by Antony John
“No.”
“You need money for a cab.”
“I said no. They took me on too, not just you. Ryder’s going to make whatever the hell kind of movie he wants, and millions of people will see it. No matter what, I want them to see us fighting to the end.”
The end. Isn’t this the end, right here? Or does that come when Brian and Ryder and Tracie show up at noon to make sure I’ve checked out? I can picture the scene: Tracie, arms folded, explaining that I blew it last night, and that they owe me nothing; Ryder, genuinely disappointed that I couldn’t share his vision; Brian, all smiles, running through the countless ways he’s outwitted me. He’ll enjoy twisting the knife he inserted weeks ago.
“What happened last night?” I ask.
“After Brian called you, he took me to the party. It was so weird—all these teens were acting like everything’s cool, and Brian’s getting more and more pissed. I think that whole thing was laid on for some kind of showdown. I hate you for not showing up, but it might’ve been your best play.”
“How did you get away?”
“I waited until Brian and Ryder were talking to Annaleigh, and made a run for it. I’ve been waiting all night for them to knock on the door.”
“You should’ve gone home.”
“I was worried about you. I’m still worried. Which is why I’m not leaving.”
I rub my temples. “Do you have a way to record a conversation?”
“No. Why?”
“Brian and Ryder will want to see me before checkout. I’m sure of it. If we can record them, maybe we can make them the story, instead of just us. It might even turn people against the movie.”
Hoping that Brian accidentally implicates himself isn’t Gant’s style—too passive—but he must be out of ideas, because he finally takes the bills from my hand.
“I’ll be back at eleven,” he says. “Make sure you’re here.”
He doesn’t look at me as he leaves.
I retrieve the cell phone from the minibar and head out too. I owe Annaleigh an explanation. Chances are, she’s going to break up with me, no matter what I say. I’ll bet Ryder has cameras set up to capture all of it.
I knock on Annaleigh’s door, but there’s no answer. I call her, and go to voicemail. Finally, I go to the only place I can think of.
She’s alone in the gym, welcoming New Year by pounding eight-minute miles on a treadmill.
I need a moment to think. To gather myself. To make sure that whatever’s about to happen doesn’t play out like a made-for-TV special. Maybe I don’t deserve Annaleigh, but Ryder doesn’t deserve good footage of our breakup either.
As I wait, I check the voicemails from my phone. The first is from the middle of the night—Gant telling me in a petrified voice that he’s back in the hotel. The call is short, probably because he realized my phone was in the room too. The other message is from Sabrina, only a few minutes old: “Uh, Kris left a message. He did some asking around about that story on me and . . . look, I need to talk to you.” Her voice sounds muffled, hesitant. “Call me, okay?”
I never doubted Kris when he promised to get to the bottom of things. But I didn’t realize he’d work so fast, either.
44
I NEED TO TALK TO SABRINA, but face-to-face, not over a phone. I can’t kid myself that she’ll trust me, but as long as I’m with her, I can still get her back to rehab.
When I look up, Annaleigh stands astride the treadmill, watching me.
She starts running again as I approach her. She’s sweating like crazy.
“I’m sorry,” I say. Then louder: “I’m sorry!”
She places her feet on the frame. The rubber track spins by. “I don’t believe you.”
“Nothing happened, I swear. I just wanted to make sure Sabrina was okay.”
“Who were you talking to, just now?” she asks, glancing at my phone.
“It was a voicemail.”
“From Sabrina?” She jams the stop button and climbs off. Grabs a towel and runs it across her face. But it’s tears she’s wiping away, not sweat. “They told me to check out by noon. My mom’s coming to get me. The movie’s over, Seth. All because you walked away.”
I’m enough of an actor to register shock, but in the back of my mind, I’m trying to remember a time when it still felt real.
“I never meant to stay with her, Annaleigh.”
“Oh, please. You knew how much I needed this, and you killed it for me. People like me don’t get a second chance. I always knew my parents might ruin this for me, but not you.”
“It was a mistake!”
“Yeah. It was a mistake. You’ve been playing both of us the whole time, and I’m done now.” She takes her phone from the treadmill and heads for the door.
I follow her into the empty corridor. “You know it’s you I want.”
She turns to face me. I can see the conflict playing out in her sharp blue eyes—how she wants to trust me, even though I’ve given her every reason to doubt. “You stink of cigarettes.”
“Sabrina was smoking.”
“Figures. Did you at least get her back to the center?”
“No. I wanted to see you.”
Her expression softens. “So you’re with me now? For good?”
“I . . . I said I’d go back and take her.”
“Oh, for— Why can’t she just take herself?” Annaleigh purses her lips and looks away. “Forget I said that. You’re being a good friend, and God knows, she needs one.” She drapes the towel across her shoulders. “I’m never going to see you again, am I?”
It’s a genuine question, and I wish I knew the answer. Her mom may take her away before I can return. Even so, there’s a message behind the question: In spite of everything, she still wants me.
Annaleigh takes my hand. “Come with me,” she whispers.
I really want to follow, but I won’t go to her room. Not if there’s a chance that Ryder’s cameras are still in place, filming everything we do. And not while Sabrina is waiting for me, wrestling with the idea that I’m behind the drug story.
