Be My Downfall

by Lyla Payne

  It was the perfect opportunity to remind her of our conversation at the halfway house, to tell her everything about Trent, except this conversation wasn’t about how I’d gotten here. It was about how she’d gotten here. I didn’t want to derail us when we were finally making progress.

  “I’m a writer, strawberry, and that means I’m a creepy observer. I’ve been watching you since we met in St. Moritz, and the saddest part is, you want to be happy. We have to figure out how to make that okay.”

  “No. That’s what you want to see. It’s not true.” Her eyes darted around the room, looking everywhere but me. Maybe for an escape.

  “You’ve got to stop lying to yourself. Face the things that hurt. Don’t replace them with cheap pain or booze.”

  “Fuck you, Wright,” she spat, jerking her face away from my hand.

  I could take that. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it—my brother’s hurtful language had worsened with every new drug.

  Kennedy didn’t say anything for a long time, her body so tense her shoulders were around her ears, hands clenched into trembling fists. But she didn’t pull away when I reached out and squeezed her fingers between mine. I didn’t embrace her—for some reason it mattered to me that she stand there on her own two feet. It was how she’d survived all these years, on her own, and Kennedy was strong. She could learn to keep moving forward and face what lay behind her. I was here, touching her, nearby if she needed to lean on me, but I couldn’t be a crutch.

  It was important that she be okay without me, too. Like Em had pointed out, I couldn’t be there every moment of every day. Trent had seemed strong enough when he and I would go away for the weekend, take a trip to dad’s mountain cabin and spend a few days fishing in the wilderness, but when we’d get back and I’d go to school, coming home meant finding him gone.

  I couldn’t do it again—have someone be only as strong as me. I didn’t have the reserves.

  Even now, with her a mess and my emotions flying around inside me like rabid monkeys, an electrical current ran between our skin when we touched. I could almost smell the change in her moods, the way her aura shifted slightly as her feelings ran the gamut, too.

  Kennedy’s fingers tightened on mine for a long couple of seconds before she let go. “I’m going to go for a walk.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. We’re…okay. I just need to be alone for a little bit.”

  As much as I loved having her around, the introvert in me wouldn’t mind a few hours of solitude. Still, it was dark outside and college campuses, even ones as well patrolled as Whitman, weren’t the safest places for pretty girls to go wandering alone at night.

  I left her for a second, rummaging through my desk in search of a treasure that a sassy little Zeta girl had left after spending the night last fall. My fingers closed around it, all the way in the back of the drawer, and I pulled it out, feeling smug about my packrat tendencies for once.

  “Here. Take this, and don’t be afraid to use it.” I dropped the bottle of pepper spray in Kennedy’s open palm and closed her fingers around it.

  She looked up into my face, appearing devastated but no longer angry. The lost little girl expression in her eyes tore my heart to shreds before she looped her arms around my neck and pushed onto her toes. Our lips met more hesitantly than they ever had before—even our first kiss, though a surprise, had been purposeful. They fluttered and parted softly, and instead of passion and intensity, our tongues danced a lazy tango, on a beautiful winding path that led somewhere familiar.

  Kissing her still made me hard, made my mind go places beyond her mouth, but this time, this way, it cracked open something inside me that went deeper than lust. Desire mingled with the kind of love I’d locked away when Trent had disappeared—the kind that hurt and healed all at once, the kind of devotion that could bind me together or rip me apart.

  It stunned me, to feel like this for her after a month. For a girl who had given me very little besides her body in return, but who intrigued me and challenged me with every single change of expression. My arms tightened and lifted her against my chest, wishing she could know, but feeling in my bones what a mistake it would be to give her that kind of power over me.

  Instead of words, I tried to pour how much I wanted her—all of her—through my lips into hers, and we kissed, standing by the door in my room, for a long time. As hard as I tried to interpret what her mouth said in return, I couldn’t decipher anything other than a slight desperate edge that felt different than usual. She didn’t smile when I put her down, and neither did I. Had she heard me? Would she consider it? I had no idea, but something had changed between us tonight, and I didn’t know if she could handle it.

  As Kennedy took the pepper spray and my keys and left, I wondered if I could handle it.

  *

  I’d tried to use homework as a distraction from the fucking mess of my head, and it had worked for an hour or two. I finished studying for my film history test, which was scheduled for first thing in the morning, then emailed my accounting group about a project we had due in place of a final exam, making plans to meet at The Grind later next week to get a jump on it.

  Eventually I ran out of work to do, so I stretched out on the bed with bound paper copies of the past five screenplays that had been chosen for the senior film project, hoping to get some inspiration as far as how to push my own script past the invisible roadblock, but no answers were to be found. Instead, the conversation with Kennedy replayed on a loop. We’d addressed some big things, and she’d finally shared something honest about her grief, about her past, and she’d listened when I’d talked. The question of whether or not she’d heard me, or herself, or if any of it had made a difference was anyone’s guess. There was nothing to do but wait, to give her the time to figure some shit out on her own, but it killed me to sit here and not know.

  If she was coming back. If she cared about me the way I did about her, or if her sorrow and grief and anger took up so much space that there wasn’t room for me or anyone else.

