“I haven’t eaten much the last couple of days,” I admit. “Unless you count hospital JELL-O and something the nurses called oatmeal. I’m still not convinced.”
The girl stifles a giggle. I give her the once-over. Cute, if it weren’t for the black liner around her eyes and white blonde hair that Savannah would say was straight out of a bottle. A section of nearly black roots stripes her scalp, and she stares down at her uneaten food without acknowledging me.
“That’s Libby,” the guy says. He reaches out a meaty fist. “I’m Mo.”
I put down my sandwich to shake his hand. “Eli.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” Mo twists in his seat, craning his neck for a view of the dessert table, which isn’t as crowded anymore. “Now that the junkies have cleared out, I think I’ll get myself some dessert.”
He laughs at the look of confusion on my face. “Sugar junkies,” he says, pushing back his chair and standing up. “Bad joke, I guess. You want something?”
Two sandwiches in, and I’ve still never been this kind of hungry. My stomach is a black hole; I could go face-first into a platter of sugar-glazed donuts and still not reach the bottom. “Donuts,” I say. “Two? No, three.”
Mo grins. “You got it.” He side-steps between tables until he reaches the center aisle. Every few feet, he stops to talk to somebody, shaking hands and doling out bear hugs. His deep belly laugh carries across the cafeteria, bouncing from table to table like a freshly dunked beer pong ball.
“Nice guy,” I say, more to myself than to the girl sitting next to me.
A small, rasp-stained voice pipes up. “The nicest.”
Libby peers up at me from under a thick fringe of blonde bangs. Her ice blue eyes pierce mine.
“I think it’ll be a while before I get my dessert, though,” I joke. Across the dining hall, Mo’s been offered a seat at another table, and he’s deep in conversation with some dude with gaping holes in his ear lobes where spacers used to be.
Libby’s lips part, and a row of slightly crooked teeth peek out from a hesitant smile. “Yeah, I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.”
I tip my head toward her tray. “I noticed he didn’t offer to get you anything.”
Her eyes drop. “I’m not that hungry.” Her fingers draw into a fist. Her nails, more chip than purple paint, dig into sugar white skin. And that’s when I see the scars.
Ribbons of puckered pink flesh crisscross the skin on her arms. There’s no pattern to the scars—no obvious purpose in their making. It’s like instead of tattoos, she decorated herself with pain.
She stiffens beside me, her arm darting under the table like a startled garden snake. I realize I’ve been staring, and that she knows I was staring. I’m suddenly super embarrassed, like I just got caught peeping an exposed thong. I have to say something—anything to fill this awkward silence. What comes out of my mouth is so socially retarded that I immediately want to punch myself in the face:
“I should see the other guy, right?”
Libby’s eyes flash white-blue, like the crack of snow before an avalanche. She hisses at me through clenched white lips. “Fuck you.”
“Hey,” I try, reaching out almost automatically.
Libby slaps my hand away and jumps to her feet, shooting me one last electrified look before snatching her tray off the table and stalking away.
Near the exit, an orderly grabs her arm. She twists in his grip and lets out a scream like a slaughtered animal.
The dining hall freezes. It’s completely silent, and everybody’s staring. The orderly releases his grip. Libby slams her tray onto the floor. It lands with a deafening clatter that ricochets off the ceiling as Libby storms through the exit.
Silence hovers over the room. The orderly swipes tomato bisque off white scrubs with his bare hands. Spoons click against bowls. People return to their conversations. The orderly disappears into the kitchen. There’s no alarm, no lockdown. Nobody runs after Libby. Everything goes back to normal. And that’s the weirdest part of all.
I’m still shaken when Mo returns a minute later with a cup of black coffee and three donuts wrapped in a paper napkin. He slides the sugary package across the table with two fingers, then turns his seat backward and plops down. “What happened?”
I shrug, because it all happened so fast, I’m not even sure I know. But I’m pretty sure it’s my fault. “We were talking.” The image of Libby’s scars flashes behind my eyes. “I guess I said the wrong thing. All of a sudden, she just . . . flipped.”
