His muscles are tight against his T-shirt as he grips the top of the window frame and lifts himself through the opening. He has sixty seconds to disable the alarm, but he installed this very alarm system last summer to make some extra cash. Of course, they’ve changed the code, but he still remembers the manufacturer’s override.
The alarm is already flashing its final ten seconds by the time he gets down the stairs and to the box, but it’s enough time to punch in the code, and he exhales, long and deep, when the light turns from red to blue. With any luck, it’s the only time he’ll see anything flash red and blue tonight.
The hardest part is over. His plan is probably going to work.
He hesitates then. This isn’t who he was raised to be. He sees his father’s face, the one who taught him to hold his head high, even in defeat.
The thing is, he shouldn’t be defeated. His team redeemed him. Everything was supposed to be better on this side of a championship. But it’s all gone to hell. If he could see any other way forward, he would take it. He would hold his head high, and he would take it.
But there is no other way, so he straightens his shoulders, snaps the gloves tight, slides off his backpack as he crosses to the controlled-substance cabinet. Maybe this isn’t who he was raised to be, but there’s no denying it’s who he is now.
One by one, he takes bottles from the shelf and dumps each into a gallon-size ziplock bag, returning the empty bottles to the exact right places. It’ll buy him a little extra time, anyway. Nothing will look off when they open the store in the morning. But enough people in this town are addicted to these pills that no doubt it’ll all be discovered tomorrow.
He could probably sell some of the pills to those very same people. God knows he could use the money; that’s why he was installing alarms last summer in the first place. But he’s not so desperate that he’s selling them. Yet.
When he has everything on his list, he does it all in reverse:
Puts the bag in the backpack.
Resets the alarm.
Eases out the open window.
Slides along the ledge.
Climbs down the fire escape.
It’s not until he’s safe in his car that he really stops to think of them: the people who would have taken these pills. Some of them are recovering from surgeries or injuries, sure. But he knows most of them are like him, trying to dull a pain that will last the rest of their lives. Trying to quiet the voices inside as their bodies grow tolerant and it takes more, more, more to do the same job.
He knows these people, knows their pain. But he also knows that he isn’t taking anything from them. When the missing pills are discovered, the pharmacy will have to file some paperwork, but the insurance company will cover the cost. And before the day’s even out, a new batch will be on its way from the wholesaler. No one will go hungry for long.
That’s the thing about painkillers. There are always plenty more, if you’re willing to do what it takes to get them.
The system has made sure of that.
Voices murmur above, but they’re no match for the screaming in Jake’s head.
The police are here. If he yells, if he finds a way to remove the bars and break the window, he can get out of here. It will all be over.
And then he realizes: if he gets out of here, it will all be over.
Everybody he loves, the whole town that looked up to him—they must know who he has become. By now they must have figured out all the terrible things he has done, and not one of them will look at him the same.
He can’t go back there.
He can’t.
The cuffs lie on the bed, hungry jaws still open. And Jake realizes something else: the police will have cuffs of their own, and until he knows what happened in that missing chapter, he can’t be sure those cuffs won’t be for him.
He sinks to the bed, knowing Phoenix is right. He isn’t ready to face his past or his future; he isn’t strong enough. It’s better to stay down here. And Phoenix was right about another thing: down here it’s getting better. There’s a growing feeling inside that maybe Phoenix is here to protect him. To save him.
Stockholm syndrome. He hears the words in Daphne’s voice. They were watching Beauty and the Beast, and she was trying to talk herself out of liking it. “Imagine being so stressed and desperate that you get attached to your captor like that. It’s not healthy.”
Jake wrestles against the idea. This isn’t Stockholm syndrome. Phoenix is trying to help.
Which is exactly what you’d think if you had Stockholm syndrome.
There are footsteps on the front porch. The police are getting ready to leave.
Jake folds his lips between his teeth and bites down, blood seeping between his lips, eyes closed against the tears.
A few minutes later, Phoenix comes back. He stops when he sees Jake there, broken and bleeding from wounds he inflicted on himself.
“Talk to me,” he says again.
Jake struggles against it, but he’s been so lonely for so long that in the end, Phoenix wins. He always does.
Jake talks.
Dad and I stuck it out in the city for years after my mom left, but eventually his caseload wore him down enough that he took a smaller job in this small town to escape from the heavy and hard.
But it turns out those things are in small towns too.
Over the years, I’ve watched the light in him grow dim as he confronts the shadowed side of society: armed robbery, domestic violence, every sort of assault. Every day, he sits at the front of that courtroom and tries to hold his head up as he bears witness to all the ways people can hurt each other.
I used to think I could change things for him. Whenever I brought home a perfect report card or showed how fierce I could be on the basketball court, he’d smile and escape from it all, even if just for a little while. Every night, he tries to shed that sadness with his robe before he comes home to me. But it still shows through. And he’s been getting lost in his thoughts more lately. Getting more protective of me all the time.
