by Una LaMarche
“I don’t need your pity,” I said, forcing a laugh. My hand was already in my pocket, on my phone, pushing the power button.
“Speaking of which,” Ethan said, “This is so pathetic, but . . . if you get the chance, will you try to find out for me?”
“Find out what?” I asked, my heart racing as I felt a series of buzzes against my leg.
Ethan didn’t turn around. “What she’s doing with me, I guess.”
As soon as I got into the bathroom, I locked the door and stood at the sink, reading through your texts, each one making me feel more and more like a dick:
hey, where’d u go?
don’t have too much fun w/o me
can u just tell me if he has a bunk bed, or a sex doll?
I’d been as guilty of mocking Ethan as anyone, but suddenly I didn’t feel like doing it anymore. Just spending a few hours with the guy had made me feel lot sorrier for him than I ever thought I could.
What were you doing with him? It was a fair question. He was in love with you, that much was painfully obvious, so either you were too nice to let him down, or you were screwing with his head. Maybe both. You struck me as someone who liked to play games and keep secrets. I liked that about you. I never stopped to wonder why.
Pretty busy, I typed quickly. Talk later.
I turned my phone off so you couldn’t distract me and went back out to get deservedly pummeled.
Chapter Thirteen
February 25
77 days left
BY THE TIME I GOT HOME Saturday, Dad was out doing a hot-yoga singles class, which sounded gross in every possible way, and Nana and Pop-Pop were on a day trip to Connecticut. My morning at the Entskys had started with cocoa and Frank Sinatra, followed by popovers and bacon. Ethan’s parents even set out little place cards at the breakfast table. It made me feel like the time I went to my girlfriend’s cousin’s wedding sophomore year and they made me stand in the family photos. I shouldn’t be here, I remember thinking. Years from now, someone will look at these and go, who the fuck was that guy? Somehow, I think I knew I was never going to be invited back to Staten Island.
That was the one thing I managed to be psychic about. Out of everything.
On the ferry ride back, I watched Manhattan bob closer and closer, and as my face got numb my mood started to slip below freezing, too. You hadn’t texted me again, and I didn’t feel like talking to you. I didn’t know what to say. All I knew was I still wanted you, and that it felt like shit.
I was in boxers and tube socks, watching TV on demand and eating a homemade lunch consisting of a hotdog wrapped in a corn tortilla, when the buzzer sounded. I ignored it the first time—if it was a package it could be left downstairs, and anything else I didn’t want to deal with—but when it rang again a few minutes later, I begrudgingly answered.
“Hello?” I asked, with my mouth full.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Roth,” Bobby, the weekend doorman, said cheerfully. “Dave’s friend Libby is here.”
What the fuck? I almost said out loud.
“Uh . . .” I had already picked up, but Bobby thought I was Dad. I could tell him I wasn’t home. I was kind of annoyed that you’d think it was cute to show up unannounced again, or that you’d just assume I had nothing else to do. But then again, I had the house to myself. And even though I wasn’t sure I felt good about what we were doing, some extremely exciting scenarios I’d been imagining would become technically possible if I just said yes. I knew in my head that given the circumstances, it would be very, very wrong to let anything happen, but my head wasn’t in charge of my mouth when I said “OK” into the intercom.
“Very good,” Bobby said.
I hung up and sprinted to my room to get dressed.
• • •
When I opened the door, you were already halfway out of your coat, wiping your boots on the mat.
“Is anyone home?” you asked, peering over my shoulder.
“Nope, just me.”
“Damn, ’cause I came for the bagels.” You smiled up at me; we were close enough to kiss.
“Why’d you really come?” It came out more blunt than I’d meant it to, and you drew back a little. I noticed your eyes were bloodshot, even though the rest of your face looked normal, extra-pretty even. It gave me a weird feeling of unease, like seeing broken windows in an otherwise perfect house.
“To hang out,” you said, cocking your head playfully. “Can I come in?”
