He kissed my shoulder, whispering, “It must have been horrible watching him die, and now you’re watching your grandmother die? No wonder you’re a mess. I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I’ve been sick, but I’m better now, and somehow I have to make you understand. I want to heal you, Cate.”
He brushed my hair out of the way with his fingertips and caressed the nape of my neck with his lips and warm breath. He wrapped his arms around me tighter and pulled my hips in closer.
“Let me heal you,” he murmured, and I closed my eyes. A single tear left a tender trail down the outside of my cheek before soaking into the pillow. I kept my eyes closed, inhaling the masculine scents of suede, soap and spicy shaving gel. The scent of Jason.
And I turned in to him, the salt trail still cooling on my cheek, and let him kiss me. His hands spread out to stroke the soft, bare skin of my stomach, and I succumbed to the heat they generated, sliding my own hands beneath his flannel shirt and up over the lean muscles of his back. Another damp trail unfurled beside the first as I responded to the familiar call of his hands and lips. I craved their comfort. They were gentle and insistent, and they wrestled me away from thoughts of failure, guilt, and love.
God, I loved Michael so much.
Almost as if he could hear my thoughts, Jason pulled back, leaving my lips tingling, and waited for me to open my eyes. He searched them carefully, and then settled back onto his side in front of me, propping his head on his hand.
“I can help kids like you, like us,” he said. “Adults have no idea how hard teens have it, how much pressure there is.” He reached out and traced the pathways of my tears with his fingertips. “But I’ll take care of you now, Cate. I’ll make it better. I’ll help you forget.” He slid his hands around my waist, under my fleece, pulling me in tight to his chest, enveloping my lips with his own, probing my mouth with his warm, wet tongue, but I pushed back from him this time, my heartbeat thumping Michael’s name.
I didn’t want to forget.
He wiped his mouth and searched my eyes again, even more carefully this time, and I glanced away, confused by the intensity of his gaze. Then an uncomfortable waterfall of heat washed over me, and I pushed back even farther and sat up on the bed. He sat up in front of me, studying my face. My vision rippled, and he smiled softly.
“Cate,” he whispered. “How do you feel?”
“I…” I felt heat pulse up through my chest and into my head, and then my vision rippled again. Everything kind of tilted and slid to the side.
“Shh,” he said. “You’ll feel much better soon.”
I dragged my eyes up to his face. The tea…
My heart stopped, but the shock melted into another pulse of warm heat. My face tingled as if Michael were touching it. First my nose…then my cheeks…my forehead…
“What did you give me?”
“Not Valium,” he said. “I didn’t think that would win you over to my way of thinking. That just sedates you, takes the edge off. No…oxycodone is incredible. If this doesn’t convince you, nothing will. Do you feel better?”
I nodded and then shook my head back and forth, and he laughed. My vision rippled without stopping for a few seconds and…
Promise me you’ll stay…clean.
And then the realization of what Jason had done sank in.
“You bastard!” I cried. “I promised him! How could you do this to me? Take me home…” I shook my head hard and opened my eyes wide to try to clear my vision.
“Cate…I don’t think—”
“Either you take me or…” I stood up, and the whole room swayed. He stood up next to me and grabbed me under the arms. I tried to push myself away from him, but he held firm.
“Alright…alright…” He gave in and walked me down the stairs. “But you’ll be thanking me tomorrow. I research my doses carefully, and all of your pain is about to take an extended vacation. I give you…” He glanced down at his watch. “…fifteen minutes, give or take, and you’ll be loving life and loving me again.”
“Like hell I will.”
He just smiled knowingly.
The wind outside had picked up considerably, but it kept stopping and starting in erratic fits, changing direction every few seconds, as it blasted its way across the lake under winter storm clouds. It stung my face. It helped me focus.
Jason is insane.
Yes…came the soft affirmation.
He’s addicted to something that’s totally screwed him up.
