Beautiful Together

by Andrea Wolfe

  I still had support. However, not having to worry about finances just made even more room inside of me for emptiness, pure, unadulterated blackness. My classmates didn't ask me about Mason all that much anymore, because when they did, I kinda freaked out.

  One day in the hall, Carla Voss surprised me at my locker. "Hey, Naomi," she said quietly.

  I turned around, shocked once I realized who was there. "What the hell do you want, Carla?" I hissed. "If you and Jesse are trying to—"

  "I'm not even with him anymore," she retorted. "We broke up months ago. I just wanted to see how Mason is doing."

  I clenched my teeth. Was this some kind of joke? Even if it wasn't, my self control was gone. "Well, he's a little more dead today than he was yesterday. And tomorrow he'll be even worse."

  "Jesus, Naomi," she said, taken aback. "I was just trying to be your friend. I know it's probably hard, but—"

  "I'm not your fucking friend, Carla!" I shouted.

  I got sent to the principal's office, but Mr. Brown let me off with a warning, thankfully, since he knew what was going on.

  So after word of the incident with Carla spread, people mostly stopped asking.

  There were never any good updates, anyway.

  Around mid-March, I felt worse than ever. Even though I had grown even closer to Arielle, I was still hiding my own conflicted feelings, always putting on a weak, fragile smile around her.

  I figured she knew what was up and chose to give me space instead of forcefully inquiring or trying to solve everything.

  I did plenty of thinking about my mom's words and my own beliefs. I thought a lot about my desperate prayer.

  A lot about Mason's impending death and what it meant in the long run, too.

  Yeah, I thought a lot, but I was too embarrassed of my own weakness to actually speak.

  After one particularly harsh week in the middle of March—Mason had been about to die yet again, but miraculously pulled through—Arielle and I were settling down to watch movies on Friday night.

  Curt had left the day before to go to Hong Kong. As usual, it was just the two of us alone in that giant house.

  And as always, Arielle pulled out her bong and started smoking. I carefully watched her do it, just the same as she always did. Lighting up the bowl, sucking air, releasing her finger, inhaling, and then releasing a smelly cloud into the room. Sometimes coughing.

  I watched her childlike giggling at the movie, her uncontrollable laughs filling the air. I felt a wave of powerful jealousy. Here she was, escaping from everything while I was miserable and stuck on repeat.

  "I wanna try," I said abruptly. If I could have looked back at myself in shock, I would have.

  "You do?" Arielle asked, grinning from ear-to-ear. Her arm was buried in a huge bag of Cheetos all the way up to the elbow.

  "Yeah. I want to see what it's all about."

  "Okay, okay," she said, repacking the bowl with utmost stoner precision. "Do you know what to do?"

  "I think so," I said. "I've watched you do it like a million times."

  "Right," she said, giggling, shoving her mouth full of Cheetos. "Just take it easy on that first hit. Once you lift your finger, it's all gonna rush right in. This is smoother than a pipe though."

  I nodded in agreement, obviously a total neophyte and trying to pretend otherwise. With shaky hands, I lit up and sucked until the chamber was filled with smoke. Then, I let go, breathing in a huge hit all at once.

  Boom.

  My eyes watered from the hot smoke in my lungs. I tried to hold it for as long as I could, but seconds after it went in, I started coughing uncontrollably and lost it all.

  "Dammit!" I muttered between coughs.

  Arielle started laughing again. "Drink some water. I told you not to do that, dude!"

  I drank two whole cupfuls in the kitchen before sitting back down.

  "Feel anything?" she asked.

  "Not really." I opened and closed my eyes a couple of times and wiggled my fingers. Although I felt something, it wasn't much.

  "Hit it again," she said playfully. "You'll love it. Just go easier this time."

  Emboldened by my failed first attempt—and also by the fact that I still didn't feel anything—I lit up again. I limited the hit this time, and held it inside for a long time. After exhaling, I leaned back. My whole body started to feel tingly. "I feel something," I said excitedly.

