by N. K. Smith
Almost synchronized, we take our next shot, but neither of us looks away. “So let me get this straight. This is your way of protecting him or something? You think, I’m going to hurt him, so you’re trying to scare me—”
Gage leans in close. I can smell the alcohol on his breath. “I’m not trying to scare you. I’m just letting you know that I don’t like you. I do remember you from school. You’re weird. You’ve always been weird. Like I said, I don’t know why he’s into you, but you don’t belong with him. I’ve never liked you. The whole fucking school never liked you.”
I fight back the urge to ask him why, and instead, I say, “He likes me.”
“That’s because he’s a wishful thinker. We all know how toxic you are. Your attitude is like acid. It eats away at everyone around you. That’s why you have, like, a friend. That’s why you live alone. That’s why your parents—”
“Sorry it took so long. That line was ridiculous.”
I clear my throat, will the tears that have pooled in my eyes at the mention of my parents to dry up, and turn to find Fox sliding into the booth next to me.
“Take care of that beer, girl,” Gage says to me. “I’ll go get us some more.” He gets out of the booth and takes off toward the bar.
“Jesus, he’s drunk.”
“What?” My mind can’t catch up. It’s still stuck on my toxicity.
“Look at him; he can’t even walk straight.”
“Maybe we should leave. Drop him off at his—”
“Nah. He’ll be alright. I’ve seen him way worse. Besides, I don’t get to hang with him much anymore.”
For the next hour, I sit in the middle of the guys, silently drinking everything in front of me until Fox pulls the newest shot glass and beer away. “Stop buying her drinks, man.”
“No! This is Saige. Good ol’ Saige from Pechimu High! Saige. . .Saige. . .Saige Whatsherfuckingname.” Gage says, words slurred.
“Armstrong,” I say.
Fox adds, “Who is my girlfriend and has had plenty to drink.”
Gage leans over the table, putting his knee on it to reach, and punches Fox in the shoulder. “Just making it easier for you, later.”
I want to vomit when I get his meaning. Drunk girls are easier lays according to douchebags like Gage.
“I don’t need your help,” Fox says.
It takes another hour before Gage gets up again. When he does, I slide out. “Where you going?”
I turn to Fox. “Back to the hotel.”
“You’re drunk.”
“No, I’m sober now. I haven’t drank anything for hours or something like that.”
I start to walk toward the door and feel his hand on my elbow. He’s not stopping me, just keeping a hand there. Once outside, he does stop me. “I’m not going to let you walk back to the hotel by yourself. Let me just say goodbye and I’ll—”
“No. Hang out. He probably needs you. It’s cool. I’ll take a cab.” I lift my hand to hail one.
“No.”
“Yes. You, here. Me, hotel.”
“You, caveman now?” He brushes the hair away from my forehead. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I don’t answer, so as a cab pulls up, he says, “I’ll leave with you.”
“No. I just want to go back and be—”
“Alone? What the hell? You shouldn’t drink if it makes you this depressed.”
“I’m not depressed, but I know I’m not the most fun thing around, so stay and have fun with your friend.”
Fox doesn’t get my sarcasm. “Are you sure? I don’t like the idea of—”
I open the cab door. “Yeah.” I get in and slam the door shut without saying goodbye.
“The Plaza hotel,” I say to the driver. He pulls away just as Fox lifts his hand to the window.
It’s not a long drive. I wish it was longer because I don’t really want to go back into the suite and hear Myka and Val’s love echoing throughout the place.
When I get in the suite, I head out to the terrace and smoke a thin joint. The thoughts going through my head are almost enough to drive me crazy. Why can’t I just be fun?
Does everyone think I’m toxic?
Am I toxic?
Chapter 12
Fox
I lose track of time once Saige takes off. She didn’t even give me a chance to talk some sense into her. I was going to open the cab door and just hop in. I would’ve texted Gage on the way back to the hotel, but then the cab just left with Saige staring straight ahead like I was the last person she wanted to see.
At first, I feel horrible about letting her go back alone, but Gage distracts me completely. Then all of the sudden, it’s three in the morning, and I feel like a jerk.
Gage gets me back to the hotel, and with a quick slap on my back, he’s off again. I’m out of place here, and everyone in the hotel stares at me as I walk in. Well, there are only three people, but it feels like more. The suite is silent when I enter. I freak out for a minute because I can’t find Saige.
I calm down when I step out onto the terrace. She’s passed out on the loveseat. There’s a green lighter in one of her hands, a bag of weed in her lap, and a burned out roach almost falling out between the fingers of her other hand. Drunk and high and passed out.
Maybe I should be worried about her drinking and use of pot, but it doesn’t seem like she’s any different from some of my other friends who drink and smoke. But maybe it’s different with her because I care about her more than anyone else.
I just don’t understand her hot and cold thing. One minute she’s pushing me away and the next, she’s making out with me on the bed.
I pluck the roach from between her fingers and put it in the ashtray, place the lighter next to it, then close the bag of pot and toss it onto the table. I pick her up. She’s lighter than some of the boxes I load onto pallets, but her limp arms and legs make it slightly more difficult.
