“I went to therapy for a while,” she divulges as she clutches my hand. Her fingers are trembling and I notice that just below the scar on her wrist is a tattoo: never forget. I wonder what it means, what she doesn’t want to forget. “It was kind of helpful…it made me realize that I was running away from my problems instead of facing them. All the stuff I did…the drugs, how I cut my wrist, all of it was because I wasn’t dealing with Landon…my boyfriend’s death.” She says it like it’s so easy to talk about and I have no idea what the f**k is going on. I mean I remember her telling me her boyfriend had taken his own life, but she was bawling her eyes out and now she looks so calm. I remember the scar on her wrist, too, but she never flat-out said she did it herself until now.
“That’s good,” I say, not sure what else to say. What I want to do is just hug her, feel her, be the kind of person to comfort her, but I can’t do that to her—offer her this revolting ghost version of myself. “I’m really glad for you.”
“It is good,” she agrees, stroking the back of my hand with her finger. The feel of her skin on mine makes me shudder and I don’t know why. I’m numbed by drugs. I shouldn’t feel anything, yet I do. I feel everything. The heat of the sun. The slightest variation in our body temperatures, the soft coolness of the air as it hits my cheek. How much I want to kiss her.
“It made me realize who I was and what I wanted out of life…I want to live and I mean really live, not just go through life in a daze. And I want to help people who were going through the same thing I went through…people who won’t ask for help when they need it.” She pauses. “I actually spent a lot of time volunteering for a suicide hotline, helping people.”
“That’s really great.” I’m happy she’s made a life for herself, one where she can use her good heart to help people. “I’m so glad you moved on from all this shit…” I glance down at my bruised and scarred chest and my scraped-up hand, markings of who I am now. “I’ve always told you that you didn’t belong in our world.”
“I don’t think anyone really does,” she says with all honesty. “I just think that sometimes people think that they do.”
I press my free hand to the side of my head as it begins to throb. She’s messing with my head and it’s giving me a headache. It’s like her words have a hidden meaning, yet I can’t figure it out what it is.
“I don’t agree with that,” I say, still holding her hand even though I know I should let go. Just a little bit longer. Just a few more minutes of warmth before I step into the cold. “I think that sometimes people do terrible things and deserve to rot and die.”
She winces, her breath catching, but she quickly gathers herself and scoots closer to me on the seat. “You didn’t do anything terrible.”
I clamp my jaw tightly and pull my hand away. “You have no idea of the things I did…what I’ve done.”
“So tell me,” she says, like it’s that easy when it’s not. “Let me understand you.”
“You can’t—no one can. I already told you this. No one can help me who’s alive, anyway.” Remorse skyrockets through me as I accidentally let the truth slip, but there’s no taking it back. Sometimes, when I’m really high, at that point where I almost feel detached from my body, I think that maybe Lexi can help me, even though she’s dead. Sometimes when I get that far gone, she doesn’t feel dead—or maybe it’s that I don’t feel alive—and I swear she can hear my thoughts, almost touch me. She tells me that it’s okay. That she forgives me and loves me, like she did yesterday when I was getting beaten up. But the comfort is only brief, since when I come out of my daze, I realize that it wasn’t real and that no one will ever forgive me. That I’m a junkie who killed two people and there’s no changing that.
“Quinton, you’re not alone,” Nova says, her eyes watering as she inches closer to me, looking like she feels sorry for me. I want the look to go away so goddamned bad I’m considering shouting at her, but then she gets close enough that her bare knee touches the side of my leg. “And if you’ll talk to me, you might be able to realize that. That you’re not alone. That people care…that I care.”
Heat swelters me—her heat. I feel it. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt anything and I want to jump out the door and run, yet I want to melt into her, too. I can’t think straight. I need her to stop this. Need her to stop trying.
“What if I told you I killed someone?” I say, hoping that maybe it’s what will finally cut the ties…the connection between us that needs to be severed. “Would you still want to understand me then? Would you still care about me?”
She winces and I think, There you go. Now are you scared? Now do you want to understand me?
“I don’t believe that,” she tells me, quickly composing herself.
“But I did,” I say in a low voice, leaning in. “I took two lives, actually.”
“Not on purpose, I’m sure.” She barely seems worried and it annoys me because I don’t understand the reaction. Everyone around me told me what I f**kup I was, how much I messed up, how much I ruined everything. And she’s just sitting here, looking at me like it’s perfectly okay.
“No, but it was still my fault.” My voice cracks, revealing that I’m not really okay with talking about this, just pretending.
“Not necessarily,” she insists and then shifts so she’s pretty much sitting on my lap, her knees on mine, her back against the dashboard so she’s looking at me straight on and I seriously forget how to breathe. The sensation is so intense that it actually hurts, in my chest, my gut, my heart, what’s left of my broken, insignificant soul. “I think that maybe you think it was your fault, but I know that sometimes blaming yourself is the only way to deal.” She places her hand on my cheek and I feel a spark of life inside me, one I thought had burned out a long time ago.
“That’s not what I’m doing…I don’t even deal with it.” I pause, wondering how she got me to say that aloud when she doesn’t even know what the heck I’m talking about. I’ve been so shut down for months and now she shows up and I can feel that pull to life again. I’ve taken a breath again and it’s time to return to my drowning because I can feel the painful prickle of memories surfacing. What death felt like on my hands; Lexi’s blood, my own, the guilt, all still memories decaying inside me.