He watches me, quiet, the entire time. “Look, I really am sorry. About…everything.”
I just nod, and he moves to get up. I’m struck with a brilliant idea, and I grab his arm. “Hang on a second. Is your mom’s stash still in the same spot?”
He raises his eyebrows. “You should stay away from that stuff, dude. You’ve had enough.”
“I think that’s for me to decide. Is it in the medicine cabinet?”
“Seriously, Jet. You need to be careful, man.”
His avoiding the question is all the answer I need. Besides, I’ve borrowed from his mom’s stash enough over the years to know she won’t have moved it. “Okay,” I say, releasing his arm. “I’ll be careful.”
He watches me for a minute, as if debating whether or not to leave me on my own. Fred appears at my other side, and Preston jumps up to go, apparently deciding I’m in more capable hands. “See you.”
“You about done with that?” Fred asks. “Seeing as how you drank most of that fifth on your own?”
“Yeah, I’m done.”
“Can we get out of here, then?”
“Sure, sure. Let me just pee first.”
I stand on shaking legs, kind of embarrassed when he has to steady me. After a few steps I get the hang of the whole walking thing again. We make it to the first floor, and I set off for the master suite.
“Where you going?”
I point in the direction of Preston’s parents’ room. “The line is probably huge for the can in the foyer. I’ll just use this one.”
He nods, trusting me, and I smile grimly as I stumble toward Mrs. Barkley’s bathroom and the drugs I know I will find there.
***
I dream of Zoe.
It’s cruel, really, that my subconscious does this to me. The image in my mind is perfectly clear, as if she were really right there in front of me, her soft hands caressing my face, brushing my hair away. Her voice, so familiar and sweet, tells me that everything will be okay.
When I open my eyes, she’s gone. Of course. My life is way too fucked up to believe for even a second that something so beautiful might have come back. I stare up into the harsh overhead lights, blinking.
It takes me a minute to realize that something is wrong. That light is definitely not in my room at home. And neither am I. My temples pounding with the movement, I turn my head slightly then bite back a groan. It’s not just my head that hurts; my entire body aches as if bruised.
That’s when I realize something else; I’m not alone.
“Dad?” My voice is a croak. My throat is dry and painful. Why is my dad here? Maybe I’m still dreaming after all.
“Jeremy,” he says, leaning forward.
I realize that he’s holding my hand and my confusion grows. Why is he here? And for that matter, where is here? “What’s going on?” God, my throat hurts.
“I thought I might lose you there for a while,” he says. I look up into his face, confused. His eyes are red. Has he been crying? I haven’t seen him cry since the funeral. I take in the wall behind him: a whiteboard with my name on it. Next to him is a metal stand holding a bag of liquid—liquid that appears to be dripping down a tube directly into my arm.
Holy shit.
“I’m in the hospital?” I ask. I try to turn my head again to get a better look, but it hurts so much that I give up.
My dad nods. “You had your stomach pumped. The doctor says you…you weren’t breathing.” He takes in a shaky breath. “They weren’t sure you were going to pull through.”
I’m silent, shocked. I can’t believe it went this far. I remember being drunk at Preston’s, really drunk. But that was certainly nothing new for me.
“They say you had a lot of Xanax in your system,” he says.
I close my eyes. I remember the Xanax. I’d taken a lot. So much that I’d lost track.
“And alcohol poisoning. But it was the combination that made you stop breathing.”
“Dad,” I say. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…I’m sorry you had to come home for this.”
Something in his face changes, like he’s grimacing. “I should have been at home,” he says, his voice quiet.
I stare at him, not knowing what to say to that.
“I talked to your mother.”
I close my eyes. She’s not here at my bedside, but I’m not surprised. I’m embarrassed that a shot of pain courses through me. Like I’m some little boy who needs his mom when he’s sick.
“Jeremy, I had no idea that things had gotten so bad. I…I should have known. I should have been here to see it for myself.”