Yes…my inner voice confirmed.
I’m hearing voices, because I’m totally stoned off my ass.
Not yet. Baby, stay with me…
When both of us were buckled into the car and out of the wind, Jason pulled out of the driveway and said, “Cate, don’t you understand? You’ve got to stop looking for answers in some all-powerful, infinitely everywhere, conveniently undetectable, supreme know-it-all! The idea of God is a placebo. We’ve got to look within ourselves for answers. What can He possibly give—”
“He gives me hope when I’ve got nothing left.”
“Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man,” Jason quoted.
“What miserable bastard said that?” I shot back, but I couldn’t focus on his answer, because the high kept coming up stronger and stronger, and my fury was fading. I felt myself giving in. Please, no. I didn’t want this…
Jason pulled into my driveway, got out of the car, and opened the passenger side door just as the last vestiges of my anger melted away, and like a powerful wave crashing over a battered break wall far from shore, a rush of euphoria swamped all of my senses. It settled into the cold sand of my being, warming me all over.
“Cate…” he called softly, and I grinned at him. What was I so angry about? I loved him, didn’t I? God, he was beautiful. He smiled back.
“See?” he said. “You should listen to me more often.” He reached into the car, picked me up and carried me into the house, cautioning, “Your pupils are miotic. Keep your eyes closed.”
My parents’ overly-loud voices rushed past me as we entered the house, but I kept my eyes shut. We had a secret, Jason and I—an incredible, glorious secret. As stoned as I was, I could still think clearly enough to know that my parents would ruin it.
“I think she’s just exhausted from being sick, Mrs. Forsythe,” Jason reassured my mom in the front hallway. He carried me up the stairs, laid me in bed, and tucked me under my white quilt. And it was just like when I was five, only without the light. I was warm. And I was safe. And there was no guilt. And there was no pain. And nothing could touch me.
“Sweet dreams, Caty,” Jason said, kissing my forehead, but when I opened my eyes, it was Michael bending over me. Tears glistened in his…silver eyes?
“I’m so sorry,” Michael whispered. “They didn’t tell me…” I knitted my brows together and tried to blink away the slurring of my vision so I could focus on him better. A crease formed between his brows, too. “Catherine?”
But I had already floated away from him. He was gone, and I didn’t care.
Somewhere in the woods lining the river, someone was playing music.
“Sweet Child O’ Mine.”
Then someone was shaking me roughly.
“Catherine! Wake up!”
I peeled my eyelids open and squinted into the darkness of my room, disoriented. I’d fallen asleep early this afternoon.
“Catherine! Up. Mina wants to talk to you.” It was my mom. The euphoria was gone. Vast, suffocating guilt descended.
Welcome back.
I cleared my throat and pushed myself up onto my elbows, feeling nauseated, dizzy. I coughed and my chest and back ached. My throat was raw.
“Mina wanted me to get you. She wants to tell you something.”
“But I’m still sick,” I mumbled thickly.
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” Her statement hit like a brick. It was late, but softly buzzing clouds of voices were rising up the stairs. And
I knew. Mina was dying. Soon. The flu was taking her this fast?
Claws teased my heart.
Prick. Scrape. Squeeze.
You’re a killer. Face it kid. Go face it.
I pushed myself up off the bed and stumbled after my mom into the room next to mine where the smell of Lysol, bodily fluids and disease hit me full in the face. The sick-room-turned-death-chamber was dimly lit by a small night light plugged into the wall. My dad got up and hugged me and then left the room. My mom followed him, saying, “She wants to talk to you privately.”
I was wide awake now, my palms sweating. Did Mina even know I was the one who gave her the flu? Did she want to accuse me? Blame me?
Her face was deeply lined, her cheeks sunken and gray. Her damp, dark eyes followed me as I moved toward the bed. My eyes started to fill when I saw how much she was suffering, and I opened my mouth to speak, to say I was sorry, but my tongue lagged, and she spoke first. She breathed strategically, intertwining life’s last air into her words.
