Deeper We Fall

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  I pulled my shirt off and found some bruises on my arms and torso from who knew what. I got myself into a sitting position and called Tate.

  It went straight to voicemail, so I left him a message.

  I seriously had to pee, so I swung my sock-clad feet onto the floor and stood up. Bad idea.

  It took me two more tries before I could get up. My foot slipped on something, and it took me about an hour to lean over to pick it up.

  A key card, but it wasn’t mine.

  It was Charlotte’s.

  I read her name and stared at her smiling face for a few seconds longer just to be sure. Her gorgeous face grinned at me from the plastic card. I searched the room for any other evidence of her.

  I didn’t remember how or why she’d been in my room, but she’d been in my room. I was still alive, so she hadn’t had nefarious motives. Reaching back into the static that my brain had made of last night, I pulled a few moments forward.

  I told Tate where her room was after he’d begged me. He’d wanted to see if she was hot, and in my state I was determined to prove she was.

  Her voice echoed through the fuzz, but I couldn’t remember what she said, or what I said back, if anything.

  My head started pounding again, so I went to find some aspirin, all the while flipping Charlotte’s card over in my hand.

  She was going to need this back.

  I had two options. Be a gentleman and bring it to her, or wait for her to come to me. Both options had pros and cons.

  Being a gentleman won out.

  First though, I needed to make sure I was sobered up. I couldn’t face her like this. Again.

  It took another hour and a half, a long-ass shower and three more glasses of water before I was able to think about going up to her room and facing her.

  I didn’t know her schedule, and there was a chance she wouldn’t even be there, but I walked up the steps anyway and slowly made my way to her door, checking to see if there was any light under it, or any sounds. It reminded me of when we’d listened at Zack’s door.

  I heard movement in the room, so I took my chances and knocked. Footsteps sounded as whoever it was walked to the door to look through the peephole. I crossed my fingers and prayed it wasn’t Katie. I didn’t think I could deal with her in this condition.

  The door swung open and I met Charlotte’s lovely blue eyes. They were puffy and had dark smudges under them, which made me feel even more like shit.

  “What do you want, Zan?” Her voice was hoarse, as if she’d been yelling. For all I remembered, she’d been screaming at me.

  I liked the sound of my name coming from her mouth.

  “I came to return this.”

  Her eyes went wide as I held up her keycard.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “You left it on my floor when you poured my drunk and stoned ass in bed last night. Or this morning.”

  She opened and closed her mouth a few times before snatching it from my hand and shoving it in her back pocket and then mumbled something about a lanyard.

  “Thank you. For whatever you did last night. I sort of remember showing up at your door, but the rest isn’t all that clear.”

  She looked up.

  “You don’t remember anything?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, I’m not going to give you a recap, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to pretend last night didn’t happen.”

  “Why?”

  She took a deep breath, as if she was preparing to jump off a diving board into the deep end of the pool.

  “Because I don’t like the fact that I did something nice for you. I hate you, and I’d like to keep it that way. I’d like to keep imagining you being maimed and crushed and destroyed in very painful ways. Being nice to you feels like betraying Lexie, and that is the last thing I will ever do. I know you did a nice thing by looking after Katie, but it doesn’t erase everything else. Please, just leave me alone.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You say that a lot.”

  “I seem to have a lot to be sorry for.”

  “Can you just go?” Her voice shook a little, and I knew she wouldn’t want me to see her cry, so I turned around.

  “You mentioned Boo Radley,” she said as I walked toward the stairs. I faced her again.

  “Boo Radley?” She looked down at her card, turning it over in her hand.

  “Yeah. And some poem about mirrors.”

  “Huh.” A glimmer of a smile crossed her face, but was gone as quick as a blink.

  “Thank you again,” I said.

  She nodded and closed the door.

  Tate didn’t message me back until late that night, and he didn’t have any more insight into what we had done than I did.

  I didn’t tell him about Charlotte rescuing me. That was something I was going to keep to myself, and not just because Charlotte asked me to.

  My day of indulging in my old life might not have been such a bad idea after all, except for Miss Carole. The next time I talked to her she was going to find out about this. She always did, somehow. She always told me it was because she raised two boys and had eyes and ears everywhere.

  Sometimes, I believed her.

  After I’d gotten myself detoxed from whatever I’d consumed, I checked on Zack via text message. He sent one back saying he had class and then was going to the gym. Zack tended to keep it together better when he was working out. It gave him focus. Gave him somewhere to put his restless energy. Better working out than mindless sex with Katie or anyone else.

  I also had a lot of messages from Stryker. His sister must have told him about everything, or at least Charlotte’s version of things. He said that he didn’t care, that he wanted to hear my side, that he didn’t judge people.

  I wanted to believe him, but I’d heard it before. The only reason Tate and I were friends was because he didn’t give a shit about anything, least of all something like that.

  Maybe Charlotte’s moment of kindness or whatever it was had rubbed off on me, because I messaged him back, asking if I could come over and explain. He said he had to work, but I could drop by at nine.

