“I heard another rumor today,” Red says. He takes a long drag from his cigarette, flicks the dangling nub of ash into the grass. It’s Visitation, Easter Sunday, and we lounge on a picnic table outside, waiting for Red’s dad to arrive.
I lean backward against the table, my elbows propped on the edge, my face turned up to the morning sun. Over the last two days, as Red and I have tried to piece together what happened to Will, we’ve heard a handful of possibilities. An orderly searched his room at lights out, found the drugs, and hauled him down to detox. Howard searched the room himself and found Will in the bathroom, semi-conscious. Prison Tat, in the room next door to Will’s, swears he heard banging on a door in the middle of the night; Cheerleader Chick thinks Will left on his own, slipped out in the night, his pockets loaded with his stash. Even Howard, plugged with questions, refused to give up the truth.
“This happens sometimes, boys,” he told us. “We can only pray that Will finds his way back to recovery.”
“What was it this time?” I ask, squinting at Red in the sunlight.
He exhales, two plumes of black smoke puffing from his nose like a dragon. “Stretcher,” he says. “The kid at the end of the hall said he got up in the night for some Tylenol. On his way back from the nurses’ station, he saw the paramedics pushing a kid through the lobby on a stretcher.” He shakes his head, takes another deep draw. “I should’ve followed him,” he says. “If I wasn’t so fucking weak . . . maybe I could’ve helped him, I don’t know, convinced him or something.”
Red gives me this helpless look, and it’s the rawest I’ve seen him, even in group. His eyes tear, and he drops his head into his palms, pushing his fingers into his forehead. A leaning tower of ash hovers inches from his spiky hair.
Guilt grabs at me with hungry fingers. If Red had said he wanted to go to Will’s room, I would’ve led the way. But not to help him. That’s not the way the night would’ve played out.
My chest aches, and I rummage around for the right words. All I can think about is the last time I was on an airplane, the trip we took to Mexico over spring break sophomore year. The overhead masks and the narrow-waisted flight attendant’s morbid instructions to “put on your own mask before you help anyone who needs assistance.” I remember looking across the aisle at Benny, his Velcro sandals dangling above the floor, and thinking that’s bullshit, I would put his mask on first.
“You did what you had to,” I tell him. “It was the best you could’ve done.”
“Maybe.”
I stare into the distance; kids gather in small groups with their families, huddled together in the shade beneath the trees. “You think he’ll be okay?”
Red shrugs, takes a final drag from the nub in his fingers and flicks it into the grass. “Will any of us?”
Prison Tat hollers from the propped rec room door. “Red, your pop’s here.”
The table shifts underneath me as Red climbs down. He grounds the smoking stub into the grass with the heel of his boot. “You’re a good friend, Eli,” he says.
I watch him slip through the door into the rec room. I think about the night we spent in my room, our shoulders pressed together at the foot of my bed, swapping stories that we hoped would save us. And I wonder if I helped Red or if he helped me. I wonder which of us needed the other more.
“No visitors today?” The Front Desk Fascist eyes me skeptically over a thick stack of folders as I stroll through the lobby. I pick a Cadbury egg (crème filled) from the bowl on her desk and plop down in one of the cozy leather chairs.
“Nope.” I hook my feet under Libby’s empty chair, drag it forward a little, and prop my feet on it.
“Make yourself at home,” the Fascist mutters under her breath.
“Thanks.” I stretch out, my belly full of the special Easter lunch the cook prepared. Red had offered for me to sit with him and his dad, and I did, until the “how are you’s” got too painful, and I had to bail.
I unwrap the candy, thinking about my own family and how they’re probably spending the day. Mom still insists on hiding eggs throughout the house, even though Benny has a phobia of mythical holiday characters. It all started after one tragic episode of mall photography involving a particularly creepy bunny costume. That Easter morning, I’d gone into Benny’s room to tell him the Easter bunny had brought his basket, and Benny had sat straight up in bed, his face terror-stricken. “Is he still here?”
I’d wanted to tell him the truth right then and there, but Mom had given me a whole spiel about how it would “ruin the magic” or some crap like that. So instead I promised Benny that if I ever caught Triple B (“Big Bad Bunny”) hanging around our house, I’d kick him right in his Cadbury eggs.
The memory brings a smile to my face, and I pop the chocolate in my mouth. When I was little, and Dad was still coming around, I’d wake up on Easter to find a green basket filled with dollar store candy and cheap plastic eggs hidden all over the apartment. I remember the jelly beans Dad and I ate afterwards until our teeth felt furry and our bellies sick. Thinking about it now, it was all pretty chintzy, but back then, it felt like magic.
