by Kobe Bryant
The guy on the couch gets to do it, though. More than that, even; I watch as he slides his hand inside the girl’s shirt, and his hand stays there, just rubbing and touching, making these really small circles on skin I can’t see but can intimately imagine. The girl moans a little and I can’t help myself; I stop and stare. I stare at them until I get self-conscious about the staring and the fact that people are whispering all around me.
Whispering about me.
I walk away, with my eyes glued to the floor and my cheeks on fire and sweat pooling down my back. I stumble into a different room, the kitchen, and the place is wrecked. Food is piled everywhere, and I sidestep what appears to be a spilled bowl of fruit salad. Someone hands me a bottle of Wild Turkey like it’s a trophy, only I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. I don’t want to ask, so I pour some into a plastic cup. When the cup’s nearly full, I dump in what I can from a bottle of diet cream soda to cover up the taste and the smell and even though I know better, I’m also desperate and I drink the whole thing as fast as possible.
I drink more after that because my heart’s pounding and besides, isn’t alcohol supposed to get you to relax? That’s not a skill set I have or value normally, and the Wild Turkey does tame my nerves a hair. The physical stuff, at least, but my mind is unstoppable, churning with an overabundance of data. My goal is to find her, but all I can think about is the fact that I was only invited to this party as a way to keep me from snitching. No one wants me here and why would they? I’m in the middle of pouring another drink as more people crash into the kitchen, flooding the room with laughter, and I cringe a little, realizing that they’re from Acalanes, my old high school.
“Hey,” I say, because it’s the polite thing to do. But the newcomers ignore me. They’re too focused on getting their own cups, their own drinks. A girl I know from chemistry class—we were partners last year—bumps my elbow at some point, sloshing my drink onto my shirt.
She turns, giggles. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I say, but she’s turned away already and there’s no flicker of recognition in her eyes.
For a moment I stay where I am, leaning against the center island like it’s keeping me from being lost at sea. But the divide in the room is clear. There’s them.
And there’s me.
Everything starts to spin. I grab my cup and bolt, ricocheting down a hallway I don’t recognize in pursuit of fresh air. Apparently this is what being drunk is like, and I don’t know where the relaxed and happy idea comes from. That’s the opposite of how I feel, but maybe it’s me that’s not working properly, not the booze, so I really shouldn’t be pointing any fingers.
There are too many stairs in this house. I go down a floor and find myself in some hot-as-Hades utility room where a bare lightbulb swings from the ceiling and someone’s DJ-ing and I think people are getting ready to rap. My instinct is to back out of there quickly, but before I do I catch sight of Raheem and Caleb of all people standing in the corner. The two of them glance up together, catch my eye, and I know they see me. Caleb leans in to whisper something in Raheem’s ear and they both break out laughing.
Fuck. I march back up the stairs and then go up another flight. I pass a girl crying on the stairs and another girl attempting to console her. I peer at them both, to see if I know them. One of the girls has curly red hair—not the crying one—and she reminds me of Lynette from grief group, the one who let her little brother slip beneath the water in his bath when she ran to get a towel. But it can’t be her. She’s too young for all this. Is it her? The staircase is too dark and it’s too hard to make out faces. I creep closer, hoping for a better look, and that’s when one of the girls hisses at me, like an actual cat, and I scamper away, stumbling, spilling more of my drink.
Upstairs is worse. It’s a wide room with sliding doors that open to a foggy deck adorned with burning candles. Hundreds of them. Everyone turns and looks at me, like maybe this is some sort of VIP area or a place losers like me aren’t meant to access. At this point, I’m too freaked to keep running up and down the stairs, so I huddle in the hallway, cup in hand, with my back glued to the wall, and I let the pulsing bass from two floors below vibrate through my body.
Then Vince finds me. I don’t know how this happens. One minute I’m alone and the next he’s standing in the hallway with me, laughing and pouring something else into my cup.
“Drink!” he says. And I do.
“When the fuck did you get here?” he hollers.
“Not that long ago,” I say. “Nice house!”
“Thanks. I thought you weren’t interested in coming!”
I shrug.
“You always this shy, Bennett?” Vince shouts.
“I think I’m drunk,” I shout back. “It’s not shyness.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t mean now. I mean all the time. The guys are always wondering what’s up, you know? Like you never hang with us. We’re not cool enough for you or something?”
“That’s not it,” I say. “I just want to do well in Vancouver. It’s important to me. It’s everything.”
Vince leans his shoulder against the wall. “Doing well is important to me, too. Doesn’t mean you can’t have friends.”
“But we’re—we’re competitors,” I say, surprising myself with my honesty. “How can we be friends?”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
A loose smile breaks across Vince’s face. “Nah, man. We’re teammates. We’re a team. We all help each other out. Got it?”
I nod vigorously, but um, no, I don’t get it. Vince’s words sound stupid, like the kind of shit people say but never mean. At the end of the day, only one of us is going to hit that wall first and it might as well be me. It will be me. But I know better than to speak my mind right then, because the truth is, I feel a whole lot better standing drunk in the hallway with Vince than I did when I’d been standing here alone. So maybe being close to people isn’t such an awful thing.
