by Jordan Grant
What the fuck.
My eyes blink open, greeted by dim light and white ceiling tiles.
Oh, no.
Oh, shit.
I feel the cold, lifeless thing snaking along my arm, but a quick look confirms it. I’ve got an IV dropping saline into the crook of my elbow. Fuck. The beeping is not helping my rager of a headache.
“Ian!” my mother cries, sending her chair screeching across the floor as she stands. I’ve never seen my mother look anything but absolutely pristine, not her face anyway, and that’s counting the time I walked in on my father choke-holding her against the fridge. She’s always so composed around me, like her composure will somehow magically make her long sleeves in the dead of summer not-at-all suspicious and weird.
The sight of her steals a little gasp from my lips, and she frowns. Her face is puffy like she’s eaten shellfish and just found out she’s allergic. She’s red and splotchy and makeup-less, a rare occurrence.
Why is she looking at me like I am some weak, helpless thing?
“How are you feeling, baby?” she says.
Baby? She never calls me that. I fight a frown. This must be even worse than I thought.
I try to sit up and groan with the effort.
“What happened?” I grunt. It’s a struggle just to say the words, but the fight loosens the things clumped together inside my brain.
The tabloid.
The booze and the pills.
Fuck...the pills. How many did I take? Did I pop a couple of benzos too?
Harlow. The fight with Harlow.
Holy fuck. I am a goddamn idiot.
My mother must see it play out on my face, the whole story of how I screwed up my life. My game face is shit with whatever the doctors have me on. I take a moment, close my eyes, and draw in a deep breath.
“Why, darling?” she asks, tears welling clear pools in her eyes as she clasps my hand.
I can’t tell her it’s because of him. She is frail enough, and I’m pretty sure that would be the final blow to fracture her in two. I shrug and although her lips are turned down into moue, I watch as she nods and allows herself to buy it. Sometimes the lies we tell ourselves are more agreeable than the truth.
“It won’t happen again, Mom,” I add, guilt gnawing away at my insides. “I’m sorry.”
Her bottom lip trembles as her thumb rubs circles along my wrist. “You scared us, Ian. I thought...”
A tear slides down her cheek, and it’s like a punch straight to my gut. I feel like the world’s worst son.
I reach over and hold her hand in both of mine, willing her to look at me.
“It won’t happen again,” I say when she finally raises her gaze. “Never again.”
She nods and sniffles, drawing a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbing at her eyes.
“Do you need to go to,” she can’t even bring herself to say the word, “to...a facility? For help? It’s not a bad thing, Ian, to need help every once in a while.”
You NEVER ask for help.
I shake my head. “It’s not like that, Mom. I just had a bad day. I made a bad decision.”
She nods. She’s obviously having a hard time swallowing this pill, but I know self-pity will win out in the end. It always does.
She surprises me with, “The girl, your girlfriend, did she buy or bring...?” I love my mother, but she can’t possibly pretend ignorance of how drug deals work. She has enough Valium in her cabinet to medicate half the continent.
“No.” I shut the line of questioning down quickly, my tone sharp. She grimaces, and I soften my next words. “Harlow has nothing to do with it. Where is she?" I add, panic starting to creep into my bones. “Where’s Harlow?”
I probably should ask about my father, but honestly, I don’t give a shit.
Mother bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. It feels like I am trying to stand but a boulder has landed on my chest. I deflate like one of those tall, inflatable men used by car dealerships the world over.
“She went home.” My mother probably thinks Harlow’s weak, that she fled because she couldn’t handle it, but I know the truth, and it stabs me like an iron poker straight through the heart. She’s cutting away the dead weight. “Give her time. She found you. I don’t know what we would’ve done if…”
Mom begins to cry, hiccuping softly.
“Mom,” I grab hold of her hand again. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
But the truth is I’m not okay, no matter how many lies I tell.
I am a shitty son, a shitty friend, and a shitty boyfriend. As I sit in my hospital bed, wallowing in my own stench, all I can think about is Harlow and how I will do anything to win her back.
— Harlow —
I sit in my room, our dog Daisy curled against my feet. The heater hums in the corner. I have a book open in my lap, but the words swim on the page. I read the first paragraph three times before I give up.
My mind is elsewhere. I am exhausted and a little jet-lagged. I am so tired it hurts. Everything hurts.
I want to curl into a ball and sleep for an eternity. I want to hide under my comforter and try to not think about the beautiful boy with inky hair and irises of molten silver who stole my heart. I want to be a normal girl with normal problems.
What I want doesn’t matter though. My mind may be numb, but it’s never quiet. I couldn’t sleep even if I tried because Ian is a specter who haunts my thoughts, and I am a girl unable to move on, move away, from his shadow. My broken brain doesn’t remember how to be normal and doesn’t care to try.
Mom and Dad were surprised when I called and said I wanted to come home, doing my best to not let them hear the tremble in my voice. Before William, they might have shown me mercy and let me get away without giving an explanation, but it’s just a matter of time before they ask questions. Now, everything has to be accounted for, though I can’t blame them. I won’t blame them. I’m all they have left, and there’s already enough blame to go around. The walls of our home bulge with it. Our knees nearly buckle with its weight.