I shrugged and stepped aside. You draped your coat over a chair and walked slowly to the center of the living room, which was a mess of dirty plates and unopened mail. Dad hadn’t even folded up his bed, so the couch cushions lay scattered on the floor. I realized then that whatever fantasies I’d had about you never took place amid the paisley-printed rubble of my dad’s midlife crisis. The shame of you seeing it made me angry. What were you doing at my house? What were you doing with me?
“Want help cleaning up?” you asked.
“Nope.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
You stared at me for a long pause, like you were trying to read me or waiting for me to talk, but I didn’t want to give in either way. It couldn’t have been more than ten seconds that we stood there in silence, but it felt like minutes ticked by, a weird, sexually charged high noon with balled-up socks instead of tumbleweeds.
“What’s wrong?” you finally asked, narrowing your eyes. “Are you mad at me or something?”
“No,” I said, my jaw getting tense.
“Okaaaaaaay,” you said, pursing your lips. “So what’s up?”
I shrugged. “It’s kind of weird that you just dropped by again. You could have given me a heads-up.”
“I’m sorry,” you said, shifting uncomfortably. “I just . . . I was in the neighborhood, so . . .”
I laughed. “Come on.”
“I was,” you said. “I actually have somewhere to be, though. So if it’s not a good time, I’ll just be on my way.” Your tone was defensive, and I was grateful. All of a sudden I was looking for a fight.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Did you just want to see me?”
“Maybe I did,” you said, crossing the room and grabbing behind me for your coat. Our bodies actually pressed together for a second, sending a dull ache of longing through my limbs. “Not anymore, though.”
“Why?” I asked. “Because I didn’t text you back within some allotted amount of time?”
“No,” you said, struggling with your zipper. “Because you’re being a jerk for no reason.”
“If you wanted to find out more about Ethan, you could just ask him,” I said, before I could stop myself. “Or better yet, go to his house. You’re his girlfriend, right?”
You glared at me. You weren’t wearing the FUCK OFF necklace, but I got the message loud and clear. “That’s really none of your business.”
“I think it is,” I said. “Because instead of showing up at his house, you’re at mine. And you didn’t come to run lines, right?” You stared at me wide-eyed but said nothing. Neither of us made a move for the door.
“You don’t understand anything,” you finally said. “I can’t just . . .” You shook your head, narrowed your eyes. “It’s complicated.”
“Why, because of his stupid play?” I asked.
“It’s not stupid to me!” you cried. “I need that play. I don’t have an agent or a résumé or a fucking Golden Globe nomination. I’m not some diamond in the rough like Joy, and I can’t write my own ticket like Ethan. I’m an aspiring actress in New York City. I might as well say I’m an ant in an ant farm.”
You are special, I should have said. Instead, I laughed dismissively, like a dick.
“You can’t even see what you have, can you?” you asked. “Everyone at school would kill themselves to be you. And you don’t even care.”
“I di
dn’t think you cared,” I said. “I thought you were better.”
You nodded slowly, your eyes glistening somewhere between anger and tears. “I thought you were nicer,” you said. I swallowed, hard.
“You should go to Staten Island,” I said. “I’m not his understudy.”
I felt guilty when the door slammed behind you, but not as guilty as I feel now. If I had known what you were going through, and how bad it was getting, I never would have said any of it. I never would have said anything at all. I would have opened that door and held you in my arms and never let you go.
Act Three
Liv
Chapter Fourteen
February 25
77 days left
I SHOULDN’T HAVE JUST SHOWN UP at your house, I knew that—don’t you think I knew that? I hadn’t even planned to, but then the train screeched to a stop at 86th and I was already on the platform before I even realized I’d stood up. This time it wasn’t an accident, though—“D, Sun, 2pm.” God, how high had I been when I’d written that down? High enough to forget who the “D” stood for—and as I climbed the stairs up to Broadway, I just kept thinking, maybe. Maybe you’d be home. Maybe you’d let me in. Maybe sitting in your room, listening to you talk while your grandma clinked around in the kitchen would work again, and I could leave feeling happy and hopeful and not like I needed to get back on the train to go meet the other D, the one who gave me that feeling in a bottle for twenty bucks.
