Chapter 12

Nova

I’m about to lose it. Or maybe I already have. I’m not even sure how I made it back to Lea’s uncle’s house, since I tried to count the cars on the road as I drove. I should never have been behind the wheel, too unstable to drive.

Yet somehow I made it home alive. But not in one piece, since my mind has cracked open and split apart. All I can think about is Quinton and that he’s in trouble and how I just left.

I should never have left.

“Nova, are you okay?” Lea hops up from the sofa and rushes up to me as I walk into the house. She slows to a stop, her eyes widening as she takes in the sight of me. I have no idea what I look like, but by the look on her face, I can tell it’s bad. “Jesus, what happened?”

I just stare at her, unable to get my lips to function, process any words. I can barely move, the only motion inside me is from my beating heart and my lungs as they take in breaths, but even that seems like a lot of work. I’m about to fall apart, right here in her uncle’s living room, crying, break down. I need to stop it somehow.

“I want to play my drums,” I finally say because it’s all I can think of at the moment to keep myself moving without crumbling.

Lea gapes at me. “What?”

“I need to play my drums.” I feel a little better saying it. I push my way past her and head back to the guest room where I stuffed my drums in the closet.

She chases after me. “Nova, what the hell happened today?” she says concernedly. “And don’t tell me nothing, because you look like you just saw someone die.”

I think I might have. I throw open the closet and start taking out the pieces of my drums, the cymbal, the snare, the stool I sit on. I’m running away from my problems at the moment. I know this, but I just need something to drown out all the dark thoughts racing through my mind.

Lea keeps chattering something about calling my mom, but I lose track of her words as I set up the pieces in the corner of the room. Once I get everything positioned, I open up my laptop and go to my iTunes app. As soon as I sit down on the stool behind my drums, I reach a state of calm. Silence. Solitude. I feel at peace. I pick up my drumsticks and it makes me feel like I’m alone, just myself, no one else. Lea’s withering stare from the doorway blurs away. Memories of today and two years ago blur away. Time fades. I fade. It’s a beautiful place to exist and the feeling only grows as I reach back and turn on “Not an Addict” by K’s Choice. I only have to wait during a few lyrics and then I get to come in, touch the sticks to the drums and press on the pedal, create the beat, feel the rhythm, the passion, as the lyrics and tune drown me, just like I want them to. I picked this song for a reason, because it feels like the song gets what’s going on around me. Simple words, beats, notes, vibrations, can be so overpowering it feels like I’ve entered another world, not this fucked-up one where I keep messing up everything and losing everyone around me.

My foot moves on the pedal in sync with my other hand as I run away from my problems. I get completely swept away to a place that used to exist when I was younger. When I’d spend time with my dad and my mom, when death wasn’t such a huge part of my past, when drugs and darkness weren’t a part of my life, when it seemed like everything was full of light and hope. When I didn’t realize just how hard things were and that caring about people meant hurting when they were hurting. Worrying about them. Growing frustrated because they can’t see how they’re killing themselves, dissolving themselves away, refusing to breathe no matter how much I try to breathe life into them. And the hardest part of all is that I get what it feels like. I know how hard it is to breathe again and it makes me understand, even though I don’t want to, that Quinton might not give in and let me help him breathe. That maybe all of this was pointless and no matter how hard you try to save someone¸ it might not turn out the way you want it.

I didn’t save him.

Like I didn’t save Landon.

I messed up again.

I crash the drumstick one last time against the cymbal as the song ends and then the tears come pouring out of me as reality crashes back into me. I slip off the stool and fall to the ground, sobbing hysterically, letting every ounce of emotion pour out of me. What I saw today. That guy had a gun. A tire iron. And I just walked away.

I continue to sob, losing track of time. When I finally do look up, Lea’s on the phone. It takes me a moment to process whom she’s talking to. My mom. When I realize this, something snaps inside me and I get to my feet. Lea must see something in my eyes because she runs out of the room.

“Lea, hang up the phone!” I shout, chasing after her, seeing my opportunity to help Quinton any more slip further and further away.

She locks herself in the bathroom and won’t open the door, even when I bang on it so hard it sounds like it’s going to break.

“Lea, please don’t do this!” I cry, falling to the floor. “You can’t do this! You’re my friend.”

It gets quiet and moments later the door opens. Lea stands in front of me, her hair pulled back, her eyes watery like she’s been crying.

“It’s because I’m your friend that I’m doing this.” She crouches down in front of me with the phone in her hand. “Nova, this whole save-Quinton mission is destroying you.”

I shake my head, rocking back and forth as I kneel on the floor. “No, it’s not.”

“Yes it is,” she insists, getting to her feet. “Now start packing. Your mother’s flying down here to drive us back up to Wyoming.”

And just like that, all my hope is taken away. It’s over. And once again, I didn’t do anything right.

I manage to get to my feet and then I lock myself in the bedroom, opening up my laptop and turning on Landon’s video again. I set it down on the bed, then lie down and curl up in a ball, watching it—watching him fade away right in front of my eyes.

Quinton

I hate myself, but it’s easier to bear because I’ve got drugs in my system and my mind’s not quite connected to anything that’s happening around me. This room is just a place and Nancy is just a person and I’m just another junkie loser f**king someone I don’t care about because I want to get high again. And when I’m done, I hate myself even more. I’m nothing but a shell, ready to crack, ready to crumble, and I’ll start the whole process over because I can’t seem to get to that final step where I fully give up.

“I’m going to go get a drink of water,” Nancy says after I slip out of her, her skin damp.

I nod, feeling hollow as I put my boxers and jeans back on. “Okay.”

“Don’t go anywhere,” she jokes as she walks from the room.

