Lifeline

by Abbey Lee Nash

Benny nuzzles his face against the side of the car seat and closes his eyes. “Okay,” he whispers.

  I slip the crayon from his hand and put it back in the box, so he’ll know where to find it.

  Steven glances at me over his shoulder. “We’ll see you soon, Eli.”

  “Sure,” I mutter. “Whatever.” Then I crawl out of the car, leaving Steven and Benny behind.

  My body feels like an old man’s when I unfold onto the pavement. I’m stiff and achy—my duffel’s full of bricks. I hoist it onto my hip and follow Mom up the sidewalk toward the entrance. A wall of trees edges the property, as high and impenetrable as a barbwire fence. Green lawn stretches out from all sides of the building, like a cross between Alcatraz and Oz. This place is a freaking suburban island, but it was the only one close enough for Savannah to come and visit. That is, if her dad ever lets her see me again.

  Mom stops outside the entrance. “So this is it,” she says, the forced cheerfulness back in her voice. “Nice, right?”

  Through the doors, I can see the curve of a reception desk and the artificial shine of potted plants. Like a fucking hotel lobby.

  I just want to go home.

  “It’s only 28 days, Eli,” Mom says. “You can do anything for 28 days.”

  “It’s not that,” I tell her. “This whole thing is so stupid. I mean, these places are for addicts . . . junkies. I’m going to miss half the season! Plus, it’s senior year. How am I going to graduate if I spend a month here?”

  Mom sighs. We’re standing too close to the automatic doors, and the glass keeps parting awkwardly, sliding half-way open and then shutting again. Mom steps away from the door, runs her hand through her shoulder-length curls. “I told you we’ll figure that out. You can do make-up work, even take a summer class if necessary. That’s not important right now. What is important, is that you get better.”

  “You keep saying that,” I plead. “But there’s nothing wrong with me.”

  I see the exact moment that Mom registers the tremble in my voice. Her icy armor cracks, and I seize the opening.

  “Dad wouldn’t make me stay.”

  Mom’s face hardens. Her words are frostbitten. “Then thank goodness he’s not here.”

  She takes my duffel, tosses it up on her shoulder, and heads toward the door. The glass parts, then closes decidedly behind her.

  For a nanosecond, I consider the wall of trees behind the building and wonder how far I could make it before they found me. But I’m pretty sure running would be next to impossible right now. Plus, my throat is so dry, and my head’s throbbing like my brain is trying to escape my skull.

  It’s just 28 days. I can do anything for 28 days.

  I follow Mom inside.

  LakeShore Recovery Center

  Detox Unit

  Day 1

  There’s a spider on the ceiling. It’s huge—the kind you’d need a tank to squish. With hairy legs, it dangles from an invisible thread, shimmying across the shadowed ceiling like it’s flying. Show-off.

  I’m lying on my back in a spectacularly UN-comfortable bed. I was assigned to it by a four-foot-nothing nurse named Rita, who dropped off my duffel (unzipped and searched through, my green hoodie hanging out) and wouldn’t leave until I swallowed the pills from the little paper cup she pushed at me—ibuprofen and something for nausea. Every few hours, Rita sticks her head in the room to make sure I haven’t gotten up and wandered away. Or that the guy in the bed next to me is still breathing.

  Both are legit concerns in a detox unit, I guess, except for the fact that the dude next to me is mumbling so much in his sleep any idiot could tell he’s perfectly alive. And even if I had the energy to get out of bed, I’d have no idea where to go. I’m stuck here, in Unit 7, Room 12, staring at a huge fucking spider on the ceiling and wishing I had spidey-senses so that I could shimmy up the wall and disappear through a crack in the plaster.

  I’m seriously losing my mind. It’s been like 10 hours since Mom and I finished up at intake—the pile of paperwork, the list of humiliating questions. What substances have you used in the last 90 days? How often do you use? I replay my answers, counting the times like sheep. Once a month, once a week, every three days, every two . . . That’s insomnia for you, I guess. Not that I could sleep anyway, what with Jabber Jaws next to me, and Nosy the Nurse, and the obvious insect infestation problem. I just want to go home.