And then I know why Mom didn’t let me tell Benny the truth about the Easter Bunny. Because without magic, there’s only off-brand crème-filled eggs, plastic green grass, and a bleary-eyed Dad who shows up late and disappears just as quickly.
Because the truth will break your heart.
I crush the foil wrapper into a tight ball between my fingers and roll it until the colors merge, and I can’t see the creases anymore. I glance outside. Steven’s heading up the sidewalk, dressed in khakis and a blue button down, like he’s headed out to lunch at the club. For a split second, I feel like Benny, face to face with “Triple B.”
I briefly consider disappearing, faking a migraine and hiding out in my room until visiting hours are over. But I don’t. Because it’s Easter. Because there’s no such thing as magic, and because I don’t want to be alone anymore.
Steven steps through the glass, and I stand up. We stand there for a second, neither one of us knowing what to say. “Is Mom . . .” I finally ask, not sure what I want the answer to be.
Steven shakes his head. “You said you didn’t want visitors, and she wanted to respect that. But I . . .” His shoulders hunch a little, and he gives me sheepish look. “It’s Easter, Eli. I didn’t want you to be alone.”
I open my mouth to say something, but no words come out. Because all at once I’m realizing what I probably should’ve known all along: Steven’s the kind of guy who shows up.
And so I say the only thing I can think of, offer the only thing that feels right: “Want to get a cup of coffee?”
Steven and I sit across the table from each other in a quiet corner of the dining hall. Most of the visitors have already headed home anyway, back to their real Easter dinners with their non-addicted family members. I ask about Benny’s Easter basket; Steven tells me Mom’s on a no-high-fructose-corn-syrup kick, so everything in Benny’s basket came from Whole Foods. Carob bunnies and muted jelly beans.
“How could you let this happen?” I groan.
“Your mom’s a very scary lady when she sets her mind on something,” Steven protests. “It was one on one. You weren’t there to back me up.”
We laugh, but it’s awkward, because we don’t talk like this, not usually, and because we both know why I wasn’t there.
Steven clears his throat. “He misses you, you know? Benny.” His gaze shifts to the oily surface of his coffee, thick with cream. “We all do. Especially your mom.”
“Is that why you came here?” I demand. “To tell me to forgive her? Because you can forget it.” I shove my chair backward, the motion jostling the table and sloshing my coffee. “She lied to me, you know? She lied to me for fourteen years.”
I start to stand, but Steven holds up his hand to stop me. “I know,” he says. “And you have every right to be furious. But please, hear me out.”
The look on his face is so pained, so earnest, that I sink back down into my chair. I fold my arms across my chest and jerk my chin at Steven. “Fine. Talk.”
He sighs. His fingers wrap his Styrofoam cup like it’s the only thing keeping him afloat. “She wanted to tell you,” he says. “We both did. But how do you tell a little boy that his hero is a junkie?”
I think of Benny in the backseat of Steven’s car on the way to LakeShore. Benny with his Blue’s Clues coloring book and his sticky hands checking me for fever. Eli’s not sick like you’re thinking of, Benny. He’s just not feeling like himself. I stare down into my empty hands.
“You were too young to understand,” Steven continues. “But we waited too long. By the time you were old enough, you’d already pulled so far away. I think your mom was afraid that if she told you the truth, she’d lose you altogether.”
I glare at him out from under the fringe of hair that’s fallen into my eyes.
“I know that’s not an excuse, and it doesn’t make it hurt any less. But sometimes, as a parent, there aren’t any good choices.” Steven runs his hand down his face. His voice is thick, and his eyes are bloodshot at the corners. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot, you know? Since you left. Every time I look at Benny, I think about you as a little boy, and I get so angry. I can’t fathom for a second what kind of cold-hearted person walks away from their son.”
My throat clenches, and my own eyes burn. Steven’s giving voice to the question I’ve been carrying around for days.
“I didn’t know your dad very well,” Steven says. “But I have to believe that something powerful had its claws in him so deep that he didn’t have a choice. I have to believe that he didn’t want to be the way he was, that he loved you, more than anything in the world, but he was too sick to show it. I can’t forgive him, not for what he did to your mom or for what he did to you. But in a way, I guess I owe him my gratitude. Because he gave me you.”
