“Give me your arm,” Nancy instructs as I sit upright on the mattress.
I stick my arm out onto her lap, trembling with nervousness, not just because of the needle, but also because of what this means. That I’m going to forget about everything and fully accept that this is what my life will be until I can finally rot away.
“Lie back down and get comfortable,” she tells me, and I obey, lying down on the lumpy mattress, which smells damp and smoky.
Her cold fingers brush my arm as she ties the rubber band and then flicks my skin a few times. “Try to relax.”
Easier said than done. But I try my best and take a deep breath. Then another. Then start sucking in air by the lungful. She shifts toward me, then the tip of the needle stings against my arm. I almost back out, shout at her to stop, but I keep silent and then the needle’s sinking deep into my skin.
“Come back to us, Quinton,” someone whispers. “Open your eyes.”
“No…” I mutter with my eyes shut. “Just let me go…please…”
“Don’t give up on us yet.” I hear the beeping of machines trying to breathe life into me—life I don’t want. I want to stay cold. Feel nothing. Disappear into the stars.
“Please just give up on me,” I beg, but they continue to pump life into me and I know that as soon as I open my eyes, I’ll have to accept that I’m alive and that Lexi’s dead. I wish they’d just let me go. I want to let go. I want to give up, tear my chest open, let it bleed out, but they keep sealing it up.
The needle plunges deeper into my vein and seconds later the smack enters me, potent, toxic, burning through my bloodstream, scorching its way to my heart. I feel a rush where I think about everything all at once and then suddenly I’m falling into the darkness and I can’t remember a single thing. I drift further from everyone still living, and move closer to the people who have left me. The pain disappears. My thoughts and memories disappear. Everything disappears and I disappear right along with it.
Chapter 14
May 28, day thirteen of summer break
Nova
“So it’s been two days since I lost Quinton,” I say to the web camera. My eyes are really large and there are bags under them because I’ve barely slept at all. My hair’s pulled up into a messy bun and I’m still wearing my pajamas. I feel like I’m tottering on the edge of falling, and clawing to hold on. “And I’m not going to lie, I feel like shit, which you can probably see from watching this video…” I trail off, not wanting to concentrate on my looks too much, but I don’t want to concentrate on the other stuff I have to say either. I drag my fingers down my face as a loud breath slips out of my mouth. “God, I don’t even know what the point of recording this is, other than to tell you that I’m giving up—that I can’t see hope anymore…so I’m giving up.” I choke and immediately want to take it back, but I can’t because it’s really happening. “My mom’s here to take me home. I could have fought her more but I think it might be time. Not to give up but to let go…because I can’t handle it like I thought I could…but God it hurts…knowing that I’m about to walk away and he might be out there somewhere hurting or even dead…”
“Are you ready to go, sweetie?” My mom sticks her head into the guest room of Lea’s uncle’s house, where my stuff is packed and ready to go.
I shut the computer. “I guess so.”
She gives me a sad look as she enters the guest room. “Look, Nova, I know that you’re really disappointed that you didn’t get to help your friend, but we can’t make people do things they don’t want to do. Sometimes you can’t help people no matter how much you want to.”
I get up from the chair and bend down to unplug my computer. “I get that, but sometimes it takes another person to wake you up from what you’re doing and make you realize that you want help.”
“Yes, but you can do it by yourself, too,” she says, rounding the foot of the bed. “Like you did.”
I start to wrap the cord around my hand. “I didn’t do it by myself.”
She looks puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I had help,” I say, putting the balled-up cord in my laptop bag. “From Landon.”
She’s even more lost, so I decide to explain. “I watched his video, the one he made before he…before he killed himself, and he said some stuff that sort of woke me up and made me realize I didn’t want to do drugs anymore…made me see what my life had become.” I think Lea’s been trying to make me see what it’s become now, but I’m fighting to open my eyes and accept everything.
She pushes up the sleeves of her shirt. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that…that you watched his video?”
I shrug as I slide my laptop into the bag. “Because I wasn’t ready to talk about it back then.”
“But you are now?”
“I guess.” Honestly, I’m not really sure why I’m telling her unless it’s because I’m emotionally drained. “But you should probably know that I told Quinton first, which I think says a lot about how much I care for him,” I say, zipping up the bag. She opens her mouth to protest, but I cut her off, holding my hand up. “Look, I know you don’t get it and I don’t expect you to, but just trust me when I say that I care for him and I probably won’t ever completely stop caring about him…he’ll always be a part of me.”
“Nova, I understand that you care about him,” she explains, picking up my duffel bag from the floor. “I just don’t want you to be unable to move past this. I don’t want to see you pulled under like you were with Landon’s death, and Lea said things were getting really bad.”
“They were…are,” I admit as I slide the handle of the laptop bag over my shoulder. “But it’s going to be hard to get over this when I have no idea where he is and I was the only one looking out for him, so no one’s going to even try to find him anymore.”
She walks up to me and puts an arm around my shoulder. “Well, we can still keep working on his father. Maybe if we tell him what you told me happened…that he might be hurt and in trouble, he might want to help him a little more,” she says, heading toward the door and guiding me with her. “And maybe we can get Tristan’s parents involved, too.”