Mo nods thoughtfully and sips his coffee.
I wait for him to press me for information, but when he doesn’t, I ask the question that’s screaming in the back of my mind. “Is she, like, crazy or something?”
Mo snorts, nearly choking on his coffee. “You mean, like, any more than the rest of us?”
I meet his even gaze. “Not me.”
Mo laughs, but it stings. He shakes his head like I’m the world’s biggest idiot. “Newbies,” he mumbles.
I bristle, suddenly not so hungry. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mo tips his chin toward my wrist. “How’d you get that bracelet, huh? Broken leg?”
I yank my t-shirt down to cover it and make a mental note to find a pair of scissors, stat.
Mo’s white teeth flash in a no-bullshit smile. “You newbies are all the same. Blame, denial, blame, denial. Like somebody forced the fucking needle in your arm.”
My muscles tense, and I shove back from the table.
“Relax, dude,” Mo says. “I’m not looking for the details. We’ve all been there before. It’s the cop’s fault ‘cause he pulled you over. It’s the shit’s fault ‘cause it wasn’t pure. We do the same crap over and over again, and then we wonder why we end up here.”
I grit my teeth against the flood of memories that crash through my skull tsunami-style.
Savannah after Winter Formal, slung over my arm. The vile stench of stomach acid I was still scrubbing out of my car a week later.
Savannah on the deck at Alex’s, begging me to stay with her.
We’ve got enough trouble already.
Savannah’s tear-stained face through my car window, fists pounding the glass.
I snatch my tray off the table and stand up. “I don’t need this right now, okay?”
“What, you got something more important going on?” Mo asks. And then he laughs. I want to punch him, but he lets out this belly laugh like the whole thing’s a fucking riot. “See what I mean, dude? Every single one of us. We’re all fucking insane.”
The lights are out when I get back to my room. The curtains are pulled shut, and a heavy shade blocks out the afternoon sun. Red is a snoring lump under the covers of his bed.
I stealth-walk past him, hands out in front of me to keep from slamming into anything. When my fingers brush my coarse cotton blanket, I lie down and bury my face in my pillows. I wish Savannah was here. Even better, I wish I was with her, wherever she is. Hopefully, her dad hasn’t convinced her that I’m a horrible influence. Hopefully, she doesn’t hate me.
I’ve just started to doze when the mumbling starts.
“Lisa . . . Lisa . . .” Red’s thrashing around in his bed, kicking off his covers like they’re knitted with thorns. His flailing arms nearly decapitate our bedside lamp, and then the mumbling turns to a guttural groan that starts low in his belly and rises to a primal keen.
I’ve had enough crazy for one day. I yank a pillow out from under my head and chuck it at Red, though the motion jars my ribs. He jolts—the scream cut off in his throat. He scrambles up, knocking the pillow away like he’s afraid it might bite him.
“Red!”
He looks right at me, but his eyes are dead, and I know he’s not awake. He’s still with Lisa, and apparently, that chick really did a number on him. His body’s twitching like he just took the scenic route through hell. I toss my other pillow at him. “Red, wake up! It’s a dream.
”
He blinks a couple times, confused, and then his body relaxes. He slides back down in his bed and yanks up his blanket.
“Wait,” I say, stretching over the space between our beds to punch his shoulder. “I need my pillows back.”
There’s a shuffling sound from Red’s bed, and then a pillow soars through the air in a wide arc that ends on my face. “Thanks a lot,” I mumble into the fluffy cotton. “There was a second one, you know.”
I dodge this one in time, catch it before it hits me, and tuck them both back under my head. “You’re welcome,” I mutter.
“Thanks,” comes the muffled response.
I roll onto my side. “Who is she?” I ask. “This Lisa chick.”
Red turns onto his back, his profile sharp, his eyes dark hollows in the shadows of his face. “She’s my girlfriend. Was my girlfriend, I mean.”
“Must’ve been one hell of a breakup, huh?”