  I didn’t recall falling asleep, but the crusty blur of my eyes and the horrible taste in my mouth suggested it had happened, anyway. Panic slammed into my chest, speeding my heart, when I saw that I was not only alone in the bed, but that the covers hadn’t been disturbed at all.

  Something could have happened to her. Some asshole could have raped her or kidnapped her, or she could have been hit by a car and taken to the hospital.

  All those things could have happened, but in my brain, in the back where truth refused to be dislodged, I knew that they hadn’t. I knew that if Kennedy hadn’t returned to my room, she’d probably gone out and gotten wasted, maybe gone home with another guy. That last night’s confrontation had been too much for her, and the brief look into her past had sent her running straight for the things that made her be able to forget—booze and random sex.

  But the rest of my mind, the part that flooded with concern for her safety even if she’d decided we couldn’t make this work, demanded I go out and find her. Even if it was only to make sure she was okay.

  The clock on my phone said it was early, just a little after seven-thirty, and my test wasn’t until ten. I changed out of last night’s clothes, tossing on a pair of basketball shorts then heading to the bathroom in the hall to brush the nastiness out of my mouth. I grabbed a quick shower too, and even though it did nothing to dispel the upset in my stomach, I did feel more human as I headed back to my room to get dressed.

  Kennedy sat at my desk, looking beautiful but also rough as shit. Her red hair was pinned up in a messy bun, and dark circles, like the ones she’d sported pretty much the entire time in Switzerland, ringed her eyes. She sipped one cup of coffee from The Grind and held a second one out to me when she saw me in the doorway.

  The normal feeling of the gesture shoved my body into motion while my brain tried to cast off shock and catch up. The coffee helped—their French roast, black, just the way I liked it—and after a few sips I put it
on the desk and slid my arms around her shoulders from behind and pressed a kiss to her neck.

  “Good morning.” She smelled like cigarettes and stale liquor. The familiar scent overpowered the sweat and dirty hair, and the combination didn’t smell at all like the girl who had brought me to my knees. It shoved a pit of oily nausea through my nose and into my gut.

  “Morning,” she mumbled.

  Where had she slept? How much had she had to drink? What did this mean?

  The questions rolled through my mind on some kind of ticker tape, but after all of the upheaval of the past twelve or eighteen hours, I couldn’t face any of them. Instead of bringing it up, I let her go and went to the dresser, dragging out some clothes. The last thing I needed going into this test was to be distracted.

  She finished her coffee and then curled up on the bed, closing her eyes. I wondered again about what she’d said all those weeks ago about never sleeping unless she was alone, but it was just another oddity that made Kennedy, Kennedy. It would take a lifetime to unravel all of her secrets, and even though the idea intrigued me, I’d have to be an idiot to assume we had that much time.

  I finished getting ready in silence, unwilling to disturb her in case she’d crashed after her long night, but as I grabbed my keys and bent down to kiss her peachy cheek, her blue-green eyes flew open and fastened to mine.

  “I wasn’t with anyone else, Wright. I just needed some space.” Her eyes watered, but she blinked them clear so quickly it was almost like I’d imagined it. “I want you. I do. But I don’t know how to do this.”

  “Don’t give up. It’s harder for you than most, I get it. I hate it, but I get it. All we can do is keep trying. I will if you will.”

  The promise was harder to give than she probably suspected, or than she could possibly know. I didn’t give them lightly—the only people I’d ever been all in with was my family, and even then, it had cost me. To promise her I’d keep trying meant not shutting her out on mornings like today, when she’d worried me sick and backslid into old habits. It meant having the hard conversations, and forgiving her when she hurt me.

  It would be so much simpler to walk away.

  “I don’t…I told you at the hospital that I wasn’t ready.” She squeezed the dirty dress over her heart. “But I came back this morning. I’ve never done that before.”

  “I know. And in spite of everything else I’m feeling right now, I’m glad.”

  She gave me a tired smile. I swept the hair off her forehead and said nothing about her skipping class, because she was obviously exhausted. Healing took energy, and maybe I’d pushed her too hard all at once—demanding she give up her lifestyle, start a relationship with me, figure out how to be a good student, and face her demons without blinking an eye.

  I grabbed my books for my Friday classes and then left her there. Part of me worried that her coming back was part of a strange dream, or a brief, suspended moment in time that wouldn’t last. That she’d be gone when I returned, and I’d be the one having to remind myself to breathe.

  But there was also a tentative but very real spark of hope. That we’d argued, she’d been angry with me, I’d pushed her, and she’d opened up—but we were still okay. We were together. We were trying.

  Chapter 19

  My film history test went pretty well, and my afternoon of business ethics and television production were fun and engaging enough to keep my mind off my troubles. I ran into Finn outside the student union and agreed to grab coffee at The Grind. It could have been because I liked him, and he was my little brother at SEA, or it could have been because I was scared to go back to my room.

  Or maybe I needed some space of my own.

  “Good game last night, man.”

  “Thanks,” he beamed. “Dad thinks big league scouts are going to be sniffing around way before graduation, but he made me promise to finish at Whitman before signing anything. Otherwise he’d pull my scholarship.”

