by Paula Cox
She’s stopped laughing and now she just stares up at the sky, her face expressionless, a zombie’s face. Seeing Hope’s face like that—laughing, cocky, sarcastic Hope—makes me want to punch something, to break my fist on it. I go over my time with Hope in my mind, searching for some sign that she was an addict all along, searching for something which will tell me she’s been using this entire time.
I can’t find a thing, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything. Addicts are skilled at hiding their addiction, at least functioning addicts are.
Dammit, I think, stepping over Hope and going to the boat controls. Dammit!
I told her that was my one rule, that was my one condition. No drugs. I told her! That was it! No drugs! I couldn’t have made it any clearer, could I? I couldn’t have told her any more specifically. Goddamn it! No drugs! How hard is that! No goddamn drugs!
I drive the boat back to the dock as quickly as I can, and then stop it and tether it. Then I go to Hope and kneel down beside her. She lies on her side, knees pulled up to her chest, staring at the deck of the boat.
“Hope,” I say. “Where did you get the drugs? Can you tell me that? Where did you get them?”
She smiles—and then the smile bursts into a laugh.
“It’s not funny!” I roar at her. “You know that was it! That was my one rule—”
I stop myself. It’s no use shouting at her. She doesn’t even know where she is. And anyway, she took the drugs. That’s a solid fact. The track mark is right there, pricked in her arm, right there. I have to keep saying it because I can’t believe it. Hope, my Hope, my woman, a drug addict? It sounds like a sick joke.
I scoop my hands underneath her armpits and pull her up to my chest, so that I can carry her from the boat. Just touching her makes me angry. She’s deadweight, flopping in my arms, not supporting herself in the slightest. I wonder if perhaps Dawn left some gear lying around and that was how Hope got her hands on it. Or if Hope found a number for Dawn’s dealer and that was how she got it. All these thoughts go over and over in my head. I want to find who sold it to her. I want to know.
But most of all I want to be rid of her.
I can’t take being near her right now, not when she’s like this. I heave her over my shoulder, fireman’s lift, and carry her off the boat and lay her down on the dock, as gently as I can.
Then I take out my cell and call Patrick.
“Are you sure?” Patrick says. “Seriously?”
“I’m not in the mood for questions,” I tell him. “Just get here, now, and get her back to her apartment. Is Dawn at the apartment?”
“Yeah, she went home today.”
“Good,” I grunt, crushing the phone in my hand, the corners digging into my palm. “Her sister can take care of her. I’m not going to be the fool who does it. Let me tell you that. I won’t. I told her, Patrick. No drugs. I told her, more than once. And not only does she do drugs, she does them while I’m next to her, sleeping, after we—”
I cut short, breathing heavily. I feel like I need to be sick, but I won’t with Patrick on the phone.
“Just get to the dock, you know the one.”
“Where Dad’s old boat is.”
“Yeah. Hurry.”
Patrick sighs down the phone. “Okay,” he says. “But I just can’t believe it.”
“I’m telling you it’s true!” I roar, holding the phone in front of me and shouting down at it like it’s a person, like Patrick’s standing right there. “Just fucking get here and get rid of her! I don’t want to see her when she’s like this!”
Then I hang up the phone and sit on the dock, next to where Hope lies.
She rocks back and forth, unaware of what she is doing, one second staring up at the stars, the next second staring down at the dock. One moment she’s giggling, the next she’s looking pensive. But always, no matter what she’s doing, her eyes are empty of life. She’s there, but she’s not there. She’s somewhere else, floating.
And this was the start of it, I think, rubbing at my eyes. No tears—I won’t cry. Not for her. Not for someone who breaks my one rule. Not for someone with a fucking track mark in their arm.
This was the start of everything.
Before I went to sleep, I remember thinking that this was a perfect night, a perfect moment, and that Hope was perfect for me. I’ve never felt closer to anyone, I’ve never felt like I can open up, and on and on and on . . . but it was all useless, all fool’s nonsense. Because the whole time she was waiting for me to close my eyes just so she could shoot up. She was waiting for me to close my eyes just so she could get her fix.
I look down at her.
“Why, Hope? Why, when you knew it would hurt me so much?”
She smiles, a pointless smile, completely unrelated to reality. Just smiling because she’s high as a kite.
I pick up Hope and carry her down the dock and to a bench. Then I take my leather and drape it over her. I hate her—or what she did, at least—but I don’t want her to freeze to death. I just wish she was awake so I could talk to her about it. I wish she was awake so I could make her see how she’s hurt me.
Every time I begin to try and understand where she’s coming from, every time I try and guess why she might’ve done it, I see the track marks and my teeth clench so hard a bolt of pain shoots through my head. I can’t understand. I can’t begin to understand because I told her. It was my one rule and I told her. No drugs—no drugs—no drugs!
