Finding Hope

by Colleen Nelson

  Mom called me daily with reports. No one had heard from Eric and the police had turned up nothing. Mom and I had run over the possibilities. He must have come to the city. Where else would he go? But he had no money. He could have hitch-hiked, we reasoned, and was probably holed up in the city, but where? I scanned the gates of the school, huge metal ones with an auto sensor and an alarm on them. I was sure that one day he’d show up outside of them, begging to be let in.

  The other possibility, the one that neither Mom or I said out loud, was that he was dead. We both knew the lifespan of a meth addict was five years. We’d done our research at the beginning of his addiction. “You’re going to die!” we’d told him. But he didn’t care.

  That’s when I knew the meth had him. Nothing we could do would loosen its hold.

  I flipped through my journal. And found an empty page.

  Serrated tentacles strangle

  The life out of you.

  Whipping across your future,

  Cutting it to shreds,

  Inescapable.

  We struggle for you.

  But we get sliced

  Out of your life.

  “Fuck you, Eric,” I whispered.

  Tears fell onto the paper, splotches of wetness that blurred the lines. Nothing was clear anymore.

  Eric

  Storm pressed her nose against my cheek. I pushed her away, but she nipped at my finger, like we were playing a game.

  Burying my head under the pillow, I tried to ignore the hunger pains rumbling through my stomach. I needed to sleep.

  The smell of shit made me open my eyes. She’d taken a dump on the floor in front of me. “Fuck, Storm!” I shouted. She bolted to the other side of the room and hung her head. Her tail stopped wagging.

  I looked around. What difference did it make in this hole? A pile of steaming dog shit was an improvement.

  How long had I been out? And, before that, how long had we been amped? I didn’t know what day it was or even if it was still September. Days, weeks, months blurred, they swam past me. The world lost focus.

  Cramps ripped through my insides. I needed to eat. I reached into my pocket. Thin. Where had the wad gone? I’d been robbed. Mugged by one of the assholes in the house. Fucking junkies.

  Rage boiled in me. I pulled everything out of my pockets. The rubbing alcohol was gone too. No, it wasn’t. It was on the floor beside my mattress. Hope’s poems, the photos—I let everything fall to the floor.

  They’d left me with one fucking twenty-dollar bill. Had it been Leo, parading around as my friend, doling out his lines to me?

  I went looking for the bastard, stumbling down the hallway. I opened the door with his name on it, but his mattress was empty.

  As I walked down the creaky steps, I had a flash of memory. I’d given him some of the money. In an act of speed-induced generosity. How much? I’d stuffed some bills into his sweaty hand, insisting he take them. “You’re the best, Calvin,” he’d said.

  I had to sit down on the stairs as the memory sank in. Storm nosed me. Absently, I patted her head. I could feel her heart beating fast in her chest. “Come on, Storm,” I said and stood up, hanging on to the banister so I didn’t tumble down the stairs.

  The kitchen was empty. Every cupboard, bare. A cloudy glass sat in the sink. I filled it and drank till I thought my stomach would burst. The water tasted metallic, slimy on my tongue.

  I was going to pass out if I didn’t get something to eat. On the table, an old loaf of bread. I ripped the plastic bag open and stuffed a piece into my mouth. Under the bread was my notebook, the one with CALVIN scrawled on the front. My writing—messy, barely legible—filled the pages.

  I leafed through it, trying to make sense of the words. There were lists, plans, things I needed to do. Everything urgent. Filled with exclamation marks and underlined.

  One whole page with nothing but Coach Williams’ name written on it.

  I rushed to the sink, barely making it before I vomited up the bread and water. Undigested. It gushed out, filling the sink.

  Hope

  I knew he’d come.

  When Ms. Harrison knocked on my door at eight o’clock at night and asked me to come with her, I didn’t ask why. I followed the staccato clip of her sensible heels through the common room. The urgency of her steps drew the attention of the other girls. I kept my head down, ignoring their curious looks. The echo of her footsteps stopped when we got to the cavernous front entrance. We were alone, except for the security guard who sat at his desk, surrounded by monitors.

