Just me.
“I think we’re going to go grab some coffee,” I say, gripping Savannah’s elbow and steering her away from Red.
“It was good to meet you, Red,” Mom says. “I hope you . . .” She fumbles over her words, and my brain fills in the blanks. I hope you feel better? I hope you don’t like heroin anymore? I hope you don’t die?
“Mom . . .” I try, before she can say something humiliating.
Red smiles and tips his head at her. “It was nice to meet you, too.”
And then I’m the asshole, because I’m about to leave Red to play Ping-Pong by himself, which isn’t even a thing, and I have two visitors to his none. “You want to join us?” I ask.
Red shakes his head. “Nah, you and I can hang whenever. Go catch up with your family. I’ve got things to do, places to be.” He opens his fist, drops the Ping-Pong ball on the table, and tips it up again with his paddle. “Plus, I’m kinda in the middle of something here.”
I shoot him a grateful smile. “You’re finally playing against somebody you can beat.”
“Get outta here,” Red laughs.
“He seems nice,” Mom says, as I guide her out of the rec room.
I pretend like she doesn’t sound surprised.
Savannah and I sit across from each other in the dining hall. Mom had lasted all of three minutes before she’d run out of things to say and suddenly needed to find the bathroom. Or maybe she wanted to give me and Savannah some space. But now that we’re alone, tense silence stretches between us, like when you don’t know what to say on the phone, and you just kind of sit there, breathing into the receiver. Too much has happened; there’s too much to talk about. Neither one of us knows where to start.
All around us, families sit in tight groups, murmuring to each other over strong coffee and red velvet cake. I concentrate on my coffee; Savannah picks at her cake.
“How are you?” she asks.
“I’m better with you here.”
Savannah flushes, so I try again, desperate to steer the conversation away from me and my “problem,” and back to common ground.
“How’s the team? They miss me yet?”
Savannah stares at her cake, barely touched on its little white paper plate. “Doing okay. Coach has Alex filling in for you . . . you know, until you come back.”
“Alex?” I knew Coach Wilson would have to find a temporary replacement, but Alex? The kid’s good in the goal, but he can’t run for shit. “Well, we can kiss State goodbye.”
Savannah won’t meet my eyes. “He’s okay.”
I open my mouth to argue, then shut it just as quick. The silence is heavy, and I know there’s something else Savannah wants to say.
I reach across the table and squeeze her hand. “I can’t believe your dad let you come.”
She stares down at our clasped hands for a minute, her cheeks the color of her sweater. “He doesn’t know I’m here.” Her eyes dart toward the back of the room, and I follow her gaze.
Mom’s shaking hands with Richard Fisher. I wonder if she went looking for him, or if he accosted her on the way out of the bathroom. Either way, their heads lean toward one another in this weirdly secretive way, and I can’t help but wonder if they’re talking about me.
I try to focus on Savannah. “Does my mom know?”
Savannah shakes her head. “Dad’s golfing. He’ll be gone all day. When your mom called to see if I could come, I just said yes. I didn’t even ask because I knew what the answer would be.”
I don’t know what to say. It’s kind of awesome that she snuck out to see me, but I know my mom won’t keep Savannah’s secret. When Savannah’s dad finds out, he’ll ground her for life and write me off forever. Unless he already has.
I stroke the back of Savannah’s hand with my thumb. “He’s going to find out, Savannah. My mom’s going to run into him sooner or later, in the grocery store or whatever, and she’s going to thank him for letting you come. What’s going to happen then?”
“Eli . . .” It’s the start of a sentence, but it feels like the whole story. Savannah’s eyes are swimming, and she pulls her hand away from mine.
All of a sudden, it’s hard to breathe.
“We’re done, aren’t we?” The words come out cold, icicles with serrated edges, and I see the exact moment they slice into Savannah. Dusky, black tears streak her perfect cheeks.
