by Anna Hecker
Her words are like backup singers to my melody, making it more real. “FUCK YOU, DEREK!” I scream off the edge of the roof, and my voice goes tumbling over the rooftops and flying away on the air. I scream until my throat hurts and I feel like I’ve been emptied out, like I’m clean and hollow inside. When I’m done I collapse back on my towel, breathing hard.
“Do you think he’s done this to other girls?” I ask, reaching for my Sprite.
“I don’t know,” Shay sighs. “I was so new to the scene when he found me. Me and my friends were like these giggling little kids going to their first warehouse parties, and he was this cool older guy who knew everyone and always had pills. I was so psyched he was into me, it didn’t even occur to me to ask questions.”
I think about pills, about Yelena, about Britt. “When you were dealing,” I ask her. “Did you know what was in your pills?”
“What do you mean?” she picks at the tar paper, peeling it off the roof. “I mean, molly’s just MDMA.”
“Not necessarily.” I tell her about Yelena’s autopsy report, Britt’s near collapse last night, what I heard from the hippies in the dome.
“Jesus.” Shay sits back, looking stunned. “I hope I didn’t do that to anyone. I had no idea.”
“Do you think Derek knew?” I ask. “He told me he didn’t.”
“Honestly?” Shay picks harder at the tar paper. “I think Derek just does whatever it takes to make money and get laid.”
Her words hit me like a bucket of cold water. I shiver in the late afternoon sun.
“He said he’d stop,” I say quietly. “After I told him about Britt.”
Shay takes off her sunglasses and looks at me. “Do you believe him?” she asks.
“I don’t know.” The weight of her words, of his promise, of everyone out there he could be hurting, sink like a wet blanket on my shoulders. “I honestly don’t know.”
CHAPTER 39
Mom and Dad, I need to talk to you.
You guys need to sit down. We need to talk about Britt.
There’s a big problem in our family, and I can’t believe you’re too clueless to see it.
I practice saying the words out loud on my drive home, but there’s no right way to start this conversation. I pull into our driveway with less than two hours until my parents get home, no closer to a solution than when I left the Bronx. As I cut the engine, I realize our house is shaking.
At first I think maybe it’s me. I’m so nervous about what has to go down tonight that I’m trembling, and it feels like the world is shaking with me. But then I hear the bass. I open the car door and it puddles around me, that same fuzzy distortion I’ve grown to know all too well.
DJ Skizm. Again.
“Britt!” I fumble with my house keys. “Turn that down! The neighbors are going to kill us.”
The music drowns out my voice, trembling the glass in the photos along our walls: Britt at her first soccer tournament, Britt winning MVP, Mom taking first place at a CrossFit tournament, Britt at a sports banquet, me at the Visitors’ Weekend recital at Windham two years ago. Synth tumbles down the stairs and echoes off the walls, filling the house with a sound like the sizzle of lightning.
“I didn’t know your speakers went up this loud,” I say, starting up the stairs. “It’s all distorted.”
The only answer is a wailing reverb.
“Britt?” I reach the second floor, and something cold and sticky starts to weave through my gut. It’s dark up here, the only light coming from our bathroom. The light catches a scrim of sparkles embedded in the carpet, like sunshine on the snow. I kneel slowly. Our carpet has never sparkled before.
I run a hand over it and glitter sticks to my skin, grainy and cool. The chill rises from my gut and spreads through my chest. The sparkles are gold and silver, reminding me of Britt and Yelena’s eyelids as they danced their way through warehouses and festivals, holding hands and spinning and rolling and laughing. It looked almost natural on them then, like they were born to shine. But it doesn’t look like that now.
“Britt?” I peek into the bathroom. There’s makeup scattered everywhere: lipstick open on the edge of the sink, a blob of it smeared across the porcelain; eyeliner pens on the floor and toilet seat and one sticking out of the sink drain. A broken compact spills inky eye shadow in the cracks between tiles.