I blink, shove the hair out of my eyes, and struggle to meet Steven’s gaze.
“Look, Eli, the real reason I came here is because I want to make sure you know that you’ve never been some add-on, the price I had to pay to marry your mom. You are my family—you, your mom, Benny. We’re not a family without you. And what I really want to say . . .” Steven’s voice catches in his throat. “I know I’ll never be your dad. But I will always be here for you. No matter how hard you push, I will never, ever walk away.”
Something breaks inside of me, a fissure splitting apart stone. It hurts, but in a good way. I swipe the tears from my cheeks with the dirty sleeve of my hoodie and let Steven’s words settle like salve.
He clears his throat, wipes at the corners of his eyes, and tugs at his collar. “I know I haven’t always done a great job, but I want to be better. I want us to be better.”
I think of the morning after Winter Formal, my new suit stained with stomach acid, the disappointment sagging heavy under Steven’s eyes. I think of his constant presence at lacrosse, all the times he’s reached out, and all the times I’ve pushed him away. Steven’s words are a flickering coal under years of dust and ash. I want to lean into their warmth, but the walls I’ve built are tall and hard to scale. I give Steven a short nod.
“Okay,” he says. “That’s a start.”
Steven stays awhile longer after that. Coffee in hand, we stroll around the outskirts of campus, following the same trail Libby and I blazed only days before. It’s awkward at first, but I eventually relax. I tell him about the little things—about the food at LakeShore, and how Richard Fisher’s alright once you get to know him. But not the big stuff. I don’t tell him about Will disappearing. I don’t tell him about Libby.
Visiting hours are almost over by the time I walk Steven back through the lobby. The Front Desk Fascist has already left for the day. One of the counselors slumps lazily in her chair, flipping through the pages of a dog-eared book. She gives Steven a friendly smile as he signs himself out. Then he turns to me.
His arms move awkwardly in his button down, like he’s about to try and hug me, but then he sticks out his hand instead.
I take it, ignoring the counselor’s curious glance. Steven’s hand is warm and sturdy, and when we shake, I feel like we’re agreeing to something—a fresh start, a new beginning. “I’m glad you came,” I tell him, and then he yanks me closer and clasps me into a clumsy hug.
“Me, too,” he says. Steven smells like rehab coffee and spicy aftershave, and I let him hug me, because I’m tired of pulling away.
I watch through the glass as Steven heads back to his car. The Lexus’s headlights flicker when he unlocks the car. I wait until I can’t see brake lights anymore, until the exhaust fades into the afternoon air. Then I go to the desk, where the Front Desk Fascist’s fill-in greets me with a smile.
“Can I help you with something?” she asks.
“I was wondering if I could use the phone? It’ll only take a minute.”
“Sure.” The counselor swivels the phone around and pushes it toward me.
My fingers hover over the buttons, hesitating. What if it’s too late? What if things can never be better? What if I can never be better?
The glass doors slide open. I glance up as Chase steps into the lobby, a pink button-down rolled to his elbows, his Ray Bans pushed back on his head.
I lower the receiver.
“You said Sunday, right?” he asks, jerking his chin at the counselor behind the desk. “Don’t I have to sign in or something?”
I push the phone back around as Chase hurriedly jots his name in the sign-in book.
The counselor considers him over the worn binding of her book. “Visitation ends in fifteen minutes.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Chase croons. “I’m an in and out kind of guy.”
My fingers dig into the shoulder of his pink shirt, pushing him toward the door. “Okay if we go for a smoke?”
She gestures toward the door with the flat of her hand. “Be my guest.”
I hurry Chase outside.
“Dude, don’t we need to get your shit?”
“Shh!” I send a quick glance through the glass. The girl at the desk flips over her book, her eyes scanning the back cover. “Keep your voice down.”
Chase twists toward me. “I thought you said you could leave whenever you want!”
“I can.” I sink down onto the curb, thinking of the smooth fabric of Steven’s shirt, cool against my cheek when he hugged me. Somebody spit their gum out in the parking lot, and the circle of sticky black tar stares up at me. “I’m not sure if I want to anymore.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, dude?” Chase throws up his arms. “You know I left my Mimi’s sweet potato soufflé for this shit? And you said you’d pay for gas.”
“I will,” I say, squinting up at him. “As soon as I have cash.”
“Motherfucker,” Chase mumbles, stepping down off the sidewalk.
“Where are you going?”