A knock comes from my door, and a moment later, my mom, carrying a steaming cup in her hands, walks inside. My dad is behind her, carrying two more. My throat squeezes at the thought of their impending questions, and I eye the pill bottle on my nightstand with disgust. I don’t want to think about pills.
“Hi, honey,” my mom says, taking a seat beside me as my father hands me a cup of hot chocolate.
“Hey,” I say. Can they tell I’ve been crying? Probably.
“Sweetie,” my mother begins, biting her lip, “you know you can tell us anything. Is everything all right? What happened between you and your,” she struggles with the word, not wanting to define things I have not given a definition to, “friend? Your father and I are worried about you.”
My bottom lip trembles. I am standing on a battlefield, only there aren’t bombs raining down around me, only memories; the place reeks of fear and desperation just the same.
My mom places her hand atop mine and squeezes tight.
“Do you need your medication?” she asks.
It takes everything I have to bite my tongue. I want to snap and say, of course not! I’m allowed to be sad. Being sad doesn’t make you crazy. I’m not going to have another episode. I will not freak out. I’m allowed to be human!
I don’t say any of those things though because I know my mother doesn’t understand. To her, the darkness, anxiety, fear, loneliness—they are all the same thing, one giant blob of black that’s hurting her daughter, that she wants to erase from existence.
“Ian overdosed,” I say finally, because there’s no other way to say it. My father nearly drops the hot chocolate he has drawn to his lips and sets it down on my desk with trembling hands. “He’s okay now, but he overdosed.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Did you know he had a problem?” my mother asks. She’s really asking, Do you do those things with him?
I shake my head. There goes my bottom lip again. I bite i
t to stop the quivering. “I should’ve seen the signs though. I should’ve known.”
“Oh, sweetie,” my mother hands her cup to my father and takes mine and hands it to him as well. She draws me in for a hug, and I’m crying, breathing in the mint and vanilla scent of her shampoo.
Over my mother’s shoulder, my father looks like he is going to be sick. His hands wring together in his lap as he says the words, “What did he take?”
“James,” my mother chides, but my father doesn’t hear her. He is elsewhere, staring at my arms like maybe if he looks hard enough he can see track marks underneath my sweater.
“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. I start to cry again. “I don’t know. Pills—some kind of pills.”
My dad closes his eyes as if the conversation ages him with every word and he’s so tired. “Are you and the boy still…”
Together. He doesn’t say the word though. He looks so pale, the lines of his brow drawn tight. I worry it might kill him if he says the word.
“I don’t know,” I croak. I am shaking, rivulets of tears running down my cheeks. I hiccup as I shake my head ferociously. “I don’t know. I just…”
My lips move to form the words, but nothing escapes my mouth.
“It’s okay," my mother says, patting the back of my head.
Her words are a faraway echo. I am gone, lost in my head and the thoughts of Ian that swirl like fog around me.
Maybe I fucked up.
Maybe I did the wrong thing.
I waited as long as I could before I left for home.
I made sure he was okay. I gave his mom my number. I tried to wait for him to wake up, I truly did, but I was drowning on dry land.
I felt cheated. I felt tricked. I had already maxed out my daily dose, but I needed more, and that terrified me. When the numbers and the pills can’t keep the darkness at bay, I have to be strong, and I don’t have any strength left. I don’t know if there’s enough left of me to stand against the impending tide.
My mind drifts like a feather caught by the capricious wind. I am floating down, down, down to that note I scribbled on the back of a sheet of music and laid on his bed.
I’m sorry. I need time, Ian. I need to find my way out of the dark.
All my love, all of me,
— Harlow
37
Harlow
The days pass like cars on the freeway, in a blurry and never-ending line.
I sit at my desk with my Calculus notes in front of me, trying to study for finals next week. My phone buzzes, and I look up to see Ian’s name flash across the screen.
I should ignore it. I should study.
I unlock the screen with a swipe of my thumb.
Ian: plz talk 2 me.
My throat squeezes. I think I might cry, but I don’t have anymore tears left. The blood in my veins runs cold without his warmth.
Over the last few weeks, he has texted me. He’s slipped notes in my locker and played with my hair during class.
We’ve been through this.
I am brittle. I feel myself splintering at the edges, cracks spiraling through the center of me. Pills and therapy aren’t going to hold me together much longer.
Me: I can’t.
I silence my phone, but the screen lights up with his reply. I turn it off.
Memories of Ian, his body limp and surrounded by pills on the bathroom floor collide in my head with thoughts of William lying on the carpet like a deflated balloon, surrounded by needles.
I should have seen the signs, but love is a blinding bitch.
When Ian was distant, when his eyes seemed a little too dilated after practice, when it seemed like he would drink just a little too much, I ignored it. One misstep every now and again is easy to ignore. It’s harder to ignore when the person you love wanders off the path completely and falls into a damn ravine.
Two tears plop onto my laptop and stay there on the keyboard. I slam my Calculus textbook shut. Molly doesn’t notice. She is used to my mini-outbursts as of late.