“Britt!” I call again, a quiver in my voice. She was sleeping so soundly when I left, I didn’t think there was any chance she’d get up and go out again by the time I got home. I wanted her to be here when I talked to our parents; I didn’t want to have to do it behind her back. But if she’s already out at another party, I might not have any choice. I feel like I have to do this as soon as possible, before I lose my nerve.
“Did you go out again?” I shout down the hall.
The only answer is the music snarling back at me.
I don’t bother knocking on her door. I throw it open, my heart leaping into my throat.
Britt’s room is trashed. Her posters have been shredded, bits of the US Olympic Soccer Team clinging to the walls and staring up from crumpled piles on the floor. Trophies litter the carpet. There’s a hole in her wall where it looked like one of them was flung against it, and another lies at the base of what used to be her full-length mirror and is now just a few shards of glass sticking to a frame. The rest of the mirror lies in pieces on the floor, turning the room into a twisted disco ball.
And then there’s my sister.
“Britt!” I scream her name and run to her, sinking to my knees. She lies spread-eagle on the floor, hair fanned out in a messy halo and closed eyes coated in clumpy glitter. Her skin is clammy and ash-colored and she’s wearing Yelena’s clothes again, her favorite black lace minidress and platform boots. Emma lies next to her, almost as if the two of them had spun around until they got dizzy and fell down, just like me and Britt did when we were kids.
“Oh my god.” I reach for the doll. Its belly is unzipped and the contents have been gutted. They lie amidst rumpled tissues and jagged bits of broken glass: Britt’s cell phone and Yelena’s favorite eye pencil, a sparkly wallet stuffed with crumpled singles, a flyer for a party in New Haven that’s supposed to start in a couple hours.
And an empty plastic baggie with grayish dust smeared inside.
“Britt, what did you do?” I scream. I reach for the baggie, shoving it in my pocket. I don’t want to think about what was in there, how many of the same horrible pills that made her sick last night. I never should have gone to Shay’s, never should have left Britt alone. I should have known this conversation was too important to wait.
Now it’s too late.
I’m too late.
Britt’s skin is tacky with dried sweat as I feel for her pulse, cursing myself for not paying more attention to the first-aid unit in freshman health class. It takes me a half dozen tries but finally I find it buried deep in her neck. It’s weak and limping, like it wants to give up. I clap my hands in front of her face and yell her name one, five, twelve times, but there’s no response. I can barely feel her breath against my neck.
9-1-1. I need to call 9-1-1. My fingers shake so hard that it takes me two tries, and each ring seems long enough to be a song of its own. Finally the operator picks up, and I tell her what happened, that I suspect it was an overdose. I beg them to hurry. I give her my address through choking sobs. At one point she asks me to move away from the music and I jolt up, startled. I’d forgotten Britt’s stereo was on, forgotten the sickening drumbeats shaking my stomach. I turn it off and stay on the line, watching Britt and trying to answer the operator’s questions until I hear sirens in the distance, so faint at first that I’m sure I’m just conjuring them out of blind hope.
We hang up and I sink to the floor. The siren sounds louder, wheels screaming around the corner and into our driveway.
I take Britt’s dry, chilly hand and try to warm it in mine. “Please,” I say to her, even though I know she can’t hear. “Please just be ok
ay.”
CHAPTER 40
I’m in a hospital waiting room full of hard plastic chairs, a television blaring talk shows over my head.
My sneaker squeaks painfully and I realize I’m kicking the floor. A mother with a moaning, pasty-faced toddler gives me a dirty look.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
A burst of cheesy string music blasts from the TV: a commercial where a little girl goes from rocking a toy doll to galloping off a school bus to throwing her graduation cap in the air to cradling a baby of her own. I grip the chair’s arms. What if Britt never graduates from college, never holds her child in her arms? What if the last image I’ll ever have of her is gray-faced and unconscious on a gurney, rolling through a set of double doors?
The doors to the waiting room fly open and my parents rush in, still in their gym clothes. I start to stand, but then I see their faces.
They look like they’ve aged twenty years. The tiny wrinkles around Mom’s mouth have turned to crevasses, and Dad’s eyes are hollow pits. I notice flecks of gray in Dad’s stubble that were never there before, flashing silver in the light. For a moment, he looks so much like Grandpa Lou it’s like seeing a ghost.
