There’s something sticking out of my dick.
I feel it in the way you feel somebody trying to wake you up when it’s 6:30, and your alarm was set for 5:45, and all you want to do is sleep for five more minutes.
Just five more minutes.
But this thing in my dick is persistent. It pinches, and I wonder how it got there, and who the hell was down there anyway?
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The air is an acrid mixture of chlorine and piss, like the locker room at the pool. I’m afraid to open my eyes.
Beep.
Beep.
“His EKG is the best I’ve seen after a code in a long time.” There’s a man in the room, and he’s talking, but not to me. “Still, don’t let that crash cart wander too far. Never know with narcotics.”
Beep.
Footsteps. A door clicks closed. I crack open my eyes. The light burns, and my vision floods with water. I blink, and slowly the room comes into blurry focus.
The man who’s talking stands at the foot of my bed. He’s wearing a white coat and a stethoscope. A doctor. But why is there a doctor in my room, and why does my room smell like chlorine, and where the hell is that awful beeping coming from?
“Can somebody shut off my alarm?” I ask, but my voice doesn’t sound like me. It comes out scratched and croaky like I’m floating belly up. Which is actually a pretty good description of how I’m feeling at the moment, like a truck backed over my ribcage.
The doctor’s face is suddenly hovering too close to mine. “Eli, can you hear me?” he asks. “Do you know where you are?”
My heart starts to pound. I scan the part of the room I can see over the doctor’s head. Curtains where a wall should be. And a TV screwed to a metal frame. “Am I . . . in the hospital?”
“Yes,” the doctor says, like I just aced the oral part of the exam. “You’re in our ICU. Do you know why you’re here?”
I’m sweating now, and my heart is racing for real, because all at once the pieces are coming back to me. The game. The party at Alex’s. Savannah leaving me on the deck. Getting into my car. The pills. The sirens . . .
And then it doesn’t matter that I’m in the hospital because I may or may not have been unconscious. The only thing that matters this second, the single most important thought that explodes in my brain like fireworks is this:
I. Am. Busted.
“Please,” I say, because it’s very, very important that this dude listens to me. I grip his coat, straining to lift my head from my pillow, but there’s a screaming pain in my chest, and the water in my eyes isn’t because of the light anymore. “Please, no matter what you do, please don’t tell my mom. Oh, god, don’t tell my mom.”
The doctor doesn’t say anything. He gives me a pitying look and pats my chest real soft.
Another face hovers over mine. And I realize why the doctor looked at me like that. It’s too late. My mom’s here, but she’s not yelling. She’s crying. She’s touching my face and my hair, and then she lays her head on my chest, forehead to sternum, and she’s crying so hard. And that’s when I know, oh, god, I know. My mom’s been here the whole time.
My wrists are red and sore, and my hands land heavily on the back of Mom’s head. Her hair’s matted at the back like she just woke up, and then I realize she’s wearing pajamas. I am the worst son in the world.
“Mom,” I say in a horrible, sandpaper voice that I’m still not sure belongs to me.
She peers up at me, the skin around her eyes all blotchy and red, and her cheeks streaked with tears.
“Mom, I fucked up. I fucked up so bad.”
Mom wraps my hands in hers and kisses them until my fingers are all wet. The doctor clears his throat. “I’m going to need to ask you a few questions, Eli,” he says. “Would you like your mom to leave the room?”
Mom straightens, snuffles, wipes her cheeks with her open palms.
“She can stay,” I say, dreading what’s coming next.
“Are you aware of what’s happened, son?” The doctor’s an older guy, with heavy gray streaks through what’s left of his brown hair. His collar’s open, and a frond of gray chest hair peeks out.
I nod. “I think so.”
“So you’re aware that you experienced an overdose?”
Mom makes a pitiful sound, something between a sob and a cough, and she grabs my hand and squeezes.
“Yes,” I say, because I am now.
“What do you remember about last night?”
I close my eyes, because what I remember and what I’m going to say to this dude are two entirely different things, especially with my mom sitting right here next to me. “Not much,” I tell him.
