I ROLLED THE TOWEL up under my bedroom door, blocking the smell from reaching the rest of the house. I lit up the joint and sucked it in.
Blessed relief.
Through the door, I heard Annabelle downstairs, watching an annoying kid’s show, one of the ones with the ridiculous songs and dancing animals.
I’d skipped school today with Tray because we’d had to meet his dealer to get more weed. With two of us smoking, his stash had run out quicker than usual. I bought my own today, though, so I was set for a while. If I smoked it in combination with my mother’s Xanax, it helped.
It calmed my nerves, and it gave me the sense, if only temporarily, that I was going to be fine. There was nothing to worry about.
I lay on my back in the middle of the bed and stared at my ceiling fan. It was always the first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning, including that morning. The morning Dad and I went to Notre Dame.
If only I could go back in time and change that day. We’d never have gone.
But I couldn’t do that. It was impossible. All I could do was deal with the fallout now.
I sucked in another drag.
My phone rang, but I ignored it. It rang again and again, insistently, but whoever it was could wait.
I was doing something important here. I was saving my sanity.
I closed my eyes and rested. I was floating on a cloud of smoke, away from here. If I imagined hard enough, that was where I was.
But then there was a knock at my door, and anger flared.
“Go away,” I called irritably. But there was another knock, and before I could do anything, my door was pushed open, the towel forced away.
My brother stood there, glaring at me as he sniffed the air.
“Beck, oh my God. What are you doing?”
But he was a smart kid, and once he saw the joint in my hand, he knew. His eyes widened.
“Beck, you’re being stupid.”
He was afraid now, and I was pissed.
“It’s nothing,” I told him. “Mind your own business, Devin. You aren’t even supposed to be in here.”
“I’m not supposed to use the oven,” he reminded me. “I wanted you to put a pizza in.”
“Go ask Mom.” I snapped this, and it was ridiculous because she hadn’t made dinner in months and we both knew it.
“Oh, I’ll go talk to Mom,” he assured me, and his face was determined. “About a lot of things.”
He turned to leave, and I called his name to stop him, but he didn’t. Whatever.
I shrugged to myself.
Mom wouldn’t do shit.
She wasn’t present enough for that.
I opened my window to air out my room, sprayed a few squirts of cologne, then banged down the stairs to leave. Anywhere but here.
I turned my key and started driving.
nine
NATALIE
MERCY HOSPITAL
5:01 A.M.
I HOLD MY SON’S HAND, AND as I do, I examine it. In between his fingers, there are strange bruises. It occurs to me, all of a sudden, that they are needle marks.
“He was injecting into his fingers,” I say, and I’m stunned, frozen. If only I could fix this. If only I could fix him. God.
“You can’t,” Sam tells me, as though she can read my thoughts. “You can’t change anything. All you can do is be what he needs now, Nat. He needs you here, and he needs you to support him when he works through this.”
“When he wakes up,” I answer.
She nods. “When he wakes up.”
She doesn’t say if, and I am grateful.
I sit back in my seat and watch while the door opens and the doctor comes back in. He assesses Beck, scribbles in his chart, and starts to leave. I stop him with my hand on his arm and a pleading look.
He shakes his head. “There’s no change, Mrs. Kingsley. Keep talking to him.”
“I thought you said he can’t hear.”
The doctor looks away. “It can’t hurt.”
He leaves, and I lay my head against Beck’s arm.
“Stay with me, sweetheart,” I tell him firmly. “I’m here now.”
I won’t leave again.
* * *
MY BEDROOM WAS DARK, just the way I liked it, when Dev came in. He was hesitant because he didn’t want to disturb me. Out of all three of my kids, he was the one who was born considerate. If he could’ve, he would’ve apologized in the delivery room for being two days late.
“Mom?” His voice was quiet now.
“Yeah, honey?”
Devin walked to the side of the bed, and I could see that his face was worried. I sat up, alarmed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Beck. He’s smoking, Mom.”
Oh. That. I already handled that.
“It’s okay,” I answered him, relief spreading through me. “I already took care of that.”
“No, you didn’t,” he answered simply. “He was just smoking pot in his room. Just now.”
Pot?
I stared at him for a long time.
“Honey, he wouldn’t do that.” He knew I couldn’t deal with that. He wouldn’t do that to me.
Devin nodded, though. “I caught him.”
“How would you even know what pot looks like?” I asked him, trying not to be patronizing.
Devin shrugged. “Everyone knows, Mom. Trust me, Beck had it in his room. Can you do something?”
This was ridiculous. Beck was the one who had been feeding the kids for me; he even paid the utility bill for me yesterday. He’d come in and asked for the bank account information. He couldn’t be that responsible and also smoke pot on the side.
“You’re mistaken,” I told Devin plainly. I lay back down, comfortable in my answer. “I’ll talk to him about the cigarettes.”
“Mom,” he said firmly, unwilling to let it go. “Come down to his room. You’ll see for yourself. You’ve got to do something. They aren’t cigarettes.”
All I wanted was to bury my face in Matt’s pillow again, and this conversation was delaying that.
