Let’s just say I have connections.”
Drew smiled, leaning in to kiss me. “I love your connections.”
We were lying tangled up in each other on the floor when Drew’s cell phone rang. He sat up and answered it while I traced circles around the small constellation of beauty spots on his perfect back.
“Yeah, this is him.” A pause. “Oh. Yes. He did tell me. Uh huh. Next Thursday at nine? ...That’s faster than I’d expected.” Another pause while he listened. “No, that’s okay. I can make it. Thank you.” He hung up and set the phone on his knee, staring straight ahead.
I sat up, kissed his shoulder. “You okay?”
“That was the physical therapist my doctor referred me to,” he said. “She wants me to go in Thursday, get fitted for a chair.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said.
He remained staring straight ahead. “No. I want to go alone.”
“But—”
“Please.” There was a tiny tremble in his voice that cut at me. “I just can’t have you there when I’m going through that. Okay?”
I hated myself so much in that moment. I wanted to flay myself open right then and there so he could see just how putrid I was on the inside, how marred and ugly and infected. I wanted him to know that he had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, that there were some people in this world riddled with scars of their own choosing.
But instead, I said, “Okay.”
And I held him.
Chapter Thirty Six
I woke up eight days later—Thursday—to a deep rumbling. In my sleep-drugged state, I had a weird waking dream that it was Drew. He was trying to walk up my driveway, but fell over in a heap and couldn’t stand. So he began to army crawl up to me, his breath coming out in panting rumbles. Behind me, my mother laughed.
I woke up with a start and realized that the sound was coming from outside. I hurried out into the hallway to look out through the bay window to the driveway. Mum was getting into a taxi van. Drunk-driving school.
As my brain caught up with the rest of my body, I realized that today was a big day. Drew had his physical therapist appointment at nine, and Jack was meeting with Noah Preston at eleven. I had the whole morning stretched out before me, with nothing to do. Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. I had an appointment with Dr. Stone that I was blowing off. But I didn’t want to think about that. As Mum’s van drove off, I noticed an advertisement on the back windshield.
After a moment’s pause, I texted Zee.
Can I come over in an hour?
She answered a few minutes later.
Sure. Not doing anything but hanging out on the couch.
After a shower and a peek at the pitted skin on my chest, I grabbed my keys and headed out the door. The drive to Zee’s was quicker than I would’ve liked, and as I got closer, I felt my stomach begin to spasm with nerves. What the hell was I doing? I barely knew this girl. What if she was incredibly offended by what I was planning? But there was nothing I could do about it now.
I pulled into the driveway and saw Lenore there, shoveling snow. She waved one mittened hand.
“Zee’s waiting for you inside,” Lenore said. “She’ll be glad for the company.”
“Great.” I stopped and lingered. “Um, do you want some help with that?”
“Oh no, no. You go on in where it’s warm. Rest.”
Right. Rest. Because she thought I was sick. I nodded and went inside.
Zee was on the couch, looking pale as she watched TV. She had on her red pigtails today, and she looked like a strange, overgrown child. Her eyes looked abnormally huge, staring out from her gaunt face. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I took off my jacket and went to sit beside her. “How are you feeling?”
She stared at me a long moment before she said, “Wow, I must look like old, moldy shit. You never ask that.”
Pulling off my gloves, I said, “What? Sure I do.”
But she was already shaking her head. “No, you don’t, actually. I’ve always liked that about you. You don’t come with this ‘Aw, poor cancer patient’ look on your face. You ask me what I’m doing or whatever, but you never comment on the big bad cancer wolf.” She paused, chewing on the inside of her lip. “I don’t feel as sick around you as I do around others—even Drew.”
I thought about the incredible irony of her statement. Me, someone who strove to be as sick as I could be without actually crossing the line into death, making someone who was, in fact, at death’s door, feel less sick. If there was a god I was inclined to think he was one twisted dude.
“Good to know.” I looked around the living room, only to break eye contact with her. “So, what’s on the docket for today?”
