by J. Bengtsson
He chuckled as if I’d made a funny. That told me all I needed to know. Despite the beatdown I’d delivered him a couple of weeks ago, Preston was back for round two.
“What do you think, Sam? Of course I’m here for you.”
And suddenly, the flowers were shoved into my arms – all eight hundred pounds of them – and I was struggling under their weight.
“Thank you, they’re beautiful,” I said, trying to juggle the arrangement as Preston leaned in for a hug. My eyes connected with Shannon’s. She was standing directly behind Preston and was dramatically mimicking an asthma attack.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” I said as we stepped apart.
And truly I was. I thought I’d been pretty clear that we were no longer a couple, but lo and behold here he was again. I knew Preston was no quitter, but I didn’t think he was a glutton for punishment either. Besides, he had a line of women waiting in the wings. What did he need with me?
“I know, and I’m sure you’re devising some exit strategy in your head as we speak, but you need to hear me out, Sam. I made a mistake. I know that now, and I’m ready to do anything necessary to win you back.”
I glanced around at all the interested faces. Even some strangers in the aisle behind seemed overly invested in our conversation. I shoved the blooms into Stewart’s hands and grabbed Preston by the arm to lead him away.
“Um, Samantha,” Stewart called to me. “Maybe this is a good time to tell you I’m allergic to absolutely every flower in this arrangement.”
Steering Preston away from the crowd, I didn’t stop until I found a spot where we could speak in private. “Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate you thinking of me today. But I need you to know – it’s over.”
“I heard you the first time. I just don’t accept it. When you love someone, Sam, you fight for them.”
“Like you fought for me? With your family?”
“I was working on them. They were warming to you.”
“Preston.” I held my hand up to interrupt his make-believe retelling of the events leading up to our split. “Your mother invited everyone but me on a trip to the Bahamas. Hell, even your brother’s fuck buddy was summoned – of course her daddy owns a Fortune 500 company, so she can be forgiven for being loosey-goosy with her morals.”
“There’s no reason to hash over the same details. Yes, I admit it. That was bad. I shouldn’t have gone. I understand that now. It was just that I was getting pressure from you and I was getting pressure from them. I chose wrong, and I’ve apologized a thousand times.”
He wasn’t lying about that. Preston had felt guilty… after the fact. But I’d seen the Instagram pics he’d been tagged in. He wasn’t sorry when he was drinking a Bahama Mama on the beach, and, try as I might, I couldn’t get the image of his smiling face out of my mind. Preston might be sorry now, but he hadn’t fought for me when it counted, and that was where I drew the line in the sand.
Preston grasped my arms and drew me in. I blinked up at him, his face blinding me. Oh, Preston. Why do you have to be so beautiful? It made what I was about to do all the more difficult. I should have shut him down that very first day I met him at the beach. I was the surf instructor and he the unsteady pupil. Try as I might, I never did manage to get him to his feet. Preston was accustomed to winning quickly, and when it became apparent he’d have to work hard for every ounce of skill surfing demanded, he gave up – on surfing, that is, not me.
He’d pursued me hard, I’ll give him that. Like a whittler, he’d chipped away at my resistance until I finally agreed to a date. And really, why wouldn’t I? On paper, Preston was the perfect guy – a first place trophy. Five years my senior, he’d had the mature stability I was looking for. Handsome, wealthy, and a real go-getter, Preston was a rising star in his father’s freight trucking business. He was going places, albeit with a little help from his friend named nepotism. Still, life with him promised to be steady and fulfilling – and boring.
But it was his mother’s icky obsession with her first-born child that became the spur that split us apart. The jabs started upon first introduction, when Preston’s injection-filled mother looked me up and down and asked if I’d had a nose job. When I replied ‘no,’ she’d patted my hand and said she’d give me the name of her surgeon. And the pin-prink insults continued unchecked. His mother had made it clear where I stood, and that was just behind the cat named Swanky who was deemed too homely to be included in the family Christmas cards.