But that had been a mistake, clearly, and so I was panicking as I walked as fast as I could to the subway, my boots slip-sliding on the black ice, my skin sweaty under my clothes, my heart racing so fast it was hard to believe I hadn’t already taken something. The night before I’d gotten drunk and stoned, which took the edge off the Ritalin, and drifted off into an easy sleep, but I’d woken up in the morning with a monster headache and I was all out of pills so I knew what I had to do if I wanted to feel normal again.
It really does go the way they say it will, a Just Say No cliché all the way. In middle school, there was this acting troupe that came to perform sometimes, a bunch of hammy college kids who did Afterschool Special–style skits about drugs and sex and all of the other things that are supposed to be scary but end up being mind-numbingly boring since they happen in middle school assemblies. A girl would be sitting on a stoop with her friends, and some popular guy—it was always the popular guy, who you could tell was a total asshole, just based on his preferred wardrobe of leather jacket and jorts—would offer her a joint and she’d be tentative but then everyone else would act like it was no big deal, and by the next scene she’d be blowing rails off the seat of someone’s motorcycle, needing something, anything, to make her feel good.
Obviously some of the details didn’t apply to me, like I would never listen to anyone wearing jorts, not even Drake, and my first joint came from my dad—well, from his sock drawer, anyway. No one was around to pressure me to light it. If anything, I became the instigator, the girl whose parents let her do whatever, who could always throw a party and who never judged. And it was just parties, for a while. I mean, I always smoked, with Jasper and by myself, but harder stuff was strictly social. I’d shroom or take ecstasy . . . I only did coke a few times, because I’d seen way too many celebrity noses cave in on themselves, and I liked mine too much to risk it. But pills were different. They were so easy, so quick—now you see it, now you don’t!—and they didn’t leave a mark or make my hair smell or inspire me to eat an entire can of Pringles dipped in ketchup.
Ironically I started using pills to make me feel less like I was dying. My mom had some Vicodin way back in the medicine cabinet from an old surgery, and the day after Jasper dumped me, when all I could do was lie motionless, crying until I couldn’t breathe and then dry-heaving over the toilet, I took one just to see if it would make me feel less like the entire world was a sucking black hole—and it did. That worked for about a week, but I had to stop taking them when she noticed how empty the bottle was getting. Painkillers in general were harder to get, but I convinced my therapist to prescribe me Xanax, and to balance that out I started taking Adderall or Ritalin, or whatever smart drug I could get my psychopharmacologist to prescribe by phone when I complained that I still had trouble focusing. Those ones made me manic and wired, so I always needed booze or weed to sleep. And since Jasper was gone, I had called Dante, and he had delivered, literally.
But that kind of customer service didn’t last. I’d texted him that morning and he’d said he was busy, that if I needed it so bad I could come to him, or else he’d hook me up Monday night. I ran down the subway steps two at a time. I could hear the train coming, and if I moved fast enough, I thought I could make it on before the doors closed. Maybe. Maybe.
• • •
He met me on 110th, at the top of the park, wearing a big puffy jacket over a hoodie and carrying a heart-shaped Russell Stover box, which was conspicuously missing its cellophane wrapper. When he saw me, he held out his arms and broke into a big grin.
“Got you something, honey,” he said with a wink, holding out the box. “Sorry I’m a little late.” An older couple passing by smiled at us, thinking they were witnessing a sweet moment. They didn’t know he was giving me a different kind of candy.
“Clever,” I said.
“Right?” Dante looked proud of himself. “Did you bring something for me?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t put it in anything.” I started to reach into my purse, but he stopped me.