As I lay her down into the bed and pull up the covers, I think about taking off her clothes because sleeping in jeans just plain sucks, but I think better of it. I’d rather the first time I see her in only a bra and panties be when she’s conscious. But I do unbutton and slide the zipper of her jeans down just a little to make it more comfortable for her.
It’s difficult to keep my mind on gentlemanly topics, but I manage to do it, then do my normal nighttime routine and slip into bed next to her. I’m not sure if she’ll act strange tomorrow like she did this morning, but I’m preparing for it anyway.
With Saige, I have to be ready for anything.
***
She’s not exactly standoffish in the morning, but she’s definitely not sociable. Saige grunts her way through breakfast, then throws it up in the bathroom we share. She won’t let me in to help her, and I’m okay with that. I’m not good when other people puke. In fact, I dry heave once, maybe twice, when I offer to come in to help her.
Once I hear her turn the shower on, I go back to the dining room where Myka is half-draped on Val. “She going to be okay?”
“How much did she drink?”
“I didn’t keep track, but it was a lot.”
“Of what?” Myka asks.
“Tequila. Beer.”
She makes this noise like she can’t understand what went through Saige’s mind last night. I admit, I feel that way, too. I drank one time my ninth grade year—my second ninth grade—and that was enough. I felt like crap, and according to everyone, I was a jerk. So why Saige would want to get as wasted as she did last night is beyond me.
I shouldn’t have taken her there.
“She knows that’s a lethal combination. God, she’s got to feel ookie.”
I push a thumb out behind me. “She just puked for a solid ten minutes.”
I sit down opposite Val as Myka stands up. She puts her hand in his hair for a second, and I get the sense of watching something private, so I turn my eyes to the fancy stuff on the wall. I would never in a million years pay to stay in this hotel. I’ve
been walking around all weekend afraid to touch anything, afraid to say much of anything in the lobby, afraid to be myself. I don’t even want to know how much money she wasted on this place.
Before Myka leaves, I ask, “Does she get drunk like that a lot?”
She scrunches her face up as if considering the question. I think it’s pretty specific, but she comes back with, “It depends on what your idea of a lot is.”
“Um, I don’t know. Does she pass out from drinking a lot?”
“No,” she’s quick to say, but then tacks on, “Not anymore.”
My first instinct is to walk away from the whole thing—not Saige, just the situation. I don’t want to think about her drinking too much, or what not anymore means. I hate feeling like I should’ve known, but I hate the fact that I didn’t know more.
“It’s not like she’s an alcoholic.”
“What?” I ask as I lift my eyes to Val. Myka’s gone, so it’s just us.
“You look worried or troubled or something. I just thought I’d tell you that she’s not alcoholic or anything.”
I crane my neck to look behind me. No one’s there, so if I want more information from someone who is less invested than Myka, this is my chance. “What did Myka mean about not anymore?”
His soft smile tells me I should already know, and the fact that I don’t lets the familiar feeling of stupidity take root in my mind and in my chest.
“We’ve all gone to the same school forever, man.”
“But I wasn’t always in your grade.” And to be honest, I never really paid much attention to people outside of my friends.
“Right,” he says before he sighs. “Well, Myka didn’t get here until tenth grade, so she has a limited knowledge of before that, but what she’s told me about Saige from tenth grade until the very end of eleventh was that the girl could party.”
“I don’t think I saw her at any of the parties I went to.”
He shakes his head and wraps his fingers around his small coffee cup. “No, not like, she went to parties. She could party, meaning, drink a lot. Smoke a crap-ton of weed. But then something happened last summer and she just started slowing down.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like Saige tells me anything. I’m just Myka’s boyfriend, so I only get what I can glean, but I think it had something to do with her money and her grandmother.” He shrugs and messes with his hair. “I don’t know.”
“Lots of high school kids drink.”
At this, Val laughs. The rooted feeling of stupidity blossoms into idiocy because it’s obvious I’m missing even more of the puzzle. “Why is that funny?” I ask.
“It’s not funny. Don’t you remember in sixth grade? Wait, you were in seventh then, right? Okay, so I had Mr. Donner’s class with her. It was after lunch, and she came in way late and can barely even make it to her seat without falling down. I sat three seats away, but I could smell the alcohol. I didn’t know what it was back then, but Mr. Donner did. He asked her to go to the nurse, and he was going to talk to the principal. He didn’t outright say it in front of the class, but it was implied.” Val leans back and stretches his arms out. “She just went off.”
“Went off?” I want more details than that.
“Yeah, like started unloading on Mr. Donner. No one knew what to do. She knocked over her desk and called all of us brainless zombies.” He tilts his head and closes his eyes like he’s trying to remember something. “Yeah. Zombies who had no idea just how good our brainless lives were.”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Donner wrapped his arms around her because she was thrashing all over the place and took her out of the classroom. She was suspended for, like, a week, and everyone whispered about the therapy she was forced to go to.”
“Jesus.” I don’t even mean to say it, but it just comes out.
“Don’t freak out or anything. She’s better now. I mean, she’s a little negative sometimes, but both her parents are dead. Like, horribly dead. She doesn’t say anything about it, but I don’t need to experience what she has to know it’s probably shaped her mind a little on the negative side, you know?”