I was never sure exactly why she’d thought me unworthy, but I assumed it had something to do with my lower social class. They were high society, beacons of the community with money to waste. I was a poor college student who drove a rusty old pickup truck. Let’s put it this way: if we’d been on the Titanic, I would have been the throwaway character from the lower deck dangling off the side of the ship as it sank, while Preston and his family would have been safely snuggled under blankets on a lifeboat while his mother defended her brood by knocking stragglers off the side of the raft with an oar.
I grabbed his hand, not wanting him to suffer needlessly. I’d cared for him; just not enough. “It’s not just your mother. You and me, I’m just not feeling it. You’re an amazing guy, Pres, and you’re going to make some girl very happy. It just won’t be me.”
“You’re not feeling it?” His jaw twitched as he processed my words. “Yeah, well, you never really tried, did you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means sometimes you’re so cold. You’re afraid to get close to people. I get that, but Sam? If you’re not careful, you’ll end up just like her.”
I froze. Like her? No way could he be speaking of my mother. As far as he knew, she was dead. That’s what I’d told him, anyway. But clearly, from the expression on his face, he knew more than he had let on. And then it hit me.
“You had me investigated?” I whispered, shock spreading through me at lightning speed. Jumping to that conclusion wasn’t so farfetched, considering his family used private investigators in the get-to-know-you phase of any business transaction. It made sense they’d employ the same tactics on their soulmates.
He didn’t reply, nor did he blink. The bastard.
“You… had… me… investigated.” I repeated each word as if it were its own agonizing sentence.
He shook his head. “Not me.”
My eyes narrowed in on Preston. Of course it wasn’t him. This reeked of his meddling mother. I’d never wanted to maim someone as much as I wanted to maim that woman. How dare she dig into my past? That was mine, no one else’s. At least now I knew why she wouldn’t invite me into her stinkin’ lifeboat. Who wanted to save the crazy lady’s daughter?
“Sam, I get why you have trust issues and why you want to push people away – why you don’t want kids.”
I startled at that. “I never said I didn’t want kids.”
“Yes, you did. I asked you once what you felt about having children, and you told me you didn’t want them.”
Ah, okay, he was right. I had said that; but only because I thought he wanted them, and I was grappling for ways to make him less interested in me. I figured telling a family-oriented guy like Preston I didn’t want kids would be the kiss of death.
He grabbed my hands. “But it’s okay because I don’t want them either.”
Well, shit, that backfired on me.
“Look, Preston, I don’t see why kids have anything to do with it, but I’ve never ruled them out.”
“Maybe you should.”
“What does that mean?”
“Mental illness runs in your family, Sam. It’s not just your mom. Your grandmother was institutionalized repeatedly, as were two of her four siblings. And your brother…”
Why would he bring Sullivan into this? A tremble set my body in motion. Preston grabbed my arm to steady me.
“Look, I’m not trying to hurt you. I love you. And I know you aren’t ill. I think maybe you’ve been able t
o ward it off by being in the water – surfing – and that’s great, but it doesn’t mean your children will be as lucky.”
Preston was dropping one bomb after another. Did he not see that he was obliterating me? I fought back with the last of my strength. “There is no science behind that. No one can say for sure that mental illness is genetic.”
“And no one can say that it’s not. I’m not trying to knock you down. I’m trying to show you that we have the same goals and could have an amazing life together, just you and me.” His eyes never left mine. “Babe, listen. Remember when I told you I fought cancer when I was younger? Well, the drugs rendered me infertile. It’s … well, that’s a deal breaker for most women.”
My bottom lip began to quiver as the full scope of his words hit me. It was a deal breaker for normal, whole women, he should have said.
“Anyway, I can’t have kids, and you…”
“Shouldn’t have them.” I whispered the conclusion to his statement. The happy bubble I’d existed in for the past few years had just burst. Preston, armed with my sordid family history, had just destroyed my future.
