We keep walking, and I look at Jake for so long that I almost trip before realizing we’ve reached the stairs. When we get to the top, I drag my feet, forcing him to slow down, and say, “Seriously, do you? Believe in God, I mean.”
A long pause. “You really wanna know?”
“Don’t say that. I hate when people say that. Of course I want to know. That’s why I asked.”
Jake pauses for a bit, considering, and then says, “Sometimes people think they want to know things, but then they hear the answer and realize they’d prefer to be in the dark.”
Vagueness is such an annoying trait. I’m adding it to the ever-expanding list of things that annoy me about him.
He shrugs. “Anyway. No. I don’t. I don’t think the world is meaningless, but if there was ever a God, He’s dead now. More dead than hip-hop.”
I think of Laney’s music tastes, all of the rap she’s made me listen to, like the Roots and Mos Def and that Sri Lankan chick who likes to freestyle about third world countries shooting up rich people.
“Hip-hop is not dead!” I protest. “Don’t speak of that which you do not know.”
“Whatever,” Jake says, and I roll my eyes. He looks at me again. “And what about you?”
“You really wanna know?” I mimic his earlier tone, trying not to stumble again. Balance is a really difficult concept to master at the moment. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably not. Lately all signs seem to point to no.”
I hold out my hands in front of me in two L shapes, like I’m framing an actual sign. The sign that says God Is Dead.
“I have this rule—” he pauses, fumbling with the knob to the house and pushing the door open, all the while holding me up with his other arm “—of not getting into philosophical debates when one party is sober and the other isn’t.”
“Well, then you should’ve gotten drunk. Tequila is good. I mean, it’s revolting, but it’s good. Sort of. Does that make sense?”
“Absolutely none,” he says. “And I don’t drink. Not anymore.”
Not anymore? Interesting. So far I’ve learned that Jake has recently given up a lot of things. Pot smoking, political activism and now alcohol. I’m about to ask him why when I notice Laney on the couch—not alone. Very much not alone. She’s on top of Seth, the two of them rolling around as they make out eagerly, practically eating each other’s faces off in the process.
“Fuck me.” Jake kicks the door shut behind him and sighs. “I do not need to be privy to this.”
Laney and Seth stop devouring each other long enough to flip us off simultaneously before resuming their face-eating activities. I’m scandalized just watching them go at it, all ravenous mouths and roaming hands.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say.
“Tell me about it,” Jake replies sympathetically.
My stomach turns. “No. I mean, I think I’m going to be sick.”
Jake’s face pales, and he rushes me into the bathroom with impressive speed. The next thing I know, I’m on my knees, bent over the toilet with him holding my hair back as I empty out the contents of my stomach. Which aren’t much to begin with: tequila, tequila and more tequila. Lovely.
I retch into the toilet one last time and, exhausted, slump against the seat. From there I slide bonelessly to the linoleum, my cheek flat against cool, soothing tile. My throat burns. I want to push myself back up, but my hand refuses to move.
Stupid hand. Stupid world.
“Yes, the world is stupid,” Jake agrees with a soft laugh.
I don’t even realize I’ve said anything out loud. That means despite my current drunken, post-heaving state, I’m still able to formulate syllables into recognizable words—go, Team Me! On the other hand, I’m doing that thing again, thinking something and saying it out loud without realizing it. Where is my filter?
Suddenly the walls move, the cool, comforting floor sliding away from me. Wait. That isn’t right. Jake has grabbed me by the back of my shirt and hauled me into a sitting position, the sudden movement causing the whole room to spin in a nauseating blur of beige and white. When my gaze focuses again, I see Jake at the sink, wetting down a washcloth under the faucet.
The world is stupid, stupid and unfair. I can’t help but think that June would never have ended up with her head stuck in the toilet after a stupid bender. Or if she had, she would’ve been much more graceful about the whole thing than I am. That’s just the way she always was. She was always better.
“Better at what?”
Crap. Did it again. Damn filter!
