Be My Downfall

by Lyla Payne

  “How did they die?”

  “I really think you should be talking to her about this.”

  “She won’t talk about it, but anyone can see she needs a friend. I just want to help her.”

  “What are you going to do, bring her family back? Erase the last six years of her life?” When I didn’t respond, Ruby tossed up her hands and sighed. “They were driving through an intersection when a truck ran a light and slammed into the driver’s door. Her father died on impact, so did her baby brother—he was in a car seat on the same side of the car. Her mother died on the way to the hospital—Gilbert Memorial. Internal injuries.”

  The description of the event that changed her life forever made my mouth dry and my thoughts jumble as I tried to avoid conjuring any mental pictures of such a horrific event.

  “And Kennedy? She wasn’t in the car?”

  “She was in the car. Minor injuries—a broken arm, I think, and a few ribs—except for an impressive conk on the head. Kennedy was in a coma for a couple of weeks, then came out of it like nothing happened.”

  “She’s strong,” I managed, still trying to control an overpowering desire to scream at the universe, or kick someone’s ass because I could.

  “Not strong enough, I guess. Or at least, not strong in the ways that count. I didn’t even realize she was attending Whitman since she didn’t go through Recruitment, but every time I’ve seen her, she’s been impressively not sober. And she had no interest in rekindling our friendship. I even invited her home with me for Christmas. For old times’ sake.”

  I didn’t say it to Ruby, but I knew why Kennedy had refused that invitation. It was the same reason my parents had closed up Trent’s room, and why we never revisited pictures or sat around reminiscing about holidays from when I was a kid. Recalling good times only served as a reminder that those things were gone forever. Being friends with Ruby again would remind Kennedy why they’d been friends in the first place—their mothers.

  “Don’t take it personally. I don’t think she wants to be friends with anyone.”

  A glint in Ruby’s eyes caught me by surprise. It looked oddly like encouragement. “You made the mistake of turning your back on a friend in need once, dude. Don’t do it again.”

  “I’ve been really quiet this whole time, which I’m sure you both know has been hard for me. Can I say something now?” Emilie raised her eyebrows.

  “Well, to be fair, Em, he was asking about Kennedy. You don’t even know her.”

  “That’s true. But I do know a little something about trying to save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”

  “You’re talking about Quinn.” I said. It wasn’t really a question.

  I didn’t mention that I already knew all about hopeless causes. That I’d already lost the biggest one of my life, but for some reason that didn’t stop me from wanting to try again.

  “Obviously I’m talking about Quinn. And this road…it’s ugly, Toby. The only thing that kept me going through all of the hatefulness and insults and pain and him continuing to beat himself down while I tried to drag him up was knowing, without a single doubt, how he felt about me. That eventually, seeing me there waiting would be the thing that made him climb up and out of the hole he dug. And…”

  “And what?” I managed through clenched teeth.

  My defenses had crept up during her entire speech. If I was in a better mood, I’d analyze whether it was because of Emilie’s insinuation that Kennedy didn’t feel about me the way Quinn had about her, or because I’d wondered the same thing.

  “Relax. I’m not here to make a judgment on her feelings for you or yours for her. God knows no one saw what I did in Quinn.” Ruby made a noise of protest but Em gave her a look. “No one. What I am saying is, Quinn’s issues were mental. They were tough and engrained and yeah, definitely psychological damage stemming from his fucked-up childhood, but they weren’t substance related. Kennedy has the kind of problems that control her, not the other way around. Wanting to be with you might not be enough to pull her out.”

  “I know. I know that, Em. It doesn’t mean we don’t try.”

  “You’re going to get hurt,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, and you got hurt, but I let you—and Ruby let you—because we’re your friends. You had to do it. I have to do this.”

  She reached out and squeezed my hand. “If you ever decide you want to really be friends, as in, tell me what’s spurring your interest in lost causes, then I’m here.”