“But she doesn’t drink like this often anymore? You said she wasn’t an alcoholic, but what you just said makes it seem—”
“I don’t know what she drank last night, so I can’t say. If you ask me, the girl doesn’t like herself, and it’s probably because people have been shits to her since middle school.”
“I don’t—”
“She’s fine. Hung over, but okay.” Myka sits back down next to Val.
As she takes his hand, I stand up again. I don’t bother saying anything else before I leave. I just want to check on Saige. I don’t know what to think about all of this. I wasn’t looking to get involved with someone who had all these issues. I think I have enough issues in my own family, but it’s not like I can deny how much I care about Saige now. I can’t just stop liking her because she’s complex.
I find Saige fully clothed on the bed. She’s lying down with her arm draped over her eyes. I sit down next to her. “You okay?”
“Perfect.”
I smile at how imperfect her croaked word comes out and place my hand flat on her stomach. “No more trying to outdrink college dudes, okay?”
She groans, but then says, “Okay.”
“So checkout is soon. Do you want me to drive us back home?”
“Yes, please.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yep.”
“Why’d you get so drunk? I wish you would’ve told me you were. I would’ve come back with you. Something could’ve happened.”
“Nothing did, and you were with your friend.”
“You’re way more important than Gage.”
She takes her arm away from her face and turns her bloodshot eyes to me. “Am I?”
Her words are serious, but I chuckle with the intention of making them less so. “Of course.” Leaning down, I kiss her, and then lie down beside her. “I can’t kiss him.”
“Nice,” she says. “But if you could, you’d pick him over me?”
It’s like being hit by a bullet train when I realize what she’s asking. “I’d pick you. I am picking you.”
Saige drapes her arm over her eyes again. “Why?”
“Because you’re cute.” She groans, so I continue with nonphysical reasons. “Because you’re funny and interesting and challenging and smart.”
“Lots of girls are those things.”
“So?”
“So why me?”
“Why are you asking? I mean, isn’t it enough to simply say I like you? It’s not always easy to explain why something grabs your attention, but it does. There’s something deeper than what’s on the surface, and whatever it is, it’s got a hold of me. And I. . .”
I’m horrible at stuff like this. I can usually get my meaning across without problem, but I’m not as good with words as she is, so whatever I say is going to sound stupid. It takes a quick second to formulate it, but then I say, “Sometimes you can’t explain why you feel something, but you know you do. I don’t have to understand why I think you’re the best thing since English football; I just know you are.”
Saige sits up and swings her legs over the edge of the bed. “I think I’m going to puke again.”
As she makes her way to the bathroom, I ask, “So did we agree on no more drinking contests?”
She’s in there for a few minutes before I hear her brush her teeth. “It wasn’t a contest,” she says when she comes back to the bed. “I just thought. . .I mean, I guess I didn’t think about anything other than being Super Saige.”
“Super Saige? I love it. Like your superhero self? But what does that have to do with binge drinking?”
She mumbles something and rolls over. Her eyes are closed, so I figure the conversation is over. In the car we listen to The Avett Brothers on the drive back to Pechimu. Myka loves the music and agrees with me that many of
their songs would be good for the “Myka’s Metal Valentine” soundtrack.
But when “Pretend Love” comes on, Saige crosses her arms over her chest. I can see her sitting in the passenger seat through the corner of my eye, and as Scott Avett sings that he’ll never return the love of the girl he’s singing to, she huffs. “That’s just mean.”
Myka pipes up from the backseat. “He’s lying. He says so in the beginning. Start it over.”
I do, and we get until almost the end before Saige asks in a lower than usual voice, “But what’s the point? Why would he say he’s pretending?”
Since I’m The Avett Brothers expert in the car and probably the only one who’s given it any thought, I answer. “Maybe he’s been hurt and this is a way to protect himself from giving another girl the power to hurt him again.”
Then again, maybe that’s just me projecting, but I’ve listened to enough of their songs to know they’re not cruel men, and I think it’s far easier to tell yourself that you don’t love something when it’s hurting the hell out of you.
I can tell Saige doesn’t like to be wrong, so to get her back into the light spirit the rest of us have, I change the playlist. Pink Floyd’s “Fearless” plays, and when it gets to the end, I say, “That’s the Kop choir singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’”
“Huh?”
“The Kop is a stand in Anfield. So fans are called Kopites, or Scousers, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it. Anyway, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ is like an anthem for the football club. It’s just cool that Pink Floyd put it in their song.”
I’ve lost everybody, but they listen as the fans of Liverpool Football Club sing the anthem, and then they listen to Frank Sinatra sing it. After that, I turn to Saige and say, “You can choose now.”
Saige looks at me with her red, sunken eyes and pushes the OFF button on the stereo. The rest of the drive home is silent, except for the soft conversation between Myka and Val. Every time I try to talk to Saige, she curls away from me, closer to the passenger door and grunts her answer.
I hate not knowing what’s going on with her, so after I drop the other two off, I follow her into her apartment, even though she didn’t invite me up. “So what’s wrong?”
