The Opposite of Love

by Sarah Lynn Scheerger

  “Uh-huh.” Chase watched Walter the way he’d watch a poisonous rattlesnake. Walter’s hair hung longer than Chase remembered—a little past his ears and scraggly, but in a cool kind of way.

  “I’m different, Chase,” Walter explained. “I know now that I’m an alcoholic. A raging, out-of-control alcoholic. My life has only begun to become manageable in the last ten months since I got into the Program.”

  Chase once again wanted to tune him out. Being drunk didn’t excuse the things Walter had done. Being drunk didn’t excuse being mean. Chase tilted back in his folding chair so that it leaned back onto its hind legs. “The Program?”

  “Alcoholics Anonymous. I have a sponsor and a higher power, and I’ve finally found some serenity.” Serenity. Again that word.

  “And a hot girlfriend.” The deep throatiness of the voice surprised Chase, and he turned around to find a waif-like girl padding in with bare feet. As she stepped, the wooden beads around her ankle jangled. Chase noticed a second string of wooden beads around her neck and a long earth-colored skirt.

  Walter half turned, holding his arm out to her, curving it around her waist. “This is Lex, Chase. My girlfriend.”

  The possibility that Walter might have a girlfriend, that he might have moved on from his family in some way or another, had never crossed Chase’s mind. This girl, seemingly closer to Chase’s age than to Walter’s, could not have been more different from Candy if she tried. Every day, Candy spent twenty minutes on makeup alone, while this girl’s face looked as fresh and clean as if she’d just stepped out of the shower.

  Candy dressed in short skirts and tight tops. This girl wore a long, flowing skirt and a loose top. Lex moved like a ballet dancer—light, each bare footstep carefully placed. Candy’s hair was long—styled, colored, the whole bit. This girl’s hair was cut short, just about the length of Walter’s, but it had been sculpted with mousse to stand up at all angles.

  “Hi,” Chase said, trying not to stare. She was, after all, his father’s girlfriend. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about that.

  Lex reached her hand out to Chase and shook it strongly. “Ahh, a new victim.” She grinned widely, showing rows of slightly overlapping teeth. “Don’t look so scared. I’m training to teach yoga.” Chase immediately pictured Daniel in a contorted yoga pose. “I make it my mission to get everyone to try yoga at least once.”

  Chase turned his eyes to Walter. “Even my dad?”

  “He is stubborn, isn’t he?” Lex laughed like that was the funniest thing ever. “I’m still working on him, I have to admit. I can get him to meditate with me when we’re inside and no one could possibly see him, but he won’t take a damn class. He thinks everyone’s looking at him. Talk about self-obsessed!”

  Chase stared at her. Then he turned and stared at his father. Walter shrugged and chuckled. If that had been Candy teasing him three years ago, he’d have dragged her down the hall by her hair. Chase shrugged. “I don’t think yoga is my thing.”

  “Yoga is an acquired taste. Like fine wine,” she said, staring pointedly at Walter with a look of amusement. “Only I don’t drink wine anymore, so now yoga is my new release.” She ran her hands through her hair, and it clumped together. She looked sort of like a Dragon Ball Z character, but he couldn’t remember which one.

  “Or your new addiction,” Walter teased softly, looking first at Lex and then back at Chase. “Don’t let her fool you. She’s obsessed.”

  Chase didn’t think Walter really expected a response from him, so he just sat there picking at his fingernails and watching, strangely curious. Lex snorted, though, and messed up Walter’s hair. “That’s the thing about your dad, Chase. He’s always calling me on my shit.” She laughed. “I don’t mind, though. Someone’s got to do it.” She picked up Walter’s hand.

  “Your dad was there at my first meeting, when I had less than twenty-four hours sober. All I could think about was how long it would take me to walk to the nearest liquor store. I would have ditched the meeting if your dad hadn’t stopped me, and who knows if I would have ever found my way back to a program? He might have saved my life.”

  “Glad to be of service in every way I can.” Walter winked at her, his fingers still intertwined with hers.