“Everything,” I say as I accept the damp washcloth he hands me.
“I highly doubt that.”
I wipe off my mouth and spit a little. “What do you know?”
“Well, you’re better at living,” he reasons. “You’re the one still here, aren’t you?”
For a second I think he’s trying to be purposefully hurtful, to throw that in my face, but when I look up at him, his expression is neutral. The way he said it, too, wasn’t mean. It was just…honest. Like he was merely pointing out an irrefutable fact. Technically he’s right, but that knowledge doesn’t make me feel any better. I might be living, but what have I done with my life? Nothing spectacular.
“Please tell me you’re not a weepy drunk,” he says, when I haven’t responded.
“No.” I fling the washcloth onto the floor. “I don’t cry.”
Jake looks at me, disbelieving. “Ever?”
“Never.”
I stand up slowly, clutching the counter for support. My legs feel all weird and rubbery. I know that the second I step away, I’ll probably fall over myself in a spectacular fashion and end up back on the ground in a heap of limbs. I look helplessly to Jake, who rolls his eyes and takes my arm.
“You’re like an old lady,” he teases as he half carries me into the guest room.
“Yeah, I’m sure you help old ladies cross the street all the time.”
“That is how I like to spend my weekends. That, and luring stranded kittens out of trees.” He grins. “It’s a hobby.”
I make Jake look away while I struggle out of my wet jeans, then collapse onto the bed stomach first. I barely have the energy to kick and crawl my way under the covers. Jake steals the extra pillow, easing onto the floor.
“You’re sleeping there?” I ask, surprised.
“The couch is…otherwise occupied, if you hadn’t noticed,” he says.
I watch as he punches the pillow a few times and places it under his head. He tosses and turns, trying to arrange himself into a comfortable position on the hard wooden slats. It’s painful just to watch. I know I’ll probably regret this later, but.
I sigh and move over on the bed. “Get in.”
He picks his head up off the floor. “What?”
“Get in,” I repeat, impatient, patting the mattress. “Hurry, before my flash of temporary insanity dissipates.”
“How generous of you,” he says sarcastically, but he’s already halfway to his feet.
The bedsprings creak loudly as Jake settles in, his weight causing the mattress to dip a little. I haven’t shared a bed with anyone before, except during sleepovers with Laney, and my mother, when I was, like, five or something and got nightmares all the time. I definitely haven’t shared one with a boy.
Did June ever—with Tyler? Common sense would say yes, since they dated for a pretty long time and all, and hormones make teenagers crazy. But still, I can’t see it. Would June really have sex? Would she have even told me if she did? She wasn’t like Laney, the kind to share details. And I wasn’t the kind to press.
I ball up on the other side of the bed, stare at the wall and breathe, slow and even, in an attempt to coax myself into sleep. The leftover tequila churns in my stomach, making my head pound, the room tilted in my vision. I close my eyes and try to push thoughts of June from my mind.
“I didn’t know you were such a fan of tequila,” Jake says.
So much for sleep.
/> “I’m not. It’s disgusting.” I roll onto my back and glance over at him. He’s gazing up at the ceiling with his arms tucked behind his head. “I didn’t know you could play guitar.”
He exhales a self-deprecating laugh. “Not very well.”
“Mmm. I didn’t hate it.”
At this, he turns his head toward me, one corner of his mouth tugged up into a smile. “How would you know? You’re totally wasted.”
“I’m not wasted.” I pause and suppress a smile into the comforter. “Okay, maybe a little.” A sudden wave of nausea hits me. I hold my stomach with both hands, take deep breaths and try to ignore it. “Um. And queasy.”
“If you throw up on me, I will kill you.”
“I can’t believe you saw me puke,” I groan, pulling the blankets over my head.
It’s too embarrassing to think of anyone seeing me like that. I’ve never gotten so drunk it made me sick. It was nice, I guess, of Jake to hold my hair back, instead of just leaving me there.