  I don’t belong here. People in this unit scream in their sleep, hooked up to so many IV drips that they can’t even get up to take a leak. There are so many doctors and nurses wandering around that I might as well have stayed in the hospital—at least there, the metal bed was adjustable. Plus, they had JELL-O. And TV.

  I miss Savannah.

  Rita told me I’ll only be on this unit for a couple of days. We had a nice long chat, she and I, while she took my blood pressure and temperature and did a couple of other useless tests that won’t tell them anything. I highly doubt a well-controlled sniffing habit is going to show up on a blood pressure reading. It’s like they’re looking for medical proof that I’m sick, so they can make me “better.” Pretty soon they’ll figure out there’s nothing wrong with me and send me home.

  I’d said as much when Rita capped the little vial of my cherry red blood. Then I asked to use the phone. She flashed me a cutesy half-smile and told me detox residents are on blackout. No phone calls or visitors for the first five days.

  Not that Savannah’s dad would let me talk to her anyway. Even if she wanted to. I close my eyes and silently beg for sleep.

  “Hey. Hey, buddy . . . you awake?”

  I roll over and glare at my roommate. “You mean you also talk when you’re awake?”

  He grimaces, his ruddy skin coated in freckles. “Yeah, the sleep-talking, right? Sorry about that.” He props himself up on his elbow, runs his hand across spiky red hair. “The nightmares are the worst. If I scream, just throw something at me. I won’t be mad, I swear.”

  I flop onto my back, lifting my pillow so it covers my face, and grumble into the warm cotton. “Don’t tempt me.”

  Jabber Jaws gives a hiccupy kind of laugh. I’ve barely crossed into drowsy territory when his voice tiptoes under my pillow.

  “I must’ve been out cold when you got here, huh? Didn’t even hear you show up. What’s your name, anyway?”

  I slap my pillow away from my face. “Dude! Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?”

  “My bad,” he squeaks.

  I flop over onto my side, twist up my sheets in my fists, and squeeze my eyes shut. Sleep, please, sleep.

  “My name’s Ronnie, by the way.”

  You have got to be kidding me.

  I flip over spastically, gritting my teeth against the stabbing pain in my ribcage that a little ibuprofen just can’t touch. I’m fully intent on ripping Ron a new one, but when he stretches his hand across the chasm between our beds, I see how bad he’s shaking.

  I grip his hand and squeeze. “I’m Eli.”

  Ron gives me a jittery smile. “My friends call me Red.”

  No kidding. I roll onto my back and pull my thin blanket up to my chin. “So, Red,” I say, stifling an enormous yawn, “Give me the lowdown. What do I need to know about this place?”

  “It’s alright, I guess,” Red says. “Drugs have taken over the neighborhood, though.” He laughs at his own dumb joke, a raspy chuckle, and I smile in spite of myself.

  “Seriously, though,” Red continues. “I’ve heard stuff about other places, bad stuff. Bed bugs, quack therapists, that kind of shit. Not here, though. Other than detox, I’ve only seen intake, but as far as I can tell, this place is pretty swanky. You and me musta got lucky.”

  I close my eyes and think about a conversation I’d overhead in the hospital, when Mom and Steven had assumed I was asleep. “There’s the ambulance ride, all the tests. Not to mention two days in the ICU,” Mom fretted, her voice a strangled whisper. “How much will it all cost?”
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  Steven had soothed her, whispering that money should be the last thing on her mind, and I’d remembered all the nights I’d stood as a little boy in the kitchen doorway, listening to Mom scream into the phone about rent money, child support, or unpaid bills. Dad would do his best, always showing up a few days later with a couple bags of groceries or his tool box to fix something around the house—a leaky toilet, a loose stair tread. Then Mom would be happy, and she’d let him take me for ice cream or a catch in the park.

  I’ve never heard Mom and Steven talk about money because there was never any shortage of it. If it weren’t for Steven’s money, Mom would never have been able to afford a place like LakeShore. Then again, if it weren’t for Steven, I wouldn’t be here at all. “Sure,” I say to Red, sarcasm prickling my words with ragged edges. “Real lucky.”