“What did she say to you?”
He looks down at me, and I can tell he doesn’t want to say. I smile grimly. “It’s okay, Dad. I guarantee I’ve heard worse from her.”
“You should have told me that she was talking to you like that. That she was…blaming you. God, Jeremy. I wish you would have told me.”
I look away. I find it hard to believe he didn’t know. Granted, she got herself together a little more when he was home. She still drank, but she was less violent, less emotional. And I made sure to stay clear as often as possible. It was bad enough to hear those things from my mom—I don’t think I could handle seeing the blame in my dad’s eyes as well.
“This has been going on since the beginning?”
I shrug. “It’s gotten worse the last few years. Mostly when she’s had a lot to drink.”
His expression darkens. “Which is all the time.”
We’re both quiet for a long moment. I wonder what he’s thinking, coming home to such a disaster. My dad had taken the transfer without a second thought, eager to get away from the house, from the memories, from us. Ever since then he’s been in denial about the state of our family. On the weekends that he was home, he’d hide away in his study while Mom hid away in the library, both drinking, both pretending. Those weekends had gotten fewer and farther between as time went on. And I got that, I really did. If I’d had a way out, I probably would have taken it, too.
“Things are going to change, Jeremy. I promise you that.”
I look up at him, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll take some time off, move back home. Your mother obviously needs help, much more than I realized.” He rubs his palms roughly against his face. “It’s my fault. I didn’t want to see.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say, meaning it. Out of anyone in the family, he’s the least to blame. He’d done everything he could to save Jim, spared no expense. In those last weeks he’d stopped working and sat by his son’s side all day. And then Jim was gone and what was my dad left with? A drunken wife and a son he couldn’t bear to look at half the time.
“It’s not your fault either,” he says, taking his hands away from his face to meet my eyes. “You know that, right, son?”
I just stare at him. I know he’s just saying it, just trying to make me feel better. It must be pretty shitty for him, seeing another kid in the hospital. But then he leans forward, bringing his face close to mine. His eyes are wide now, intense and locked on mine. “Jeremy, you know that, don’t you?”
A lump forms in my throat. I want to brush off what he’s saying, to play along with him, to tell him “of course” like it’s no big deal. But I can’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I shake my head.
It breaks my heart, watching his face crumple the way it does. It’s like someone punched him in the stomach, like the breath is sucked right out of him.
“Oh, Jeremy,” he whispers, closing his eyes. “No, son.”
Tears gather in the corners of my eyes, and I try to bring my heavy hands to my face to hide behind them.
But my dad grabs my hand. “You listen to me, Jeremy. You did nothing wrong, do you hear me?” His eyes are blazing, and my stomach clenches. “It was not your fault. None of it. I promise you that.”
I shake my head, the tears streaming down my cheeks now. I want him to stop. There’s no point to this. None. Th
e words aren’t true, I know that. But I want to believe them so bad.
“Son.” His voice cracks. “Your brother’s death was a terrible tragedy. But it was not your fault.”
I turn my face away. Pressure builds in my chest, so strong I’m sure I won’t be able to bear it another minute. My dad makes a move as if to touch me, but stops short when a nurse sticks her head through the doorway.
“Are you okay?” she asks, moving toward the bed. “The monitors show that your pulse is racing—”
My dad cuts her off. “We’re fine.”
“I need to check—”
“Just give us a few minutes.” His voice is firm, the all-business bark I’ve heard him use on the phone so many times before.
The nurse takes a look at my face—God, I must look like such an asshole—and seems to soften. “Try to relax. I’ll be back in a few.” She looks at my dad. “You need to keep him calm. If his heart rate keeps spiking we’ll have to come in and monitor him more closely.”
I turn my face away as she leaves, glad for the interruption. Things are getting too intense in here, and I need to figure out a way to get a hold of myself. But then my dad grabs my chin and forces me to look at him, and I realize we’ve hardly touched intense so far.