I pull Annaleigh toward me and we kiss. Her lips are warm. I can feel her coming around, trusting that what we have is real. There are no cameras here, and no movie. This is just for us.
The phone in my left pocket rings. Annaleigh pulls back suddenly. She probably thinks it’s Sabrina calling, but this isn’t Sabrina’s number.
“It’s your old phone,” I say, handing it to her. “You take the call.”
She seems surprised that I still have it. “Hello? . . . Hello?” She waits a few more seconds and hangs up. “That was bad timing.”
“Yeah. It was.”
She faces me again, all messy hair and flushed skin and irresistible eyes. “Go to Sabrina, and come straight back. I won’t open my door for anyone else.” She holds out the phone. “Do you still need this?”
“No.” I pull my cell from the other pocket. “Mine’s good again.”
She studies the two phones—one brand-new, one barely functional—each reflecting a different stage of our lives. “I wonder if they’ll make us give them back,” she says.
“I don’t care if they do.”
“Maybe your old one still works great, then. But Brian says mine’s on borrowed time.” She rubs at a crack across the screen. “He fixed it for me once already.”
Before I can process this, my phone rings. Caller unknown, but it’s going to be Brian. I know from the timing of it, and from the way he hung up when Annaleigh answered her phone just now.
“Hello, Seth,” he says. “You two done making up now? Or did I call at a bad time?”
I don’t say anything. I need to listen. I need to think.
“No answer, huh? Well, that’s rude. And I thought you’d made so much progress. I mean, the way you talked to Sabrina la
st night . . . that was really thoughtful.” His voice is measured, unemotional. “Happy New Year.”
Maybe he chose the words by accident, but no—he knows that’s what she said to me before we fell asleep. Which means that he must have bugged Annaleigh’s old phone too. In which case, he knows everything else that Sabrina told me.
Everything.
Annaleigh looks scared, watching me. I’m scared too.
“Brian, look,” I say, “let’s talk about this.”
“No. Let’s not. You brought this on yourself. It’s like Gant told you: That party was everything. Do you have any idea how much planning went into it? All we needed was one final perfect moment—a kiss as the clock strikes midnight—something to make audiences swoon. Then Annaleigh’s mean, vindictive mother comes in and tears you apart. Both of you would have come off looking like victims. You would have seemed noble and tragic. But not anymore. Now you go down hard and ugly. Now you get to be the bad guy.”
“I’m sorry. Please, just tell me what to do.”
The line goes dead.
45
I RUN THROUGH THE HOTEL LOBBY. One of the porters is wheeling suitcases inside, but holds the door as he sees me approach. I’m only ten yards away when two figures converge on me.
“Checkout time,” says Brian. “You’re not going anywhere.”
I slow my steps, and Brian and Ryder relax momentarily. It’s all I need. Four strides later I slip past the grabbing hands and sprint through the doors, yelling for a taxi.
Ahead of me, a car door opens. I dive inside and slam it shut. The driver doesn’t wait for instructions before pulling away.
I stare out the rear window. Brian and Ryder are catching a taxi too. Do they already know where I’m going? Or will I be giving them even more information they can use against me?
“Pico and Century Park,” I say, breathless. “And can you lose that taxi behind us?”
The driver’s an old guy. Scary thin. He eases a toothpick from his mouth and catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “What do you think this is, son? A movie?”
I take a twenty from my wallet and toss it onto the passenger seat. “Double if you lose them.”
He glances at the bill, sighs, and pulls to the side of the road. The other taxi slots in behind us. The doors open. Brian and Ryder climb out.
I try to open my door, but it’s locked. I’m trapped. Did Brian plan this too?
Ryder raps the window twice. “Come on, Seth. Time to go home.”
The driver keeps his eyes fixed on the traffic signal ahead of us. It’s almost like he hasn’t noticed the two guys banging on the windows, trying to get at me.
“Is your seat belt on?” he mutters.
“What?”
He floors the gas. We careen into the street and plow through a yellow light. Behind us, Brian and Ryder are rushing back to their taxi, but there’s no way they’ll catch us now.
The old guy exhales slowly and stretches his right hand backward, palm open. “You can put the other twenty right there, son.”
I give him the second bill, and another as we reach the Pico–Century Park intersection.
I get out and run. Near the end of the block, my phone chimes. It’s a text message from Brian—a link to a news story. Before I can click on it, I turn the corner and stop dead.
TV vans are gathering in front of Sabrina’s apartment building. Photographers jostle for position beside the main doors. This isn’t about a drug revelation. This response is reserved for the really big news. The kind that won’t fade over time.
I’ve dealt Brian his ace card. Now he’s playing it.
A dozen paparazzi turn toward me as I approach. Cameras flash, fast as strobe lights. I’m bumped from every direction. I want to hide my face, but I’m only wearing a shirt. I don’t even remember taking off my blazer.
Safe behind the locked glass doors, two doormen watch it all unfold. When I get within a couple yards they drag me inside while keeping the paparazzi at bay.