“Devin, let it go,” I told him irritably. “You’re mistaken.”
“I’m not, Mom . . .” he tried to argue. “You’ve got to listen . . .”
“Devin!” I snapped, and I hadn’t spoken to him like this in . . . I’d never spoken to him like this. “Go out. Go to bed. Quit trying to make trouble for your brother.”
Devin closed his mouth, and the expression on his face was so, so injured. I felt bad, but the pain in my heart . . . it was bigger than that. I couldn’t deal with this. Not right now.
“I was just trying to help,” he muttered as he walked out.
I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to go to sleep, to escape this. When I was asleep, nothing hurt anymore, and sometimes, when I was lucky, I dreamed about my husband.
But now I was bothered. I tossed and turned, and finally, about an hour later, I got up. I padded down to Beck’s room and knocked on the door.
No answer.
I pushed the door open and went in.
Everything looked normal. There were books on his desk, his bed was rumpled, his book bag was on the floor with books spilling out the top. I could taste thick cologne in the air, and if he’d really been smoking pot in here, I’d be able to tell, wouldn’t I?
Of course I would.
I turned and went back out, while his curtains from the open window fluttered in the night breeze. I caught a whiff of something, probably cigarette smoke.
When I got back to my room, I texted my son.
I warned you about the cigarettes. If I catch you smoking again, you’re grounded from your car.
He didn’t answer.
I went back to bed.
ten
BECK
MERCY HOSPITAL
5:12 A.M.
THEY SPEAK IN HUSHED WHISPERS.
My mom, Aunt Sammy, the nurses. They talk like they don’t want to disturb me, and that itself is disturbing.
A while ago, I heard Aunt Sammy ask my mom, Where has he been for the past two months? It’s a really good question.
I don’t know. My mind is messed up and I can’t remember.
I’ve been thinking on it, though. My memories are coming back in layers, and it’s frustrating.
Someone picks up my arm and a finger runs down my skin.
“Lord, Nat. The track marks. There are so many.”
Track marks.
Needles.
Fucking-A.
I love my aunt but I want to tell her to shut the hell up. The last thing my mom needs right now is to look at fucking track marks. Jesus.
At the same time, I think on those words. Track marks. I have track marks. How did I get the track marks?
“Hush, Sam,” my mom snaps, and I can hear the scowl in her voice. Good for you, Mom, I think. Don’t listen. I’m not all bad. I did bad things, but I’m not all bad.
Mom takes my arm out of Aunt Sammy’s hand and folds my hand next to my cheek. I feel instantly comforted. It’s how I like to sleep. My belly feels warm that she knows that.
“Vinny will call when the kids wake up,” Sam says. “Should he bring them here?”
God, no, I want to shout. They can’t see me like this.
“They can’t see Beck like this,” my mom says, as though she read my thoughts. “They’d be devastated.”
“But what if . . . what if . . .” Sam doesn’t finish her question, but Mom and I know what she meant. What if I don’t wake up, and Devin and Annabelle never see me alive again?
My mouth tastes like guilt. It’s salty and tastes like rotted metal.
Dev used to look at me like I was king of the field, a hero. Even after he caught me smoking. There’s only so much they can forgive, though. They can’t know everything I’ve done. I don’t want to see what it does to them.
“We’ll see what happens when they bring him out,” my mom finally says, and is she giving up on me? Don’t! I want to shout.
But I can’t.
I can’t make a noise at all.
All I can do is listen.
“It’ll be okay,” Sam assures my mom, but if I don’t know, then she can’t possibly know. “It’ll be okay.”
Someone is crying. The sobs echo throughout the room. It’s my mother. Her breath sucks in over and over, as though time and time again, she can’t draw another. I saw her like this only one time before. At my father’s funeral when his mahogany casket was lowered into the ground. She’d clung to me then, and we’d stood there watching my father sink into the earth.
She’s crying the same way right now. It’s alarming.
“The thought of him being alone this whole time kills me,” Mom says, and her voice is wet.
“You don’t know that he was,” Aunt Sammy reminds her. “We don’t know anything. When he wakes up tomorrow, we’ll ask him.”
“Later today,” my mom corrects her. “Tonight.”
Sammy is quiet and I have no idea what time it is. How much time do I have? I don’t know and it’s fucking ridiculous.
Because as I understand it, they’ve sedated me now and God knows what else. But when they bring me out . . . we’ll know if I’m going to live or die.
I don’t know if I’m ready . . .
Ready to wake up, or ready to die.
Do I have any reason whatsoever to live?
I think on that. And when I do, a name forms in my head.
Elin.
* * *
THERE WAS NOTHING LIKE Friday-night lights in October.
The air was crisp, the sky was dark, and our home bleachers were full of red and white shirts, of devil horns and face paint. The electricity was in the air, the amazing energy of football, the smell of sweat and blood and freshly torn-up field.
In the distance behind me, the cheerleaders were screaming, and I knew Elin was among them, her slender arms straight as arrows while she jumped and cheered.
“Red and white! Red and white! Go, Red Devils!”
In the crowd, people were chanting my name. “King! King! King!”