“It was a lovely moment,” he says drily. “Now there’s a band name for you—the Lovely Pukes.”
I poke my head back out to shoot him a withering look. “How about the Shut the Fuck Ups?”
“The Toilet Huggers.”
“The Imminent Castrations.”
“Yes, with our debut album—Lorena Bobbitt, How Could You.”
“You know, the husband, John Bobbitt, he formed a band after that whole thing. The Severed Parts,” I tell him. “I’m pretty sure he did a lot of porn, too.”
Jake just lies there, staring at me. The teasing in his eyes has been replaced with a serious, assessing look.
“What?” I say. God, boys are so weird.
“How do you know that?” he asks. He actually sounds impressed.
“It’s called the internet. You might try living in the twenty-first century sometime,” I mumble. I yawn and roll back over to face the wall again, and if Jake has a snappy comeback for that one, I don’t hear it because I’m already asleep.
chapter six
I wake up to a blast of raucous, thrashing punk attacking my eardrums. My initial reaction is to bolt upright with my eyes wide open, which is also my first mistake, since the sunlight streaming in through the windows only worsens the dull pain behind my eyes. I fall back and shove a pillow over my face to block it out.
Somehow I’m upside down on the bed, on top of all the blankets. When did that happen?
“Rise and shine!” greets Laney in a singsong voice.
I peek out at her only to be welcomed by a blinding flash of white, which causes me to gasp and tumble off the bed, blankets and all, landing on the wooden floor with an ungraceful oof. Laney starts laughing so hard she doubles over, my Polaroid camera in one hand. I pitch the pillow at her face.
“I hate you,” I say, flailing as I fight to untangle myself from the blanket. “Where did you get that?”
“Found it in your bag. I’m sorry…but…you should have seen…your face…” Between giggle fits, she helps me stand. “Come on. They want to hit the road in an hour. How’s your hangover?”
Like death warmed over, actually, but I ignore the question.
“The music. Who. Is playing. The music?” I grate out, blinking as my eyes slowly adjust to the light.
“The wake-up call is courtesy of Gwen,” Laney says with false cheer. “Who, by the way, will not be accompanying us to Chicago.”
This catches my attention. “What? Why not?”
“Because the negative energy of the protest movement is not conducive to her artwork? Because she’s an idiot? Who cares!” Laney makes a face. “I don’t know what that girl’s malfunction is. She and Jake already had it out this morning.”
“Really? What were they arguing about?”
“No idea, but it sounded vicious. After they were done, Jake walked into the room and told Seth that Gwen wasn’t coming, and then just walked right out. He was totally pissed. I thought for sure he’d freak and punch a wall or something. Weird, right?”
Definitely weird. I climb up on the bed and rub my eyes, then look at her again. There’s a glaring hickey right on her neck. A souvenir from her night with Seth, I assume.
“So you and Seth. Did you guys.” I trail off because I’m not good at being casual about these things the way Laney is.
“What? No!” She looks mildly offended. “Seth doesn’t even have sex. He’s saving himself.”
“Saving himself? For what?”
“That’s what I said! He was all, ‘Oh, my body is a temple, blah blah blah,’ whatever.”
Laney goes to the mirror and applies her makeup, all the while gabbing away about Seth and his bizarre morals (drinking alcohol and smoking pot, apparently, are totally cool in his book, but having sex and eating any animal-derivative food products are totally not), and his kissing technique (very thorough, with lots of tongue usage—but not in a bad way). I haul my bag onto the bed and paw through the balled-up clothes. So Seth thinks his body is a temple? Maybe Jake adheres to that same belief system. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t drink. I mean, it isn’t a big deal—it’s not like I booze it up on a regular basis, contrary to the impression I made by my previous night’s behavior—but I’d pegged him as being…different.
I find Jake downstairs, sitting outside on the patio, gazing down the dune and out at the beach. The morning is still cool, a breeze whipping in off the lake. I zip my hoodie up to my chin and sit down next to him.