Doc clears his throat again, commanding my full attention. My knuckles are scratched, nearly white from how hard I’m squeezing Mom’s hand. Or how hard she’s squeezing mine.
“Were you, or have you ever considered, attempting suicide?”
A sound comes out of me, almost a laugh. “What, like killing myself? You think that’s what happened last night?”
Doc’s face is a mask of seasoned indifference. “Is it?”
What’s with this guy? Not everybody gets high because they secretly want to off themselves. I mean, sure, the thought had crossed my mind a time or two, in the really dark days after Dad died. But that’s normal, right? Plus, it was a long time ago. Before LionsHeart and Savannah. I use because I like how it makes me feel, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have boundaries. Needles never touch my skin—that’s how you end up dead or in the hospital. Not from snorting every now and then. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
I meet Doc’s tired eyes. “Absolutely not,” I say, and Mom’s whole body exhales.
“How often would you say you use?” Doc asks.
The answer flies out of my mouth without an ounce of hesitation. “This was the first time. It was stupid, I know. I fucked up.”
Doc’s mouth presses into a thin line. “Is that really the answer you want to stick with?”
The only thing I want is to get the hell out of here. I want a handful of Advil and a gallon of Gatorade. I want my car, my phone. I want to call Chase. “I promise,” I tell him. “This was the first time.”
Doc and Mom exchange a look that’s filled with silent conversation.
“I swear, Mom.” I sandwich her hands between mine. “I learned my lesson, and I’ll never do it again, I swear.”
Mom lifts her free hand to my face. She pushes back my hair, and her fingers trace the scar on my eyebrow, the way she used to when I was little and wanted my dad. She’d sit beside my bed and stroke my hair and touch my scar with feather fingers. She’d tell me that we had each other no matter what, and that everything was going to be okay. I can’t remember the last time she touched me like that.
“Eli, honey,” she begins, but she’s interrupted when a nurse slides open the glass door. “Dr. Henderson,” he says, “there’s a girl in the waiting room, and she’s near hysterics. Says she’s not leaving until she sees the patient. Is it okay if I send her back?”
Savannah.
I don’t wait for the doctor to answer. “Yes,” I say. “Now.”
The nurse ignores me, waits for the doctor to tip his head in agreement. “We’re almost done here,” he says.
The nurse steps back into the hall, and the door slides closed.
“Just a few more questions,” Dr. Henderson continues, but now all I can think about is Savannah. Was she the one who brought me here? Has she been here all night? Does her dad know?
“Eli,” Dr. Henderson says my name impatiently. “Could you answer the question please?”
I squint at him, because I didn’t hear the question.
He sighs. “Is there a family history of drug or alcohol abuse?”
I brush off his question with a shake of my head. My only family is Mom. And Benny, I guess, but he doesn’t count. “No.” What’s taking Savannah so long?
Mom opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but then the door slides open, and all is I see is Savannah.
She’s a mess, with raccoon smudges under her eyes and the same clothes she had on last night. Her face is red and puffy, and when I hold out my hand, fresh tears spill over onto her cheeks.
Mom stands up. “Could I speak with you outside for a moment, Dr. Henderson? There’s something I’d like to discuss.”
Doc nods. “Yes, that would be fine.”
Mom leans down and kisses me on the head. She squeezes Savannah’s arm as she passes, and they exchange the kind of look people give each other at funerals. Then she slips out of the room with the doctor and slides the door shut behind her.
I give Savannah’s hand a tug, and she climbs onto the bed. We sit shoulder to shoulder, Savannah’s knees tucked up to her chest and her head leaning on my arm. The only sounds in the room are the steady beeping of my heart monitor and Savannah’s soft sniffles.
I nudge her gently with my elbow. “There’s a tube in my dick,” I say, hoping a lame joke will ease the tension between us.
“Gross.” She doesn’t even look up.
“I think everything’s still intact. Wanna check?” I pretend I’m going to lift the sheet. Savannah swipes the back of her hand under her nose. “It’s not funny, Eli. I thought . . . I thought you were . . .”
“I know.” But I can’t stand to hear her say it. I shift my weight and gingerly reach my arm around Savannah’s shoulder. She burrows into my chest, startling when I gasp in pain.