“I am so proud of you, Jeremy. The way you were willing to go through that surgery. You were so brave.” He’s crying too, tears spilling unchecked down his face. And it’s the weirdest thing—he looks like he really means it. Like these aren’t just platitudes to make me feel better. Like the words are true.
“You think…” I swallow. “You think I was brave?”
He smiles. “Of course I do. As soon as you heard you were a match, you didn’t even hesitate. You would have done anything for your brother, kid. It was obvious. I’ve never been more proud of anyone.”
“But…but…he waited so long to tell me. Because I was so obsessed with freaking baseball. What kind of a brother was I, for him to think I cared more about a damn game than I did about him?”
My dad shakes his head, still smiling. “He was proud of you, too, Jer. So proud. He loved watching you play. He didn’t want to miss that.” He pauses. “And he knew, just like I do, that you would have left the team immediately to go through with the surgery. Of course you would have.”
“Mom says…” I pause, not wanting to say the words. “Mom says I was always so selfish. That Jeremy didn’t tell me because he didn’t think I’d go through with it while the season was still going. That it was obvious to everyone I’d choose baseball over the surgery.”
I see anger in my dad’s eyes, but his voice remains even. “She’s wrong. She’s a very sad, very sick woman, Jeremy. And she’s wrong.”
We’re quiet for a moment, me in my hospital bed, Dad standing next to me. The pressure in my chest doesn’t go away, and I wait for something to snap so it can crush me. I want to cling to his words, to believe them. I want it so damn bad. But I’m still not convinced.
“You know, I would never admit it then,” my dad says, and now he’s looking past me, as if remembering. “But I think Jim knew, somehow. That it wouldn’t go into remission. He used to say things to me…” He trails off, his eyes clouded. I’m pretty sure he’s not really in this room with me right now. He’s with Jim somewhere, in his memory. “He said what he wanted the most was to see you happy for as long as he could. That’s what mattered to him. He loved you so much.” My dad’s voice breaks again, and my chest aches. “He wanted to watch you play, wanted you to finish the season. He knew he wouldn’t be there for the next one, and he wanted his memories of you to be happy.”
I can’t take much more of this. I feel like the weight of the entire planet is sitting on my chest, pressing down, destroying me. I can’t hold it off any more.
“He was so damn proud of you, Jeremy.”
And suddenly the dam is breaking. Everything I’ve tried to put away, to forget, to not think about for the past five years is crashing down on me, crushing me. The sound of my brother’s laugh. The way he used to grab me and hug me out of nowhere, laughing when I would push him off and call him a loser. How I could always hear him cheering over every other voice in the crowd at my games. Even at the end, when he was already sick. I could always look up from the field and find him in the stands, clapping for me. I remember how he’d taught me to ride a bike when I was five, tired of having to leave me behind when he wanted to ride down the street. He always waited for me, too, when my little legs couldn’t go as fast as his.
And I remember the way he had held my hand so tight in his in those final moments, somehow finding the strength to open his eyes, to speak, making me promise to be happy, to live, to have everything we’d both ever dreamed of. The pain tears at my insides, and it’s all that I can do to keep the torrent from breaking free.
Then my dad’s arms are around me, pulling me against him. “It’s okay, son. It’s okay to let go.”
And for once in my life, I think it might be. So I do something I haven’t done in five years—I cry. I cry for my brother, whose life was way too short. I cry for my dad, who had to bury his son. I even cry for my mom, because no mother should have to endure what she did.
But mostly I cry for me. I cry because I lost my best friend. I cry because he’ll never know the man I’ve grown into. He’ll never see my artwork. Never know I got into RSDI. He’ll never meet the girl I love.
And I cry because if he were here today, if he could see what I have done to my life, what I have settled for, he would be so damn sad.
“I fucked up, Dad,” I whisper into his shoulder. “I’ve fucked up so bad.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he tells me, his voice steady.
