Anything to Have You

by Paige Harbison

  “Lana, okay.”

  “And you’re...”

  “Oh, I’m Brooke.”

  “Brooke...” She narrowed her eyes. “Brooke from Churchill? I knew you looked familiar!”

  I smiled more genuinely at the thought of being known of. “Right, yeah.”

  “Oh, gosh.” She gave me a slight up-and-down. For once in my life, I was embarrassed at what she was seeing. “I have heard of you. You were with Aiden Macmillan, right?”

  “Yeah. For a long time.”

  “Right.”

  Apparently the news of him cheating on me with my best friend had traveled school districts.

  And here I was, looking like a mess of all messes.

  “So you’re a senior this year, huh?”

  “Yes! I’m so fucking pumped.” She rolled her eyes in excitement. “It’s going to be the best year.”

  I nodded at her and felt like one of those old, jaded people looking at a wide-eyed child. I felt an urge to tell her Santa wasn’t real, that Peter Pan was really about dead children stuck in purgatory and that too much ice cream would one day make her fat.

  “I’m sure it is. Well, enjoy it! I have to go talk to my...” I pointed toward Reed. “I’ll see you later.”

  “More shots in, like...fifteen.” She looked at her watchless wrist and then gave me a big smile.

  I nodded. “Totes.”

  As I turned my back, I knew she was going over to her Bethany-friend, and that they were going to talk about how I wasn’t like how they had thought I would be. How they didn’t get what all the fuss was about. They’d say how shitty I looked.

  I found Reed, dancing on the dark porch in a mass of bodies, with another girl. I shoved her aside and grabbed him.

  He only laughed, not caring about whoever she was.

  “Still have that pill?” I shouted in his ear to be heard over the deafening music.

  He nodded and gave me a questioning look.

  I want it, I mouthed.

  He hesitated, but then reached in his pocket and pulled out the little bag. He licked his finger and reached into the bag, pulling the pill out on his fingertip.

  He held it out for me, and I looked him in the eyes, which were caught by a red light from somewhere behind me. I took a deep breath and then put his whole finger in my mouth. I slid the pill onto my tongue and then swallowed it. It was done. No going back.

  I pulled my mouth off his finger, giving the tip a quick bite before turning around and dancing on him.

  The songs blended together in my drunkenness, but not too long after, I started to feel different.

  My heart began palpitating a little. Just nerves. I was scared of this drug. I had never done anything like this before.

  Overabuse of Excedrin, and a little pot every now and then, yes. But not real drugs.

  It wasn’t long before my body started to give in. I grinded against Reed, and then turned around, burying my face in his neck. He was sweating, but I didn’t care. I touched him as much as I could. His cold skin, the sweat on top of it, it felt good on my face. I felt aware of the tiny space between his skin and mine when it touched. I grabbed his hair and pulled it, and took his face and pulled his mouth onto mine.

  I was so hot. Some time passed. My hair was kind of wet, and sticking to my cheekbones and collarbones. There was no air-conditioning, and more people pouring in every minute.

  I let my body grind into his, never letting go of him.

  A song picked up the tempo. There were heavy drums. Fast double bass drums. My forearms started to feel like they had fire shooting through them. My neck muscles tensed and started to cramp. I looked up to see Reed’s eyes, like something of a horizon, but he wasn’t there. I was alone. When did I let go of him? I realized my hand was still holding someone’s arm. I didn’t know him. I let go.

  Fuck. Where was I?

  It was dark. There was a TV on. The redhead was in my sight, laughing at something someone said. My chest hurt. My head was splitting. My legs felt like I’d been overworking the muscles. They shook, and I thought maybe I’d collapse.

  I suddenly felt like I was falling down a deep, dark hole.

  Part V

  NATALIE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I’D NEVER GRIPPED anything harder than the handle on the car door that night. My fingernails bent against the leather, and I didn’t even notice until I saw the cracks later.