They run to me, sweep me off the chair and into their arms, and I find myself clinging to them like a little girl who fell off her tricycle and scraped both her knees. I can smell the fear under their dried sweat, can feel Mom’s heart trembling in her chest. I hug them tight, not wanting to let go, and the tears come back until I’m a heaving mass of flesh and snuffles and snot.
“What happened?” They sit on either side of me, leaning forward with their hands on their knees. Dad smoothes invisible wrinkles from his athletic shorts while Mom’s toe taps a non-rhythm on the floor. I grip the chair, anchoring myself in the grit of plastic against my palms. None of us can stay still.
“She overdosed.” I can’t meet their eyes so I look down at Mom’s sneakers, which are pink and turquoise and so stupidly cheerful they make me choke up all over again. “Or like … the pills she took, they were laced with something. Maybe meth, or it could have been other stuff….”
“Whoa, hold up.” Dad raises a hand. “What pills?”
Mom’s sneakers stop dancing on the floor. “Britt never took pills.”
“Molly.” I grasp the chair harder. “Or at least, she thought it was molly….”
“You’re talking like a crazy person.” Mom stands abruptly. “We need to find a doctor. Excuse me …” She stalks to the admitting desk, taps her fingers against the glass. “I need to see my daughter.”
The nurse looks up. “Ma’am, she’s with the doctors right now. As soon as she’s ready for visitors, someone will let you know.”
“But I need to see her now!” Mom bangs harder on the glass. “We don’t even know what happened. I’m her mother!”
“Please sit down, ma’am.” The nurse tucks her three chins together, giving Mom a disapproving stare. “We’ll let you in as soon as we can.”
“Beth.” Dad stands and drapes an arm over Mom’s shoulders. “Please.”
“But I need to know!” Mom stamps her foot like a child. “Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?”
“I’m trying to tell you!” I leap to my feet, my anger rushing to the surface. “You’re not listening!”
“I’m listening.” Dad turns to me. “What kind of pills?”
“Molly.” I sink back into the chair, my voice going small. Mom remains standing, her hand around Dad’s wrist. I can see the rapid rise and release of her breath under her shiny turquoise sports tank. “It’s like, this drug …”
“Like Ecstasy?” Dad asks.
“Yeah.”
Mom barks out a laugh. “Britt wasn’t doing Ecstasy.”
“There’s a lot about Britt you don’t know.”
Mom stands taller. “Don’t tell me I don’t know my own daughter.”
“Beth.” Dad rests a hand on her arm. She shakes it off.
“What really happened?” she demands.
“I told you. She took molly—Ecstasy—whatever you want to call it—and she took too much and it was bad to begin with. And she knew it, and I should have known she was going to do it, and I should have stopped her, and …”
“Whoa, slow down.” Dad holds up a hand. “So she’d taken it before?”
“Yeah.” I can’t look at them. Tears drip down my nose and onto the floor, leaving a pattern of tiny puddles.
“This is ridiculous.” Mom marches to the front desk and raises her hand to knock on the glass again. The nurse looks up, shakes her head. Mom lets out a long bellow of breath and comes back to us, glaring at me through slit green eyes. “She doesn’t … she would never … I mean, she’s an athlete, for god’s sake.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. The ghost of Britt’s voice flits through my head, begging me not to tell Mom and Dad. I never should have listened. I never should have left her alone.
Mom sits down hard. “I don’t believe this,” she insists. “I just don’t …” She makes a noise that’s somewhere between a sob and a gasp and her hands fly to her face, covering it. Dad kneels in front of her and she wraps her arms around him and weeps into his chest. I want to reach for her, to tell her that it’s all going to be okay. But I can’t make any more promises.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, Dad kneeling in front of Mom as she cries into his shoulder, me a stiff and helpless lump. It could be minutes or hours of my thoughts playing on the same pointless loop of I wish and I hope and I should have and if only until finally the doors swing open and a doctor emerges, her hair pulled back in a severe French braid.