  Finn’s dad was Whitman’s chancellor, so he was one of the few parents who could make that kind of threat and follow through on it. Personally, I’d never understood why anyone would forgo college, even for a bunch of money. It was four years partying and figuring shit out on your parents’ dime. Most kids at Whitman—Finn included—didn’t need the money offered by pro ball, anyway.

  “Well, I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to wait around and make sure you don’t throw out your shoulder or blow a knee before then.” I sipped my iced coffee, watching students pass by on the sidewalk outside. When had my life gotten more complicated than everyone else’s? It used to be the other way around.

  “Saw you at the game with Kennedy Gilbert. Guys at the house are saying she moved into your room. What’s the deal with that?”

  “Why do you want to know?” The defensive tone in my voice was coincidental; I was more curious than anything.

  I could get in trouble with the frat for letting her move in—girls spending the night was one thing, and girlfriends stayed over a lot, but the fact that Kennedy had nowhere else to go made my situation different. I had enough to worry about without the standards board getting involved.

  “Curious, I guess. Everyone is. I’ve seen Kennedy around a lot, at the freshman parties, at the baseball parties, at the bars…pretty much anywhere there’s alcohol.” He stirred his fruit smoothie, giving me a shrug. “I don’t know what I’m saying, really, except she’s never really seemed like the girlfriend type.”

  “I’ve never really seemed like the boyfriend type.”

  “But…?”

  “I don’t know, man. We’re not there yet, but she’s different.”

  “You can say that again.” He slugged the rest of his smoothie and slammed it down, wiping his mouth. “What are your plans for the summer?”

  “I have an internship with Bad Robot out in L.A. until the 4th of July, then I’m spending a month in Bern with my parents. That will pretty much do it.”

  “Then back for senior year, huh? Then what?”

  “You know. Hollywood, man. Even with minimal connections, I’ll probably be fetching coffee for a couple of years. Then hopefully move up into the money side of things.”

  “What about your writing?”

  Finn was a radio-television-film major too, and even though he was a freshman with nothing to do with choosing a senior project for next year, everyone got excited. It was pretty much the second semester project for every film student, because it took all of the resources to do it well. Finn was pulling cables for this year’s production, a coming-of-age script about three girls.

  Not my kind of thing, but I appreciated the writing. The seniors had all but begged Ruby to audition, but she wasn’t interested in anything but theatre, and it kept her busy.

  My personal opinion was that Ruby got off on the instant gratification of crowd reaction and she wouldn’t give that up for a bunch of money and a permanent paparazzi entourage. Not that I blamed her, at least about the last part.

  “I’m going to keep writing, but that’s not where the money and longevity is in the business.”

  “Smart.” He checked his phone. “Well, I’ve got to go. Good luck with Kennedy and everything. She deserves a break. But don’t piss her off, because she’s the type to burn the house down just in case you’re inside.”

  I snorted and took another drink of my coffee, deciding no reply was best. Especially when my initial reaction was that I doubted she cared enough to take the time to light a match.

  *

  “Tobias, please have a seat.”

  Dr. Porter looked down and adjusted his glasses as though he was giving me the chance to roll my eyes at him in private. The leather couch sank under my weight, as comfortable as ever. I’d run into Annette again in the waiting area, but she walked past in such a rush she hadn’t even seen me. Based on her reddened face and disheveled hair, that girl couldn’t be much better off in the head than Kennedy.

  “How have you been?”

  It was his
standard question, and my standard response was to want to say fine and move on, but I felt too guilty about wasting my parents’ money. “I’m okay. I’ve been thinking about Trent a lot.”

  “Because of this girl you’re seeing.”

  “Yeah. She’s not as bad as Trent in some ways—she’s not into drugs, really—but in other ways it might be worse.” I paused, wishing I could pick his brain about specifics since I knew he saw her, but it didn’t seem right.

  “I know it’s Kennedy Gilbert. I do read the papers, Tobias.”

  “Oh.” I’d almost forgotten about the incident at the hospital. She consumed my thoughts day and night, but that had seemed like the true start of things between us, when my staying had convinced her to give it a shot.

  “I can’t divulge any specifics regarding a patient, you know that. Likewise, I will not discuss your past with her. That said, I can speak to what taking on someone with her issues could do to your mental health, Tobias.” He paused, pushing his glasses up on his nose and leveling me with one of his more honest stares. “Is she getting help?”

  “No. I planned to ask what your thoughts were on addicts getting clean without a professional program. She thinks she can do it, like it’s going to be like flipping a switch, but I obviously know differently.”

  “Have you told her about Trent? It could make a difference.”

  I shook my head. “No. I mean, she knows what I said at Harbor House was about my brother, but not specifics.”

  He pursed his lips for the briefest of seconds, the most judgment he ever showed in a session, telling me he didn’t approve. “To answer your question about conquering addiction without treatment, I will say that it’s not impossible when a person has great personal willpower. Treatment works because in order to put an addiction truly behind you, you must put the past behind you—the choices that led to your addiction. If a person can do that, they can let go of the crutch as well.”