  No one spoke on the ride to the hospital. My dad drove us up to the door to the E.R., then said he would meet us inside. My dad had talked with Brooke’s mom to put us on some list so we could go right in.

  Aiden got out of the backseat. He didn’t try to touch me or talk to me.

  My hands trembled as I went to the reception desk and said her name.

  I signed in. Aiden did, too. Then we followed the directions through the doors they let us in, and down the hallway. It was freezing cold. Bright lights. I couldn’t help but look in each of the little rooms as we passed. Old people, on their last legs. Little kids with doting, terrified parents. But no Brooke. Finally we arrived at her curtained-off area. I felt the awful plunge in my heart and stomach before I even stepped in.

  “Brooke...”

  Her name tumbled from my mouth as I saw her. Pale. The same color as her hair. Tubes in her nose and down her throat. IV in her hand. Pulse monitor on her finger.

  I stared at her, and shook my head. “I can’t...she’s got to be okay.”

  I felt Aiden rub his face next to me. “She’s got to be.”

  I don’t know how long we stood there. I stared at the creepily identical breaths that made her chest rise and fall. I reacted to nothing around me until I heard the squeak of sneakers on the tile behind me. I turned, expecting to see my dad, but instead saw Reed.

  I felt my mouth curl into a snarl, and I felt this urge to hit him. Before I could even tell myself not to, however, Aiden had done it for me.

  The hit went straight through Reed, knocking him to the floor.

  A nurse came over and started to yell at them. Reed held up his hand at her.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine, I deserved it. Just...back off.” He said the last part more quietly as he stood. She went away, clearly feeling out of her element. I got the feeling she was new.

  “Fuck you, man.” Aiden glared at him.

  “Fuck me? I’m the one that fucking called you.”

  “I don’t care, this is your fault and you know—”

  He gave an awful, humorless smile. “Yeah, I gave her the drugs. It’s my fault. But I’m not why she’s here, am I?” He looked between both of us, holding his cheekbone.

  That stung.

  He pulled away his hand, exposing some blood from where his skin had split.

  “I don’t think it’s really any of your fucking business. Don’t imply that it’s because of us—” Aiden started.

  “You’re both kidding yourselves if you think she doesn’t care about what you did. She’s not even mad, man, she’s fucking hurt. I can’t believe that I have to be the one to recognize that she’s sadder than she is mad. You’re her best fucking friend, you can’t tell the difference? You can’t see that you made her feel worthless and like she didn’t matter to either of you, and that that’s the problem? Because that is the problem. This isn’t about popularity or her being pissed because you broke a secret ‘BFF’ rule.” He used finger quotes, and his cheek bled freely. “This is because you’re the only people she really gives a shit about. Not the people who are up her ass at school, not fuckin’ Bethany or whatever, not me. You two. And you fucked her. I get it, man, I get that you’re in love and that shit, but you have to realize that you sacrificed her happiness for yours. You have to fuckin’ recognize that, the both of you.”

&nb
sp; Aiden and I were stunned into silence. He was completely right. Reed. Was completely right.

  “I just wish you hadn’t let her get to this point,” said Aiden, his voice rough.

  I thought Reed might argue some more, but he didn’t. “I know, me, too. She’s not the kind of girl that should be in this shit. It was my turn to watch her.” He gave a small smile, and then it faded when the truth of what he said seemed to hit him. “Anyway, I’m going to go. I think it’s best I don’t hang around her anymore.” He looked toward her body in the other room. “Plus, it’s fuckin’ hell looking at her like this.”

  I nodded.

  He put up his hand in goodbye and took off down the hall.

  “Reed,” I called after him. He turned. “Thanks for getting her here.”

  He tightened his lips and kept walking.

  I looked at Aiden. He couldn’t make me feel better about what Reed had said. Because he knew, as I did, that it was true.