  I spent the time waiting to go see Stryker doing the homework I should have done the night before when I went out with Tate. I emailed my professors and gave my excuses. Most of my classes were so large that my teachers wouldn’t know me from a hole in the ground, but still. I wasn’t taking any chances.

  The hours went by slowly as I ploughed through my work.

  I had to keep filling Charlotte thought balloons again so I could focus and wondering if this meant that she didn’t hate me as much as she said she did. Normally you didn’t bring people you hated back to their rooms and put them in bed. She should have called Campus Security and had me hauled in. I would have been out of her life as quick as you could say ‘juvenile delinquent’.

  But she hadn’t.

  Lottie

  Boo Radley.

  What the hell did Boo Radley have to do with anything?

  I’d been turning that over in my mind the entire day.

  “What is up with you, Lot?” Will said when I didn’t answer him at dinner. “You’re being weird again.”

  “Nothing. I just have a test I’m freaking out about.”

  “The only time you speak in less than one sentence is when you’re trying to deflect. I’m your twin. I don’t need my twindar to tell me that.”

  “Nosey, you are.”

  “Hiding something, you are.” I decided to go with something that was bothering me, but wasn’t the biggest thing that was bothering me. Will turned away from his new crew, Nick, JT, Brad and Seth (who were busy discussing what the Boston Red Sox’ chances were of making the World Series the next year) and focused on me.

  I couldn’t hide from the eyes that I knew better than my own. Zan had said something about mirrors. Will was mine.

  “I’m worried about Katie. I just have this vision in my head of her getting into a bad situati
on with Zack. Something even worse than Lexie.”

  “Lot, you gotta stop worrying about other people. Katie is an adult, she can make her own decisions.”

  “But—”

  “Lottie. You can’t save the world.”

  “I’m not trying to save the world. Just my roommate from getting hurt. Thanks so much for your concern.”

  “Aw, you know I don’t mean it like that.” I knew he didn’t. If there was anyone who would stick up for another person, it was Will. He’d done it over and over with Simon after he came out. If he wasn’t so well-liked by the entire high school (including the administration), he might not have gotten away with getting into so many altercations.

  “I just wish I could put one of those trackers like they use for pedophiles on him,” I said.

  “Have you talked to Katie?”

  I shook my head. “She won’t listen to me. She went right back to him after he gave her an ‘I’m sorry I screwed up’ necklace.”

  “That worked? Hmm,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Do you think that would be super creepy to get for Audrey?”

  I grabbed onto the topic change like a drowning person to a life raft.

  That was another thing I’d yet to deal with. The awkward Will/Audrey situation. She hadn’t mentioned it, and I had kept my mouth uncharacteristically shut about it.

  ***

  “So I wanted to officially apologize for the whole Will thing. I didn’t mean to throw him at you like that,” I said during our study date that night.

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s really not. Okay, so, I was talking about you and he just really wanted to meet you. That sounds creepy, but it’s really not. The lunch was weird, but only because Will was kind of being an idiot. He can be really charming, but –“

  “Lottie.” She raised one eyebrow. I always wished I could do that.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s okay. I didn’t think you were throwing him at me. I should have been honest with you before. I just got out of a really serious relationship, and I’m still having a hard time with it.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s his, actually. We were engaged until one night he left his phone at my house and I saw all the sexts from his ex-girlfriend.”

  “Wow. What a douche.”

  “Yeah, he was. I can’t believe it took me so long to realize it. There were so many red flags,” she sighed and mimed shooting herself in the head.

  “Yeah, I’m quite familiar with those. My roommate is head over heels for Brother of Doom numero uno.” I’d told Audrey a little about Zack and Zan.

  “Yeah, that’s what you said. I feel bad for her, honestly. You know he’s only going to hurt her.”

  “I’m just scared he’s going to really hurt her. This guy isn’t just a jerk. He sets my women’s intuition into overdrive.”

  “Maybe she’ll come to her senses?” We looked at each other.

  “Probably not,” we said at the same time.

  “Why? Why do girls do these things?”

  “Because boys know how to push all the right buttons. They say the right things and make us feel special, and then they touch you and it’s like you think you’re going to die from how good it feels. And it does feel good, for a while.

  “But then reality sets in and you realize that the boy who made you feel so good doesn’t anymore. There are things about him that you don’t like, and not just things like the fact that he snores, or won’t cut his toenails. You realize that he’s not the guy you thought he was. That’s the hardest part. Giving up the dream you made for yourself of this perfect guy.”

  I’d never been through anything like that. Sure, I’d cried when Clark and I broke up, but our relationship went back to a weird sort of friendship after a week or so.

  “My ex was scared to kiss me,” I said.

  “What?”

  “It was like he was afraid someone was going to jump out and yell at him or something. I mean, we’d be at my house alone and I’d try to kiss him and he’d get mad.”

  “How long were you with him?”

  “Eight months. We were friends all through high school and everyone was always telling us to date, so we did.”

  “Why did you stay with him for so long?”

