You are the Story (The Extra Series Book 7)

by Megan Walker

  “SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT TO DO FOR A RATTLESNAKE BITE!” I shout, because my head’s about to explode from the terror and the guilt and oh my god, my wife is going to die, and I can’t stop it, and—

  “I found the symptoms,” says a woman near the front of the bus. I think she’s the same one who told me not to suck it, but I’m not honestly sure. “Are you faint?”

  “Yes,” Anna-Marie says.

  “Light headed?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Fast pulse?”

  Anna-Marie thrusts her wrist at me.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Very fast.”

  “It’s probably a rattlesnake,” the woman says.

  “Damn it, I know it was a rattlesnake!” I say. “What do I do?”

  “Keep it still and get to a doctor,” she says.

  “We’re already doing those things.”

  “Then I’ll be fine, right?” Anna-Marie asks, her voice thin with desperation. “I’ll be fine?”

  “Coming up on the hospital,” the driver says.

  And instead of telling my wife that of course she’ll be fine, like any sane person would do, I burst into tears.

  Thirty-four

  Jenna

  It seems inevitable that I would end up here. Not here, specifically, not this particular seedy dive club in one of the many armpits of Los Angeles. Not this particular cracked-vinyl stool pulled up to this dingy bar, seated next to these particular people—that balding guy with the loose-fitting business suit and the lady in the tube top leaning towards him and running a hand up his thigh.

  But someplace very much like this. Someplace for people looking to forget and be forgotten.

  Or maybe that’s just me.

  The bartender, a burly guy with a short beard and an even shorter mohawk—more like a landing strip across his otherwise bald head—comes over to take my order.

  I pause, uncertain. I haven’t ordered drinks in a long time. Even before I became a Mormon and alcohol was off-limits for religious reasons, I had pretty much already stopped drinking, mainly because Felix didn’t ever drink. And before Felix, drinking more than the occasional cocktail or glass of wine would remind me too much of my old self.

  Always trying to escape me, she would say to that. At least now you know why you never could.

  “Gin and tonic,” I say, swallowing hard. “Double, actually.”

  “Sure thing,” the bartender says, and pulls out the well drinks.

  He hands my drink to me and I put some cash on the bar, and he nods, then heads off to help the next person. He’s not the kind of bartender you see in movies, who’ll ask what problems I’m drinking away, and then offer up some sage advice while wiping down a clean beer mug. I’ve been to plenty of bars and never once met one of these bartenders, so I’m pretty sure they’re a myth.

  And tonight especially, I’m glad for that. I’m not going to talk about how I’ve spent the last two days holed up in a shit-hole motel two streets over, where no one would ever think to find Jenna Mays. How I saw it and felt like this is even too good a place for a woman who would leave her family—even a woman who knows that’s what’s best for them. But how I was so tired I stopped there anyway, and wrapped myself up in the thin, scratchy blanket on the bed, shaking, trying not to think about Felix finding my note and my ring, trying not to think about my kids waking up in the morning and wondering where I am.

  The last two days I barely moved. Only left the motel room at all to get snacks from the half-empty vending machine. I laid there in bed and sobbed so hard I thought my body was going to break apart, wracked with pain that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. I sobbed until I would fall asleep again, even in the middle of the day, and wake up and remember all that I’ve lost, all that I will never, ever be worthy of, all the hurt I’ve caused and would continue to cause, and it would start again.

  I want to go home. I want to be with my husband and my children. I feel like an addict, craving them. But instead of knowing they’re what will destroy me, it’s the other way around. I’m the one who’ll destroy them.

  So I dragged myself out of that motel room and walked here.

  The ice cubes clink against the glass in my hand. I stare at the drink, watch the liquid tremble on the surface. So much for the promises I made when I was baptized. So much for a lot of things.

  I close my eyes and take a deep drink. And grimace at the taste. Either it’s a shitty gin and tonic, or I’ve lost my taste for this particular drink—probably a mix of both. Not that this was ever my favorite, but gin has a way of going straight to my head, which is what I’m here for. At least in part.