Or is that just mediocrity talking?
I rub my chest. God. Life isn’t supposed to be this hard. Parties are supposed to be fun. Everyone always acts like they’re the best thing ever. Like they’re just what you do when obligations like school and studying and practice don’t get in the way, because why the hell would you be doing anything else? But I don’t know. To me, this is work. Swimming’s easy compared to this. Winning’s easy, too.
Vince takes a long swallow from his cup. Smacks his lips loudly.
“So what’re you drinking?” I ask, because I need grounding, an anchor. The floor beneath me feels like it’s sliding away.
“Screwdriver,” Vince says. “That’s—”
“Vodka and orange juice,” I finish. “My mom drinks those.”
“Yeah? What’s she like?”
“A total bitch.”
Vince laughs and tips his cup at me.
I take this as an invitation to keep talking. “She hates me, you know. She used to tell me that when I was a kid.”
“That’s messed up.”
“She only ever loved Danny and my sister sort of, but she treats me like shit. Always has. My whole fucking life.”
“Why?”
“Because I killed my father.”
Vince nods and laughs again. He’s not looking at me, I realize. No, a pretty girl walking back from the bathroom is coming right toward him. She stops, leans against the wall. The girl has swaying hair, swaying hips, and a crop top that shows off her belly and stretches across her chest in a heartbreaking way.
She says something to Vince and he says something back. Soon he’s touching her, and I watch, baffled, as he sets his hand on her wrist and strokes her skin like it’s nothing. Soft skin, it looks so soft. I don’t get how Vince has the nerve to do it, but in response, the girl tosses her hair and smiles. I stare at both of them, but
I also don’t want to stare. I haven’t forgotten what happened earlier when I saw that couple making out on the couch and the way it made me feel.
The way people had started to whisper.
My head’s spinning again, and soon there are two Vinces, then four, then six. Overhead a light flickers, and Vince and the pretty girl keep spinning and spinning and spinning. Then it must be the Wild Turkey doing stuff to me because I physically can’t keep from speaking my mind.
“I’m haunted,” I say out loud.
“What was that, Bennett?” Vince asks.
“I think I’m being haunted.”
66.
Someone is after me.
Or something.
I steal a glance over my shoulder, into the cold night. My breath comes in short bursts, tight puffs of white air. I see nothing behind me except shadows, but I heard the footsteps. I know this. Or maybe not footsteps, exactly, but . . . almost. I turn back around and walk faster. I’ve made it down the drive and into the street, and my car can’t be far. I have to be getting close, although it’s hard to tell in all the soupy haze. It feels as if I’ve been walking in this frigid air forever. Initially leaving the party had felt good, like freedom, like I could breathe again, even though my legs are wobbly and my stomach kind of hurts. I didn’t tell Vince I was leaving, but he wouldn’t care. Why would he? He was still with that girl, pressed up against the wall, screwdriver gripped tightly in one hand, and the rest of my teammates, well, I have no clue where they might be. And I really don’t care.
God, why did I say that about being haunted?
A little voice inside my head answers.
(because it’s true.)
I keep moving, but my stomach starts to hurt more, like a sharp pain.
Don’t get sick, I tell myself. Please. Just keep walking, keep walking.
I look over my shoulder again.
Still nothing. Just shadows. Black ones. But as my jittery gaze darts across the foggy asphalt, something moves. I gasp. Whatever it is, its movement is almost inky, a shadow coming to life, oozing down the path, heading straight for me.
I turn and bolt. And run right into somebody.
“Gus!” she says brightly. “I found you.”
I’m too startled to speak but I know who it is and I don’t know how she found me or even why she might have been looking in the first place. She is looking for me, right? That’s what it means to want to find someone, although it also means I’ve been lost.
I think I’m still lost.
“Lainey,” I manage. And there’s so much more I need to say, so much inside me that’s been stuck for so long, waiting for this moment I never believed would come. The words don’t come, though, and I just stare at her, frozen.
“What’s wrong?” she asks. “You look weird.”
“S-someone was chasing me.”
“Someone?”
“Something?”
She peers behind me. “I don’t see anything.”
“I guess it’s gone now,” I say, but I start to shiver. From the cold. From fear. But Lainey’s bolder than I am. She takes me in her arms and murmurs how damn happy she is to see me.
“I saw you in the kitchen earlier,” she whispers. “But then you ran out and I couldn’t find you again. I was looking everywhere.”
“Why?” I croak.
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why were you looking for me?”
“I’ve wanted to talk to you ever since—you know. I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the funeral. I wanted to so badly but I couldn’t get back in time. Then I thought you’d be at the dedication thing for Danny’s scholarship, but . . .” She trails off, her eyes soft, pooling with tears. “How’re you doing?”
I shake my head.