Finally, a car pulls up behind us.
I turn and see Patrick step out, wearing his leathers, his face as concerned as mine probably looks.
“Killian,” he says when he reaches us. “Don’t you at least want to wait until—”
“Don’t,” I say. “Just don’t. I don’t want to wait for anything. I don’t want to wait until any goddamn thing. Look at her arm, Patrick, and then tell me I should wait. How many of the men wanted to get into drugs, eh? Don’t bother with an answer. I’ll tell you. Most of them.”
“Not me,” Patrick mutters.
“No, not you, but a lot. And did I let them? No. Why? Because I don’t tolerate that shit. My rules don’t change just because I feel—feel something for the user. They don’t change at all. Get it?”
“I guess so—”
“Great,” I say. “That’s fantastic. Take her home, then.”
Patrick bends down and scoops Hope up. She doesn’t make any sound now. She’s completely passed out, her eyes closed, her lips twisted into a sick smile, her chest rising and falling. He carries her to the car and lays her on the backseat, and then closes the door.
“Where did she get the drugs?” he calls, standing half-in, half-out of the driver’s side. “Did you find the needle?”
“She must’ve chucked it overboard when she was done with it,” I say bitterly. “She must’ve been too high to care. I don’t know. Just get her out of here.”
Patrick sighs and closes the door, and then the car drives away into the night.
Goodbye, Hope, I think, and then mount my bike and kick it into life.
Goodbye, my love.
I ride into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hope
I’m moving. I know I’m moving, but not much else. I try and ask someone—anyone—why I’m moving, but no words form. I hear them. Where are we going? But my lips don’t move, except to smile foolishly. I curl up on whatever I’m lying on—a bed, the floor, a chair, I don’t know—and fight the urge to cry. The urge is almost overwhelming. I can’t think; thinking has become impossible. I can’t even feel. I don’t know where I am. I just want to wake up, but this isn’t a dream. I just want to be me again.
I am numb all over, completely numb, from head to toe. I can’t feel a thing, just numbness. I can’t see. I can barely breathe. My breaths come in quick gasps. I open my eyes, but I see nothing. I listen as hard as I can, as closely as I can, but I hear nothing. I try and smell, but I smell nothing. I am completely disjoint
ed from my body in a way I have never experienced. I start to question if I even have a body.
Then I’m flying. Something has grabbed me and is carrying me through the air. On one level I am aware of this, but on another level I’m convinced I’m flying. I’m not sure how both ideas can exist at once, but they do, and fiercely. I’m flying, soaring through the air, suspended only by whatever this strange thing is which carries me.
Now I’m dropped onto something soft. I roll over and bury my face in it, but somebody—something—turns me over and props something under my head, making me lean up, and then I am being spoken to. Words filter through a blurry abyss. I feel as though I am standing on the shore of a lake and somebody is standing on the opposite shore, shouting at me. The words are loud, but when they reach me they’re quiet.
Finally, I stop trying to hear them and just close my ears, ignore it completely. I stare into nothing—blackness, never-ending blackness—and just float on whatever it is I’m lying on.
Where is Killian? I want to ask, but words are my enemies right now. They won’t work for me. They’ll only try and mess with me. Where is he? But the truth is I don’t even know where I am, so even if somebody told me where it was, it’d make no difference.
Just before unconsciousness takes me, I think: What the hell happened to me?
I don’t have an answer.
When I wake up, my head aches like somebody is sawing straight down the middle.
I groan and lean up, rubbing the pulsing spot on my head. I look around. I’m in my living room, it’s nighttime, and Patrick is sitting on the armchair, watching me. He hands me a glass of water and two aspirin. I take them quickly, and then go back to rubbing my head.
“What the hell . . .”
I turn my legs so that I’m sitting up on the couch. I have no idea how I got here. One second I was with Killian, lying with him on the deck, and now I’m here.
“Patrick, what the hell happened?” I ask him.
He lets out a short, quick laugh. “Come on, Hope. Please don’t play games like this.”
“Games? What kind of games? What are you talking about?”
He ignores me, levels his gaze at me. “Why did you do it? Surely Killian spoke to you about how he felt about drugs? I can’t imagine he didn’t, what with Dawn going through withdrawal. He must’ve mentioned it. Where did you get it? Do you have a dealer? How long have you been doing it? Since you and Killian got together? Before? How long?”
“Wait, wait,” I pant, holding my hands up in an attempt to defend myself against his words. “What are you talking about?”
He slaps the arm of the chair. “Come on!” he pleads.
When I continue to look at him blankly, he sighs. “The drugs,” he says, in the tone of voice you use when talking to a naughty child who knows exactly what they did. “The heroin, or whatever it was you injected into your arm.”