  I stare into the dark as Red tells me all about the various medications available in the nurses’ station (Even something to help you shit if you can’t. Imagine if they sold that on the street?) and which nurse is his favorite (a super-hot brunette that brings him broth for dinner). His chatter is weirdly soothing, like a light on in the hallway bathroom or the TV on downstairs. Because it makes you feel less alone. I let my eyes close as Red talks, and little by little, sleep finally finds me.

  Day 2

  Red’s gone when I wake up. His bed is made up nice and tidy. I rub my face and squint at the round clock that hangs on the opposite wall. 11:00 A.M. I wonder where I can get some breakfast around here.

  A cute brunette in clingy pink scrubs appears in the doorway. She’s got a stethoscope around her neck, and she’s wheeling a blood pressure monitor. “Glad to see you’re up,” she says, in the chipper tone of someone who wakes up much earlier than 11:00 A.M. She wheels the monitor to the side of my bed. “I need to check your vitals.”

  My ribs ache as I push myself upright and offer her my arm, wondering if this is the hottie Red told me about. “Where’s Rita?”

  The nurse’s eyes stay fixed on the monitor as the strap around my arm squeezes tighter and tighter. “Night shift,” she says. “She’ll be back around 7.”

  Satisfied with the reading, she releases my arm, and I flex my fingers, pushing the blood back into them. She listens to my heartbeat, then takes my temperature. “Everything looks good,” she says, tucking the thermometer back into the front pocket of her scrub shirt. “How are you feeling?”

  “Sore,” I tell her. “And hungry. Any idea where I can get some food?”

  She gives me a couple more ibuprofen, then glances up at the clock. “Breakfast has been over for a while. I’ll see if I can get you some juice.”

  She leaves the room, returning a moment later with a juice box of cranberry cocktail and a plastic wrapped two pack of graham crackers. “Best I could do,” she says, offering me the tiny snack.

  I tear into the crackers and suck the juice box dry.

  “Better?” the nurse asks.

  “A little.”

  She takes my crumpled juice box and gives me a half smile. “The kitchen opens in an hour for lunch. If you’re feeling up to it, you can get up and get dressed. You’ll probably be moving on pretty soon anyway.”

  “Moving on?” I crumble the plastic cracker wrapper in my fist, trying to ignore the whispering hope that all those tests have proven I was right. There’s nothing wrong with me.

  “Phase Two,” the nurse says. She moves to the window and whips the curtains apart. A lazy ray of sunshine stretches across my bed. “No sense lounging around in here when you’re well enough to start the program. Besides, we need the bed.”

  “People must be pounding down the door to get in this place, huh?” I paper-ball the graham cracker trash to the waste basket near the window. It bounces off the rim and hits the floor, scattering tiny crumbs.

  The nurse purses her lips. “Something like that.” She stoops to pick up the trash. I stretch my arms gently, easing my stiff neck from side to side. She gives me a discerning look. “Do you think you can manage in the shower?”

  I freeze, my arms in mid-air. “What, like, alone?”

  She rolls her eyes, but her voice is all business. “I can help if you need me to.”

  Not that being bathed by a super-cute nurse wouldn’t be awesome, but given the circumstances, it’d be a new low. Even for me. “I’m fine,” I tell her.

  “There’s an intercom in the bathroom. It calls the nurses’ station. If you feel light-headed or anything, just press the button, okay?”

  I nod. The fleeting fantasy of water-spattered pink scrubs fades into a mental picture of myself all “I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up!”

  The nurse heads for the door, and I swing my legs over the side of the bed, pushing myself to standing before she can change her mind. The cart squeaks as she wheels it out of the room.

  A quick mental survey of my body turns up wobbling knees and an aching chest and back. Dr. Henderson had told me I’d be sore for at least a few weeks and given me a long list of things I’m not supposed to do in the meantime. But other than that, I actually feel okay.

  I’m still wearing my hospital bracelet. I don’t remember anyone putting it on me in the first place. Because I was unconscious, I realize. The paramedics rolled me in on a stretcher, and some nurse slapped the bracelet on my limp arm.

  With morbid fascination, I try to picture it, like a scene in one of those medical dramas Mom loves to watch. The ambulance squeals into the parking lot, lights flashing. The EMS crew shoves my stretcher through the glass doors, shouting for the nearest ER doc.