“You want?” He gestures to the loaf of bread and peanut butter jar positioned between us.
I take a slice of the spelt bread out of the plastic and dip it into the peanut butter. The combination is surprisingly tasty.
“Not bad,” I say through my chewing, licking an errant smear of peanut butter from my thumb.
I look out at the lake. It’s windier today than it was yesterday, the waves higher and cresting white more often as they roll in. Next to me, Jake stares at his feet and picks at his laces, rubs a thumb across the toe of his shoe.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says, “about California.”
I pop another piece of bread in my mouth and wait for him to elaborate.
“My brother has a friend in San Francisco,” he continues. “We could stay with her, probably. She’s pretty cool. She wouldn’t mind.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”
At least that means we’re one step closer, right? Now we have an actual destination. Somewhere to pinpoint on a map. Where is San Francisco, anyway? Not in the middle, obviously, because it’s on the bay. And they have the trolleys, too, if my memories of the Full House opening credits are anything to go by.
“Hi, Daddy. It’s me, your favorite daughter.” Laney’s chipper voice drifts through the door as she steps outside to join us. Her cell phone is pressed to her ear. “I’m just letting you know that me and some friends are going on this little spur-of-the-moment road trip thing—just for a few days. The house is locked and everything, and Martha knows where the spare key is, so she can get in and clean on Tuesday. My phone might be off for a while, but don’t freak, I’ll call you in a day or two. Have fun with your golf and wine tasting or whatever. Love you. Ciao.” She snaps the phone shut and looks at us. “Oh my God. Tell me there is something to drink in this house besides water, wheatgrass juice and soy milk.”
“I drank the last of the pop this morning. Sorry. Such are the perils of living in a vegan household,” Jake says with a grin. “But we’ll have to stop at a gas station before we get out of town anyway.”
“I cannot imagine being vegan. I mean, being vegetarian is hard enough. Did you know that gelatin is made out of, like, boiled animal bones? And that they put that shit in Jell-O?” She shudders. “I had to give up Jell-O shots. Greatest tragedy of my life.”
“And yet somehow you persevere,” I say sardonically.
The door slides open again, and this time Seth’s head pokes out. “Has anyone seen my gas mask?”
Why the hell d
oes he need a gas mask?
Jake brushes off his jeans and stands. “I think that’s my cue to go inside. Be ready to go in a half hour or so, all right?”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Laney says with a mock salute. She takes his seat and fishes a piece of bread from the bag. “Did you need my phone? To call your mom, I mean.”
Oh, God, my mother. My stomach jumps. I am so not prepared to face her yet, even over a phone call. Maybe I will be ready when we’ve put a couple hundred more miles between us. Or a thousand.
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
“I can talk to her first. If you want.”
“No.”
“Harper…” She hesitates, tucking behind her ears strands of her long hair blown loose from the wind. “You know I’m a strong advocate for bucking the system and embracing juvenile delinquency and all that jazz, but soon your mom’s going to be boarding the train to Spazzville. Don’t you think you should, I don’t know, give her a heads-up? She’s already dealing with a lot right now—”
“And what about me?” I say angrily. “Does anyone care what I’m dealing with?”
Laney’s mouth falls open. “I care. Of course I care. Harper, you have to know that.”
She looks so desperate for me to see it. I know she’s trying—maybe it isn’t exactly the support I need, but I don’t know what I need, or even what I want, from her or from anybody. There’s no way to tell her the truth, because the truth is that my heart is broken, and I don’t think there’s any chance of it being sewn back together. This is permanent. It can’t be fixed.
I can’t begin to explain it all to her. I can’t even explain it to myself.
“I know,” I say, more softly. “And I’m going to call. I promise. Just…not this very second. Knowing Aunt Helen, she’d probably pick up and send a bounty hunter after me so I can be dragged back for an exorcism.”
Laney looks mollified by my answer. Good. She bites off another chunk of bread. “Your aunt’s a fucking nutcase. No offense.”