23
Keith: Above The Haze
My eyes were open but unfocused. I existed in a fog. Where the hell was I? What had I done? And why did my bones feel so heavy? It hit me then: I’d been drugged. Wracking my brain, I tried to recall taking something that would make me feel this way, but I only had faint memories of the night before – and the woman from the bar. Oh, shit, what had she done to me? I remembered following her to her car. I remembered the party. I remembered the sex.
And then I remembered where I was supposed to be – on tour. With Jake. Oh, shit. Oh, no. My first chance had already been spent. I had to get back to him before he figured out I was gone… before his manager fired me for breaking the contract. But the more I fought to remember, the more I wished I hadn’t bothered, because as the previous night spun into focus, I knew I’d fucked up royally.
Anxiously attempting to blink the haze from my eyes, the only thing I seemed to be able to make out was sterile whiteness and bags of liquid dangling from a hook. Goddammit! I was in a hospital. If they found out where I’d been and why, no amount of groveling was going to save me. But how was I supposed to get out of here when I was tethered to machines? Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I yanked on the tubing holding me prisoner. It was then I felt fingers grip my forearm and I jolted back, attacking like a cornered animal. More hands held me down. Whoever was with me in this drug-induced fog had better back the hell up.
“It’s okay, Keith. Relax. It’s an IV. If you pull on it, they’ll restrain you.”
Mom? What the hell was she doing here? We were in Massachusetts, right? How had she gotten here overnight? Was I hallucinating? Now clearing my blurred mind became a necessity. Either I’d fallen down a fucking rabbit hole or my mother happened to have a few extra thousand mileage points to burn.
As I blinked furiously, the world around me began to clear, and that’s when I saw him too. Dad? If I was in a fantasy world, I’d done a fairly shitty job using my imagination.
“Keith, can you hear me?” My eyes shifted off the mirage of my parents and onto a man in blue scrubs who looked way too old and way too tired to not be real. But until I had proof I was in the here and now, I wasn’t wasting my breath on words. So I grunted.
“I’m Dr. Hilton. You’ve had a rough couple of days, son. You were brought in here unresponsive. We’re waiting on the toxicology reports, but based on your symptoms, we’re treating this as a cocaine overdose. You arrived here tachycardic, and we couldn’t get a blood pressure because you were fighting us so much. That’s why you were sedated. You’ll need to be monitored here at the hospital for a few days until your renal function returns to normal.”
‘Overdose’ was the last thing I heard before conveniently tuning him out. I didn’t need to hear the specifics; I was sure they would be played on repeat for a long time to come. My parents weren’t an illusion. They were in Massachusetts because of me. I’d summoned them here through my sheer stupidity.
Everything came flooding back to me now. It had been an overnight in Springfield, and after arranging a ‘fan encounter’ for Jake, I retired to my hotel room. Yogis – our code word for casual sex – had become a regular thing. Not that it bothered me. Good for him. It was just that his extracurricular activities left me with more time on my hands and no good intentions to go with them. I passed the stretches with my own Yogis, and while that took the edge off, it was never quite enough to satisfy the itch.
That night, as with most nights, I’d hit the bar where I could drink in peace. But, of course, there was never peace. Scouting ants were always on the lookout for crumbs, and once spotted, reinforcements were called in. Chantal was her name, or at least that’s what she claimed. She was gorgeous and exotic and persuasive, and I was the drunken sod with a wad of cash in hand and a seriously weakened resolve. Before I knew it, she’d lured me in with the heat of her touch and the promise of pharmaceutical pleasures. I was her crumb, and at that moment, I’d have followed her anywhere.
And I did.
As the shame settled in, I turned away from the doctor only to make direct eye contact with my little brother. He was standing near the exit as if he were prepared to bolt at a moment’s notice. I didn’t blame him. If I could just get this IV out of my hand, I’d escape with him.
My father swatted my fingers away from the tape and tubing. “Leave it!”