  The image sucks the wind out of me, and I sink back down onto the bed. To be somewhere one moment, and then wake up somewhere entirely different, with people who weren’t there before asking you questions you don’t know the answers to—it’s like disappearing.

  Or like dying.

  I yank at the bracelet; it stretches, but doesn’t break.

  My duffel bag waits at the foot of my bed. I give up on the bracelet and rifle through the rumpled pile of clothes in my bag for the towel Mom said she put at the bottom. My fingers graze a hard edge. I feel around for whatever it is and pull it from the bag.

  It’s a framed picture of Mom and me, the one she keeps on her bedside table. I’m probably about ten or eleven—a total tool with ears that are too big for my head and huge gaps in my teeth. The scar that severs my eyebrow is a puckered strip of pale pink skin. We’re on a lacrosse field—Dad had started teaching me to play as soon as I was big enough to hold a stick. “Any idiot can play football,” he used to say. “It takes an athlete to play lacrosse. Are you an athlete, Eli?”

  “I’m an athlete!” I’d holler, even though back then I could barely hoist the stick over my head.

  Mom had signed me up for a club team as soon as I was old enough. We had just moved in with Steven—my green jersey reads Grandhaven Giants. Mom’s squatting beside me, her face shiny and proud, her eyes tired.

  I put the picture back in the bag.

  I grab a pair of clean boxers and socks and toss them on the bed, and that’s when it dawns on me that Mom went through my drawers.

  Panic surges through me. My sock drawer was clean, I know that for sure. I mentally scan the other drawers until I’m fairly confident there was nothing else to find. Not that it would matter. I’m in detox, for Christ’s sake. It’s not like a hidden stash would come as a surprise.

  I pull my towel from my duffel, and I head for the shower. And then I think about the lone pill left in my car, and I wonder if it’ll still be there when I get home.

  Fresh from the shower, I head to the cafeteria in search of food. My wet hair soaks the collar of my long-sleeve t-shirt as I weave through the grey fold-out tables in the dining hall. A few people cast curious glances in my direction, and suddenly, it’s my first day at LionsHeart all over again. Only here, there’s no hiding who you are.

  I tug my shirt sleeve down over my hospital bracelet and briefly con
sider heading back to my room for a graham cracker/juice box lunch with Red. But then I spy golden-brown grilled cheese sandwiches and creamy tomato bisque on people’s trays. My stomach whines, too empty and too nervous to muster a proper growl. I wonder if they have any chicken noodle soup.

  On the far side of the cafeteria, two industrial-sized coffee makers bookmark a ginormous platter of cheese Danishes, muffins, and doughnuts. Residents hover around the table, picking at the platter of desserts and refilling Styrofoam coffee cups like it’s desert water.

  I snag a bowl of bisque and two grilled cheese sandwiches, topping off my tray with a shiny apple from the overflowing fruit bowl. Then I look around for a place to sit. My inner navigation system, forged by three and a half years of high school, clicks into high alert, and I grapple for a glimpse of the caste order in this place. But none of the pieces fit the way they should.

  At one table, I spot a super-hot blonde, who looks like she walked right out of a Hollister’s ad, chatting it up with a dude with more facial piercings than I have fingers. By the coffee table, a bird-sized guy in thick black glasses beams up at Oprah’s doppelganger. This place is crawling with nobodies.

  I head to the nearest table with an empty seat. A featherweight emo chick is talking with wildly expressive hands to a two-ton Hawaiian linebacker across from her. He glances up at me with mild interest as I drop my tray and pull out a chair. “Okay if I sit here?” I ask.

  Linebacker shrugs. I plunk down next to him and dunk a cheesy sandwich triangle into my bowl of bisque. It’s delicious, and my belly opens up to the food like it’s starving. I forget about the people around me and shovel it in. It’s not until I’ve started on my second sandwich that I realize they’re both staring at me.

  “You new?” Linebacker asks. A half-smile curls up one side of his mouth.

  I nod, embarrassed. “How can you tell?”

  “When you’re an old-timer like me, newbies are easy to spot,” he says. “Still a little green around the gills. Either they peck their food like starving birds or . . .” He glances at my ravaged plate. “They eat like you.”