  I begin scanning the room, searching faces in the crowded, cramped bar, while the voices speak in my head.

  You’re here because you’re a worthless, stupid whore.

  You’re here because your family is better off without you.

  You’re here because you’re full of shit, and they were going to find out who you really are anyway, and then they’ll want you to leave.

  I can’t tell anymore if the voices are Past Jenna’s or Grant’s or a chorus of drunk frat boys whispering in my ear; it doesn’t matter, because all the voices are me, and I’m them, like I always was and always will be.

  Except one voice, and this one is distinct and safe and makes me feel even warmer than the gin flooding my veins.

  I’m going to be here when the wall comes down, when the wave comes crashing in. I’ll be here, no matter what.

  I’ll never leave you, not for any reason.

  Felix. My chest feels hollowed out.

  I believe him. He wouldn’t.

  Am I a terrible person who would hurt them by being in their lives, or am I a coward who is hurting them by running away? Probably both. Definitely both.

  But one is worse than the other. Because the truth is, my sister Rachel wouldn’t have died if I had run away the first time.

  And if Felix won’t ever leave me, then I had to be the one to leave, so when the wave came—this wave, pulling me under now? Or maybe the next or the next because it never stops—I wouldn’t drown us both. But more than that, I realized something today, as I huddled there in bed, so close to just getting back in my car and driving home and begging Felix and Ty to forgive me and still love me, begging baby Rachel even though she wouldn’t understand.

  I need to make it so I can’t come back. So I can’t do that to them.

  My eyes skip over the guy at the end of the bar, looking at nothing but his beer. Over the guy and the girl getting hot and heavy in one of the red vinyl booths. Past the groups drinking together, the people grinding up on each other on the small open space in the middle of the bar that serves as a dance floor when people get drunk enough to dance to the mediocre EDM being pumped through the speakers—nothing so classy as a live band or even a DJ here.

  My gaze catches on a guy, probably in his thirties, who is eyeing me. I take another drink, my gut twisting.

  He tips his drink to me, and I see the wedding ring glint on his finger. I look away.

  As if you’re any better. You know why you’re here. You know what you’re going to do.

  The gin is making my brain feel thick, sooner than I even expected. Though it has been awhile, and I haven’t eaten much. I finish the glass and indicate to the bartender that I need another.

  Because I do, if I’m going to do this.

  I glance around, see the girl in the tube top—who I’m pretty sure is a prostitute—now in a booth with the business suit guy, laughing too hard at some joke he’s making. She notices me, and stops, blinks. Her eyes grow wide.

  Does she recognize me? I’m not exactly incognito, though I’m not so famous that it’s usually necessary.

  Does it matter, anyway, if the public finds out? My family is going to know who I really am now. T
he rest of the world might as well.

  The bartender brings me a second double, and this time he does pause, giving me a concerned look, like maybe he wants to be that wise glass-wiping sage of the bar, after all. I take another drink and turn on my stool so my back is to him.

  And that’s when I see exactly what I’m looking for. There’s nothing in particular about the way the guy is dressed—distressed jeans and a black t-shirt—or even looks, with his dark hair and clean-cut features. But there’s something about the way he’s surveying the room himself, the predatory look in his eyes as he checks out this girl’s ass or that girl’s cleavage.

  The wolfish smile when he sees me watching him.

  Another drink. I’m starting to feel numb, all the way to my fingertips.

  I was right—old me, that is. Numb is better.

  I force myself to smile back; it’s not hard to remember how this goes. A coy smile, before slowly bringing the glass to my lips and turning away. I’m not exactly dressed the way I used to go to parties or bars. I only grabbed a few tank tops and pairs of underwear to stuff in my purse before I left, along with a toothbrush. So I’m still wearing my jeans from two days ago, and a plain white tank top over a nude bra. I don’t have much in the way of makeup on—I only had some lipstick in my purse—but it’s enough.