Once I can breathe again, I tell him everything—well, almost everything. I leave out the gorier details, but I tell him how I’ve wasted so much time partying. He knows about the arrest, of course, but I tell him that was far from the last time I got into a fight. I tell him about the acceptance to RSDI and how I turned them down. He doesn’t interrupt, just lets me talk. And then I tell him about Zoe, that she was finally something good and right in my life and I let her get away. That I never even told her how I feel.
When I’m done, my dad looks tired and so much older than any fifty-year-old man should look. He runs a hand through his hair. “We’ve both made some mistakes. I don’t think anything you’ve done is anywhere near as bad as a father abandoning his son.”
I feel a familiar stab of resentment, and I think he sees it in my face because he smiles bitterly. “You should be mad at me. It’s okay.”
I don’t say anything. Was I mad at my father? Maybe that was something that I was burying, too.
“We both have some work to do, to make things right,” he says. “But I know one thing: Jim would be really disappointed in us if we didn’t at least try.”
I agree, knowing he’s right about Jim. Forget disappointed, he’d be downright pissed.
“So, uh, how do we do that?” I ask. “Make it right, I mean.”
My dad looks at me for a moment before smiling. “Hell if I know. But we’ll figure it out, son. You and me together. You’re not on your own anymore, Jeremy. I promise.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Zoe
I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open today. I stayed up way too late studying for a final I wasn’t prepared for, then came straight to the hospital after school, the same as I’ve done every day this week.
Peter insists I keep up my class schedule. With the end of the semester so close, he’s determined I won’t let the issues with my mom keep me from finishing. I’m grateful for the time away from the hospital; the rest of my day is split pretty evenly between my bed at home and an uncomfortable chair in the waiting room.
I’ve been allowed in to see my mom only a few times. She refuses to talk to me, convinced that I’ve taken Peter’s side and the two of us are conspiring to get her hospitalized.
I can’t help a shiver of guilt whenever sh
e says that word. Because it’s true, in a way. Peter is trying to get her hospitalized. And, deep down, I agree with him.
With Jerry gone and my mom in such bad shape, Peter’s been able to move pretty quickly to be appointed her guardian. He says it’s a short-term measure, just necessary to make sure she gets the care she needs. She can’t stay in the crisis stabilization unit here in the ER for much longer—she’ll need a more permanent placement soon, and it looks like the court will order her to be admitted somewhere. I know it’s for the best but that doesn’t make it any easier to ignore her screams of betrayal every time either of us enters her room.
He’s in there now. She’s calmer today, and the doctors tell us she’ll continue to improve the longer she’s on her new meds. I don’t really know what all of that means, but she does seem to be sleeping better and yelling less. I haven’t heard an outburst since he entered her room.
I lean my head back against the wall, and close my eyes. Maybe I can sleep for a few minutes. I have to keep reminding myself that I don’t have to worry about my mom every minute, that there’s someone else now to shoulder some of that worry.
“Zoe?”
My eyes snap open. Grace is standing in front of me.
She gives me a tentative smile. “Did I wake you? I’m sorry, I should have left you alone.”
“It’s okay.” I wonder if maybe I’m dreaming. “What are you doing here?”
“Can I sit?”
“Sure.” I’m sitting in the corner seat so she takes the chair closest to me on the other wall so that we’re facing each other.
“Sorry to just show up like this. But when I heard, I couldn’t stop thinking about what you must be going through. And I just had to come see you.”
My entire body goes cold. “You heard? Who told you?” The idea of people gossiping about this makes me sick.
She holds up her hands, realizing her mistake. “No, no, sorry. I heard from Ellie. No one else knows.”
My horror is replaced with confusion. “Ellie told you?”
“I know, weird, right? I ran into her at a party last night. At first I figured she’d do that whole smirking and making fun of me thing she’s so good at.” I wince, knowing she’s right. Ellie is rarely anything but rude to Grace. “But then she surprised me by telling me what was going on with your mom. Said she figured you could use as much support as possible.”
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