“For a smoke,” he snaps, shooting me a disgusted look over his shoulder. “I’m guessing you don’t have any of those either.”
I push up off the curb and follow him to the car. It’s his mom’s dusty Tahoe, the faded LionsHeart sticker peeling off the bumper. Chase cranks the ignition and lowers the windows. I hover beside the passenger door.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Chase breathes, blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth. “Get in.”
The grey fabric seats are stained. I can’t remember the last time I was in this car, probably fifth grade, our last year of Cub Scouts. An open can of red bull sits in one cup holder, a few crumpled tissues in the other. I keep the door propped, one foot safely on the pavement.
Chase offers me his smoke. I take a quick drag and send the wispy exhale toward the sky.
“I brought you something,” Chase says. He leans across the seat, flips open the glove compartment, and tosses a small plastic bag onto my lap. Three sandy capsules blink up at me. “It was going to be a welcome home gift,” Chase grumbles. “I guess I’ll add it to your tab.”
I freeze; my spine stiffens, and my fingers twitch. I pick up the baggie, roll around the contents, the shiny capsules taunting me. There’s no one here to stop me; it’s just me and Chase. I’d do one, not two like before. It wouldn’t hurt anybody. Afterwards, I’d go right back inside. Nobody would even know.
I crack open the bag, drop a capsule into my palm. “You know, a kid went home the other day.”
Chase sends a perfect smoky donut out the window, then takes a swig of Red Bull.
“He was my friend,” I continue. “He scored at a meeting, and then just . . . disappeared.”
Chase swipes his hand across his upper lip. “What, like, alien abduction shit?”
I laugh, remembering the telescope Mom and Steven gave me for my eleventh birthday, the hours Chase and I spent at my bedroom window, searching for spaceships, the low flying airplane that sent us screaming downstairs.
“Sort of,” I tell him, thinking of Will’s stripped white mattress, how it glowed in the dark room, an ominous beacon, like a freshly empty bed in the ICU. “The next morning, he was gone.”
“That’s fucked up,” Chase says. He flicks the cigarette out the window, jerks his chin at the capsule in my hand. “So are we doing this or not? I want to get home before my cousin Artie eats all the damn pie.”
I stare down at the creamy capsule, thinking of Will, wondering where he is now. At home, grounded for life, his straight-laced parents watching his every move? Or on the street somewhere, like Red, a park bench, a flop house—face down in a plate full of smack?
And then I think about Benny, and about how some people you don’t get back.
I put the capsule back in the bag.
Whatever you do, Red had begged me the night Will left, don’t let me leave this room.
I have to get out of this car.
A car horn startles me. An ambulance backs up to the curb by the front entrance.
Will, I think as the EMT climbs out of the passenger side, walks around back, and cracks open the door.
The plastic bag falls onto the seat as I lunge out of the car.
“Dude!” Chase hollers. “I’m not waiting around for you! Your ride leaves now.”
I ignore him. Because it’s not Will the transport nurse is helping up the sidewalk to the lobby.
It’s Libby.
The glass doors slide open. The transport nurse grips Libby’s elbow with one hand and supports her waist with the other. Her skin is ashen; charcoal circles, deep and dark as war paint, form half-moons underneath her eyes. She’s dyed her hair—blue-black like shadows, like secrets. But it’s the bandages on her arms that make my throat constrict, my stomach seize. Freshly applied white gauze bandages cover the places where scars once were. My first day in the hospital flashes through my brain like lightening. I remember the doctor tiptoeing around his questions, wanting to know if I did it on purpose.
I turn my back on Chase and the pills in the plastic bag, and I follow Libby inside.
The girl at the desk yells something at me, but I can’t even make sense of her words. Libby’s the only thing that matters, the only thing that exists.
“What happened?” I am the doctor, hovering close, sizing up my patient, taking in her ravaged arms, her broken body. Have you ever thought about hurting yourself? Were you trying to take your life? Libby, what have you done?
I reach out to her, but the heavyweight transport nurse steps full in front of me, blocking Libby with his bulk. “I don’t think so, kid.”
I dart to one side, but his arm flies out and hits me square in the chest. Pain shoots through me, and I fall back, winded. It’s just enough time for the nurse to bustle Libby away from me, through the lobby. I recover and follow them.
“Enough!” The girl at the desk shouts, grabbing the phone. She’s probably calling an orderly, but I don’t care. I tail the transport nurse to the medical wing.
“Libby!” I shout. “Libby, look at me!”