I almost laugh. Where the hell would I go? I don’t have any money, any drugs, any place to live. I have absolutely nothing and decide that this is rock bottom. This is my own prison of hell and I’m locked inside it.

God, I just want it to all be over.

I’m drowning in my pain, deciding that it might finally be time to give up, that I’ve slammed into rock bottom, torn apart and left to bleed out, when I hear a deafening scream from the living room. I suddenly wonder if I was wrong and that maybe rock bottom was within reach, but I needed to take a few more steps to get there. I get up and hurry out of the room. As soon as I catch sight of Tristan on the sofa, I’m thrown back to the mental state I lived at right after the accident, the one where I had to painfully feel the consequences of everything I’d done, when everything was so raw and heavy that it felt like it was killing me.

Tristan’s skin has turned sheet white, his lips blue, and he’s foaming at the mouth as his body shakes. For a moment I just stare at him, feeling pounds and pounds of weight stack on my shoulders.

“What’s wrong with him?” Nancy asks, covering her mouth and backing away with tears in her eyes.

Guilt and fear are about to smother me but I fight to keep breathing. “Get me a phone!” I shout, running up to the side of the couch.

“Why?” Nancy cries as she backs into the wall.

“Because I’m going to call an ambulance.” I kneel down beside Tristan, my hands shaking, my pulse frantically beating. There’s so much foam coming out of his mouth and his chest is barely moving, yet his body is moving so much. “I think he’s…” Holy f**king shit. “I think…I think he’s OD’ing.” My words tumble out of me and reality swallows me up in one large breath. This is my fault. I should have been taking care of him better. I owed it to him. But instead I was too caught up in my own problems, like Nova. “Fuck!” I should never have gone out with her today.

Regret.

Remorse.

Blame.

I’ve felt it all before and I feel it again, like needles under my skin, stabbing their way to the surface. Everything’s falling apart and it’s all my fault.

The next few moments move in clips. Nancy gets me her cell phone and I call an ambulance. But she tells me to wait outside, that she’s got too many drugs inside her house. I tell her she’s f**king paranoid, but she flips out, so I carry Tristan outside while he fights to breathe, his skin getting paler and paler, his lips bluer. I stop when we reach the edge of the parking lot and by the time I set him down, his chest has stopped rising and falling altogether.

I feel myself break apart as I push on his chest and put my mouth to his to his, giving him CPR, trying to breathe for him, live for him, keep him from leaving, like how everyone else left.

One more breath.

One more.

But it’s not working—he won’t breathe on his own. I feel like I’m dying with him only I’m not. I’m still kneeling here on f**king concrete while everyone keeps dying around me and I just sit by and watch, motionless, unable to stop it. I f**king hate it. I hate being here. I can’t do it. Can’t feel death again.

“Why do you keep doing this to me?” I cry out to the sky as tears stream down my face. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t. “I don’t want to live! Please just take me instead!” I’m not even sure if I believe in God or if he exists, but I swear if he does he hates me. Or maybe it’s just me that hates me.

Tears fall from my eyes and I start breathing for Tristan again, refusing to give up. Fighting. Refusing to accept another death. “Come on,” I beg through my hopeless sobs. “Please, please, just breathe.”

Please, please don’t die.

Chapter 13

May 27, day twelve of summer break

Nova

I have about twenty-four hours to figure out if Quinton’s okay before my mom’s flight lands and I have to go home. He never called me like he said he would and I at least need to know if he’s okay before I bail out on him, let him go, knowing I’ll probably hate myself forever for walking away.

I try to call Delilah’s phone, but she doesn’t answer, so I drive over to Quinton’s house. Lea argued with me about it for a while but gave up and got in the car with me, despite my protests that she shouldn’t go over there. If she knew the entire story of what happened, she probably would have put up a bigger fight, but I didn’t tell her, knowing this.

It’s a rare cloudy day and I’m grateful to get a break from the sunlight. Although when we pull up to the building, the gray sky over it makes it seem much more ominous.

Warning flags are all over the place when I get to their door. There’s a hole in it and the front window is cracked. But it’s not even just that. I have a bad feeling, like I did the morning I woke up and found Landon dead in his room. I knew something was about to shift and not in a good way.

“Nova, would you just relax?” Lea says as I cup my hands around my eyes and peer in through the window of Quinton’s apartment. The curtain’s falling down on one side and I can see right into the living room. The place is a wreck, more than it usually is. One of the sofas is tipped over and there’s an abundance of garbage and glass on the floor and there are more holes in the walls, Sheetrock all over the linoleum. The lamps have been bashed to pieces and the ceiling light is on the floor.

“No…something’s not right.” I glance over my shoulder at her. “I can feel it.”

“You’re not telling me everything,” she says, putting her hands on her hips. “Something happened yesterday—something bad.”

“Everything’s fine,” I lie. I’m not even sure why I’m lying at the moment. My mother’s already headed down here. Everything’s ruined. But saying it all aloud makes it feel so real.

I put my face up against the glass and try to see inside again. There’s someone lying on the sofa that’s still upright, arm hanging over the side, head turned to the other side so I can’t see his face. But from the bald head, bony body, and tattoos, I’m guessing it’s Dylan.

I step back from the window and glance out at the parking lot and the two vehicles out there, one of which is mine and one of which has four flat tires. The Cadillac that was here yesterday is gone. I don’t know what that means or if I can handle what it means—whatever happened between Trace, Tristan, and Quinton.

“Nova, I think we should go,” Lea says, glancing down the balcony with worry in her eyes as Bernie walks out of his apartment.

She’s probably right. We shouldn’t be here. I’m putting us at risk by making us stay, when I have no idea what happened yesterday.

“I just need to know if he’s okay.” I move back in front of the door and try the doorknob, but it’s locked, so I knock on the door. “I think he might be in some trouble.”