  I squeezed back, my heart flattening painfully for a few beats. I had superficial friends coming out my ears, but real friends, the kind who knew secrets…those I didn’t have. Couldn’t afford. When your secrets could bring down your father’s political career, it was best to keep them.

  The memory of how tempting it had been to spill the truth about Trent to Kennedy dried out my mouth again. If I was going to trust someone, it should be a girl like Emilie, or one of my frat brothers. Not a drunk.

  “Thanks for the info, Ruby. I appreciate it.” She grunted and turned back to the microfiche as I kissed Emilie’s cheek. “And thank you for caring, but I don’t think Quinn would be so tolerant of us getting closer.”

  “Seconded,” Cole’s tumbling brogue interrupted from behind over my shoulder. He crossed to Ruby and put his arms around her, pressing a kiss to her neck. “And stay away from my sister, too.”

  “Not your girlfriend?” I asked, amused.

  “She’s too satisfied to go looking—” He broke off with a grunt when Ruby’s elbow connected with his ribs.

  “Have fun with that,” I laughed, then headed out of the library and into the spring sunshine.

  Six Years Ago

  “Why are you staring at your brother like that?”

  Her father’s voice startled her from the stare, which she’d been using to try to laser off her baby brother’s eyebrows. The girl never got any sleep because he cried all the time, just because his teeth were coming in. But that wasn’t all. Her parents didn’t always listen when she talked anymore, and they were annoyed when she made too much noise or sassed them, but her brother never got in trouble for anything.

  He was a bigger pain than she was, but he was cute. Cuter than her, with her red hair and freckles, legs that were too long, and teeth that were coming in a little bit crooked. None of the boys at school wanted to kiss her on the playground, even though her friend Ruby had her first kiss last summer.

  “I wish he was dead.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say,” her father said, the disappointment on his face slicing her heart.

  He had never looked at her that way before a few years ago. She had been perfect, and everything had been easy. Now, things were hard. She felt sad and angry sometimes for no reason, and they rolled their eyes and muttered about teenagers. When her brother was sad or angry, he got cuddled.

  “I don’t care.”

  Her father sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Well, we’ll have to hope you’ll change your mind, Kennedy Anne. Because you’re stuck with him.”

  Her mother, whose red hair matched the girl’s except prettier, stood in the doorway and smiled. “Are you guys ready to leave? The car’s packed and running.”

  Her father nodded. The girl sulked.

  “You put the baby in his car seat, will you dear? I want to braid Kennedy’s hair.”

  For a moment, when her mother ran her fingers through her tangled waves and smiled at her in the mirror, the girl thought about saying she was sorry for wishing her brother would die.

  But she never did.

  Chapter 12

  Talking to Ruby had been interesting but not helpful as far as getting Kennedy to talk to me. I tried changing my paths to take me by the freshman dorms, hanging out at the campus bars more than normal, and eating in the student union, but another week passed without running into her. I went back to another of Dr. Porter’s support groups, but she didn’t show up. My texts went unanswered. Short of actual stalki
ng, I had no idea how to catch her.

  I’d stayed out late, studying at The Grind with a group from my business law class even though it was another Thursday. I considered heading to the Lambda house for after-bars, but the knot in my shoulders and ache in my back begged for a hot shower and an early night—if 2:00 a.m. could be considered early. I’d gotten a hundred percent on my last four quizzes, accounting included, so it felt like I had a lock on the rest of the semester.

  Maybe I would party next weekend. It wasn’t like I didn’t enjoy blowing off steam, but my dad’s career in the national spotlight meant scrutiny like most of my peers didn’t get, not even the ones richer or more high profile than me. Guys like Quinn, the playboys giving their rich daddies the finger, they got followed by the gossip rags or featured in fluff pieces about the country’s young bachelors. Politics was a different story. It was serious if someone caught me passed out on the frat house lawn, or if some photog grabbed pics of my tongue down a different girl’s throat every night.