Libby’s hair hangs in greasy ropes down her back. Smudged purple marker peeks out of the white bandages, trailing up her fingers in nonsensical squiggles. She doesn’t answer me. She doesn’t even turn her head.
At the entrance to the medical wing, the electronic doors swoop open, and two nurses step out. Transport acknowledges me with a jerk of his head. “I have a bit of a situation here.”
I rush forward, but the nurses use their bodies to block me, pushing Libby through the doors behind them. They sidle backward one at a time and shut the doors firmly in my face.
I hurl myself against the doors, but they’re locked from the inside. Through the narrow glass windows, I watch them lead Libby past the nurses’ desk. I bang my hands against the glass, shouting for her. “Libby! Libby!”
Just before she rounds a corner where I won’t be able to see her anymore, Libby turns her head ever so slightly. I don’t know if she sees me. I don’t know if she sees anything. Her eyes are an arctic ocean, frozen solid. Nothing stirs beneath the surface.
I sag back against the wall, my chest heaving as I catch my breath. The swipe pad jabs into my shoulder blade. There’s a key pad beneath it, but I don’t know the code. I slam my fist into the keypad, over and over again, until the numbers are bruises on my knuckles, and my eyes sting with tears, and an orderly finally catches up to me.
“Do we have a problem here?” The orderly’s a young guy, probably new, and barely older than me. His voice is imposing, but his pink cheeks and telltale upper lip sweat give him away. He’s nervous.
I eye the swipe card clipped to the chest pocket of his white scrubs. I wonder if I could take him, grab his swipe card, and haul ass through those doors to find Libby. But I’d barely make it past the nurses’ desk before someone would call for help. I might not even have time to find her.
I push myself up off the wall, ducking my head to wipe my eyes on my shirt sleeve. “No.” I stroll past the orderly as nonchalantly as possible. “No problem at all.”
His eyes widen with relief, and his chest deflates a little. “Good,” he grumbles. “Move it along then.”
“Yes, sir.” I give him a sarcastic salute.
He opens his mouth to say something else, but I don’t stick around to hear it. I’ve gotta find a swipe card.
I burst through the door of the gym like someone’s chasing me. A couple guys on treadmills look up, surprised. “Is Red here?” I ask.
One of them points to the back of the gym, and I spot Red by the bench press, loading up the rack. “Red,” I call, breaking into a jog.
One look at my face and Red lowers the weight he’s holding. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Libby,” I tell him, dropping onto the bench. “She’s back.”
“Shiiiiittt . . .” Red breathes. He heaves the weight back up onto the rack and sits down beside me. “Did you see her?”
I nod. “She looks bad, dude. Really bad. I think . . .” The words catch in my throat. “I think she hurt herself,” I whisper.
Red exhales, a heavy wheeze, and lifts the collar of his ripped t-shirt to wipe the sweat from his upper lip. “She told you that?”
I shake my head. “I think they have her drugged or something. She barely even looked at me.” The disfigured girl from Libby’s painting veers into my memory. She’s broken, Libby said.
I drop my face into my hands. Crying in counseling is one thing. Crying in the gym is something else entirely. I clench my teeth, willing myself to get it together. But there’s a black and gaping hole inside me, and I am dangling from the edge, my grip slipping more each second.
“She’s in detox?” Red asks.
I nod into my hands. “I gotta get in there, dude.”
A calculating look flickers across Red’s face. He stands up, squeezes my shoulder. “Give me a couple hours,” he says. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I sit alone at dinner, swirling my leftover meatloaf with my fork until it looks like gray mush. My body’s moved through the motions of the day, but my brain’s been with Libby since the second she walked through the door.
Is she sleeping? Is she sick? Is she scared? Is she thinking about me as much as I’m thinking about her?
I barely notice Red drop his tray beside me. He sits down so close to me that his arm jostles mine. “Oh,” I say, glancing up at him. “Hey.”
Red’s cheeks are flushed under his freckles, and his eyes are shining. He casts a furtive glance around the room, then whispers under his breath, “Open your hand.”
“What?”
“Just do it,” Red hisses.
I drop my fork, slide my hand under the table and rest it on my leg, palm up. Red digs in his pocket, slips something into my hand. Something thin, hard, and plastic.
A swipe card.
“Act normal,” he mumbles, shoveling a forkful of meatloaf into his mouth. “Your face is going to give it away.”