  I repeated the process once more and then set down the bong. The feeling spread all through my body until suddenly, I was fighting back the urge to grin uncontrollably, like a mirror image of Arielle.

  "Are you stoned?" she asked.

  "No!" I said. I kept fighting the urge to smile, but it kept winning. I sat back against the couch and started laughing. "Okay, maybe I am stoned." The high was so new and fresh, a sensation I desperately craved after so many months of numbness and constant fixation upon death.

  "That first huge hit came back and bit you in the ass," she said, still giggly. "Congratulations, Naomi."

  "What, for getting high?" Although I felt kind of comically lethargic, it wasn't unpleasant at all. I liked it. "I deserve an award or something. Now gimme those Cheetos," I ordered.

  We started laughing uncontrollably, and that was that.

  I pigged out on junk food until I feared my stomach would actually rupture, and then I passed out next to Arielle on the couch.

  ***

  One try was all it took for me; I quickly became a stoner, almost outdoing even Arielle. It wasn't that the weed itself was addicting—just the feeling of escape.

  It dulled the pain.

  I mean, if you couldn't stop yourself from smiling, how miserable could you be? It's not like I didn't have any dark thoughts while smoking, but they were suppressed. And it didn't help that Arielle just gave me weed whenever I wanted since her dad knew some top secret organic grower in town.

  If I actually had to go out and find it myself, I probably never would have gone so far.

  I smoked when I got up. I smoked before school. I smoked at lunch. Arielle would meet me in the parking lot and we'd drive off campus and light up right away. And then I'd drench myself in Love Spell and head back for the second half of the day.

  Anything to lessen the pain.

  I smoked before going to see Mason. Although I didn't get as high those times, I was still definitely high. We mostly just stared at each other since he barely had the strength to talk and I was pretty much reduced to an equivalent level of functioning.

  I tried not to act stupid around him, which I assume just made me seem more reticent than I really was. As much as I wanted to tell him I was smoking pot to combat my anguish—it was making me happier in some superficial way at least, and the idea of sharing that with him seemed appropriate—I didn't, fearing that he would frown upon my behavior.

  One evening, high and depressed, I was walking down the hall toward Mason's room, barely looking at anything or anyone. And suddenly, I saw him.

  And he saw me. It was Jesse, approaching Mason's room from the opposite direction. I didn't know what he was doing.

  Our eyes locked for an uncomfortable moment, and then boom, he turned abruptly, acting like he was reading a piece of paper on one of the doors. Like he hadn't seen me.

  I felt way too weird, and being high didn't help. I stood there for a second, staring at my cell phone before entering Mason's room, watching the digital clock hands tick away the seconds. I didn't know what to do. When I looked up again, Jesse was gone.

  Should I have said something? Should I have invited him in?

  I had a million questions and no answers. Had he just bailed out of seeing his dying, former best friend because he saw me? Was he in the hospital for a different reason?

  I kept the incident to myself, never telling Mason. No need to stress him out about little things.

  Maybe I had behaved wrongly somehow, too.

  ***

  As Mason slowly faded away, so did my grades. I was still sh
owing up to class, but my performance had become substandard at best.

  Not having any parents around permitted me to more or less totally disregard my reputation. I didn't care about college anymore. I barely cared about anything except getting high.

  It felt like a lifestyle, even though I had only been doing it for around a month.

  One day Mr. Brown called me into his office for seemingly no reason, closing the door behind me. "What's wrong?" I protested instantly. "I've been going to class, Mr. Brown!"

  "Sit down," he said, his expression stern and a little scary.

  I complied, finding the plastic chair actually quite comfortable. "What is it?"

  He stared down at his desk for a minute, and then he finally looked up at me. "Your grades are falling, Miss. Miller. Several of your teachers have contacted me, concerned. Other than art class, you're basically failing across the board."

  I let out an awkward giggle. Of course I was doing well in art class! It was, after all, the only class in which I didn't really have to remember anything to do my work.