  I had to be careful, but I’d been doing it for years.

  The house sat dark and quiet, a warm breeze shifting through the trees on the lawn. The pledges were doing a kickass job on landscaping this semester. Maybe it was the high heels we made them wear on the claim that it aerated the grass while they worked. We were an Animal House cliché, but it was still fun.

  My student I.D. let me in the front door, and I crossed the sticky wooden floor toward the kitchen, then took the stairs down to my nice, solitary hole.

  I dropped my bag at the sight of a lump on my bed, and once I got the lights flipped on and the strawberry hair registered, my heart sank. I’d been looking for her for weeks, and here she was in my bed, but something was wrong.

  Her face, normally pale, looked as thin and white as a piece of tissue. A reddish-purple bruise bloomed around her right eye and another trailed down her jaw, and the sight poured white-hot fury through me as I smoothed her hair back onto the pillow. Her lips tinged blue instead of their typical vibrant berry color. When I sat on the edge of the bed she rolled toward me like a sack of potatoes but her eyes didn’t open. Fresh bruises on her throat and the fact that she was barely wearing clothes—a tank top and boy short underwear, no bra, pretty much confirmed she hadn’t been alone before she’d ended up in my room.

  I could hardly think, hardly make words come out of my mouth because my entire body lit on fire with anger and fear, but her safety came before thoughts of revenge.

  “Kennedy?” She didn’t respond, so I reached out and shook her, then tried again louder.

  Nothing. I rolled her on her back and watched her chest move with shallow breaths, and hand on her heart verified a heartbeat that had to be way too slow. I was a film guy, not at all medically inclined, but any kid who’d grown up attending an elitist private school knew what an overdose looked like.

  I had no idea how she’d gotten here, if she’d come on her own or been dropped off, but she was my responsibility now. It wouldn’t look good, my bringing an unconscious, battered girl into the E.R., but I didn’t have much of a choice. I couldn’t leave her, and I’d told her I’d be her friend—friends didn’t dump you outside a hospital and run.

  I grabbed a pair of basketball shorts out of my drawer and slid them up her skinny legs, figuring they’d stay on as long as she didn’t stand up, then grabbed my keys and wallet out of my bag. She whimpered but didn’t wake up when I scooped her into my arms and left the house through the private back door into the basement.

  The parking lot was as empty as the house. No one happened past as I pushed her into the backseat and ran around to the driver’s door. The ride to the hospital took fewer than twenty minutes, and it would have been shorter if I hadn’t stopped to make sure she was still breathing every couple of miles.

  The E.R. was about half-full, so it could have been worse. A nurse rushed up to me when she saw an unconscious girl. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I found her like this but I’m guessing some kind of overdose or maybe alcohol poisoning.”

  “Page Dr. Robbins,” the nurse shouted to her colleague at the desk, who nodded and grabbed a phone. She grabbed a gurney and I laid Kennedy down on it, following when she started to wheel it away to an exam room.

  “Maybe you should wait out here,” she said too sternly, her eyes darting to the darkening bruises on Kennedy’s face.

  It ached in places I couldn’t reach, that the nurse thought I’d hurt Kennedy, but that didn’t matter right now. I didn’t matter right now.

  “No one else is coming, and I’m not leaving. If you want to fight with me, we can do it after you make sure she’s going to be okay.”

  She didn’t say anything else and she didn’t call security, so I guess I’d won this round. The next hour went by in a blur of doctors and nurses, tubes and machines. They’d pumped her stomach and taken a bunch of blood so they could figure out what she’d ingested, but promised she was stable and in no danger of going into cardiac arrest or dying or anything.

  I sat there the whole time, holding her hand when they’d let me close enough, but Kennedy never woke up. Her fingers twitched against my palm a few times, so maybe she knew I was there.