  “It wasn’t bad. I liked kissing him, when he would give in, and we had fun on dates. It was like we were still friends, except we went to prom and held hands every now and then.”

  “So I’m guessing if he was freaked to kiss you, it never went further than that.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Was he your only boyfriend?” I hesitated. Oh, what the hell.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there are plenty of options here.” Two walked by and gave Audrey the once over. Their eyes just skimmed over me.

  “So enough about exes, do you want to come with us to the football game next Saturday? There’s a group going, so it wouldn’t be awkward,” I said. It was part of my master plan to get Will and Audrey together. What better place than an all-American football game?

  “I don’t know. I have a lot of studying to do.” I thought I was bad, but when Audrey got on a study kick, the girl didn’t stop for hours. She had “overachiever” written on her forehead.

  I couldn’t imagine a boy who would cheat on someone like Audrey. She made every Victoria’s Secret model look like a hag.

  Boys sure knew how to fuck up a good thing.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Zan

  “Did you do it?” Stryker said, sitting back on his couch and sipping a cup of coffee. I didn’t like it all that much, but I was still recovering from the night before, so I had some as well. It was nice to have something to hold onto.

  “Cause the accident? Yeah, I did.”

  “Shit. I thought my sister had gone mental.”

  I took a sip of the hot liquid. It was a bit like drinking tar. Stryker liked his coffee strong. “I can’t speak for her truthfulness about anything else, but about this, you can believe what she says.”

  “I knew you had something you weren’t telling me, and I just figured you’d come out with it when you were ready. Sorry my sister dragged you out of the proverbial closet. God, I need a cigarette. You mind?” We went out the window to his bedroom and climbed up a small set of fire stairs to the roof.

  “So what happened after?”

  I told him about Carter, about FUA. About Miss Carole and how she’d made me get my shit together. I lightly skimmed the surface of the impact Charlotte had on my life, especially recently.

  “Have you seen her since? Lexie?”

  “Yeah. I used to go over to visit her. Her dad hated it, so I had to go when he wasn’t home. I’d written her all these letters when I was bored out of my mind in the hospital. About how sorry I was about what happened, how much I wished it could have been different. I didn’t really write them for her, but I folded them all up and gave them to a sympathetic nurse who passed them on. Her mom calls me sometimes, too.”

  He leaned back on his elbows and stared at the sky. “Is she ever going to get better?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t talked to Mrs. Davis in a few months, but I didn’t think anything was going to change. Still, miracles happened.

  “That’s heavy,” Stryker said.

  No one had described it like that. Heavy. It was heavy. So heavy I thought it would crush me most of the time.

  “Do you have any heavy?” I asked.

  He stubbed out his smoke and laughed a little.

  “You could say that. Typical messed up shit. Dad split, Mom loved the bottle and drugs more than she loved us. We bounced from home to home, each one worse than the last. As soon as I was old enough, I got out and took Trish with me. It’s been just the two of us against the big bad world.”

  “Heavy.”

  “Nah. Nothing a little music can’t fix. There isn’t anything that music can’t fix.”

  That
sounded so much like something Gramps would have said. My thumb brushed the lighter.

  Stryker continued. “I mean, I’ve been on nearly every pill and drug and whatever that you can smoke, inhale or otherwise get into your body. They all got me high for a while, but I always crashed afterwards. But I can play a song on the drums, or my guitar, or the piano or the ukulele and I’m high off it for hours. No crash, no end to the good feeling. It sounds lame, but music is my drug of choice now.”

  He picked at his nails, which were painted a purple so dark it was almost black.

  “I used. When I was in Carter and FUA. It didn’t last,” I said, remembering my brief dip back into my old life. Granted, it had given me a reason to talk to Charlotte, but I wasn’t going to try it again.

  “What did you replace it with?”

  I had to think about what gave me the feeling drugs did.

  “Running. Books. Taking pictures.”

  Being around Charlotte.

  I didn’t mention the last thing.

  Stryker nodded in understanding.

  “So we’re cool?” I said.

  “I told you, I don’t judge people based on their pasts. I judge people on how they act in the present. No sense in worrying about the past. It’s not going to worry about you.”

  He was so free about it. Just a shoulder-shrug and the past was past.

  I couldn’t shrug off my load so easily. Maybe that was because I was weaker, or it was just too heavy.

  Lottie

  Miracle of miracles, I didn’t see Zan again for a whole week. I either saw him a million times, or none at all. I wished it would just be the second, but no such luck. At least that was what I told myself.

  I kept close watch on Katie, but she and Zack seemed to be getting along. I made it a point to text her repeatedly when she was out with him, asking stupid questions about where the broom was, or if she’d seen my favorite socks. It was totally transparent, but she always answered me. She was still intent on her makeover plan, but she’d let me in on very few of the details.

  We had more crime show marathons when she wasn’t with Zack or her friends. I said it was fine if they came over, but every time they did, all they wanted to do was go somewhere else. They half-heartedly invited me and I always turned them down.