“Easy,” I say, wincing as she gently wraps her arms around my waist and curls her knees up tighter. She looks so small like this. Fragile.
“Hey,” I say. “Hey.” With my finger, I tip her chin up so I can look into her eyes. “I’m okay, Savannah. I’m fine. I’m right here.”
She gives a little nod, but her arms grip my waist like I might disappear. She turns her face away from me, hiding it against my chest. “I’ve never been so scared in my whole life.”
“Me neither,” I whisper, even though I mean it different. It’s the doctor and the questions and the ‘what next’ that scares me now. I rake my fingers through Savannah’s hair and down her back. Kiss the top of her head.
“I’m sorry about your mom, by the way.” Her words are muffled against my hospital gown, but I hear them perfectly.
My spine goes rigid. “What about my mom?”
Savannah sits up, shoves her hair out of her eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t want me to call her, but . . .”
“You called her?” The words come out sharper than I mean for them to. But still . . .
Savannah’s eyes narrow. The calm in her voice is a tightrope walker, wobbling above inevitable disaster. “Your heart stopped, Eli. You were dying.”
A distant part of my brain tells me that Savannah’s right, that she had no other choice, and that I would’ve done the same thing if she’d been the one who needed help. But another part, a louder part, says Savannah betrayed me.
I drop my arm from her shoulder, shrinking back into my pillows. “I’m not dead now.” Now I’m stuck in a hospital room with a doctor asking me tricky questions, like how often I use, in front of my mom.
Savannah’s face flashes fire, and she shoves away from me, scooting her body down the bed so she can look me in the face. “Everybody else ran from the cops, but I went looking for you. I found you in your car. Your eyes were rolled back in your head, and you were foaming at the mouth and . . .” She pauses, sucking in air like she’s drowning. “You’d locked the door, Eli.”
I don’t want to listen to this. I don’t want to know what happened. “Shut up, Savannah.”
She shakes her head fiercely, pounding her open palm against the thin hospital mattress. Words spill out like white water over a broken dam. “The cops had to break the glass. And when they pulled you out of the car, you weren’t breathing.”
“I said, SHUT UP!”
“They did CPR, and they put you on a stretcher, and they took you away in an ambulance. So, yeah. I called your mom.”
There’s no air in the room. The space between Savannah and me is too wide, and I want to cross it, but I can’t. I wrap my arms around my head, covering my face, and wish the whole world would disappear.
Savannah’s voice finds me in my cave of skin and bones. “You need help, Eli. I care about you, but . . .”
Her voice wavers, and I know what’s about to happen. I can already hear the words she’s about to say. I lower my arms. “Are you breaking up with me?”
“I just . . . I don’t know what to do.”
The door opens, and Mom sticks her head into the room. Her eyes move from me to Savannah, reading the tension between us. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but . . .”
“No, it’s okay.” Savannah stands up, sweeps her hands across her cheeks, and straightens her clothes. “I’m actually super tired. I’d like to go home now.”
“Of course you would.” Mom steps into the room. Her arms are full of pamphlets and paperwork, and she drops it all on the counter and reaches for her jacket where it’s slung over a chair. “I’ll drive you.”
“No, it’s okay,” Savannah says. “My dad’s here.”
My head shoots off the pillow, and pain stabs me in the chest. I flop back down. “Your dad?”
Savannah sighs. “Call me when you get home, okay?” The door closes behind her.
I cover my face with my hands.
The chair beside me creaks as Mom drops into it. “Can I do anything?”
“I want to go home, Mom.”
“I know you do, honey.” She hesitates, reaching over the metal bar of the bed to squeeze my forearm. Her thumb strokes my skin in time with the practiced words she forces out. “But I’m not sure that’s the best idea right now.”
I freeze.
Mom walks over to the counter and scoops up the pile of pamphlets. “I want you to take a look at these.” She fans out the pamphlets across my legs like cards in a magic trick.
My mind goes numb as I scan the pamphlet covers. They look like college brochures, with pictures of smiling kids walking across manicured lawns and artful shots of stone buildings meant to showcase the architecture. Like anybody would pick a college because of the architecture.