  I know what draws guys like this to girls like me, and the full makeup and short skirts aren’t necessary. It’s like they know what I am, they sense it.

  They always have.

  My head’s starting to swim, the alcohol making my limbs heavy.

  So so numb. Better than pain. I take another drink.

  “You look like a girl who knows how to dance,” a voice says, and I turn to see the guy in the black t-shirt.

  Of course. I brought him over here, didn’t I?

  You know what to say to this. You remember how it goes.

  I’m a girl who knows how to do a lot of things—that’s what I say back.

  The glass shakes in my hand, the ice cubes tinkling. “Maybe,” is all I say.

  His eyes are traveling over my body. Lingering on my chest, and then again along my legs. “Can I get you something else to drink?” He smiles, and I see that hunger in his eyes.

  I remember back at those parties, especially at the beginning, how I used to feel a thrill at that look. Knowing that some guy wanted me. It felt powerful. Until it didn’t anymore.

  I don’t feel powerful now. My stomach goes queasy. “Sure.”

  He motions to the bartender, and orders a couple shots of tequila.

  “Seems like your style,” the guy says.

  I actually hate tequila. But I clink my shot glass against his. “You guessed it,” I say.

  There’s a moment where I pause with the shot glass almost to my lips, my eyes catching on a guy at the end of the bar, sliding a packet of something to another guy. A drug deal, probably. And suddenly I can’t help but think of Felix with a needle in his arm, and the pain lances back through the numbness. The scary questions that have threaded through my pain of the last couple days.

  Will he go back to the heroin because I left him? Will he be so hurt he shoots up and can’t take care of our kids or overdoses and—

  No, I tell myself again. Felix wouldn’t do that. He’s strong. So much stronger than I am. He went to rehab once just because he thought he might slip.

  No, if anything will make him do that, it’s me staying. Dealing with my problems over and over again—my shit, my pain, my wave pulling us all under.

  I’m not sure if any of that is making sense, but I can see it all, us drowning and him shooting up and my brain sloshing around in my skull.

  I down the shot, and it burns my throat and my lungs. The guy laughs, and it makes my skin crawl. He orders another couple shots, and we both drink.

  Numb. Am I numb enough for this yet?

  “Let’s dance, then,” I say, tugging the guy by his shirt to the pitiful dance floor, colors flashing under a cheap strobe light.

  I’m fifteen again, or sixteen or seventeen, at some frat party, and the drinks are making the world hazy, and the music is my pulse, and I’m dancing with this guy I don’t know and who doesn’t give a shit about me, and he has his hands on my hips and he wants to use me and I’m using him even though I don’t want to, I want to go home. I’m dancing and the world is spinning and I want to go home.

  Why can’t I go home?

  Another song starts, or maybe it’s the same song—has it been one long song this whole time?—and the guy tugs me against him and this is what I’m supposed to be doing, dancing up against him, except his sweaty hands feel wrong on my skin, they don’t belong there on my waist, they don’t belong anywhere on me.

  I step away. “I don’t . . . I’m not—”

  What am I trying to say? This is what I’m supposed to be doing.

  “A little too much dancing, huh?” The guy pulls me back toward him. “There’s other things we can do.”

  I close my eyes, and I see Felix, and all I want is Felix, he’ll make the room stop spinning and—

  And suddenly there’s lips on mine, there’s a tongue jammed in my mouth, but it’s not Felix, I know that. All of me knows that and cringes away, my whole body sick and bunched up and wrong and I’m saying “No, no, no,” and pushing him away from me, not numb anymore, not numb at all.

  “What’s your problem?” he asks, but doesn’t let go of my arm. “I bought you drinks. You wanted to dance. You some fucking tease?”

  My cheeks feel wet, and I think it’s tears, but maybe it’s sweat. “Let me go.”