I copy Red’s expression, forcing my face to stay flat and uninterested, but all the while, my eyes are darting around the room, certain that someone knows what I have. My heart is pounding like I just ran a marathon, and it’s all I can do not to jump up and run out of the dining hall.
I shove the swipe card in my front jean pocket and pull my shirt low to cover it. “How?” I whisper.
“My counselor never wears hers. Leaves it sitting on her desk in plain view.” Red’s voice is low, carefully confined to the small space between us. “I may have picked up a skill or two during my weeks on the streets, okay? Not that her office is that hard to get into.” He gives me a wry grin, and the pieces suddenly click into place. This is how Red gets around.
I can’t hide the grin teasing up the corners of my mouth. “This is awesome.”
“Not that awesome,” Red says, his eyes darting furtively toward the orderly posted by the dining hall entrance. “She’s gone for the day, but she’s going to notice it’s missing sooner or later. You have one chance, and then you have to get it back to me. Tomorrow morning at the latest, okay?”
My grin dissolves. If I get caught, it won’t just be me getting booted from LakeShore. Red will go down for this, too. “We could get kicked out.”
Red carves valleys through his meatloaf with his fork. “I know,” he says. “But I think it’s worth the risk.”
My eyes probe Red’s poker mask. Red’s been anti-me-and-Libby since the beginning. “Why do you want to help me see her now?”
Red lowers his fork, takes a long, slow sip of ice water. “When Lisa died,” he begins, “I was lounging on my couch in front of Jackass reruns. The accident was less than five miles from my house. And while she died, I ate leftover pizza and laughed at a stupid reality show.”
“You couldn’t have known it was going to happen,” I tell him, because it’s what I’d want someone to say to me. “It wasn’t your fault.” The words are a Scooby-Doo Band-Aid on a fresh gunshot wound.
He shrugs off my reassurance. “I know. I know all that.” His fingers toy with the dull tines of his fork, pushing the soft pads of his fingertips against the metal until pinprick indentations mark his flesh. “But even knowing what happened, even knowing the crash would’ve killed us both, I would’ve been there if I could.”
He looks up at me, his grief palpable. “Not to change it, you know, because I know I couldn’t. But to be with her. To hold her hand. To be scared shitless together.”
He clears his throat, then takes another swig of water. The emotion dissipates like fog on a bathroom mirror, taking with it secrets scrawled on the glass. “It’s worth it,” he says.
I nod, and together we start to come up with a plan.
It’s after midnight, and the lobby’s dark. No one’s at the desk. Room checks are over, and the orderlies have ducked into the staff lounge for a game of cards or a quick nap. I’ve piled all my dirty laundry under my covers, bunched up like a body, and squished my pillow up like a head.
The flickering security lights cast shadows in the corners. I startle at my reflection in the locked sliding glass doors, my hair shaggy around my ears, my face haunted. “Get it together, Eli,” I hiss. I stealth-walk down the hall to the medical wing and pause in front of the double doors.
Unlike the rest of LakeShore, the detox unit never sleeps. There are two nurses on duty at all times. The overhead lights are dimmed for the night, but the nurses pop into the rooms every so often to take blood pressure readings, temperature, that kind of thing.
I touch the plastic ridge of the swipe card in my pocket. No way I’m getting into Libby’s room and out again without somebody catching me. And I won’t have any excuses. I won’t have a second chance.
But Libby’s alone, probably sick and scared. I think about Red, and though I’ve never seen Lisa, I imagine them in the car together, hands clutched tightly as the car crashes against a guard rail and careens over the edge.
I take a deep breath and pull the swipe card out of my pocket. With a final peek through the glass to make sure nobody’s at the nurses’ station, I hold the card up to the flickering red light on the keypad.
It doesn’t work.
The light keeps flickering red, and the doors stay shut. Disappointment mingled with a shameful twinge of relief crashes through me.
And then the light’s green, and the doors crank open, and they are the loudest freaking doors I’ve ever heard, announcing to the entire world that I’m breaking into a medical facility.
There’s a little alcove for wheelchairs right inside the door. I duck into it, my heart racing.
The medical wing is filled with noise, steady beeps and hums. It reminds me of the morning I woke up in the hospital. I remember how confused and scared I was, my mom’s tears, Savannah leaving me, the disappointment and heartbreak etched across her face. It all happened decades ago. Or maybe only moments.
Footsteps come toward me. I press my back against the wall. The footsteps stop, and I peer around the corner. A nurse is at the nurses’ station. Her back’s to me as she stares into a glowing computer screen, her fingers rapidly skimming the keyboard.