But tonight, he turns on an SNL clip show from back in the day. He kicks his feet up on the coffee table and laughs, real and deep, right from his belly, as the Spartan cheerleaders chant on the screen.
I watch him for a minute: his body relaxed, his mind released.
“How was your day?” I ask. It’s a normal question, one that millions of people are probably asking each other tonight. I realize too late that it’s the wrong one. In only four words, I’ve taken him from SNL slapstick to the real-life troubles of this town and the weight of the role he plays in them.
“Custody hearings,” he says. “It got ugly.”
I know these are his least favorite days: deciding the fate of kids caught in a storm they didn’t cause and can’t control. Worrying he’ll get it wrong. We don’t talk about the gratitude he feels that he never had to go through it, and the guilt he feels over that. But it’s not his fault my mom walked away.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m sure you did what was best.”
“I wish I were sure,” he says. The scene’s getting funnier, but Dad only stares, glassy-eyed, looking like real laughter is something that belongs only on the screen.
Maybe a different question will bring him back to the present. I search the room for anything to talk about and notice his shoes by the back door, the bottoms caked in mud.
“Did you go to the cabin?” Our cabin is old and junky and barely up the mountain, but it’s his favorite place in the world.
“Yup,” he says, without looking away from the TV. “Water’s on already, and I took some lumber to replace the boards in the deck.”
“Did it help?” I ask.
“Not really.”
I try another question, even though it’s one I ask almost every day.
“W
hat are they saying about Jake? Anything new?”
Even though he was never a big fan, Dad’s been worried about Jake, asking around and telling the cops to fill him in the second they have a new lead. And I love him for it. He’s my only source of information now that the “Find Jake” feed has dried up, and even the local newspaper seems to have lost interest.
He sighs and turns off the TV. “There’s only one development, and it may or may not be related—I want to say that right out of the gate. I’m not accusing Jake of anything.” But he looks away when he says the next part.
“Somebody robbed Ashland Drug last night.”
I stare. “And what? There were fingerprints? Someone was seen wearing a number thirty-two basketball jersey? Why would this have anything to do with Jake?” I’m desperate to know Jake’s alive but, apparently, not so desperate that I want to believe he could do this.
He rubs a finger along the rim of his glass. “It appears that the suspect was…in top physical condition.”
“Dad,” I say. “That’s not even enough for probable cause, let alone to convict.”
“I’m not convicting,” he protests. “Just thinking about this with you.” He gets up and paces the room, then settles himself on a barstool. “Daphne, how much do you know about Jake’s medical history?”
“He had two accidents and two knee surgeries. Other than that, he was in better shape than anybody I’ve ever met. No asthma, no allergies, no other injuries. We were together two years and he never even caught a cold. What else is there to know?”
But even as I say it, I know what I edited out: family medical history. His dad’s alcoholism, so bad it led to his death when Jake was in elementary school.
I shake the thought from my head. That has nothing to do with Jake. “He’s never had a drop to drink,” I say, with as much confidence as I can gather.
Dad nods. “But didn’t you tell me he’s been different this year? Isn’t that why you two broke up?”
I think of Jake then: how he’d resisted the pills right after his surgery and how, later, he hadn’t.
But there’s something about the way Dad’s sitting, the way he’s looking at me, that makes me feel like I’ve got something to confess. And then I look up at him on that damn barstool and figure out what it is.
“Nope. No, no, no.” I stand and try to pull myself taller. “Don’t you sit above me like we’re in your courtroom. You don’t get to play judge and prosecutor. I’ve always respected you. Always. But I won’t be put on trial in this house—and neither will Jake.”
“I don’t ever set out to convict anybody,” he replies. “Not ever, and you know that. I make the best judgment I can, as fairly as I can, with the information I’m given. I’m not asking you to do anything different from that.” There’s fire in his eyes as he defends his judicial honor. More fire than he’d ever use to defend Jake.
“Bullshit.” His jaw tightens, but I keep going before he can give me some stern reminder about language. “You never liked Jake. And now you think he robbed a pharmacy, based on what? The fact that he was in shape?”
Dad hesitates. “Jake fills his prescriptions with Jenna’s dad at Ashland Drug.”
“So do we!”
He holds up his hand, so I let him finish. “He also filled them at Walgreens and at CVS. He got prescriptions from three different doctors. He was getting painkillers in all three places at the same time, paying cash for most of them. And not just a few pills.”
The news cuts sharp inside me. I thought I wanted any information at all about Jake, by any means necessary. But everything about this feels wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Says who?” I demand. “Some Pine Valley fan who’s bitter about the state title? Some gossiping clerk who wanted to feel important?”
“Jenna’s dad.”