  Corny as hell and awkward too, but there was something about the look they shared in that moment, that look of connectedness, that made Chase think of Rose. Suddenly he missed her. And Daisy, and his mom, if he was honest. And Daniel. He felt that ache in the center of his chest—like someone had his work boot on his heart and lungs, pressing down. He knew how that felt, because in middle school Walter had stood there for nearly five minutes, one foot digging into his chest. The bruise it left displayed the ridges of his boot sole. But no one was standing on him now. He wondered if this ache was what it felt like to be homesick.

  School in Bakersfield was school, just like any other place, he figured. Only he didn’t know anyone. With a month left of class, no one seemed interested in making new friends, or even being friendly. He couldn’t hang with the stoners or the goths or the rejects because he looked like a jock. He couldn’t hang with the jocks because he wasn’t a jock. He didn’t seem to fit in anywhere.

  So he used lunch break to go to the library to email Daniel, if there was a computer available. He didn’t email Rose, although he’d thought about it a bunch of times. But she’d made it pretty clear she wanted him to stay away. That hurt worse than the homesick ache, but he tried to push it away. He’d actually even done a little studying in the library too, just to see if that would make a difference in his grades. Sometimes he used lunch to run the track a couple of times when a breeze made the heat bearable.

  He wasn’t there to make friends, he reminded himself. He’d be home by July, before the fireworks. Maybe that’d be just enough time for Rose to have cooled off. Because no matter what Walter said about the serenity crap, Chase knew Walter was liable to make fireworks of his own. Maybe Lex hadn’t seen his temper flare yet, but Chase wasn’t about to stick around for that kind of a show.

  38

  ROSE

  After three weeks of complete silence at home, the Parsimmons packed Rose into the car and dragged her to see that pill-pushing headshrinker. Rose immediately flopped down onto his black leather couch and covered her face with an arm. The air conditioning blasted through the vents. The top layer of skin on her bare legs began to feel numb.

  The Parsimmons sank into separate chairs and spoke directly to the doctor, whose eyebrows looked bushier than ever. It was as if Rose wasn’t even there. “We think she’s depressed, doctor.”

  Well, duh! Of course I’m freaking depressed. What do you think? You stole my life! You took away everything I care about and everyone who ever cared about me.

  “Hmm.” Dr. Gutman was a “hmm-ing” doctor if she’d ever met one. “We’ve had her on an antidepressant for years.”

  “Maybe it’s not enough?” Mrs. P. asked, with a layer of worry to her voice that grated on Rose’s ears.

  “Hmm. And it looks like we’ve got her on some hormones as well, which also help to regulate her mood. The birth control pill serves multiple purposes here, I’d think.” He chuckled to himself.

  Real funny. I love how everyone in this room thinks I’m a whore. And suddenly an image of Chase popped into her head. She hadn’t anticipated how much she’d miss him. Besides Nala, he’d been the only reason she had to get up every morning. But now he was gone, just like everyone else she’d ever loved.

  “Hmm. Let me run through a battery of depression-related questions. How about it?” Dr. Gutman asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Diminished interest in activities?”

  Mr. P. piped up then, like this was a chess game instead of her life. “Check.”

  I have no activities to be interested in. You took them all away from me!

  “Hmm. Weight loss or weight g
ain?”

  “Check. She’s hardly been eating.”

  Nothing tastes good.

  “Hmm. Sleeping too much or too little?”

  “Check.”

  I spend 90 percent of the day in my bed. To punctuate this thought, Rose turned herself facedown on the couch and pressed her face into the couch cushion. She didn’t want to hear any more. The words came through, though, just more muffled.

  “Hmm. Fatigue or loss of energy?”

  “Check. She mostly stays in her room with the door shut.”

  And what would you have me do? Jump rope in the living room? Kickboxing in the kitchen?

  “Hmm. Feelings of worthlessness? I guess we have to address that one to Rose.” Dr. Gutman raised his voice to a near shout. “Rose, dear! Are you feeling worthless?”