Around the room, nothing else changes. Mom’s still talking with Richard Fisher. Will sits with a weirdly buttoned-up white couple. Red air-drums next to a rosy-faced lumberjack with a severe beer belly. And Mo, who’s surrounded by his entire extended family, sits next to a pregnant girl, probably a sister. He puts his hand on her round pumpkin belly, and his face lights up. They both laugh out loud.
Like everything’s wonderful.
Like the whole fucking world’s not falling apart.
“It’s not what I wanted,” Savannah whispers. “But then Alex . . .”
One word, and the world stops spinning. The pieces click into place.
I can barely speak. “You and Alex?”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” Savannah says, her voice taking on a whiny pitch I’ve never heard before. “I was upset after you left. Really upset. Alex was just trying to be nice.”
“Nice?” A kid at the next table shoots me a curious look. I lower my voice to a fierce whisper. “I’ve been gone a week, Savannah!”
“Eli . . .” Savannah reaches for my arm, but I jerk away from her.
Fucking Alex, swooping in to replace me. Oh sure, he’s real nice. I’ve been gone a week, and it’s like I was never there at all.
“I’m coming home, you know.” My voice catches in my throat, and I hate how weak it sounds. “You said it yourself. Three more weeks, and then I’ll be home.”
Savannah swipes her hands across her wet cheeks. “It doesn’t matter, Eli. My dad’s never going to let us be alone together; he’s never going to let us go out. He’s already screening my calls. Being together . . . it’s just not possible anymore.” Savannah’s words are desperate, pleading with me to understand.
But I can’t give her what she wants. I can’t be okay with losing her. She says she doesn’t want to hurt me, but she’s crushing me into a thousand jagged pieces. I want her to hurt as much as I do.
“No, I get it. You and Alex are the King and Queen of LionsHeart now. Happily fucking ever after. At least until the next lacrosse captain comes along.”
Savannah’s eyes widen like I slapped her; she opens her mouth, then shuts it, because here comes my mom, her eyes red-rimmed, a plastic smile stretched across her face.
The moment’s over. There’s nothing left to say.
“Do you guys want to go for a walk?” Mom’s voice is bright and brittle, ready to break. “Mr. Fisher says the landscape’s beautiful. Maybe you could give us a tour, Eli?”
I avoid Mom’s eyes—give Savannah a cold, hard stare. “I’m actually pretty tired,” I say. “Maybe next week?”
Mom blinks. Her eyes flicker from Savannah to me and back again. “Okay,” she says, as if she understands, even though I know she doesn’t. “It is a lot, isn’t it?”
“Much more than I expected.” I point my words at Savannah like poison darts.
Her eyes search my face. I want to hold her; I want to bury my face in her hair and not let go. But she’s leaving me. I’m hanging over a cliff, and she’s cutting the rope I’m clinging to. She’s letting me fall.
Savannah pushes back from the table and stands up. “I’ll meet you at the car,” she says to my mom, her voice trembling.
Mom stares after Savannah. She knows better than to ask what happened. She picks up her purse, then pauses. “I almost forgot.” She reaches into her purse, pulls out a black and white composition book, its corners bent and stained in places. “Benny wanted you to have this. It’s the book he made about Disney, remember?”
I stare at the cover. My Spring
Break is printed in perfect block lettering, clearly his teacher’s writing. I’m too pissed and too hurt to give a crap about Benny’s artwork right now. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
Mom shrugs. “Maybe he wanted you to have a reminder of him while you’re gone. You’re important to him, you know. He looks up to you.”
Clearly the kid has terrible taste. In the last five minutes, I’ve lost my team and my girlfriend, probably all of my friends. I’m nothing. A nobody. A complete, fucking loser. I toss the book on the table, and Mom has to catch it before it slides off the other side. “He needs a new role model, Mom. I’m not interested.”
Mom closes her eyes for a second, collecting herself. Then she gently slides the book back across the table. “Keep it anyway, okay? Just in case.”
She moves to kiss my forehead, but I jerk away. “Savannah’s waiting.”
Mom sighs. “I love you, Eli,” she tells me. “No matter what.” Then she slings her purse over her shoulder and heads out of the room.
