I didn’t help Quinton. I didn’t save him. I didn’t do anything. Just like I didn’t save Landon.
And now Quinton could be dead.
Dead…
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
The word echoes in my head, but all I can hear are my sobs and the quietness around me. Like no one but me exists anymore.
Like I’ve lost everyone.
Quinton
“Did she leave?” I ask as Nancy walks back into the room, letting her robe fall to the floor, wearing nothing but a pair of lacy panties.
“The girl? Or the crazy ass**le screaming upstairs?” she asks. “Bernie is losing his mind.”
“I don’t care about Bernie…I just need to know that Nova left.” When I saw her pull up, I just about lost it and went out to her. But what good would it have done? I’d just be giving her a reason to keep coming around to this place, seeing me, dragging herself down.
It’s better for everyone if I disappear.
I shove down the emotions prickling inside me, the ones I’ve been working really hard to bury over the last twenty-four hours. I focus on drawing along the piece of crinkled-up paper I found on the floor, lines and shapes that mean more than I’ll ever admit.
“She left,” Nancy tells me, climbing onto the mattress beside me. She rests her head on my chest and her touch brings me nothing but coldness but it matches the deadness inside me so I let it be. “She was crying for a while out in the parking lot, though.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, refusing to look at my drawing of Nova and me dancing out in front of the gas station. So perfect. So real. I wish I could have that moment back again, and the one in front of the roller coaster, when we felt each other’s heartbeats. But I know I’ll never be able to. No more goodness. No more light in my life. What happened to Tristan reminded me what I’m supposed to be—what I deserve.
“She’s really pretty.” Nancy pushes up from my chest and looks down at the drawing. “I wish someone would draw me like that.”
I know she’s hinting at me to draw her, but I won’t. It took a lot for me to draw Nova and I only got there because she means something to me. But after I’m finished with the drawing, I’m going to destroy it, and force myself to forget about everything that’s happened between us. I’m not going to feel anything for Nova anymore. I’m going to go back to holding on to Lexi, like I should have been doing this entire time. If Nova doesn’t know where I am, then I can’t give in to the pull I feel toward her and she can’t give in to the pull she for some reason feels toward me. She’ll be safer if I stay away. And even though she can’t see it now, she’ll be happier never knowing that a piece of shit like me fell in love with her.
Now I just need to figure out a way to forget her—forget about life. About my emotions…the love I’m fairly certain I feel for her. I just want to escape it all and go back to living my promise to Lexi, continually seeking forgiveness from her, knowing I’ll never get it and that eventually I’ll die and never have to feel a thing again.
“How’s Tristan doing?” I ask, trying to distract myself from where I am and who I’m with. “You called the hospital, right?”
“Yeah, it was a pain in the ass to get them to release any information, but the nurse was spacey and I told her I was his aunt,” she says. “They said he’s still in recovery.”
“I still wonder what he took,” I say, knowing it’s beside the point. No matter what he took, he almost died and I almost wasn’t there to help him. “He was always mixing shit.”
“Does it really matter? What matters is that he’s going to be okay.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I mumble. “And at least his parents are headed here and hopefully they’ll take him home with them.” I really hope they do. It took a lot for me to make that phone call, but after the paramedics got him breathing again, I knew I had to do it—had to help him the only way I could. So when the ambulance drove off, red and blue lights flashing, I made a call I didn’t want to make and everything that I expected to happen did. His mom blamed me when I told her Tristan overdosed, said it was my fault because I was a bad influence on him and that he was doing drugs because he lost his sister and that he was hurting inside. And she’s right.
Everything is all my fault and I just want to stop feeling it, go back to killing myself one hit at a time.
“And you’ll go with him?” Nancy asks as she leans back against the wall and observes me. “When he goes back home?”
I keep drawing because it’s the only thing that’s keeping me hanging on. Motions. Simple lines. A task to keep my thoughts centered. “No…I don’t have a home.”
“Then what? You’ll just stick around? With me?”
I don’t answer and silence drifts by. I can tell I’m making her uneasy. I’m not even sure whether she wants me to say yes or no but she keeps wiggling around and then finally she crawls down to the bottom of her mattress. “Are you about ready to try this?” she asks.
I force the nervous lump down in my throat, continuing to move the pencil across the paper. “You sure that it’ll help me forget everything?”
She smiles at me as she returns to my side with a box in her hand. “Baby, it’ll make you feel like a god.” She opens the box and starts to take my hand.
I jerk away. “But will it help me forget?” I need her to say yes before I commit. “I want to forget. All of this.”
She pulls out a folded-up white piece of paper and a syringe. “Sweetie, this will give you all of your heart’s desires and more. You’re not even going to be able to think about forgetting because you’re not going to be able to think.”
I nod, still focusing on my drawing, nervous, thinking about the last time needles entered me and all it did was f**k me up more by bringing me back to life. Hopefully this time it’ll take my life away. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
She smiles elatedly. “You won’t regret it.” She removes a spoon and lighter from the box, along with a rubber band, then starts working to melt the smack with the lighter. I keep drawing through the entire process, trying not to think about it, because if I do I’ll chicken out and then I’ll be left stuck in my thoughts and I need quiet.
When Nancy says she’s ready for me, I take the lighter from her hand, then lean over to the side, hold the paper out, and light it on fire. I watch it burn into black ash that flutters to the floor, feeling my memories fade with it, and soon I hope they’ll be gone. Lexi. Nova. Tristan. My guilt. Me.