I can’t be in here, in this room, just waiting for the darkness to come and swallow me whole.
I need out.
I need away.
I snatch my coat off the back of my chair and swing it over my shoulders as I head for the door. I skip the elevator and take the stairs. Before I know it, I am outside, the first snow of winter stinging my cheeks.
I want to forget. I want to play my violin until my knuckles ache and my fingers bleed, but I can’t go to the music hall. Ian found me there yesterday, and it was hard to get away. Not that he stopped me, he didn’t, but it’s hard enough to stop myself.
I am a moon caught in his orbit, and I don’t think I’ll ever be strong enough to pull away.
I walk across campus, passing kids hidden beneath puffer jackets with their hands above their eyes to keep the snow at bay.
I walk and walk, snowflakes falling around me, the snow crunching beneath my feet. Before I realize it, I am on the other side of campus, at the stadium, rounding laps on the wintry-white track that circles the football field.
I’m not wearing proper shoes for this.
I’m not dressed warmly enough.
I don’t turn around though. I just keep walking. Maybe if I walk far enough, I’ll leave all the bad thoughts behind.
A shadow flickers off to my right, but I can’t make out who it is. I’m in no mood for company, so I walk faster. They ignore my obvious attempt at distance.
I pick up the pace, practically jogging, but it’s like I’m not even moving. They are taller, their strides longer, and I am weighed down by the snow clinging to the soles of my sneakers. By the time they arrive beside me, I’m a little out of breath and cold.
“Hey, Harlow,” a voice says, and I turn to see Everett beside me. It’s maybe half a dozen words he has said to me all semester.
“Hey,” I say.
“Can’t get away from your thoughts?”
I freeze at his question, and it gives me away.
“Me neither,” he remarks.
Then he just walks beside me as though he has always walked beside me, like it doesn’t bother him that we don’t really know each other and aren’t exactly friends. If anything, we are friends-by-association with my not-on-but-not-entirely-off boyfriend. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count for anything.
As we round the field, Everett says, “He was better, you know? He was better with you.”
“What does that mean?” I snap, stopping dead in my tracks and spinning to face him, my arms crossed over my chest.
Everett turns to face me and frowns, but it’s not an angry expression. If anything, it is purely and potently sorrowful.
“You’re out here because you can’t get him off your mind,” he says. I don’t deny it. “And I’m out here because I can’t stand watching my best friend collapse like a dying star.”
“And I’m supposed to fix it?” My voice cracks. The snow falls so thick between us now I can barely see him.
“No.” Everett shakes his head and pulls the hood of his jacket down further over his unruly auburn curls. “I’m just saying I get it. Only Ian can fix Ian. But I did see him flush the pills when he got back on campus, and I haven’t seen him touch a drop of alcohol, if it means anything.”
“It doesn’t.” I immediately regret the words. I don’t know why I’m being so mean to him…probably because he’s a target that literally planted himself in front of me.
Everett shrugs. “I’m not saying you should forgive him or give him a second chance. I’m just saying I get it.”
My anger dissipates like steam in the air.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
But I’m sorry for more than just snapping at Everett.
I’m sorry for missing the signs with William and then doing the same thing with Ian even when I should have known better.
I’m sorry for needing time, taking it, and then still not knowing what to do.
More than anyth
ing though, I’m sorry for trying to protect myself and not knowing how to protect him at the same time.
— Ian —
I stand in the library, one shoulder resting against the stacks as I watch her. I’ll admit it’s a total stalker move, but in my defense, it’s been two weeks and I am at starvation levels of thirst at this point.
Stormy’s back is to me as she sits at a desk and thumbs through a book in front of her. She’s got another pile teetering off to her right, and she’s wearing her hair up in one of those weird, bun-like things girls like to put on top of their heads. She rubs the back of her neck with her hand, finds a sore spot and tilts her head to the left as she massages it.
I want to massage every inch of her. I want to kiss the pain away. I want to grovel at her feet and beg for mercy.
“Hot damn,” someone says off to my right, followed by a low whistle. My attention snaps toward the interruption. Vic Rothschild is at my side, staring at Harlow, his tongue nearly making out with his canine.
I grab the asshole by his starched lapels and drag him in close.
“I will end you,” I snarl.
“Whoa, man!” Vic raises his hands in the air like he’s all innocent and shit, like he didn’t just intentionally provoke me, like it’s all fun and games to him.
Mother-fucker.
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” He sure as hell did. “Everybody knows you two are over. I figured you wouldn’t mind helping a brother out.”
I unclench the collar of his shirt, but I want to slam my fingers into his face. Maybe if I do it long enough, I’ll find the much needed release I’ve been missing.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I hiss.
Vic says something which sounds like “crazy asshole” as he scurries away.
The fucker better run.
I am crazy.
Crazy for her.
My gaze catches a rustle over to my left, and I look to see Aurora and Arabella standing side-by-side near the checkout counter, staring at me. Shit. They probably saw the entire exchange. As if to confirm it, Aurora wiggles her fingers at me in some version of a bitchy hello.
