I bite at my lips. “So you don’t blame him for…for the accident? Like your parents do?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve never really looked at it like that. Yeah, it kind of made me angry the first few times I saw him after I lost my sister, but at the same time, I got that it was an accident. He wasn’t drunk or high or anything. Shit just happened. It was no one’s fault.” He pauses, rubbing his hand tensely down his face. “Besides, if it wasn’t for Quinton I wouldn’t even be here right now, I don’t think…he called the ambulance when I OD’d…he did CPR…” He trails off, seeming distracted by the memories. “And he tried so hard to save me even before that. Get me to stop doing stupid shit. Tell me that I was better than it…help my sorry ass when I got us into trouble.”
God, what I would give for Quinton to be here and hear that. I wonder if he’d see it that way—that he saved a life. Not took one. That he did good. Helped someone. “You could tell Quinton all that,” I say. “We just have to find him.”
He turns his head for a moment and I’m pretty sure he’s wiping away tears. But I don’t say anything and when he turns around to me, his eyes are dry. “You know, you’re one of the most determined people I’ve ever met,” he says.
“Not determined enough,” I say, thinking about how I left Vegas—left Quinton there.
“Hey.” He puts a hand on my knee and I flinch. “You staying there wouldn’t have done any good. Like I said, Quinton needs to stop blaming himself before anything can change, and realize there are people that care about him. And even then he still has a lot of shit to work through.”
“Do you think there’s still hope?” I ask. “For him? That he could still get better?”
I hold my breath as I wait for the answer and I swear it takes hours when really it’s probably only seconds. He nods and I breathe again.
“I think as long as he’s alive still, there will always be hope,” he says softly. “And if we could get him sober, or at least give him an intervention and get him to a place where he could get sober, like my parents did with me, then maybe he could start working on forgiving himself.”
It grows quiet between Tristan and me, as soundless as that day I spent with Quinton on the roof. I wonder if it’s quiet where he is, if he’s enjoying the quiet, or if he even realizes it is quiet. I wonder if he has a roof over his head. I wonder if he’s eaten anything. I wonder if he still looks at things from an artist’s point of view. I wonder if he still draws. I wonder if he still thinks about me.
There are so many things I wonder but the biggest question I’ll always have is if he’s okay.
Quinton
I have lost track of time. I can’t remember what month it is, what day. I can barely tell it’s night. I’m down to my last pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I lost one of my shoes somewhere, but I can’t remember where. I’ve barely had any water to drink in days and I’m starting to feel it, a slow ache in my throat and belly, but I can’t bring myself to leave the roof, so I stay up there most of the time. Nancy complains about me being a lazy-ass junkie, leaving it to her to make all the money, dealing and whoring herself out. I always tell her to go and I wish she would so I’d finally rot all the way into nothing, yet she always comes back and keeps me going when I’m on the verge of dying.
Nancy’s been on her cell phone for a while, something she came back with the other day, telling me it’d help her with her clients, but I look at it as money wasted on the phone and the stupid card she paid for to get minutes. We’re getting low on our stash, only a hit or two left, and she’s trying to find more for cheap. She’s yammering away in the background, but her voice is barely there as I stand on the edge of the roof, staring down at the vacant houses and stores below, the wind against my back and my arms out to the sides. I don’t have a shirt on or shoes and my pants barely stay up at my hips. There’s hardly anything left to me, but I’m still here, wasting away.
One more step and I could be free. One more step and I could finally just fall and crash to my death. The lights would go off. The guilt would be gone. This personal hell that I live in would end.
“Why the hell are you always standing on the edge of the roof?” Nancy weaves around the signs and walks up to me with the phone in her hand.
“Because I’m wondering if I can fly.” I shut my eyes and breathe the air in, freedom just in front of me if I dare take it.
“Don’t be crazy.” She grabs my arm and pulls me down from the edge. “You’re just tripping. If you’ll relax for like five minutes, I can get you another hit ready and you’ll feel better.”
I stumble to get my balance as I turn around to face her. “But we’re running out.”
“I found us more,” she says, backing toward her backpack in the middle of the roof and stopping near the VIVA LAS VEGAS sign. She’s not wearing shoes and some guy hacked off her hair while she was passed out so it barely touches her chin. “But do you have any cash left on you at all?”
Even though I know I don’t, I still take my wallet out of my back pocket and open it up. Then I tip it upside down and dump the contents onto the ground: a few quarters, my driver’s license, which I thought I’d lost, and a piece of paper. Nancy quickly gets down on her knees and snatches up the quarters, then hands me my driver’s license. She picks up the piece of paper and starts to throw it to the side.
I grab hold of her arm, stopping her. “Wait a minute.” I pry the piece of paper out of her hand and open it up. A phone number is scrawled on it so I fold it back up and put it back into my wallet, before stuffing my wallet back into my pocket.
“What the hell was that?” she asks me, rubbing her arm where I grabbed her.
“Nothing.” I don’t say anything else as I sit down on the roof, trying not to think about whose phone number it is. I don’t need to think of her—can’t feel those emotions again. Can’t go back to that place. I need to stay here.
“Okay then.” Nancy looks at me like I’m crazy, but she’s pretty much on the same page at this point, ready to lose her mind if she doesn’t get a bump or two. “How about we get you taken care of and then you can relax while I go get us a better stash?” She squats down beside her bag and opens it up.