“I’m sorry. That’s what I wanted to tell you. Not that he’s gone, although I’m sorry for that, too. But how it happened. What you had to go through. That wasn’t fair.”
I shiver more. I can’t explain it, but I’ve waited so long for someone to say what she’s saying and to understand how I feel. That it’s not just that my brother died. And it’s not just that he killed himself.
But how.
Lainey’s the only person who could really understand, I think. She loved him once and he broke her heart, and even after, she still cared for him as a person and as a friend. That drove me crazy, but she was my friend, too, and I’ve always loved her. I’ve never stopped. Not since the moment I met her when Danny brought her home after practice one night. I was thirteen and she was seventeen, and together we sat on the back porch while he showered and changed. That’s a night I’ve never forgotten. Beneath the stars and the moon, we talked for what felt like hours about siblings and loneliness and our shared love of solitude. From then on, Lainey went out of her way to be my friend. Even when Danny told her not to bother because I was sullen and callous and would probably grow up to be a serial killer, and that’s if I was lucky. Anyway, I know there’s no hope for any romantic connection between us—there never has been—but the longer she hugs me, holds my body to hers, I can’t help but want.
“Gus,” she whispers again. “Oh, sweet boy. You didn’t do anything wrong, okay?”
But I did, I want to tell her.
“You don’t deserve this. You don’t have to hate yourself.”
But I do.
“Do you miss him?” I ask.
“Every day.”
“But why? You weren’t even together when . . .”
“He should be here. He had his whole life ahead of him.”
“He didn’t want his life.”
“He was sick. Very, very sick. You know that as well as I do.”
I grit my teeth. Close my eyes. And it’s the strangest thing. I can hear the footsteps again. The ones following me earlier. I hear them. Growing louder. Getting closer. Only I’m fairly certain that if I were to turn around, there would be nothing there. That the footsteps are coming from inside me.
I shudder. Back away.
“Shhh,” Lainey says. “Gus. It’s okay. Stay with me. You’re doing fine. You’re fine. However you feel, it’s okay.”
But I can’t stay. That’s the thing. That’s what’s wrong. What’s always been wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, and I am. What’s wrong. I really, really am.
Sorry.
67.
I’m driving again, which is beyond stupid and I know that, but I have to get out of here. I shouldn’t have come in the first place. I shouldn’t have let my guard down and invited weakness into my life. This is what temptation gets you. Wanting to touch some goddamn flame whose heat was never mine to begin with.
Fuck.
Forgive me, Lainey.
Please forgive me.
The fog’s cleared enough that the road is visible, and I throw on my high beams as I make my way back down into the canyon below. My stomach’s knotting and my hands are sweating and this, this is what I get for taking my eyes off the prize, for not keeping swimming a hundred percent in my focus. That voice is in my head again, the one I heard earlier, and it’s whispering other, worse things now:
Jerk the wheel.
And
You’re worthless.
And
Go ahead and do it, you pussy. Follow in Danny’s fucking footsteps already.
And finally
Isn’t that what you want?
Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?
“No,” I snarl, and maybe it’s crazy but I’m already past the point of no return, and I know what it is that I need to do. I know what will get these fucking voices out of my head once and for all and keep me where I need to be.
Upon reaching the bottom of the canyon, I pull over and leave the engine idling. It’s easy enough to lean across to the passenger side,
although the damn car slides forward and I panic, flailing for the brake.
Heart pounding, I put the damn thing in park, reach for the glove compartment, and grab what I’m looking for: the envelope Danny left behind. I plug the address into my phone’s GPS—ignoring the fact that my mom’s called like eight times in the past couple hours—and then I’m heading for the highway and I don’t look back. That’s how eager I am to leave that bullshit party far, far behind me.
68.
Alamo. I’m heading to Alamo.
This is the reverse trip my father made on the day he died, and it’s the one I’m making now in order to stay alive. Okay, that’s dramatic, but it’s also how I feel and even though I’m not one to put much stock in shit like signs or coincidences, this has all the makings of destiny.
How could it not?
Unlike that long-ago day when I put my mother in the hospital before I was even born, there’s no traffic this time of night. Nothing to slow me down or keep me from my fate. The foothills are on my right, hulking shadows against the gloomy sky. There’s no moon. No nothing but the dim lights of the cars in front of me and the occasional fluorescent strip-mall glow. I ride the fast lane out through Walnut Creek, Danville, and finally into Alamo, a suburb known for its ostentatious wealth and giant homes, and no, I don’t worry about getting pulled over, getting busted, losing fucking everything I ever thought I had. I’m invisible tonight.
I know this.
I know this to be true.
It’s exactly what’s brought me here.
69.
The navigation system tells me what exit to get off at and where to go. The streets in Alamo are different than Lafayette’s crooked and abstract tree-lined ones. Here the boulevards are wide, well-lit, clean, and predictable. Trees are planted in measured increments and rather than just street names at every corner, each neighborhood has its name written on a plaque with curly letters. Windemere. Stone Valley. West Gate. Alamo Meadows.