“I’m sorry…breathe…I’ve avoided you...breathe…I couldn’t face it…”
No…it had been the other way around, hadn’t it? “Mina, no—”
She waved her crooked hand for me to be quiet. “Listen!” she said sharply. “Your ring…breathe…belonged to me…breathe. My constant reminder…breathe…of my…breathe…faith. I was supposed…breathe…to give it to you.”
“You did Mina. I love it. I’ll keep it safe always.” I pulled the ring out for her to see.
But Mina shook her head weakly, then glanced over at the Guardian Angel statue I’d placed on her bedside table and then back at me. “It’s not the…breathe… ring…breathe…that’s important…breathe…It’s the…breathe…the…breathe…”
“It’s what? What’s important?” As I watched her struggle to get the words out, the tips of her fingers and her lips turned blue, and I panicked. I started to stand up to get help, but she grabbed my hand and held it tightly. “Just have…breathe…faith. Don’t ever let…breathe…let him…breathe…turn you,” she gasped. “No matter what.”
“Who, Mina? Who’s going to turn me?”
But she let go of my hand and looked toward the window, toward the stars that had come out of the gray night mist to shine for her. “I want…breathe…to see…breathe…Father Rocci now.”
I knew the importance of her last statement. It was more important than any question I might have for her, and I got up and ran from the room, grabbing the door jamb as I passed when the floor tilted under my feet. Damn Jason! Damn him to hell…
“Mom! Call Father Rocci!” I cried, but Father Rocci was already there, passing me on the stairs.
Father Rocci was alone with Mina for a while, and then he anointed her with oil and invited the rest of us in. My mom’s whole demeanor changed after that. The look of utter exhaustion on her face was replaced with one of tired peace. Her mother had come home. My parents, my sisters, Aunt Julia, and a few of my mother’s closest friends gathered around her bed to pray the Rosary for her.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace…
As we prayed, my crystal beads moved quietly through my fingers, each bead a prayer for her. A peaceful death. A heavenly homecoming. I wondered if my prayers carried any weight at all anymore. Halfway through, I moved to the doorway, feeling more and more like an outsider. My nose and cheeks still tingled and my balance was off from the effects of the drug. They were reminders of the high that was past, the Hell I’d plunged back into.
…pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death…
And what had my grandmother been talking about? What couldn’t she face? Who shouldn’t I let turn me? None of it made any sense, but then she and I were both probably half-stoned when I’d talked to her. How could Jason have done that to me? I felt violated, nauseated, and I started to sweat again, so I left the room, went downstairs, and curled up under a blanket on the sofa.
My sisters joined me when they finished praying, Claire on the big overstuffed chair and Cici at the other end of the sofa. She tugged at a corner of my blanket and tucked her feet underneath next to mine. I wondered if she would have snuggled up so close to me if she’d known it was no accident that Mina had the flu. If she she’d known I hadn’t gotten my shot when I was supposed to. The knowledge was burning a hole through my heart, but I couldn’t talk to her about it. I couldn’t bear the thought of her knowing. So, with nothing to say, we waited quietly, watching the adults come and go from Mina’s room in turns. After a while, one of the adults told us she’d slipped into a coma. By morning she was gone.
So it was finally over…only it wasn’t.
There was still her body to prepare, the wake to attend, and the funeral Mass to offer. And there were throngs of sympathetic people who wanted to feed and hug and console us. Console me.
Liar. Killer. Fraud.
I walked the gauntlet uneasily. I hadn’t been there to share the last months of her life. I hadn’t been there to fill her loneliness, hold her hand, attend to her needs, or to pray with her. And despite what she said to me, I knew it had been my choice to avoid her.
Why had I done that? What the hell was wrong with me?
You’re a selfish bitch, my conscience fired back.
By lunchtime, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I begged my dad to take me to school.