Mom waves one of the brochures. “Dr. Henderson recommended this one,” she says. “It’s up in the mountains, a couple hours from here. I spoke to the social worker about it. She says she’ll make the call for us, see if they have a bed.”
I take the brochure. The cover boasts a view of a lake with fog-covered mountains in the background. LakeShore Recovery Center. Inside the brochure’s glossy pages, there are pictures of smiling teenagers seated in a semi-circle, all eyes on an overly expressive adult in the center. There’s a shot of the dining hall, but it’s the picture of the bedroom that surprises me, shoots a bolt of nausea through my gut. Because this is a place people go to stay.
“Rehab?” I say the word because Mom can’t. “Really?”
She avoids my eyes, shuffling through the brochures like she’s putting her cards back in the box.
“Those places are for people with drug problems, Mom. I don’t have a problem. I told you, this was the first time . . .”
Mom shoots me a sideways look. She knows I’m lying.
I hold up my hands to show her she’s got me. “Okay, so maybe it’s been a couple of times. But I don’t have a problem. I can stop whenever I want.”
Mom’s eyes soften. “I know you think that, sweetie, but . . .”
I cut her off. “I know I can. Just give me a chance, Mom. Please.”
Mom sighs and runs her hand down her face. “Steven spoke to the officer who pulled you from the car . . .”
My pulse throbs in my throat. I know what the cops would’ve found in my car. The plastic baggie, one lonely capsule inside.
“He’s made a few calls.”
Knowing Steven, the chief of police is his golfing buddy, and he’s made some deal that looks like it’s about doing what’s best for me, but is actually about keeping his own reputation clean and shiny. A girlfriend from the poor side of town? That he can fix with a two-carat wedding ring and a walk-in closet the size of most living rooms. But a stepson who’s a junkie? Now that just won’t do.
“So if I go to rehab, the drug charges go away?”
“The officer agreed to sit on the case to give you a chance to get better. Do you have any idea how lucky you are? Your dad . . .”
“He’s not my dad!” I glare at her, my voice cracking like some pimply junior high punk. “And I don’t care what kind of deal he’s made. I don’t need Steven, and I sure as hell don’t need rehab!”
Mom slumps in her chair, shoves her hands through her knotted hair until the skin on her forehead stretches, and her eyes seem to bulge in the strange half-light of the room. “I mean lucky to be alive,” she says, her voice strained, a rubber band about to snap. “I knew you were drinking, suspected there was pot, too. I mean, it’s normal for teenagers to smoke once in a while. Christ, even I did! But fuck, Eli! Heroin? Do you have any idea what could’ve happened?”
I stare hard at the pocked gray ceiling tiles, sterile and colorless, like the rest of the hospital. I know what could’ve happened. But real life is hard enough without worrying about what-ifs.
Mom slides her hands down her face; her fingers wipe the sides of her mouth. “It’s just 28 days.”
I cough out a bitter laugh. “28 days? That’s a whole month of my life, Mom, and I don’t even have a choice.”
“You’re eighteen, Eli. I can’t make you go. But after the last time . . .”
Her voice trails off, but I know what she was going to say. The morning after Winter Formal, woken by the call from Savannah’s dad, Mom was waiting in the kitchen when I showed up, reeking of smoke and sweat, Savannah’s dried puke on my shoe. Mom’s yelling woke up Steven, who made me drink a pot of black coffee and said the next time, I might as well not come home at all.
I roll to my side, turning my back on Mom. “Steven finally found a way to get rid of me, huh? The three of you can finally be the perfect little family he’s always wanted.”
“We’re not a family without you, Eli.” Mom’s gentle voice reaches over my shoulder, tugs at me like a hand on my chin, but I don’t turn around.
Mom stands up, leaving the pamphlets in a stack on the bed. “I’m going to go home, get dressed, and pack a few of your things. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
She waits a minute for my response, and when it doesn’t come, she bends down and kisses the top of my head. “I love you, Eli,” she says.
I hear the door close behind her, and I squeeze my eyes tight, until stars form behind my lids, and the tears stop stinging.