  The absurdity of the question struck Rose as funny, and she would have laughed out loud but she really didn’t want to. So she didn’t. She didn’t so much as stir from her catatonic posture on the couch. “Doctor?” Mrs. P. asked, after a suitable silence. “She’s not talking again.”

  “Hmm. If I remember correctly, she never talks in here.” Dr. Gutman shuffled through his notes. “I guess that makes it difficult for me to ask her if she’s having thoughts of death.”

  Depends on whose death you’re talking about.

  “She’s not talking to us at all.” Slight sniffle from Mrs. P., revving up the tear works.

  “Hmm. Regression back to previous behavior.” Some scribbling noises as Dr. Gutman wrote on his prescription pad. “All right then, let’s increase her Prozac an additional 10 milligrams. That should do the trick.”

  If Rose had been talking, laughing, or reacting to anything that was said with more than an eye twitch, she would have cackled. Her parents had no idea that she’d been cheeking every pill they handed her. They put five or six of them on a napkin by her cereal bowl in the morning. All different shapes and sizes.

  First she would pick out the vitamin and swallow it. Then she would cup her hand around the rest of them and dump them in her mouth, then push them into her cheek with her tongue and pretend to swallow. When their backs were turned, she spit them out into her napkin. Anything they wanted her taking, she didn’t want sliding down her throat into her body. Besides, it was a behind-your-back screw-you, and that brought a smile to her eyes any day of the week.

  Rose pressed her face further into the couch cushion, feeling the imprint of the seams on her face. It hurt a little and that was good. It reminded her that she was alive. Because she was starting to forget.

  BEFORE

  39

  CHASE

  Something doesn’t make sense. Chase presses his face against the cool glass, thinking.

  Daniel’s hand-me-down Ford pickup pulled up thirty seconds after Rose’s taxi turned left on New L.A. Avenue. Chase hopped in, and they’d been trailing the taxi ever since, like some kind of wannabe detectives.

  He recounts the conversation for Becca and Daniel, as close to word for word as he can remember. He knows he’s missing something. Like she’s dropped some major clue and he just hasn’t seen it.

  “If she’s not going to kill herself, I bet she’s hiring someone to kill her parents. If that’s the case, I’m not sure whether or not we should try to stop her. I might even like to help her.” Becca sits wedged between Chase and Daniel in the front seat of her brother’s car. Her fingers hold an unlit cigarette, and she fiddles with it, reluctantly obeying Daniel’s rule of no smoking in the car. “Next thing we know, we’ll see her story on Dateline NBC, and then there’ll be a Law and Order episode based on it. I wonder which actress they’ll get to play Rose.”

  “She’s heading the wrong direction if she’s planning a double homicide.”

  “Unless she’s setting up an alibi. Shit. I can’t breathe in here.” Becca leans over Chase and out his window, sucking in the night air. She sits back down. “How sad is it that we are her best friends, and not one of us has a clue what crazy thing she is going to do?”

  Chase inches toward the window on his side. “No offense, Becca, but can you just be quiet for a little while? I need to think.”

  “I’d be plenty quiet if I could just light up this damn cigarette!”

  “Dream on,” Daniel says, rummaging in the space where the CD player should be. He pulls out a pack of gum. “Here. Chew five or six of these in a row. You can barrel through the whole pack if you want. Just stop talking.”

  “Nice. You’ll give me TMJ.”

  “You’re talking,” Daniel reminds her, keeping his eyes on the road. “Besides, TMJ is better than throat cancer.”

  Chase presses his palms against his temples. His head aches. The jostling of the truck and being pressed up against Becca’s side doesn’t help. He thinks about Rose. What did she mean when she said there were things that wouldn’t ever be okay? Was she talking about the Parsimmons and the way they treated her? Was she talking about what she planned to do? If it wasn’t something she could make okay, then why would she do it in the first place? Unless she thought she had to. And what would she feel bad about … but have to do?

  The truck speeds up as it nears the freeway on-ramp, still trailing the taxi. When Chase closes his eyes, he can almost see her, wrapped in that winter coat like she was, his old Nike sweatshirt peeking out from underneath. Rose Parsimmon is as beautiful as they come. She would have looked pretty wearing army fatigues and dreadlocks.