I glance down at Benny’s book, flip unseeing through the crayon-coated pages. I can picture Benny at the kitchen island, feet dangling from the bar stool, his oversized art supply bin on the marble countertop. Mom’s cooking dinner, and Steven comes in from work and kisses her on the cheek, then ruffles Benny’s hair. The three of them, a perfect family. The loneliness sets in immediately, and it’s fucking unbearable, this reminder that life goes on without you, and there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it.
I snatch up Benny’s book, desperate for something to hold on to, and bolt after Mom and Savannah. Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe they’re still in the lobby. Maybe I can beg Savannah to change her mind.
But they’re not in the lobby. I dart past the front desk, press my face against the glass, and peer down the sidewalk to see if I can catch a glimpse of Mom’s car. Nothing.
That’s how you do it, isn’t it, Eli? You push people so hard they can’t get away from you fast enough. You deserve this. You deserve everything you get. The cement of your life is tracked with burned rubber marks and gunning engines.
“Excuse me,” the front desk lady says.
I turn to see her leaning over the desk, worry wrinkling her forehead. “Relax,” I tell her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
That’s when I notice Libby, tucked into one of the oversized leather chairs in the lobby.
She’s got her purple notebook open on her lap, and her hand’s moving fluidly across the page. Her brow’s furrowed in concentration, and the tip of her tongue sticks out on one side of her mouth. She doesn’t seem to notice me until I’m standing right next to her.
“Hover much?” She doesn’t look up.
I sink into the leather chair opposite hers. “Waiting for visitors?”
“The opposite actually.” Her wrist moves in tight circles across her paper. Sketching, probably.
“How so?”
Libby sighs and shuts her notebook, like I’ve killed her train of thought. “I’m keeping watch. This way my mom and her sick fuck boyfriend can’t take me by surprise.”
I study Libby’s face, wondering if this is another dark attempt at humor. “What are you going to do if you see them?”
She opens her notebook again. “Haul ass in the other direction.” She studies the page, chewing on the nub of her pencil. “What about you? The whole football team isn’t coming for a visit?”
“It’s lacrosse.”
“What?” Libby glances up at me.
“I don’t play football. So even if the whole team was coming to visit me, which they aren’t . . .” I get a mental image of Alex on the field, calling the shots, Alex in Savannah’s arms, and I have to swallow the bile that rises in my throat. “. . . it would be the lacrosse team. Not the football team.”
Libby blinks. “Whatever.”
“And for your information, I did have visitors. But they left already.”
“So soon?” Libby smirks. “Wow, you really know how to entertain company.”
She’s fucking with me. I should get up and walk away. But right now, the last place I want to be is alone. Not after what Savannah just did to me. I lean back in the chair and stare at the ceiling. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“I take it that was your girlfriend who went storming out of here a few minutes ago?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Oh, you know, blonde hair, cheerleader type. Doesn’t take a genius.”
I close my eyes. “Ex-girlfriend. As of five minutes ago.”
Libby’s voice softens. “Sorry.”
“Yep.” I wait for the sting of another jab, but it doesn’t come.
Libby’s pencil scratches across the paper. “I’m going to be here awhile—at least until visiting hours are over. You can stay, if you want.”
I open my eyes and peer down at her. Right now, the dining hall is filled with families happy to see each other, couples working it out, and a thousand other little reminders that I completely suck at life. This chair is where I belong, here in the lobby, where I can watch people walk away from me. “Thanks,” I mutter.
Libby nods, without looking up.
So I sit here in the lobby, while Libby sketches in her purple notebook and the front desk lady does whatever it is she does. I sit here, flipping through Benny’s book and listening to Libby draw.
Day 9
“So she broke up with you.” Richard Fisher’s feet are propped up on his desk, his hands folded behind his head, like in one of those old timey movies. All he needs is a cigar in his mouth, smoke snaking up to the ceiling. “Did she tell you why?”