The answer makes me sick.
But something doesn’t make sense. “Jenna’s dad is a health-care professional who’s not allowed to discuss what his patients are taking. Even if you’re friends. Especially if you’re friends.”
Dad looks away, out the window. “I’m not really allowed to have friends. You know that. Too many conflicts of interest. And he didn’t tell me as a friend.”
“How did he tell you?”
“He told the police. It was in the warrant I signed to search Jake’s house. They tried to do it the easy way, but Jake’s mom wasn’t cooperating.”
I’m stunned into silence for a moment, but then I force myself to swallow down the sick and stand my ground. “How could you do that to them? They’re grieving, Dad. They don’t need police searching their house.”
He’s so calm I could scream. “The police have already searched their house. You know that.”
“With permission, when Jake was a missing person! Not with a warrant, when he’s being accused of breaking and entering and burglary and whatever else. Can you imagine how that’s going to freak Luke out? And what, you think Mrs. Foster has something to hide? If there was anything there, you wouldn’t have needed a warrant. She already let them search, and she knew there wasn’t anything left to find. So she stood up for Luke’s emotional health, and you plowed right through her wishes.”
Dad’s eyes soften. “Those boys need more than their mom is able to give them.” Then he clears his throat and swirls the ice in his glass, trying to dodge the daggers I’m staring at him.
“What’s that even supposed to mean? You think because your job pays better that you’d be able to parent them better? You don’t know the first thing about the Fosters, Dad, but you sure as hell made things worse for them. Trust me on that.”
I take the glass from his hand, forcing him to look at me. “What else?” I ask. “What haven’t you told me?”
Dad chooses his words carefully. “There has been some information coming in through your ‘Find Jake’ page. I thought you’d seen it, but I can tell that’s not the case.”
I’m not following. “There hasn’t been anything on the page for days.”
He nods, and I hate that he knows something I don’t. “It sounds like Jenna deleted the entries before they were posted. She didn’t feel it was good to put the information out in public, but she shared it with the police. There are a number of individuals who say they’ve witnessed Jake taking prescription painkillers when he thinks nobody is watching. And one who says he walked in on Jake buying them in the bathroom at school.”
I’m actually struck dumb: by the fact that idiot online trolls have any part in this conversation, by the fact that the page I started to help Jake has so completely turned against him. I’m stung too by the fact that Jenna hid this from me, even if she thought she was protecting me.
“Jake didn’t rob the pharmacy,” I say, willing truth into the words. “And the sooner you and your colleagues figure that out, the sooner we’ll find him.” I turn away, disgusted. “I can’t believe I thought you’d help. You’ve wanted Jake out of the picture from the second you met him. Go back to watching your show. We’ll find him on our own.”
Even as I say it, I’m not sure who I mean by “we” anymore, only that I can’t do it alone.
My dad is wrong about Jake robbing the pharmacy. I have no doubt about that. But looking back over the last year—the mood swings, the terrible grades, the inconsistency on the court, and especially the things Jake said to me before the championship game—I’m sick as I realize he might be right about the painkillers. And maybe that’s why I got so mad.
Because what kind of pharmacist will I be if I don’t even notice when somebody I care about is suffering from something this serious? If I’m the one who practically forced him to take the pills in the first place?
Then I hate myself for making this about me, about this dream I have that Jake always supported.
Was I like this when we were together? Was it always all about me?
Where was I for his dreams? Did I ever even ask what he wanted to do beyond basketball, or just go on and on about what I was going to do? Am I part of the reason he couldn’t see past senior year and college ball?
I open the text on my phone—the last four words Jake sent.
It’s not your fault.
He’s wrong. In my case, anyway. Kolt and Luke loved Jake longer and better than I ever did. They didn’t abandon him. And even though I know I shouldn’t feel guilty for walking away from a relationship that wasn’t working, I’m sick knowing how completely I shut out a person I loved who needed me.
And what am I doing to help? So far, all I’ve done is mess everything up. Sure, I’ve read every article online and pried every piece of inside information out of my dad. But hardly any of that has translated to actual action. And what have I been doing instead? Filling out scholarship applications and graduation paperwork, pretending I’m trying to distract myself from tragedy but really just doing what I do best: focusing on me.
No more.
Even though I fundamentally disagree with pretty much everything my dad said, a memory surfaces that makes me wonder how many conversations I read wrong—and if money might have something to do with this after all.
When we were watching so much Grey’s last summer, Jake actually walked away from the TV during one episode. I found him out front, lying on his back in the grass.
“Must be nice,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“To have enough money to go to rehab whenever you need it. To check in and come out changed after thirty days, as many times as it takes. Like a freaking magic trick.”
It took me a minute to make the connection between what we just watched and what he was saying. “Did your dad ever go?”
Fadeaway Page 13