I step out from the alcove. The medical wing’s nighttime noises mask my footsteps, and I slip silently past the nurses’ station and into the dimly lit hallway beyond it.
The hall is lined with patient doors. It dawns on me that I have no idea which room is Libby’s.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
What did I think I was going to do? Pop my head into every room and ask for her? I’m such an idiot.
I’ve almost decided to turn back when I hear her.
“I told you,” Libby says, her voice like desert sand. “I can’t sleep.”
“But it’s so late,” a nurse says. “You have to try.”
I inch forward, past one darkened room, and steal a peek into the next. A dark-haired nurse is standing next to Libby’s bed. “You can’t get better if you don’t sleep, hon.”
“I’m keeping watch,” Libby tells her, echoing the words she spoke to me in the lobby the first Visitation we spent together. “This way they can’t take me by surprise.”
“You’re perfectly safe here, Libby,” the nurse soothes. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. Please try and get some sleep.”
“I told you I can’t!” Libby snarls. “The fucking meds aren’t even working.”
The nurse sighs, and I wonder if she’s thinking that this girl is above her pay grade. That Libby belongs on a psych ward, not in rehab. I wonder if she sees this kind of crazy in detox all the time.
Screams come from the room next door; someone cries out in their sleep. The nurse turns toward the door. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”
Quickly, I dart back to the empty room and hide in the doorway. The nurse’s sneakers squeak against the tile floor as she heads down the hall to the screamer. “I’m right here, Jerry,” I hear her say. She utters soothing words to some poor kid that’s thrashing around in the nightmare of withdrawal.
No longer worried about being heard, I step out of the darkness and into Libby’s room.
The overhead light is off, and a circle of soft yellow light pools around the lamp on the bedside table. Libby’s sitting cross-legged on her bed. She’s wearing a hospital gown, knotted loosely at her neck, and her hair spills out of a greasy bun. She’s staring at the opposite wall, her glassy eyes fixed on something I can’t see. I’m struck by how tiny her feet are, where they stick out from under her gown. The standard issue socks with sticky soles bunch at her toes and ankles.
I ease the door shut behind me, cracked slightly, the way the nurse left it. I’ll hear her if she comes back.
I take a hesitant step forward. “Libby?” I whisper.
She flinches but doesn’t look at me.
I cross the room and sit down on the edge of the empty bed beside hers. “Libby, it’s me.” I reach out to touch her, but her whole body shrinks away from me and curls up inside the thin gown that blankets her narrow shoulders. She squeezes her eyes shut.
I lower my hand. “What happened to you?”
Libby shudders. A low moan escapes her lips, and it’s the sound of heartbreak, of something once wild, now broken.
Goose bumps careen down my spine. “Libby . . .”
“He came back.” The words come out in a hoarse whisper, so soft, I can barely hear.
I lean forward. “Who?”
Eyes still closed, Libby begins to rock gently back and forth. Her arms, stained with faded Sharpie smudges, crisscross her chest, and she clutches her elbows, her nails carving crescent moons into her skin.
“Him.”
In a flash, the memory of that first Visitation Day comes barreling back to me. I’m keeping watch, Libby had said. This way my mom and her sick fuck boyfriend can’t take me by surprise.
The boyfriend.
My stomach lurches, and for a minute I think I’m going to be sick. I remember the words I shouted at her the last time we spoke: What happened to you? Who made you this way?
The unspoken answer runs like the cold tip of a knife down my spine. “Did he . . .” The words lodge in my throat. “Libby, were you . . .”
“We ate dinner,” Libby says. “He brought takeout. Like everything was normal. Like things could ever be normal.”
A tear slips out from under Libby’s dark fringe of lashes, slicing a shimmering gash down her pale cheek. “But he was looking at me . . .” Her voice catches in her throat, and her words get wider, louder, like her throat can’t contain the depth of pain they carry. “…the way he always looks at me.”
She’s rocking faster now, harder, and it scares me. Her story spills out in a breathless jumble.
“I locked myself in the bathroom. I knew it was never going to be better; he was never going to go away and leave us alone. I found my mom’s pills behind the mirror. And then on the bathtub, her razor . . .”
My heart is pounding like it’s going to burst out of my chest. I reach out to her because I can’t help it; I wrap my arms around her, pull her close. She presses her cold wet face into the side of my neck, grips my back with desperate fingers, and together we careen toward the guardrail, crashing through into the night.