I kept my eyes trained on Jake. He didn’t look as pissed as my father sounded, and that was a good thing. Maybe I still had a chance to make this right.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the words scratching against my raw throat. “Don’t give up on me. Just give me a day and I’ll be as good as new. I promise you this will never happen again.”
He shook his head, diverting his eyes.
Suddenly it felt like I was drowning in a sea of disappointment. Everywhere I turned, a wall of water threatened to submerge me.
Demanding his attention, I raised my voice. “Jake! Do you hear me?”
“Quiet. I hear you.” The first traces of irritation passed over his face. “I gave you a chance, Keith. That was my fault. And now my hands are tied.”
His hands were tied? What the hell did that mean? Had I just been fired?
“Who made you judge, jury, and executioner?”
“You signed an agreement,” he continued, justifying his abandonment with clear-cut facts.
“So what? You and I both know who runs this show. You have the final say. You can rip up the agreement if you want to.”
He and I stared at one another, but instead of folding to my will, as was typical in our relationship, Jake stood his ground, his resolve strengthening with each piercing glare.
Narrowing his eyes, he said, “Yeah, well, I don’t want to.”
It was as if my last safe passage had just been sealed shut. Jake, the brother who’d always had my back, had turned his on me.
That was all I needed to hear for the vitriol to spew forth. “So this is how it’s going down? You’re just going to throw me out?”
“Don’t put this on me! I’m not the one who chose to get shit-faced. I’m not the one police found face down in vomit. You did this to yourself.”
Of course, I knew what he said was true, but that didn’t make the facts go down any smoother. I was angry, and he was my bullseye. “Fuck you, Jake! Do you have any idea what I gave up for you?”
“What did you give up, Keith? A delivery boy job? I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“No, asshole. I gave up my girl for you.”
Silence descended upon us. Every person in the room shifted uncomfortably. I’d gone too far. I hadn’t lost Sam because of Jake. I’d lost her because of what happened to him. There was a difference. A big one.
“Keith.” Mom broke the awkward pause. “You disappeared after the Springfield concert – that was two days ago.”
I shook my head as the words sank in. Two days?
“The police have been looking for you,” Dad continued. “Mom and I got here yesterday. Do you have any idea what it did to us to have another son missing? A maid found you this morning, unconscious in some sketchy downtown motel.”
I glanced around the room at my morose audience, all nodding in unison. Even the doctor’s head bobbed up and down, as if he too had a stake in my humiliation.
“You could have died, Keith. You almost did. My god, what were you thinking?”
Nothing. I’d thrown my life and my future away for nothing! Now I’d never get Sam back. Angry tears welled up but I refused them passage.
“Do you think I like being this way?” I growled, gripping the railing so tightly that my knuckles blanched white. “Self destruction is wired into me. I can’t stop it. I hate living this way!”
“Good,” Dad replied, refusing to allow me to wallow in self-pity. “It’ll make this next part a whole lot easier to swallow. As soon as you’re released, you’re going into a ten-week drug rehabilitation facility.”
Great! Now that we weren’t poor, my parents weren’t reduced to bargain basement treatment options. I slumped back against the pillow, defeated. I’d do their rehab, sure. It was to be expected after what I’d put them through, but I knew what they didn’t – that it would never work.
“I’m not saying I won’t go, but what’s the point? As soon as I’m released, I’ll be right back at it. Face it, I’m too far gone.”
“No.” Jake stepped forward. His eyes bore into mine. “You’re not. Trust me when I say no one is ever too far gone.”
Doodling on my notepad, I tried to ignore the conversations going on around me. Two weeks out of detox, these mandatory group therapy sessions were my least favorite parts of the treatment. Not only did I have to suffer through the sob stories of my fellow tweakers, but I was expected to share in the process. Problem was, I had nothing to say. This wasn’t some life-changing experience for me; it was punishment for a life squandered. I carried through the days with the jaded belief that I couldn’t be cured, so all the pomp and circumstance was just make believe to me.