“Ms. Alden?”
Dad stands. Mom scrambles gracelessly from her chair.
“I’m Doctor Chopra.” She extends her hand. “You’re the parents?”
They nod, wordless and obedient. A numb, tingling rush fills my veins. I don’t feel myself pushing off the chair and taking a step forward, don’t notice I’m standing until I’m faceto-face with the doctor, taking in the tiny strands of gray laced through her dark hair.
Dr. Chopra smiles weakly. “Good news: your daughter is awake and responsive.”
Relief floods my limbs. I grab Dad’s shoulder to steady myself.
“What happened?” Mom squawks.
“She seems to have ingested something toxic,” Dr. Chopra says.
“On purpose?” Mom’s puffy red eyes scrunch into a skeptical scowl.
The doctor’s mouth twists. I look from Mom to Dad but they’re both staring at her, waiting for answers.
“This.” I find the baggie in my pocket, my fingers trembling, and hand it to her. “She thought it was MDMA. But it could have been anything.”
“Mira!” Mom gives an exasperated sigh. “This again?”
Dr. Chopra thanks me and takes the baggie, carefully slipping it into her white coat. “We’ll send this to the lab for testing,” she says, then turns back to my parents. “We pumped her stomach and stimulated her heart rate and respiratory system. She’s responsive now and seems to be stabilized.”
“Can we see her?” Dad asks, impatient.
She nods. “Come with me.”
Mom doesn’t stop fuming and Dad doesn’t let go of her hand as we follow Dr. Chopra through the swinging doors and into a long, bright hallway that smells like alcohol wipes and disinfectant. Her shoes sigh to a stop in front of a doorframe covered in a flimsy blue curtain.
“Britt.” She knocks on the doorframe. “Your family’s here.”
From behind the curtain I hear a long, low groan. Mom lets go of Dad’s hand and rushes into the room, slapping the curtain away so it whooshes against my cheek. Dad follows and I stand there for a moment, rubbing my face where the curtain smacked it. Then I take a deep breath and step inside.
Britt looks even worse than when I found her. Her lips are dry and cracked, caked with orange vomit, and her skin is practically translucent. A tube runs under he
r nose and an IV drips into her arm, connected with a bag of something white and milky dangling from a stand above. Next to her bed, a hulking machine hums like it’s tired of being here.
But she’s here. I’m seeing her. She’s alive.
Unlike Yelena, she’s alive.
“Baby.” Mom can’t stop touching her. She wipes her forehead, tucks hair behind her ear, strokes her shoulder. “Oh my god, my sweet baby. Are you okay?”
She rests her head on Britt’s chest, hugging her awkwardly around the tubes and wires.
“You’re fine, sweetie,” Dad says, taking Britt’s hand. “We’re here. Everything’s going to be just fine.”
I find a spot at the foot of her bed and grasp the cold metal railing. Britt’s eyes lock on mine and I see guilt and terror between the gold flakes. She shakes her head so gently it could just be a trick of the light, like she’s trying to ask me something. Or tell me something.
“What happened, baby?” Mom asks, kissing her forehead.
“I don’t know.” Britt moans. “I just want to sleep.”
“Of course you can sleep.” Mom strokes her hair. “Just tell us what happened.”
Britt’s eyes flutter. “I must have eaten something bad.”
“See?” Mom turns to me, her voice sharp and triumphant. “It’s food poisoning!”
“Britt …” I say.
“What did you eat?” Mom asks. “We’ll sue their pants off.”
Britt looks down at her knees, two blue-and-white mountains under the hospital gown.
“Tell them the truth,” I insist.
Britt closes her eyes, moves her head weakly from side to side. Her voice is so small we all have to lean in to hear. “Just leave me alone.”
“Mira, what is wrong with you?” Mom steps forward, her chest heaving. “Your sister almost died of food poisoning.”
I ignore her, moving closer to Britt. “What were you thinking?” I ask, my voice cracking. “You knew there was something wrong with those pills!”
Britt burrows her head deeper into the pillow, whimpering like a hurt animal. “Stop,” she begs.