  "What are you laughing about?" he asked, shocked.

  "I'm sorry," I said quickly. "I'm in a weird place because of Mason."

  "I understand that," he said. "And I already contacted your parents. They told me you had a fight and you left home. You're staying with Arielle Walker?"

  I nodded meekly. "My mom went insane and smashed a coffee pot. And then she called me a slut and kicked me out." I fidgeted in the chair, uncomfortable with the fact that this was an actual serious discussion, the very thing I had been trying to evade lately. "It wasn't my fault. I had no choice."

  Mr. Brown sighed heavily. "I understand how hard this must be. I mean, to be a kid going through all of this. The world is so foreign to you. So unexplored and new. And now this."

  I awkwardly nodded along, glad to hear that he was at least starting off sympathetic.

  "But I can't let you destroy yourself. You have to graduate. You were on the All-A honor roll every semester until this year. Naomi, you have to finish. You have to do your best."

  Despite his honesty, he wasn't really breaking through. I was still numb to his encouragement, doing my best to shut him out—but that changed fast.

  "And you reek of pot," he said matter-of-factly. "This is a drug-free school zone. I could definitely do something about it."

  "But Mr. Brown," I pleaded, "I don't have anything on me. You can't arrest me for just—"

  "Stop," he said firmly. There was a moment of what I can only describe as deadly silence.

  And then he continued. "You want me to believe that there's nothing in Arielle's car when she picks you up every day at lunch? Nothing illegal at all? I'm sure Officer Franklin would love to give it a good search."

  I felt mortified. Everything had changed so suddenly. The room felt so different. The walls were closing in on me.

  "But I'm not like that," he said, aware that his shock and awe campaign had worked flawlessly. "In fact, I spent plenty of days getting high in college, whether you believe me or not. I know it's not a huge deal. It's not going to kill you like alcohol might. But I know it doesn't make you very productive. And I know that first-hand, because I almost failed a class too."

  At that moment, I was frozen, unsettled by his acerbic observations.

  "I want you to stop smoking before or during school," he said. "After you're off school grounds, I can't stop you. But while you're here, you're totally sober," he said. "That's my request."

  "H-how will you even know?" I asked disbelievingly.

  "Oh, I'll know," he said, his response hauntingly vague. "And if I catch you blasted off into space again on my clock, I can order you to take a drug test, and if you fail, you're expelled. I'm letting it slide for now, Naomi. Consider this a blessing.

  "And believe me, I've spent plenty of hours considering how to deal with this, and I think this is the best for all parties. If the school board found out I was being lax on drugs, they'd send me to the firing squad. This is a big favor, don't you forget that."

  "Did you tell my parents... about this?"

  He shook his head. "No. This is our secret. I want you to succeed, so I'm doing what it takes to make that happen. I'm putting myself and my reputation on the line. Now you have to put in the work."

  "Well, thanks, Mr. Brown," I said. "I mean, it really means a lot to me."

  "Don't sweat it," he said. "And hang in there. I know this isn't an easy time for you. Don't think I'm not sympathetic. I do care."

  I left his office with my tail between my legs, reprimanded, yet still moving. The rest of the day seemed to pass by slower than a moving glacier. When I finally got home, I started catching up on homework, slowly but surely.

  However, I started crying midway through my Calculus assignment, splotching the page with dripping tears. I fell back against the couch and cried my eyes out.

  And then I got high.

  16

  Initially, daytime sobriety was really tough for me. So I remedied it the only way I knew how—by smoking even more when I wasn't at school. I probably should have stopped smoking entirely, but I didn't.

  However, I actually started to repair the failed aspects of my academic career. I wasn't doing great, but I was passing.

  It's not like I had much to look forward to—I had allowed all of the college application deadlines to pass without acting—but at the very least, I wanted to see things through with Mr. Brown. He had been the only staff member to come see Mason the night it happened, so I felt like I owed him for that.