  “I don’t want to upset you,” she warned me. “But someone at the front gates wants to see you. He claims to be your brother, Eric.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. He was alive.

  And at the gates of my school.

  My stomach twisted. The reprieve was over.

  Ms. Harrison put a hand on my shoulder and met my eyes. She could have been pretty in a willowy way. Thin lips, pointed nose, a body like a ballerina’s, but she went out of her way to dress like a spinster. In her long skirts and prim blouses, I could almost see cats winding themselves around her ankles as she sipped tea. “You don’t have to see him, if you don’t want to. We can tell him to leave.” I could see the concern in her face. “We could call your parents.”

  “No,” I said quickly, “they told me he might come by.”

  She looked at me doubtfully. “It’s unusual for a sibling to show up at our school like this, Hope.” Her meaning was clear. The security guard would have tipped her off. He’d been on his own for almost three weeks.

  “He’s always like this, really unpredictable,” I reassured her. “But he’s not dangerous or anything.”

  She hesitated. Panic seized me at the possibility of not being allowed to see him, but I stayed mute, giving her my best impression of wide-eyed innocence. Ms. Harrison sighed and relented. She ushered me to the security guard’s station so he could point to a blurry figure on the security monitor, pacing in front of the gates.

  My voice caught in my throat. It was him. I looked at Ms. Harrison. “That’s Eric,” I said.

  She nodded for the security guard to buzz the front doors open. Suddenly desperate to see him, to know he was okay, I raced across the parking lot.

  “Eric!” I shouted when I was within arm’s length of the gates. Scrolled black iron, they cast dramatic shadows under the amber street lights.

  He turned. I recoiled.

  His face was skeletal—sunken cheeks, hollowed eyes. His hair lay matted and twisted on his head, unwashed. And his clothes. I shuddered at the filth. He had the jacket, the one I’d left for him. Why did that make me feel better? He still looked like death. The jacket probably weighed as much as he did. His body odour made my eyes water. He must have been wearing those clothes since he left Lumsville.

  “Haha!” he laughed, holding onto the bars and jumping up and down. As if he’d won a million dollars. “I told the fucker you went here! See!” He pointed at the security guard. “You see! I told you she was my sister.” Triumphant.

  And then he started rambling. About someone named Storm, who he’d left at home. And about Calvin, and how he’d found a place to crash but needed money. He wouldn’t have bothered me if it wasn’t important. He just really, really needed some cash. He’d pay me back, he promised.

  Tears welled in my eyes as he spoke. He was high, amped up on the meth. His movements continuous, one long, jerky circle as he hopped, paced, and twitched. I curled my toes, willing him to stop. Slow down. Be my brother.

  Mom had warned me not to help him if I saw him. To call her and she’d deal with it. But watching him in front of me, I felt myself crumble. He’d come to find me. Of everyone, I was the person he counted on. I couldn’t let him down.

  “Eric.” I just wanted him to look at me. To stop moving for one minute so I could se
e his face, find some glimmer of the person I used to know. “Eric!” I said louder, trying to get his attention.

  He stopped, his eyes wide, grinning at me. Like a cartoon, a funhouse creation at a carnival. “Here, take this,” he said and passed a scribbler to me through the bars. “Everything’s in there. All my plans. Read it, okay? It’s really important.” And then he gripped the bars, pressing his face against them, urgent and intense. “Don’t lose it, Hope. We’ll need it.”

  We.

  “Why? What’s the plan?” I asked, playing along.

  He gave me a sweet smile and my heart melted. “You’ll see. Just read it, okay? I’ll come back soon.” He started to walk away and then turned back. “Oh, shit. Hope,” he said, jamming his hands into his pockets, then pulling them out again, running them through his hair, over his face, rubbing his neck, sticking them back into his pockets. “Got any cash on you? Like, anything at all? I swear, I’ll pay you back.”