“You’re looking at it.” She gestured to her untouched breakfast tray that Lenore had undoubtedly optimistically set up for her. “But that’s not all. In about an hour, I get to have an enema! I haven’t pooped in about three weeks. Exciting, huh?” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
“Um, yeah. Totally. But if you, you know, want to put that enema on hold, I have something in mind that we could do today.” My heart began to bound, and I was amazed at how ridiculously nervous I was again. It wasn’t just that she might be offended, if I was being honest with myself. It was that I really, genuinely wanted her to like my idea. And, by extension, I wanted her to like me. To think of me as a friend. Realizing that just made me feel sicker with anticipation.
Zee cocked her head at me, one pigtail flopping past her shoulder. “Really? You’ve piqued my interest, Saylor Grayson. Let me throw on a pair of sweats, and you can take me on this grand adventure.”
We pulled up in front of Wigs and Twigs about forty minutes later. The boutique was tucked away in the northwest corner of Ridgeland, so I’d never been to the area before. We stood outside the storefront, looking at the window displays. There were wigs of every color and style and length, displayed on creepy mannequin heads. The heads were set on faux bird nests made of twigs. Some of the wigs had a crown of twigs, too.
“This is...interesting,” Zee said, stepping closer to look at a green mohawk-style wig.
“It’s fucking bizarre.” My cheeks blazed. What the fuck kind of wig shop had I dragged Zee to?
But she turned to me, a wide grin on her face. “Are you kidding? I think this is great! Are we gonna go in?”
I sighed. “Seriously, you don’t have to humor me. We can go someplace else. I just...I saw the advertisement, and they looked like they were this chic, hip place. But this...” I gestured at the display and shook my head, at a loss for words.
“No way, dude! I’m not kidding. I really want to go in.” When I hesitated, Zee came over to me, grabbed my hand, and dragged me in.
There were more twigs inside. There were bird nests everywhere, too, with what I hoped were fake robin’s eggs inside them. Racks and racks of mannequin heads lined the walls of the small store.
“Wow,” Zee breathed. “This is cool. My mom makes me order my wigs from a discount store catalog.” She glanced sideways at me. “That’s all we can afford, and it’s totally fine. But this is pretty wild.”
I smiled. “It’s on me. Pick out whatever you want.”
“You
don’t have to do that.” The wide-eyed wonder gone, Zee looked uncomfortable. Her face was vaguely pink. “Really.”
“I want to. Come on. MS doesn’t come with any excuses for a cool shopping trip like this.”
After a pause where I thought I’d really offended her, she laughed. “Okay, fine. Then I’m only doing this for you.”
“Understood,” I said solemnly. “And thank you for letting me live vicariously through you.”
A sales clerk came up to us, her hair—or wig—a giant Marge Simpson-esque beehive. She wore retro cat’s eye glasses and smiled at us.
“Welcome to Wigs and Twigs, girls,” she said. “What are we shopping for today?”
Zee turned in a small circle, ogling all of the wigs. “A bit of everything, I think,” she replied.
I’d never been on a shopping trip with a girlfriend. It would be kind of a hard thing to pull off, when my idea of a fun shopping trip consisted of going to medical supply stores to check out the latest in tools that could make me sicker quicker. But now, seeing Zee try on all the different, outrageous wigs, begging me to take her picture every other second, I could sort of see what I’d missed out on. I could begin to understand why girls did this as a bonding activity.
It wasn’t really about the shopping so much as it was about watching your friend find something new. It was about watching her turn to you with happiness in her eyes because she believed she’d finally found the one thing that would make her beautiful. You wanted that for her because you desperately wanted her to see what you’d seen all along: that she was already beautiful. But if the right dress or shoes or wig was what it took for her to see it, then that was totally okay with you, too.
Zee ended up picking two wigs, but I threw in another three for her. I paid with the credit card I’d used to pay for the hotel room with Drew, and we made our way back outside. It was beginning to snow again. We were climbing into the car when Zee rushed over to my side.
I frowned. “Are you o—”
She cut me off by grabbing and hugging me, squeezing me as tightly as her thin arms would let her.
Secret for a Song Page 16