“What’s happening?” asks the doorman I saw earlier. “There’s this story—”
“Has Sabrina left the building?”
“No. Why?”
I don’t answer. Just take the elevator to the ninth floor and pound on Sabrina’s door. There’s no answer, so I keep going, louder and louder.
The phone rings in my pocket: Annaleigh, or possibly Brian. Doesn’t matter. I’m desperate now—a coiled spring craving release. I kick the door.
A neighbor ventures into the corridor. I scream at him to back the hell away. He hurries inside his apartment, probably to call security.
I don’t care. And I don’t stop.
The frame gives before the lock. It splinters open in an explosion of wood, and the door swings wide. Everything inside looks exactly the same as it did two hours ago. But the stillness feels horribly, frighteningly wrong.
I shout Sabrina’s name. Blunder through the living room and into her bedroom.
She’s lying on her back in bed, seizing. Crooked legs and sweaty mannequin face. Eyes open but seeing nothing. A sick caricature of the girl formerly known as Sabrina Layton.
I run to her. Hold her down to keep her from falling off the bed and hurting herself. Throw up in my mouth and spit bile onto the floor. Call 911 and try to find words. Hold Sabrina and follow the dispatcher as she guides me through the insanity of what I’ve stumbled into.
The dislocated voice on the phone offers nothing but encouragement as I try to breathe life through Sabrina’s blue lips. With the seizures over, she’s deathly still, locked inside that body where all the tears in the world can’t reach her. Between breaths I yell at her. I swear at her over and over, until one of the doormen drags me away and the neighbor takes over for me.
I watch the scene play out as if I’m not even there. My brain is somewhere far away, trying desperately to create a new scenario in which I’m not responsible. But my heart tells a different story.
Now you get to be the bad guy.
I am the bad guy.
I let this happen.
I close my eyes and pray that Sabrina will live. That she’ll return from wherever her brain has retreated. That one day, she’ll forgive me.
The EMTs arrive and the scene grows simultaneously busier and more orderly. They have a calm about them. Their consciences are clean. A woman even crouches down beside me on the floor as the others cart Sabrina’s unconscious body to the elevator. She asks me if I’m okay. If I need anything.
I don’t answer, but what I really want to say is: I need not to be me anymore.
I don’t know how long I stay on Sabrina’s bedroom floor. The police arrive and ask me questions—not because of the overdose, but because the neighbor called them about a disturbance. Breaking and entering. I tell them the truth. That I stayed overnight after Sabrina checked herself out of rehab. That I returned this morning to take her back to the center. That one of the doormen mentioned a breaking story, and I was afraid of how it might affect her, so I smashed the door down.
A woman asks me if there are any other drugs in the apartment. I look around the room, wondering if Sabrina kept stashes everywhere. Instead I see my blazer. I must’ve left it behind in my haste to leave. Thoughtful Sabrina hung it from the back of her door—didn’t want it getting creased as she overdosed.
The pill bottle I stuffed inside the pocket is empty.
The doormen, on high alert now, escort me out the back of the building. There isn’t a taxi around, but no matter. I need to run. To gasp for air. To hurt.
I’m only vaguely aware of the streets as I pound out block after block, but I must know where I’m going. How else would I end up at the office building?
I beat at the door until my knuckles bleed.
No one answers.
I stalk around the building and peer in throug
h the windows. Every room is empty. Brian and Ryder and Tracie have pulled out. Cleaned up so thoroughly there’ll be no trail, no hint of what went on here for a couple twisted weeks in late December.
I slump beside the main door. Pull my knees up and hold on tight as I shudder. I’m drenched in sweat and tears. The pain I longed for is here, but it’s not enough. It can’t make me forget.
The phone chimes. I pull it out and read: Checkout time is 12PM. You overstay, you pay.
I’m up and running again. I know where I’ll find them.
46
BRIAN, RYDER, AND TRACIE ARE INSIDE my room, lounging on the sofa and armchair. Gant is there too, looking nervous as hell.
“Join us, Seth.” Brian waves a slip of paper through the air. “We come bearing gifts.”
So here it is: my long-awaited payout. I’ve earned that money too—through blood and tears, both mine and others’.
“It’s not the full amount, of course,” says Tracie, “but technically we owe you nothing. Last night’s party was a contractual obligation.”
Seeing the check makes me sick. I would sacrifice anything to make Brian feel the pain I feel. The pain that Sabrina’s feeling still.
Unless she’s dead.
“I must say, I’m not so happy to see your brother here, though,” continues Brian. “I enjoyed our first meeting at the office, Gant. Enough that I took you home—tried to keep you out of this. Then you broke into our office, and I still let you off the hook.” Brian clicks his tongue. “There’s a saying: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time, it’s enemy action. Now, give me the recorder.”
Gant tries to hide his surprise, but it’s obvious that Brian knows everything.
“As Seth will confirm,” says Brian, sounding bored, “we heard your conversation this morning. Through another phone, to be specific. Which is how we know you just bought a recording device. And I can promise you this conversation won’t get interesting until you hand it over.”
Gant knows he’s beaten. He pulls the recorder from his pocket and tosses it onto the floor.