I was a superhero here; I could do no wrong. It was transcendent.
As I was carried off the field, someone dumped a cooler of Gatorade on me, and I shook the yellow liquid off like a victorious dog, the flecks flying. Everyone laughed, everyone was happy. Of course they were. We won.
In the showers, Tray turned to me, tossing me soap.
“Good game, my man,” he said. “I saw a recruiter for Alabama in the stands. I swear to God. Roll Tide, dude.”
I rolled my eyes because I could afford to. I knew I was being recruited, but that was a given. I was only a junior in high school and could throw seventy yards in my pads. I had a God-given talent, and I wasn’t going to waste it.
I lathered up and got some slaps on the back and a couple on the ass. The locker room was hot and steamy as I washed away the grass and blood. Not my blood, of course. My guys protected me on the field like I was precious cargo.
Once I was clean, I emerged to find Elin waiting for me, just like I knew she would.
“Your parents said they’d see you at home,” she told me as I pulled her in for a kiss. The energy of winning came through my body and channeled into the kiss, electric and hot. She squirmed against me, her body slender. “They said you could stay out ’til one,” she added against my lips.
I smiled.
“Good.”
“You hungry?” she asked when we broke apart and headed for my car. I shook my head.
“Only for you.”
She smiled under the streetlight, and she looked like a fantasy, the fuel of every man’s red-blooded dreams.
We’d talked about it, discussed it, planned it.
After dating for almost two years, tonight was the night.
I’d barely made it out to the bluffs and put my car in park before Elin was in my arms. The smells swirled together—my letter jacket, the leather of the car seats, her perfume, her strawberry shampoo. It was a smell I’d remember forever.
Her hands clutched at me as I pulled her closer.
Everything was fluid, like we’d rehearsed it a thousand times.
We kind of had. We’d gone to the edge a hundred times before, but never over it.
Tonight was different.
I wasn’t sure how we made it to the back seat, but we did. Her mouth was on mine, and we were breathing together, our heartbeats synced.
I traced the ridges of her rib cage, and she whispered in the night, “Are you scared?”
“No,” I answered truthfully. “Are you?”
“No.”
She smiled, her lips curved against my skin, and I knew in this moment that she was all I wanted. She was all I’d ever want.
“I love you,” she told me after I slid inside of her. “You’re mine, Beck.”
“I’m yours,” I breathed into her neck, and Jesus, she felt like heaven. “I’m yours.”
Losing our virginity together was always the plan, but we never knew it would feel like this. That it would seem so momentous, so important.
Afterward, we were sort of in shock as we lay together, curled up in the car. Elin’s hand was on my chest, and my fingers were in her hair. She had a faraway smile on her lips, and I’d never been so happy.
I told her that, and she smiled again.
“I know,” she agreed. “Me either.”
There was another scent in the air now, musky and warm, and I realized that it was sex. I’d remember that smell forever too. Sex, letter jackets, and strawberry shampoo.
“I should get you something to eat,” I told her, but I was reluctant to move, and so was she.
“Wait,” she whispered. “Let’s just . . . one more time, Beck.”
She reached for me and she was so soft, and I’d never get enough of her.
I barely made it home by one.
After dropping Elin off and grabbing a hamburger at a drive-thru, I literally opened my front do
or at 12:59.
My dad was waiting for me, reclined in his favorite chair.
“Good game tonight,” he said, eyeing the fast-food bag in my hand. “You didn’t eat with Elin?”
I shook my head and dropped onto the sofa, wolfing down my burger and fries. “No. We weren’t hungry.”
Dad chitchatted a little bit, but he was yawning. He was starting to get up when I just had to tell him. I had to tell someone because it was so huge.
“I had sex with Elin tonight,” I said.
And the living room went quiet.
“Did you use protection?” Dad asked calmly, staring down at me. His face was unreadable. Was he mad? Was he proud? I couldn’t tell.
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Do you have any questions?” He was uncomfortable now but still doing the fatherly thing.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Okay. Good. Well, if you do, you can ask me. It might be awkward, but still.”
I nodded again. “Thanks.”
“Things will be different now,” he said, and I knew he was right. They already felt different. “Your emotions are going to be even more involved, so be aware of that. Elin’s a good girl, and you need to treat her right. But I know you will.”
I nodded because of course I would.
“I trust you to always do the right thing,” he added. “You’re a good kid, son.”
Yeah, I knew that.
“Thank you.”
“We don’t need to tell your mom this particular thing,” he added, and I physically recoiled at the thought of her finding out. Dad laughed. “Good to see we’re on the same page. Some things don’t need to be announced. Night, bud. I love you.”
He gripped my shoulder.
“Night, Dad.”
I didn’t say I loved him back, because that was corny, but I was pretty sure he knew.
When I went to bed later, I fell asleep with visions of blond hair and long legs wrapped around my hips, and I knew nothing would ever be the same.
eleven
NATALIE
MERCY HOSPITAL
6:21 A.M.
“KIT’S STILL OUT IN THE waiting room,” my sister says. She watches me, but I don’t look. I can’t.