I should have stayed home.
TWENTY-FOUR
PERMANENT PAIN RELIEF
IT WASN’T UNTIL I stepped into the shadow of the school’s covered entry, still weak from flu, that I remembered Jason would be there. There was no way I was going to Honors Geometry or Computer Lab—the classes we shared.
Instead, I went to the library, but I did more staring out the window at the falling snow than catching up on homework. My mind drifted back to the day Michael and I talked about his childhood. The day the snow had fallen lazily right through his abused body.
How could you have let him slip away?
The black hole in my chest sucked hard. It ached. God, it ached, and suddenly I needed to move. I shoved myself away from the library table, crammed my books and papers into my bag, and ducked out into the hallway, completely lost in my grief. When I turned the corner and saw Jason, I was a dazed deer caught in headlights. I couldn’t think clearly enough to get out of his way.
He was leaning against a row of deserted lockers outside the library entrance, wearing black chinos and a neatly-pressed white button down shirt whose long sleeves hung unbuttoned at his wrists.
He wasn’t alone.
Three pairs of eyes turned sharply in my direction, their glare wary, dangerous, like the warning hum of a nest of vipers deciding whether or not to strike.
Luke Devlin, Shawn Fowler and Jason stopped talking when they saw me, but they didn’t bother to step away from each other and pretend they didn’t have business to discuss.
I’ve never known Devlin to deal in pharms.
The guy I talked to told me to take two to clear my head and study better.
Dude. He knows. Like, he knows everything.
I can help kids like you…like us.
Oh, God…
How could I have been so blind? The Valium, the Oxycodone, the packages with his father’s name and address. I dropped my books and coat on the floor and took a step backward. “You’re the one who told Shawn how much Ritalin to take! You’ve known Michael was clean all along!”
Jason broke away from his huddle, grabbed my arm and forced me back against the lockers. He caged me in by bracing both his hands against the metal doors on either side of my chest. He was shaking. He was sweating. His dark circles were back.
“Who told you that?” He bit off the words in harsh whispers. I glanced sideways at Luke and Shawn in a quest for aid, but found they had turned their backs on us.
“Don’t look at them. Shawn didn’t tell anyone. Who else knows?”
I ignored his question, firing back, “So, you’re not just using drugs? You’re dealing too?”
“Shawn told me Michael was having trouble in school. I was just trying to help.”
“You bastard! Like you tried to help me yesterday?” I inched my back down the slippery face of the locker and tried to duck under his left arm, but he lowered his hand to block me. “You have to tell, Jason! You have to clear Michael’s name!”
“I can’t do that, Cate. Too many kids depend on me. They need the pills I give them to function, some just to survive. Their parents won’t listen. Parents have no idea how bad it can get. I do. I won’t leave them hanging.” His voice was sharply arrogant, his position in his own mind, ironclad. “That’s why I couldn’t let Shawn take the fall for Michael’s death. Shawn’s weak. He would have told them about me if he’d been caught with the Ritalin. He would have ruined everything. That’s why I told him to dump the bottle.”
I felt the acid in my stomach churn as I realized what he was saying.
“Don’t look so surprised, Cate. Who do you think Shawn called first when Michael fell? 9-1-1?” So when I thought Shawn had been calling for help at the top of the cliff, he’d actually been begging Jason to tell him what to do, and Jason had pragmatically told him to toss the pills over the edge.
“You destroyed Michael’s reputation!” I cried. “He was trying to change!”
“Michael’s dead, Cate. His reputation doesn’t matter anymore. There are other people to consider now. After your trip yesterday, I would have thought you’d understand that.” Then he leaned in close, and whispered seductively, “We could be so good together. I can give you anything you want, anything you need. I can make all your pain go away, Cate. I’ve got ways to make the meds work faster. Better. You know you want more relief.” He kissed the hollow behind my ear, his hot breath warming me despite the alarm bells going off in my head.
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