“Yo, be discreet, please.” His smile disappeared. “We’re not at your house anymore. We’re gonna sit on a bench and talk, and then I’m gonna hug you goodbye, and you slip it into my pocket.”
I followed him to a nearby bench, where we sat side by side. He draped an arm over my shoulders. I figured it was just for show, like the candy box, but I couldn’t tell, and I couldn’t shove him off like I did with Ethan.
“So listen, this stuff is a little different from what I gave you last time,” Dante said, squinting at a traffic cop writing a ticket across the street. “It’s better, though.”
“What is it?” I asked. The pills he gave me at the party had been big and white and unmarked, probably homemade. They’d felt like a mixture of molly and Percocet, turning my heart into a DJ and my brain into a swimming pool.
“Nuvigil,” Dante said. “It’s like a souped-up Adderall. It’s for narcolepsy or some shit. It’ll get you nice and buzzed, but you can get work done, too. I tried some yesterday and was mad productive. I even fixed the copy machine.”
“You work? Like, in an office?”
“No, I just stand on a random corner all day whispering and handing out baggies.” He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I work.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Anyway, it’s basically a pharmaceutical-grade amphetamine. But listen, that means it’s potent. You shouldn’t be taking more than one a day.”
“OK, doctor.” I jiggled my knees, feeling the candy box rattle in my lap. It would be so easy to slip my hand inside and open the bottle, palm one pill, and pop it onto my tongue without anyone seeing. It would mean I wouldn’t have to wait a single second longer to stop feeling so shitty and sad. It might even take the image of your face out of my head, when you were standing by the doorway looking at me like you could see right through me and were disgusted by what you saw.
“I’m serious, though,” Dante said. “I could only get you ten, so that’s got to last. The doctor out in Bayonne who hooked me up is a little jumpy about our arrangement, so until I prove I can sell it, he’s squeezing them out one by one like a human Pez dispenser. Don’t pop this shit like it’s Advil.”
“I won’t,” I groaned. I reached into my bag for my Tic Tacs, hoping maybe I could get a little placebo effect going. While I was in there I counted out ten twenties from my wallet and folded them into my hand. My savings account, courtesy of one commercial voice-o
ver I’d booked junior year, was getting dangerously low. If I didn’t get some means of income soon, I’d have to resort to “borrowing” mom’s ATM card again.
“There are some side effects, but they’re not bad,” he said. “Dry mouth, nausea, dizziness . . .”
“Imminent death?” I asked with a smirk.
I was kidding, I was kidding, Jesus Christ, I was kidding.
“Stop,” he said. “You’ll be fine if you space them out. Now, you ready?”
I nodded.
“OK, well, see you later gorgeous,” he said loudly, pulling me up and wrapping me in a bear hug that felt better than I wanted to admit. I dropped the bills into the pocket of his hoodie and slipped the fake heart into my bag.
I was only about seven blocks from Joy’s place. We’d barely hung out lately—things had been tense already, and then rehearsals had consumed our lives—but I knew that if I texted her, right then, we could meet up for coffee or a movie, or sit barefoot on her couch watching some terrible rom-com on cable, eating an Entenmann’s cake out of the box with plastic forks and talking shit about anyone who seemed happier than us. I needed that. But in the Joy version of my afternoon, I couldn’t take the pill, and I needed that more. I just wished I didn’t have to be alone.
Which made me realize, maybe I didn’t have to be.
Looking back I see myself slipping, sliding, clawing at a fire escape ladder. That split-second decision was when I started to fall.
“What are you doing now?” I asked Dante. I smiled at him expectantly, trying to pretend that I liked him more. He wasn’t nearly as cute as Diego, but he had a kind of gruff charm when he wasn’t trying too hard.
“Just going to chill with a few friends over on the east side,” he said.
“Can I come?” I asked. The question seemed to take him aback.
“Uh, you seem cool, but I don’t like to socialize with customers,” Dante said. He looked me up and down and smiled. “Besides, you’re a little stuck up for this crowd.”