  My breath came quick, a heat rising up in my stomach. Mom had said not to. But what would he do if I didn’t?

  “Come back tomorrow,” I told him in a rush, before I lost my nerve.

  Eric sneered. “I need it now. Fuck.”

  He needed it now to get high. By tomorrow, he’d have crashed and he’d be looking to eat. I knew the pattern.

  “I don’t have any now,” I told him firmly. Like how Mom would set rules, just before she broke them.

  He seethed at me and I was glad there were bars between us. It wasn’t him, though. It was the meth, coursing through his blood, making a devil appear where my brother used to be.

  Eric

  When I woke up, it was daytime. Light filtered through the dirty window in Calvin’s room. I needed to shower. I couldn’t go back to Hope’s school looking like this. My skin crawled, ants streaming in a line from the top of my head to my toes, their little footsteps on every blood vessel. It wasn’t blood in my veins, but ants. Digging a fingernail into my flesh, I tested the theory. Red blood surged up.

  Okay, no ants. But still, the feeling. I groaned. A shower would wash the filth off. Leo told me about a place not too far away. Food, showers. Some kind of shelter. You had to talk to someone first, before they let you in. But it would be worth it, to feel human for a while.

  I’d given Hope my scribbler. I wish I hadn’t, but it was probably safer with her anyway. I’d almost burned it a while back. Somehow, it made sense to light it on fire and watch it go up in flames. I couldn’t find a lighter, though. So I hadn’t burned it.

  Storm was sleeping in the corner. I’d found a box for her and lined it with some old clothes I found in Calvin’s closet. She liked it, snuffled around in circles until she got comfortable. I’d leave her here in case they didn’t let dogs into this place.

  The school had looked like a fortress, all gloomy with gates like a prison. I couldn’t imagine my little sister locked up in there. Did she like it? I wish I’d asked. I didn’t remember what we had talked about, if she was happy to see me or not.

  A pang of regret hit me in the gut. I missed her. At home we were on the same team; we had each other’s backs. Not now though. She was stuck behind the gates and I was on the outside.

  I’d go back tonight. Had I told her tonight, or last night? The days blurred together. Maybe she’d been waiting for me to show, a few bills rolled tightly in her fist, while I’d been here, sleeping. My head ached trying to figure it out. I’d stay sober until after I saw her, I promised myself.

  See Hope. Take a hit. I balled my fists up in a silent pledge.

  The sun seared my eyeballs when I stepped outside. After spending so long in the dark, I had to stand still for a minute to let my pupils adjust.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been in the city, but the air was cold. I zipped up the jacket, and the leather collar rubbed against my ears. It still smelled like leather, musky, but the stink of the house had found its way into the skin as well. Something sour, dead.

  I missed having Storm with me, straining on the end of her leash as I walked to the shelter. I got nervous being by myself. Kept turning around to see if anyone was following me.

  There was a line of people, all the same dingy colour as me, stretched around a brick building, waiting for the doors of the shelter to open. Some of them mumbled to themselves, other looked like they were going to fall down from exhaustion, their faces shrivelled.

  I got in line.

  Seeing the other people, knowing I was the same as them, begging for handouts, reduced to this, made bile rise in my throat. I was supposed to be playing on a farm team this year, one step away from making it to the NHL. How had I ended up here? I looked around me in confusion. Was it a joke, this life? A cruel prank meant to teach me a lesson?

  A hammering started in my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and my hands flew to my scalp, pulling at my hair, the strands clumped and greasy. A physical ache like I was being twisted in two.

  It was wrong, all of it. I wasn’t supposed to end up like this.

  I went to the ground, holding my head and rocking. The line moved and people shuffled past. There was a guy staring at me. He had on a track jacket, black with red piping. AAA ALL-STARS. I remembered that jacket. Fuck, that jacket. A stream of obscenities lit from my mouth.