  It was us. We were why she was there.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but I didn’t even know what. Things were all way too complicated for me to even begin to know how to fix it.

  I stepped out of the room and leaned against the wall across the way. I looked down the hall and saw Brooke’s parents.

  They looked simultaneously angry and scared out of their minds.

  A few minutes later they came over. We made awful small talk for a while and waited for the doctor.

  Finally he came over. His voice was loud, too calm and brash. He was so matter-of-fact. He told us what had happened. Reed had given them the information they needed to know, and they had deduced that it was a combination of alcohol, poor nutrition, caffeine and MDMA.

  “Ecstasy?” Aiden muttered to me. “Since when...?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head, my eyes shut tight to keep from crying.

  The doctor told us she was only unconscious because she was on a sedative. It made it easier for her to have the tube down her throat.

  After getting all the information, Brooke’s parents talked to my dad. He shook his head and discussed whatever parents discuss in these situations with them. Aiden and I sat quietly like children in time-out.

  My dad came over to us after they finished talking, and said we needed to go. I didn’t want to, but he insisted nothing would change, and that I would only get upset sitting here.

  I made her mom promise to call me the second she woke up, day or night.

  * * *

  THE CALL FROM Brooke’s mom didn’t come until late the next night.

  The second it did, I bounded out of bed and took my dad’s car. I booked it inside the hospital and to the room they’d relocated her to.

  Once there, I hesitated before moving into sight. She was awake. She’d almost died. Last we had spoken, she didn’t want to see me. And now I was here.

  I gathered my strength and knocked.

  “Come in.”

  I stepped in.

  She gave a small flicker of her eyebrow before biting her bottom lip and saying, “Hey.”

  Her eyes went elsewhere, and I didn’t know what to do.

  I walked over and sat in one of the awful chairs they had next to the bed.

  “How are you feeling?”

  She nodded her head. “You know. Like a fucking idiot.” She gave a weak laugh. “I’m okay. Little nauseous. Headache. You know. The usual hangover shit.”

  I watched her. She still wasn’t looking at me. But her eyes shifted from the wall straight ahead of her and then down to her hands. She was trying to keep her face passive.

  I exhaled deeply, and put my head in my arms on the bed next to her.

  She didn’t reach for me. I didn’t expect her to. I sat back up a few minutes later.

  “I have never been more terrified, Brooke.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I can’t do this. I can’t not know you. I can’t not be talking to you every day. I can’t pretend you’re not my best friend.”

  “Yeah, well. You really showed me how much you care, Natalie.”

  The words stung, and my eyes filled with tears. “I know...God...I...it all feels like a nightmare....”

  “I just don’t understand.” She tightened her shoulders, and the heart monitor next to her beeped a little faster. “How did this happen? You and Aiden, how did it happen?”

  “I...”

  “I mean, seriously, Natalie.”

  “You wanted me to come out. I wish I never had. I told you I couldn’t. I told you I didn’t want to.”

  “Yeah, I thought that was because you were scared. Of what people would think of you. Of not fitting in. Of...fuck, I don’t know. Whatever else. I didn’t think it was because you were going to do this.”

  “I always liked him. You knew I did, back when he first started here. I’m...I hate myself for it.”

  “Yeah, well...” We were silent for a moment. “It feels to me like you decided you loved him more than you love me. I mean, certainly he feels...whatever for you more than for me, but...”

  She looked determinedly at the ceiling and then groaned loudly.

  “What?”

  “I guess there is no more than that. He loves you more than he loves...loved me.”

  “Oh—”

  “And,” she interrupted, “you love him more than I did.”

  I had nothing to say. She was right. But I didn’t know that agreeing with her was the right move.

  Finally she looked at me for real. “This is so fucked up. And so not okay. But...I know you both too well to act like...I mean, neither of you would have done it if it wasn’t...impossible not to. I guess.”

  Again, I didn’t know what to say. So I extended my hand to her.

  After a moment, she took it.