  About a week later, I went to see Mason late on a Thursday night, intentionally sober, making the long trip on foot to try and clear my head. I decided it was important to test out my feelings after the month-long pot binge. I knew it might wind up being a total disaster, but I didn't care.

  Mason was sitting up when I came in, looking worse than ever. His gums were seriously rotting by that point, and he couldn't eat solid food anymore. When my brain finally made sense of the familiar frail image, I started crying instantly.

  A nurse peeked in to ask if I was all right. Hoarsely, I dismissed her and collapsed in the chair next to the bed.

  "I'm so sorry," Mason said softly, obviously struggling to speak. "I wish you didn't have to go through this."

  I sobbed even more after hearing him say that. As usual, he was more concerned about others than himself, even as he slowly died. "Mason, no," I said. "Don't apologize. You can't help it."

  "The leukemia doesn't make it any easier," he said. "I'm ruining your life."

  His words cut through me and I broke down, the cracks going even deeper. "I feel like it's all my fault, Mason," I said sharply. "That I caused all of this."

  He looked at me, confused. "How could this be your fault?"

  "I got kicked out of my house," I said finally. "Like two months ago. I didn't want to bother you with it. I've been staying with Arielle. I got in a huge fight with my mom. She... she said that God was p-punishing us for premarital sex."

  Mason frowned. "That's not true," he said. "No way that's true."

  I couldn't stop myself from rambling. "But I prayed last summer, Mason. I prayed that God would give me an answer about college because I didn't think I could handle a long-distance relationship. And this is what happened. Maybe we didn't have to deal with the college situation because... all this."

  He grabbed my arm with startling strength, so much that I jumped. "It's a coincidence," he said firmly, his words like bursts of scalding steam. "You didn't cause this. It was just my bad genes. You can't go on thinking that way. It's not healthy. Your mom is wrong. How the hell can she know that?"

  The floodgates of tears were reopened by that point, and I couldn't stop them. They just kept coming and coming. "I don't know, Mason. But I can't shake the feeling. I can't make it go away. I'm... falling apart," I said desperately. "I see you here and everything just... falls apart. It happens every single time. Nothing is ever okay."


  "I'm not going to be around much longer," he said. "I don't want you to have to keep destroying yourself over me. I can't take it either. I hate it."

  "I started smoking pot," I muttered, barely hearing him. "With Arielle. I couldn't take the pain anymore. I mean, I'm still smoking it. Mr. Brown almost called the police because he figured it out. I'm sorry." I suddenly felt like I was in a church confessional.

  "I don't care," he said. "I mean, it's totally fine if it helps you. But you need to graduate and go to college and live your life, Naomi. You need to try, because I can't."

  I kept crying. I felt momentarily empowered, but the feeling didn't last. "I'll try," I said. "I'll try."

  He reached down and held my hand, our fingers fitting together less than perfectly since he had grown so thin. "I really don't have much time left," he said again. "Maybe less than a week. I know I can't fight much longer. I'm on so many painkillers I can't think straight most of the time. I hallucinate a lot."

  It looked like he was going to cry, but he didn't. "I'm so sorry," I said. "You just have to hold on."

  "No, I don't," he said. "I don't want to go on like this anymore. I just can't. I lost everything and now I'm at peace with dying. I'm just ready for something new. I've become such a burden. This isn't life—this is death while living."

  "You're not a burden," I said, sobbing. "You can't help any of this." His image was blurry, distorted through a translucent shroud of tears.

  "You're the first girl I ever loved, and now you can't even look at me without crying. I never wanted this." Mason cleared his throat, which seemed like a tremendous effort for him. "You don't have to keep coming to see me," he said. "I mean it."

  "No, Mason, I—"

  "Please, Naomi, just go on with your life. Stop letting me drag you down. I mean it, I really do. I want you to thrive. You've given me enough already. You've given me enough for a hundred lifetimes."

  I couldn't stop crying. It really felt like goodbye, even if it wasn't. "Please." Still, there was an unmistakable feeling of relief that I didn't want to acknowledge.