“The heroin? I’ve never touched heroin in my life!” I raise my voice in protest, not caring that it’s the middle of the night.
“Oh, right, so why have I been sitting here for the past six hours to make sure you don’t overdose, then?”
I shake my head, trying to get it straight, trying to remember exactly what happened. “Listen, Patrick,” I say, staring at him, trying to make him see. “I swear to you, I have never touched heroin in my life. Never. Not once. I have never touched any drug. I never would.”
“I want to believe you, but look.” He points at my arm.
I look down. When I see it, I rock back on the couch and gasp. “How—” My words cut short. There’s a track mark right there, on my arm, and higher up on my arm is an outline in my skin where a belt has been tied. “How!”
“He really loved you, you know,” Patrick says quietly. “Killian has a tough time loving anyone. He’s been like that since Dad died. But he really loved you. I could tell. I think he would’ve given everything for you, Hope. Everything he had. You can’t imagine how hurt he is right now.”
“But I didn’t do it—”
“You were on a boat, just the two of you, and there’s a track mark on your arm. Plus, you were high. I know high people and you were high. Do you really expect me to believe you?”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t.” My voice is pleading. I hate it. But I’m telling the truth. I’ve never touched drugs. And I would remember it, wouldn’t I, if I had? I would remember shoving a needle in my arm. I would remember sneaking a needle onto the boat. “I didn’t.”
Patrick stands up and rubs his hands together, as though washing his hands clean of me. “I’ve done my part,” he says. “He’s angry, betrayed, but he wouldn’t want you to overdose. You’re okay now, so I’m leaving.”
“I didn’t do it!” I scream at him, waving my arms frantically.
I know I’m not making myself look particularly stable, but he just won’t listen.
Patrick picks up his jacket from the back of the chair and walks away from me, toward the apartment door.
“He loved you,” he says, and then leaves the apartment.
I’m left staring down at the track mark, wondering how something like this happened.
It’s the middle of the night—or early morning, depending on how you look at it—and I know Dawn’s probably asleep. I also know it’s cruel of me to wake her, after everything she’s been through. But I can’t stop myself. I have to talk to somebody, I have to let this out, I have to have somebody believe me.
I open Dawn’s door, turn on the light, and creep in. She’s on her back, snoring softly. I pull a stool close to her bed and tap her on the shoulder. She opens her eyes, smiling when she sees me. I can’t help but smile back. Dawn always has that effect on me. Despite everything, I smile back.
“Is something wrong?” she asks sleepily, propping up on her pillows.
I quickly tell her, starting with the boat ride and ending with my conversation with Patrick.
“How could this have happened, Dawn?” I ask her. “Seriously, what the hell? There’s a track mark in my arm, and I don’t remember the last few hours. But I don’t remember injecting myself, either. Surely I would remember that? When you take drugs—sorry to put this on you, but please—when you take drugs, do you ever get so out of it that you don’t even remember taking them? Is that possible? But surely you remember taking them, at least? Surely you remember that?”
I realize I’m bombarding her with questions and stop myself.
“I don’t know,” Dawn says, looking at me uncertainly.
“What? What don’t you know?”
“You really don’t remember taking them?”
“No!” I cry. “That proves I didn’t, right?”
Dawn shakes her head slowly. “No, it doesn’t prove anything, not really. It’s like when you get really drunk. Sometimes you get so drunk you can’t even remember your first drink. It’s the same. Sometimes you get so high you don’t even remember what you took, or how much . . .” She trails off, still looking at me uncertainly, head slightly tilted, eyes narrowed, as if she is trying to unravel some mystery.
“What is it?” I demand. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
Dawn holds her hands up, her small, delicate hands. Or, at least, that’s how I see them, as her child’s hands. In reality the nails are chipped and the fingernails are scarred and tough from burns and fights, from her drug days.
“First, let me say that everything is going to be okay. Whatever happened, you and Killian will be together again. I know that. You two are perfect for each other. I saw you at the meal, how you talked like nobody else was there, the way you looked at each other. I know you’ll be able to sort this out.”
“There’s a but coming, isn’t there, Dawn?” Even my own sister doesn’t believe me . . . Wait, you don’t know what she’s going to say—
“But, I’m not sure . . . how did you get high if, like you say, you were on a boat, all alone, just the two of you? Look, sissy, you can tell me anything, you know t
hat? Our family has a history of drug use. You’ve stood by me more times than I can count. What sort of sister would I be if I didn’t stand by you now? Hey! Where’re you going?”
I walk from the room and close the door behind me, standing in the living room with my fists clenched, bouncing against my thighs, bruising them.
I need to talk to Killian.
I rush to the couch and grab my cell, sunk in the cushions.
“Come on, come on.”