  The room fell quiet for a time, then the same nurse who had checked her in came in to check her tubes and put some kind of bandages on the cuts around her eye and mouth. Cold disdain flowed off her like the chill off a Swiss mountain—clearly she believed me responsible for this situation.

  “Now that you see your friend is going to be fine, perhaps it’s time to go. We don’t want her agitated when she wakes up.”

  Kennedy might be agitated to see me, but not because I’d hurt her. And the insinuation pissed me off. “My father’s a U.S. Senator, and this hospital is funded by an endowment from her parents, so how about your keep your fat nosy ass out of our business.”

  “Damn, Wright, don’t be such a dick.”

  Her weak voice snapped my attention from the bitchy nurse. It would piss her off, but my hand went instinctively to her forehead, smoothing her hair like an annoying mother. “Hey, strawberry. How are you feeling?”

  She seemed to notice her surroundings for the first time, jerking away from my touch and groaning. “Ugh. Fucking hospitals. Why did you bring me here? And why does my mouth taste like the inside of a garbage disposal? Never mind, don’t tell me—stomach pump. Unmistakable flavor.”

  “You’ve done this before?” The incredulity in my voice wasn’t dignified or helpful, but after witnessing that disgusting process, going through it more than once seemed unimaginable.

  “Six times. Wait, maybe it’s nine. Anyway, yes.” She fluffed the pillow behind her head, wincing when the I.V. pulled at her wrist.

  The nurse made a tsking noise in the back of her throat, then left the room after checking a few monitors. The nonchalance fell away from Kennedy like a shedding skin as soon as the door banged shut.

  She closed her eyes. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Um, because you were passed out and unresponsive. They’re running a tox screen now, so we can figure out what cocktail you should avoid in the future.”

  “No, dumbass. You’re not listening. Why did you bring me here? We weren’t together.”

  “Are you sure? You might have forgotten.” It came out snottier than I intended. Christ. I sounded like a petulant, jealous asshole.

  “I know I wasn’t with you for several reasons, one of which is that my face feels like a giant bruise.”

  “Yeah, the nurse thinks I did it. Thanks for that.”

  We sat in silence for a long time, until she reached out and threaded her fingers with mine. Our eyes met and for maybe the third time since we’d met, I felt as though the real Kennedy Gilbert stared back at me.

  “Thank you. For bringing me here, and for staying.”

  I squeezed her fingers, feeling hopeful that this, like her confessing her struggles, and allowing me to drive her home, meant she wanted to get be
tter.

  “You’re welcome.”

  The thought of bringing up all of the ignored texts crossed my mind, but confrontation had never worked with Trent. It had only driven him further away, so I sat still, brushing my thumb over her smooth skin, reveling in the way that even though we were silent, we seemed to be communicating some kind of alliance.

  *

  “Your toxicology report came back negative for everything expect marijuana and alcohol. It’s good news, Miss Gilbert, but also sad news, because one has to drink an extraordinary amount of alcohol to fall into the kind of unresponsive state in which you were admitted.” Dr. Robbins, a short blond lady who looked more like a kindergarten teacher than a doctor, shot me a look. “In addition, you had contusions to your face—those should heal nicely—and some bruising on your throat and midsection. They’ll be painful, but should be better in a few days.

  “How soon until I can go home?”

  “We’re going to monitor you another twenty-four hours, then you’re free to go. There will be a specialist in to speak with you about our many outpatient treatment options.”

  “Thank you.”

  I’d listened to the entire thing without comment, my anger simmering as the doctor described the abuse Kennedy had taken. “Strawberry, I swear to Jesus. Tell me who did this to you.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I think you do, or at the very least recall where and when you met him.”

  “And what are you going to do, tough guy? Kick his ass?” She bit her bottom lip, looking cuter every hour as the swelling went down. “No, you’re politically correct boy. You’d have him arrested. Am I right?”

  “I don’t know why you’re making me feel sheepish about that. Yes. I’m not much into ass-kicking, although it does feel damn good once in a while.”