  But today Rose had seemed puffy and pale, and the sparkle seemed to have dulled from her eyes. She looked like someone had soaked her in water for days, and she moved like she had a broomstick up her ass. Like she hurt. Maybe her old man had been beating her. Anger bursts in his blood, hot as fire, at the thought of Rose being used as a punching bag … or worse.

  When he thinks about Rose silent and staring at the walls for eight months, it’s amazing she looks as good as she does. No sunlight. No exercise. That girl has stubborn in her blood. She’ll do anything in her power to defy her parents. Hide that cat in her room. Sneak out in the middle of the night. Sleep around. Stop talking. Rose had told him once about the cocktail of medications, vitamins, and whatnot they handed her every morning and how she pretended to take them. She told him how they’d put her on the pill long before she was ever having sex, that they’d probably have neutered her if it were legal.

  With his eyes still closed, Chase feels the shifting of the truck as it changes lanes and decelerates slightly to exit the freeway. In a flash, Chase remembers the warmth of her skin against his. The subtle saltiness of her lips. The way she kissed him with her eyes open. The way she wanted him to hold her for hours afterward. Thinking of her that way makes him sort of hot and petrified all wrapped as one. He opens his eyes. Chase has figured something out, but he doesn’t know what.

  And then like a lightbulb has switched on in his gray matter, he does know what. And it scares the freaking shit out of him.

  BEFORE

  40

  ROSE

  Mr. P. poked his head into Rose’s bedroom. She’d heard his work-boot footsteps squeaking down the hall, so she’d had plenty of time to scoop Nala off her lap, shove her under the bed, and pull the Pepto-Bismol-pink bed ruffle down around it. She’d never been so thankful for that bed ruffle in her life. The Parsimmons had no freaking clue about Nala. Cats were easy to hide.

  Mr. P. cleared his throat and edged his whole body around the corner of the room.”I brought you something,” he told her, holding a large and rectangular object behind his back.

  Mr. P.’s eyebrows furrowed as he took in Rose’s puffy eyes and tear-streaked face. Okay, so she’d been crying, and Nala had been meowing on her lap and chasing her tears with her rough, warm tongue. She’d been missing Chase and Becca and generally feeling sorry for herself. So what? Even tough girls cry.

  “You’re going to have a lot
of time on your hands,” he said cautiously, bringing the object in front of him. A laptop computer. “And homeschool assignments, I’m sure,” he added, more business-like. “You’ll need your own computer.”

  Mr. P. went on to explain that he’d purchased it from a fellow Daily Drip regular, a guy in pharmaceutical sales who’d decided to upgrade, so he’d offered Mr. P. a good deal to take the old computer off his hands.

  Rose nodded, wiping her eyes in a way she hoped looked casual. It was hard to stop crying on a dime.

  Mr. P. waited a moment, his face softening. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. Instead he busied himself with setting it up on her desk, plugging it in, and sort of humming a tuneless nothing.

  Nala chose just that moment to meow, scraping her claws against the rug underneath the bed. Maybe she had to pee. Rose shifted on the bed, trying to make the bedsprings squeak to cover up Nala’s sounds below. Mr. P. turned slightly and met her gaze. His eyes darted down to the Pepto-Bismol bed ruffle for a moment, then back up to hers, and there they stayed for at least a minute, unblinking.

  Rose kept her gaze steady. She’d won every staring contest she’d ever had in elementary, and she wasn’t about to lose this one.

  Finally, Mr. P. shifted his attention back to the computer. “It was a good deal,” he explained again, almost apologetically, like he somehow had to justify this financial splurge. “Can’t pass up a good deal.” Nala meowed again, but this time Mr. P. didn’t turn back, just pushed the on button and let the laptop hum to life.

  41

  ROSE

  Summer at Walter’s wrapped around Chase like a caterpillar’s cocoon, although he sure as hell wasn’t going to turn into a butterfly. Before he knew it, July came and went, and August brushed past in a hurry.