  Coach Williams. He was everywhere. Hounding me. Wanting to take more, leave me empty, sucking me dry.

  “Leave me alone!” I shouted. My face pulsed with anger.

  I looked up again, but it wasn’t Coach. This guy was old, his skin leathery. It wasn’t even Coach’s jacket. What the fuck was wrong with my eyes? He backed away from me. Everyone did.

  The line started moving. They’d opened the doors.

  It took me a minute to remember why I was here. A shower. Food.

  Pushing myself up from the pavement, I shuffled inside, leaving what was left of me on the sidewalk.

  Hope

  The notebook was nothing but gibberish. I wouldn’t even have believed it was his. Calvin was written on the cover, but it was Eric’s printing inside. I read it and reread it, trying to make sense out of what it meant. There were lists of things to do, things to buy, but most of it was nonsense.

  He’d written pages of random words repeated over and over. Coach Williams took up three pages. And Burn. And then more pages of x, the pencil lead pressed so hard the page curled.

  There was a blank sheet at the back. I used it to write a poem for him. I didn’t know if he’d read it. I didn’t know if he’d even come back, or if I wanted him to.

  I groaned. Of course, I wanted him to. I just didn’t want him consuming me.

  You

  On the other side

  Separated by bars

  From me.

  You think you’re free

  To come and go

  Hell and back

  Up and down.

  Me, protected by the bars

  From you.

  I stuffed the scribbler under my mattress with twenty dollars of the birthday money Grandma had sent me. I cringed at what a sucker I was.

  I’d held my cell in my hand twice, ready to call Mom. Almost dialling her number, and then tossing the phone onto my bed. If she knew he was in the city, that I’d seen him, she’d tell the cops. They’d take him away. He’d go to jail.

  The weight of the secret was growing heavy. If he came back, I’d tell him Mom wanted to talk to him. That he should call her so she knew he was all right. I’d tell him she was worried about him. He might not care.

  I pulled out the notebook and took out the twenty dollars. Fuck you, Eric. Why should I help you?

  And then I felt like an asshole. Guilt hammered at me. It was only twenty bucks. He could get food. Or I could get food for him.

  I nodded to myself with a sigh of relief. My stomach stopped churning. I’d give him money, but only if we spent it togeth
er and I got to see where he was living.

  Cassie came into the room and I stuffed the notebook under my pillow, feeling ridiculous, like I had something to hide. She eyed me suspiciously. “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?” I asked. Cassie still harboured distrust for what I may or may not have said about her; she kept her distance from me. I’d gotten tired of pleading innocence with her, and had given up completely on ever being friends with the Ravens. Which was just as well, since they acted like I no longer existed.

  “Some of the girls saw you talking to a guy yesterday at the gates.”

  I froze. My jaw clenched.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “It’s not what they think,” I mumbled.

  She looked at me, one eyebrow raised skeptically. Her face softened. “You can tell me, you know. I can keep a secret.”

  I shook my head. “Seriously, that wasn’t my boyfriend.”

  Her mouth twisted into a scowl. “Who else would show up for you at eight o’clock on a Friday night?”

  “Fine,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “Yes, that was my boyfriend.” If Eric showed up again, it would be easier to pass him off as my boyfriend than as who he really was. The only ones who might guess the truth were the Ravens.

  “Did he send you that?” She pointed to the teddy bear on my bed.

  I nodded. We settled into a comfortable silence and I took a deep breath. “Cassie, I really didn’t say anything to Lizzie about you.”

  Our eyes met. It was exhausting being mad at someone, especially a roommate.

  “This is what they do, you know. Turn people against each other. It’s, like, their hobby.” She flopped down onto her bed, feet planted on the floor, hair fanned out behind her. She picked up a tendril of hair and let it curl around her finger, staring at it absent-mindedly.