  “Come on.” His eyes narrow, even as he smiles again. “Let’s just go sit down. We’ll get some more drinks, we’ll—”

  “Leave me the fuck alone!” I scream. “I don’t want this! Don’t kiss me, you’re not him, I don’t want this, I don’t—”

  “Step away from her, man,” a voice behind me says, and for a bare bright moment I think Felix, Felix is here, Felix came to get me and he still loves me and he’s going to wrap his arms around me and . . . No, it’s not Felix, it’s just some other guy, and the guy who kissed me says “fucking tease” again and walks away and people are watching, so many people are watching and not dancing anymore even though the music is still bleeding bleeding bleeding from the speakers.

  I can still feel the guy’s grip on my arm, his hands on my waist, even though he’s walked away, so that can’t be right, but my skin isn’t my own anymore, and my stomach is flipping and turning.

  “You okay?” Another guy asks, and I recognize the mohawk, or sort-of mohawk, it’s like a baby mohawk, and I giggle, but more tears come out.

  “I really think that’s her,” a girl says.

  “Why don’t you come with me,” the bartender says. “We’ll get you some water and some food and—”

  The words are too much, too many, and I don’t really understand them anyway. I don’t need water or food. I need all the lights to stop flashing and the room to stop getting smaller.

  I need my family.

  “I want my husband,” I say, and the world tips around me. “I want to go home. Please let me go home.”

  Or that’s what I think I say, at least, before I completely pass out.

  Thirty-five

  Josh

  We pull up in front of the hospital through the ambulance lane in front of the ER. “We need to exchange information,” the bus driver says, and I pull out my wallet and throw it at her. She flinches, probably expecting a snake again, and I yell that I’ll be back to talk to her as I scoop up Anna-Marie and carry her off the bus and through the self-opening doors of the emergency room.

  I charge right up to the reception desk. “My wife needs a doctor,” I say. “She was bitten by a rattlesnake.”

  “Calm down, sir,” the nurse behind the station says
, gesturing in a placating way, her voice perfectly even. Which somehow makes me even more upset—can’t she see how serious this is?

  “Don’t tell me to calm down!” I say. “My wife is dying from a rattlesnake bite and it’s all my fault!” Someone—another nurse—pulls over a wheelchair and I set Anna-Marie down in it. She’s looking even more pale and sweaty and panicked, though it occurs to me that all those symptoms are probably also indicative of being in a car wreck and being panicked for one’s life—or panicked for one’s spouse’s life, since I’m feeling pretty pale and sweaty myself.

  “Okay, sir.” The nurse at the station seems not fazed a bit by my desperation. “I just need you to fill out this form—”

  “I’m not filling out a form! She was bitten by a snake!” I pull the snake out of my pocket and fling it across the desk at her, and that at least cracks that shell of bureaucratic calm—she jumps even higher than the bus driver did.

  “It’s dead,” I add. Again.

  The nurse stands up to her full height and stares me down. “You cannot throw snakes in here, sir,” she says, with enough authority that I half expect there to be a sign to that effect posted behind the desk.

  “Don’t lecture me about snakes,” I growl, retrieving it again from behind the desk. One of these times I’m going to throw it at someone who will help me. “My wife is dying.”

  “Am I dying?” Anna-Marie asks the nurse, her voice pitched too high, and her hands gripping the arms of the wheelchair. “He keeps saying I’m dying.”

  “Because you got bit by a rattlesnake in my car,” I yell. My hands are shaking, and I clench them into fists. “And it’s all my fault!”

  “Okay,” the nurse says, her eyes narrowed at me. “I’m going to take you back. But you need to calm down, sir, or I’ll have to call security.”

  I clamp my mouth shut, if only because this nurse doesn’t seem to be in any kind of a hurry to get us seen, and she’ll probably waste time with security while Anna-Marie is dying. She shows us back to a room, and another nurse or physician assistant or whatever comes in, and he has the nerve to smile at us. “Hi,” he says. “I heard someone got bit by a snake.”