  “You can’t fall apart like this, Brooke. You’re way too smart for this. Way too smart for Reed. Way too smart for fucking Ecstasy and a solid alcohol diet.”

  She took a deep breath. “I know that. It’s...I’ve had enough of this now. I know that. I don’t want to be a mess.”

  “I don’t want you to, either. I can’t ever be scared like that again.”

  “I know. Me, neither.” She breathed deeply. “You know it can’t be okay right away, right? I can’t...be okay with this. I can’t sit across from a table with you guys, or...give you any kind of blessing. I hate it still. For right now. Or maybe I always will.”

  “Of course. I know.”

  “But I guess...I kind of have to get my shit together if I’m going to be Auntie Brooke.”

  The words immediately sent me into unexpected tears.

  “Oh, great, you’re going to be all hormonal now,” she said. “This is going to be a fucking nightmare. A guilty and hormonal best friend.” She rolled her eyes, and smiled.

  “It’s going to be worse for me,” I said, laughing. “I’m getting fat!”

  “Let me see it.”

  I moaned. “No...”

  “Lift up your sweatshirt, fatso. Do it. Let me see it. Seeing you fat might be the only thing to help right now.”

  I sighed and stood, lifting up my shirt to show her my stomach. Which had started to seriously show.

  “Eee...yuck...” she said, staring.

  “Hey!”

  “I mean, oh! How...beautiful! There’s life inside you.”

  “Okay, yeah, yuck.”

  Now teasing me, she sat up. “Just think, in only a few months, it’ll be you in the hospital bed, and me sitting there. Feeling smug.”

  I was still crying, but laughing, too. Suddenly we were both in stitches, unable to breathe or speak.

  When it came down to it, I knew that she was the most important person to me. And
that because I had made the choices I had, it didn’t mean I wouldn’t do anything to keep her as my best friend.

  Epilogue

  Brooke

  Two and a half years later

  I SAT IN the middle of my tiny apartment, surrounded by boxes. Alexa had the living room furnished, but I had to find a place to put all my crap.

  It was everything from my room at home and my off-campus housing apartment in Pennsylvania that I had chosen not to sell at yard sales.

  I was newly twenty-one. And really on my own for the first time. I had spent two years at the school my parents wanted me to go to, done the program they wanted me to do. And I recognized that I’d learned skills that would only ever benefit me. But in the end, I knew I still needed more. I saved money working my butt off as a waitress during the summers and saved almost enough money to come to New York. I hadn’t wanted to, but I’d accepted the financial help my parents gave me. After how hard I’d worked, they were all right with my relocation.

  Alexa and I had stayed in touch, and when I’d realized it was a real possibility I would be going, I’d started talking to her more. When I’d gotten accepted to the Fashion Institute again, I’d told her I was coming. She’d been thrilled, and we’d started making plans to move in together.

  I had recently visited home to get my things and fill a small U-Haul with the furniture my parents were donating to me. My parents respected me for trying the program they’d wanted me to and for boldly making my own independent decisions.

  For most of high school, I had looked forward to the years of college where I would be free to go as long as I wanted without seeing them. But the truth was, now that I didn’t live at home and didn’t technically have to listen to them, we had a much better relationship. My mom and I had even, somehow, shockingly, developed something of an adult relationship. I called her when something happened in my life. This might sound like a simple thing, but it was something I couldn’t have imagined for most of my life.

  After my embarrassing hospitalization senior year, during the Reed era, I had realized, in a way I don’t know if I could have otherwise, what I wanted and what I didn’t. I took school seriously once I went, and amazingly enough, my being kind of “over it” about partying and getting fucked up all the time had only made me seem cooler. I also started to make friends that I actually had things in common with. Friends who didn’t just like me because I was popular, but who liked me because I got their movie and book references—thanks, Natalie—or because we could laugh together on a Friday night in, eating Oreos and playing Apples to Apples.