“I just told you,” I snap. “Because she cheated on me. Because apparently, she’d rather be with my ex-friend, Mr. Fucking Perfect. Alex.”
“Ah, the one who throws the parties? With the drunk mom?”
I glance up, surprised Fisher remembers Alex’s name. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Tell me again: what is it that makes this kid so perfect?”
I hadn’t told Fisher everything about that night. I didn’t tell him about Alex’s mom in the front yard, teetering on one broken stiletto, shrieking at me as I buckled Savannah into the passenger seat of my car. I didn’t tell him that the last thing I remember before arriving at Savannah’s is seeing Alex through the windshield, half-carrying, half-dragging his mom inside.
The image of Alex’s perfect family smears a little, like the lipstick across his mom’s cheek. But still. . .
“He’s everything Savannah wants, you know? He’s good on the team, makes good grades. Popular.”
Fisher nods. “So far it sounds like you’re describing yourself. At least until you started using dope. Alex isn’t in rehab. So I guess he’s got that going for him.”
His words are pushpins under my fingernails, but I’m not giving in. “Are you actually trying to say this is my fault?”
“No, not your fault,” Richard muses. He chews thoughtfully on the earpiece of his glasses. “But an inevitable consequence of your behavior? Maybe.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I launch off the couch, immediately gripping my ribs where the movement stabs me. “This didn’t have anything to do with me. I was gone all of ten seconds before Alex snagged my place on the team and moved in on my girlfriend. That fucker stole my life!”
Fisher slides his glasses back onto his nose. “Drugs stole your life, Eli. Alex moved in on all the pieces you left behind.”
“Are you actually defending him?”
“No, I’m not defending him. The kid sounds like an opportunistic son of a bitch. I’m saying that this is a chance for you to accept responsibility for your own part in the events of your life. I mean, c’mon, man—don’t tell me this breakup came out of nowhere.”
I sink back down onto the beat-up old couch. “We fought,” I admit. “We fought a lot, actually. Especially lately.”
Richard nods. “What kinds of things did yo
u fight about?”
My mind traces over the last few months like grooves in a well-worn map. Winter Formal was ground zero, the beginning of the end. After that, there were constant fights about me not showing up, not spending enough time with her. “She said I didn’t care about her,” I say. “That if I did, I wouldn’t use.”
“Did you care about her?” Richard asks.
“Of course I did. I do. But it started getting hard to be around her, you know? It was like she thought if she nagged me enough, I’d stop.”
“And that didn’t work.” It’s a question, disguised as a statement—a trap I fall headfirst into.
“Of course she couldn’t make me stop. I couldn’t even make myself stop.”
“You were powerless,” Fisher says.
I’ve read the literature; I know what he’s getting at. We admitted that we were powerless over drugs, and that our lives had become unmanageable.
“Yeah,” I whisper, digging my nails into the edges of the freshly healed scab on my wrist until blood seeps onto my sleeve. My using was the detonator Savannah and I constantly circled, neither one of us willing to call it by name.
Habit.
Problem.
Addiction.
Fisher tosses me the box of tissues from his desk. I catch it easily and press one against my wrist until the white blooms red. “Do we really have to talk about this?” My voice sounds weak, pleading, and pathetic.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Eli. I’m trying to hold up a mirror. Since the first day we met, you’ve been telling me that you want to leave, want to get back to your regular life. But from where I’m sitting, it looks like there’s not much of a life to go back to anymore. Your grades have plummeted; your relationship with your family is circling the drain. The only things you had going for you were lacrosse and your girlfriend, and now you’ve lost those, too. Why do you think that is?”
Fisher’s question is a bucket of water on the simmering rage I’ve felt since Savannah broke up with me. My anger melts into a wave of grief. It’s all my fault. Savannah, lacrosse—I let it all slip through my fingers. When I go home in three weeks, I’ll be lucky if they let me back into school, let alone onto the team. Spring training 101: No booze. No smoking. I’m pretty sure heroin goes without saying.
Lifeline Page 11