“I didn’t mean to,” Libby sobs. “I swear I didn’t mean to.”
“I know you didn’t,” I tell her, my hands in her hair, on her neck, my mouth against her skin.
I know.
I know.
I know.
We hold each other like this until my t-shirt is soaked through, and Libby’s sobs are soft whimpers, and her body goes still in my arms.
And then there are footsteps outside the door. I freeze.
Quick like a darting garden snake, Libby’s hand reaches for the lamp. The room plunges into darkness. I slide onto the narrow strip of floor between the two beds. The mattress creaks as Libby lies back against the pillows. The door opens, and a triangle of light reaches across the floor.
I dare only to take soundless sips of air.
White soled sneakers pad toward Libby’s bed. Toward me.
“Get out,” Libby snaps.
The nurse is nonplussed. “You know I have to check on you, Libby,” she clucks.
“I was starting to doze off,” Libby whines. “How am I supposed to sleep if you come in the room every five seconds?”
The sneakers pause. “You were sleeping?”
Silence. Maybe Libby nods.
“I’m really not supposed to leave you alone for very long,” the nurse frets, rolling up on the toe of one white sneaker. “I could lose my job.”
The bed creaks as Libby shifts her weight. “Please,” she begs. “I’ll be good, I promise. I just need to sleep.”
The nurse sighs. “I’ll try to give you a few hours. But I’m trusting you, Libby.” The sneakers turn, point back toward the door. “Call me if you need anything?”
“Close the door,” Libby orders in response.
The sneakers step into the hallway. The door closes, but only halfway. Light floods the room beyond the bed. But it’s enough.
I release my breath, take in full gulps of air. Adrenaline pumps through my veins; my arms and legs feel like JELL-O.
Atop the bed, Libby lets out what sounds like a giggle. And I wonder if it’s the sound of relief, or if it’s like laughing at a funeral. Because you have to do something, because you don’t have any tears left.
I reach for the mattress above me and haul myself up. “That was close,” I whisper, my eyes straining to adjust to the dark.
There’s movement, the creaking of the mattress, then the sudden press of Libby’s body against my own. Her mouth finds mine in the dark—hungry. Her fingers twist into the hair at the nape of my neck. And I know I am a razor. I know I am a bottle of pills.
But I am hungry, too.
I grip her hospital gown in my fist, reaching for the soft skin beneath. Libby’s kisses get harder, desperate. Her dry lips scratch mine; her tongue tastes sour. She cups my face in her hands, and the gauze on her wrists brushes my cheek.
I freeze.
I am a razor. I am a bottle of pills.
She is my addiction.
I let go of Libby’s gown. It flutters against her bare legs. Libby pulls back, her eyes searching my face, hurt and confused.
I take her hand in mine and gently begin to unwrap her wrist. Libby’s breath quickens, but she doesn’t resist. Round and round the gauze goes, until raw skin touches the cool darkness, and Libby’s pulse throbs against my thumb. With feather fingers, I trace a puckered trail of stitches along her skin. I kiss her wrist like ointment. Like fresh gauze.
I am salve.
“I didn’t mean to,” Libby whispers, her voice cracking in the middle.
“I know,” I say. I know.
I curl my fingers into Libby’s. Her cold hand intertwines with mine, and she tugs me down beside her. I hesitate.
I should go.
I want to stay.
As though she can read my mind, Libby whispers, “Please.”
I don’t want to be alone either.
I ease myself down onto the bed. Libby scootches over a little, and I tuck my arm underneath her. She lays her head on my chest, ear to heartbeat. I remember the day we napped on the lawn, and I wonder if my heart sounds as different as it feels.
Libby curls up tighter against me, and I stroke her arm, her back, her hair, until I feel her body relax and her breathing slow, and I know that sleep has found her.
I am ointment.
I am fresh gauze.
“Libby?” I whisper.
She makes a murmuring sound but doesn’t stir. I slow my breathing until Libby and I are inhaling and exhaling as one, and I marvel at our breath, at our still-beating hearts.
With my free hand, I feel for my scar and run my fingers across the leathery skin. Pain always leaves its mark.
I push Libby’s hair back from her forehead, touch my lips to her cool, damp skin. “I see you,” I whisper. “I see you.”
Libby mutters something in her sleep; she snuggles closer to me, her fingers tightening around mine. My eyelids are heavy, and I let them close for a minute.
Only for a minute.