“We didn’t break up,” Red says. “We should’ve, maybe. I don’t know. Anyway . . . she’s dead. Flipped her car over a guardrail coming back from my house in the middle of the night.”
“Dude.” The word is an exhale, but I don’t know what else to say.
Red rubs his hand across his face. “You want to know the crazy part? We didn’t even party. I mean, we usually did. A lot. Backstage to catch the vibe before a gig, afterwards to celebrate. I mean, look at me.” Red chokes on a bitter laugh. “I’ve got more scar tissue than blood in my veins. But not that night. That night we ordered a pizza and watched a movie.”
Red’s story unravels in dark whispers, shadows that cling to the corners of our room like spider webs. “We fell asleep on the couch. When we woke up the next morning, Lisa was late for work. She freaked out ‘cause her manager was a real asshole, and then she took off.”
Red gives me a weak smile. “It was probably the lamest date we’d ever had. I hadn’t played a show in a while; all I had in the house was Safeway mac n’ cheese. We pooled our change for one of those five-dollar pizzas and watched a movie on Netflix. But if I could go back, I’d do it all over again. I’d order pizza and a movie every night. I’d curl up on my couch with Lisa, and I’d stay there forever.”
The heavy sound of our breathing thickens the air in the room. Wheels squeak outside our door, and footsteps crisscross the hallway. There are vitals to be checked and meals to be brought to kids who can’t get out of bed. Life goes on even when it feels like it shouldn’t, when everything should come to a screaming halt. Red and I lie here in the darkness, and we hold back the ticking seconds on the clock.
Lisa is dead.
Red is broken.
Five nights ago, I almost died.
Red’s bed squeaks as he rolls onto his side. He shuffles his pillows into a ball and tucks his elbow under his arm. “What about you?” he asks.
“Me?” My girlfriend’s alive. If I still have a girlfriend.
“Yeah,” Red presses. “Prep school kid, for sure. Bet you spend Saturdays sailing, or play . . . what’s the game like football, but more badass?”
“Rugby?”
“Yeah, that one. What are you in for, anyway? Oxy? Percs? Bet it’s some real pricey shit, huh?”
I turn onto my back and stare hard at the ceiling. This is the last conversation I want to be having right now. But some part of me needs to say it out loud. “H,” I tell him.
Red whistles through his teeth. “No kidding?”
“Honest to God.”
“Shit. Needles?”
My spine goes rigid, and I glare at him in the dark. I’m not some itching, twitching junkie. I’m nothing like those “newbies” Mo mentioned. Nothing like Red. “No way, dude.”
“Not yet, you mean.” Red lets out a cackle that dissolves into a cough. “Still trying to keep it classy, huh? Up the nose or some shit like that. And you think ‘cause you’re not fiending yet, that means you’re not like me?”
“I’m not like you,” I tell him. “I mean, no offense or anything.”
“None taken.” Red’s quiet, but I feel his eyes on me, and I can almost hear his mental wheels turning. “I don’t envy you, dude,” he says after a minute. “The itching was easy. It’s feeling that sucks the hardest.”
Red rolls onto his back and pulls the blanket up under his chin. His white ankles and toes stick out at the bottom, pale ghosts in the darkness. “Thanks again, by the way. For waking me up.”
“No problem.” I fold my arms behind my head, squeeze my eyes shut, and stare into the blackness of my lids until stars form. “I don’t have anything better to do,” I say. “If you want to try to go back to sleep, I can listen out for you. You know, wake you up if you need me to.”
Silence.
I lean over the space between our beds until I can see the soft rise and fall of Red’s chest beneath his blanket. Already sound asleep.
Day 3
A follow-up visit with the staff doctor shows exactly what I knew it would—blood work and labs that say I’m healthy as a horse. My sore ribs are the only reminder that I’d ever been in the hospital at all. Mom was right about one thing: when I got here, I wasn’t feeling like myself. But it turns out all I needed was a couple of days to sleep it off, rehydrate, and get my game face back on.
My sneakers squeak as I head back to my room. I do a quick two-step to avoid the janitor’s mop handle as he swishes water across the hall floor. Any thoughts I’d been entertaining that Mom and Mo were right are pushed out of my mind like smudges on the tile as the mop sweeps by.
What happened at the party was a fluke, an accident. And now I have 25 days to figure out how to make it up to Savannah.
I’m still on blackout, which means zero communication with the outside world. Cell phones are contraband, almost as bad as sneaking in a blunt. From the nurses’ station, I borrow a pencil and a piece of printer paper and head to the empty, sunlit lounge. A lonely shelf offers a couple of board games, a few decks of cards, and several tattered copies of books on addiction and recovery. No TV.
I settle into the couch and try to pen a letter to Savannah, but I can’t decide how to start. Casual and upbeat? (Hi! How are you? How’s school going?) Tortured and heartsick? (If you’re reading this, it means your dad didn’t throw it away the second he saw the return address.)
Jokingly sarcastic? (It’s been five days, twelve hours, twenty-seven minutes, and twelve seconds since I last saw you in the hospital. Not that I’m counting or anything.)
I write and scratch out three different openings, and then I have to go back to the nurses’ station for more paper. This time I write the only words there are to say:
Savannah,
I’m sorry.
I stare at the words, as flimsy as the paper they’re written on, an echo of the apology I gave her after Winter Formal. Why should she believe me this time? Why should her dad? Mo’s comment from lunch yesterday sneaks through the back door of my mind like some know-it-all narrator from an after-school special: We do the same crap over and over again, and then we wonder how we ended up here.
I crumple the letter in my fist. I can’t fix this with a letter. I don’t know if I can fix this at all.
On my way to dinner, I stick my head into our room. Red’s propped up in bed, flipping through a white folder filled with paper. “You up for some grub?” I ask.
Red grimaces. “No solids, yet,” he says. “But they do have some badass broth. One of the nurses said she’d bring me some.”
“You mean the brunette? I see the game you’re playing. You’re hoping for a sponge bath, aren’t you?”
Red gives me a wolfish grin. “Guilty as charged.”
I leave him to his reading and head to the cafeteria. After what happened yesterday, I know better than to try to make new friends. This time I choose the only table with more empty seats than weirdoes. I’m almost finished when I catch sight of someone waving at me from across the room. It’s a middle-aged man wi
th a slight pot belly and a silver goatee. I point vaguely at my chest. Me? I mouth.
The man nods. He weaves through the tables until he’s standing right across from me.
“Eli, I’m so glad I saw you. I was about to head out for the night.”
I drop my fork and lean back in my chair. “Do I know you?”
He shifts an oversized mug to his left hand and reaches out with his right. “The name’s Richard Fisher.”
Richard Fisher wears a long-sleeved flannel shirt, open over a t-shirt from some band whose members probably died several decades ago. A tiny silver hoop hangs from one ear. I stare blankly at his outstretched hand. “So, Dick for short, right?”
Richard lets out a hacking smoker’s laugh. “Call me Rich.” He gestures to the empty seat across the table from me. “Mind if I join you?”
“Suit yourself.”
Richard plops himself down and props both elbows on the table. He leans over his coffee mug, peering at the food on my tray. “What do we got tonight? Chicken parm?”
I push my tray away. “Look, I’m not trying to be rude, but who are you?”
Richard blinks. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m your primary counselor.”
“There’s got to be some mistake,” I say. “I don’t need a counselor.” Thanks to my parents’ divorce and my dad’s death, I’ve already seen my fair share of therapists. They peddle happy pills and stupid questions, and even if I was going to waste my time talking to another one, it sure wouldn’t be this hippy has-been. “I’m just here to do my time,” I tell him. “Isn’t there like an opt-out form or something? I’ll sign whatever I need to.”
Richard’s coffee-stained teeth show under his moustache. “Hate to break it to you, kid, but it’s kind of a packaged deal. You’re stuck with me for the next month.” He takes a long draw from his mug, wipes his mouth on the back of his flannelled arm.
“Awesome.”
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