The Road to You

by Piper Lennox

  “Here it is,” the girl sings. She knocks on a window, not the door. “Zeke, Charlie? It’s Elise. Let me in.”

  An enormous amount of shuffling occurs before a face appears in the window. “Did you bring any garlic bread?”

  “No,” she says slowly, stepping aside and motioning to me, “but I brought you a roomie.”

  The guy sighs. His breath doesn’t even fog the glass, it’s so warm outside. “Fine.”

  The apartment is how I expected: pizza boxes stacked on the pass-through, furniture that looks like it was discovered curbside, and a too-small table with a television on it, tuned to a comedy special.

  “Charlie.” The guy sticks out his hand. I take it.

  “Shepherd. Nice to meet you.” Both of us glance at Elise, who’s stretching her gum into a tightrope with one hand, texting with the other.

  “You want the room?” he asks. When I nod, he starts up the stairs and waves after me. I follow. At the top of the staircase, I hear the couch springs squeal when Elise falls into it.

  “Five-hundred a month,” he says, as he swings open a door. The room is small and white, with beige carpet. “We need first month upfront.”

  “I’ve got two-fifty.” I wince even as I say it. Cash is king, and I knew this would be a longshot. But I also know how these things tend to go: people would rather accept less of a sure thing, than just the promise of it all.

  Charlie nods at my bag. “Show me.”

  I pull it closer, hesitant.

  “Oh, come on, dude,” he laughs. “I’m not gonna rob you or some shit.”

  I have no reason to believe him. My own friends have robbed me. I robbed them. I even robbed Lila.

  This is my only lead, though, so I reach into my bag and pull out $200, then get the rest from inside my shoe. I’ve got another ninety in my other one, but I decide to keep that a secret. I’ll need food until I can find a job, after all. I’m not even sure what, exactly, I’ll sleep on tonight.

  Charlie counts the bills. He’s not at all disturbed by the fact some of it was just wedged underneath a sweaty shoe liner.

  “Yeah,” he says, “that’s chill. Just get us the rest by…I don’t know, two weeks? You got a job yet?”

  “Not yet. I just got into town last night.”

  “I install windows with this startup, if you can handle tools and heavy lifting.”

  “Really? That’d be perfect.” I catch myself. “I mean, if they like me.” My experience in construction is unimpressive. And if it’s any kind of corporation, apt to run background checks, I’m screwed.

  “Guess I’ll let you unpack, then,” she says, pocketing my money.

  I throw my bag onto the floor. “Done.”

  Charlie laughs and hits me with the back of his hand. “Zeke’s got a sleeping bag you can borrow tonight, if you want. Is that really all you brought?”

  “That’s it. I, uh…I kind of left Indiana in a hurry.” My mind skims the catalogue of all my possessions: a few more clothes than what I brought, DVDs with scratches all over, and junk mail. Leaving all that behind was the easiest part of all.

  I can still picture my old room at my parents’ house, stocked with soccer posters, karate ribbons, Scouts memorabilia, and a tower of Christian rock albums I haven’t played since I was fourteen.

  It’s weird: I still remember the lyrics to so many of those songs. I really, honestly liked that stuff, and not just the music—my friends and I would save up for weeks to get tickets to those shows and festivals. Our parents even let us go by ourselves, figuring we couldn’t get in much trouble at a Christian music event. They were wrong, in that we could have. We just didn’t want to.

  I was a good kid. Squeaky-clean, in fact. The type of son you’d expect to find in a pastor’s household: obedient, respectful, and happy.

  By high school, though—even one as insular as mine, with no more than 200 students—it was obvious which kids were cool, and which weren’t. I fell somewhere in the middle, while my friends sank right to the bottom.

  The first time I smoked was after a school play, at the cast party. I’d landed the role of Rolf in The Sound of Music, and everyone thought it was funny to give me a Nazi salute when I arrived.

  “Hey, Fish,” somebody shouted. When I turned, I expected to see one of my friends, dressed head-to-toe in black from their work as stagehands. Instead, it was Jackson Tate.

  “We’re down here,” he said, like I should know who “we” meant. He still had stage makeup on his face from his run as the Captain. The closer I walked, the more I could see, gathering in the creases near his mouth.

  While I followed him down the basement steps, I wiped my face with my sleeves. Streaks of foundation and powder marred my sweatshirt by the time we reached the bottom, but at least my pores could breathe.

  “Fischer!” someone called out, right as a few others shouted “Jones!” I had a lot of nicknames in school, and it was impossible to tell if someone was saying it kindly or not. This time, I got the feeling it was a mixture.

  Besides Jackson, there were four people I recognized from the popular crowd, two from the basketball team, and some from the play. A kid I didn’t know was packing a bowl.

  “You were great tonight,” Lauren Anderson smiled, as she made room for me on one of the sofas. She’d played Liesl. Our kiss was supposed to be an innocent little peck, and stayed that way through every rehearsal. On stage tonight, during the real deal, she caught me by surprise with some extra enthusiasm, and a little tongue. We laughed our way through the teacher’s backstage rant, afterwards.

  “Thanks,” I told her. “You, too.” Her boyfriend was on the other side of her, his arm visibly tightening on her waist, so I turned my attention to the bowl.

  “You smoke?” Jackson asked.

  I wish my downfall were less clichéd. In so many ways, it really did play out that simply: I wanted to be cool, some cool kids offered me drugs, and I did them. I turned into a D.A.R.E. cartoon.

  There was more to it than that, of course: I was tired of everyone, including myself, assuming I would be just like my dad. I didn’t want to teach people. I wasn’t a leader. My childhood dream of becoming a CEO or VP, some suit with a big wallet, didn’t appeal much anymore, either. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, or who I wanted to be. I didn’t want to have to decide at all, but especially not at fourteen.

  So in that moment, when everyone looked at me and the girl who’d played Maria finished her hit and passed the bowl to me, I answered, “Yeah, sometimes.”

  It hit me fast. I felt like I was sinking into a hot tub, but my heart was thundering. I wondered if Lauren could feel it through my arm, touching hers while she made out with her boyfriend.

  The pot itself wasn’t my downfall. If I’d kept it at that, just gone upstairs and listened to music, maybe taken my friends up on their offer for a night of video games and pizza at one of our houses, I wouldn’t have fallen at all. A preacher’s kid who smoked weed: I wouldn’t have been the first. I could have taken a road somewhere between piety and the gutter.

  Instead, I took the pills Lauren palmed me without question, when our highs wore off. We sang our duet and laughed, hysterical and sleepy, before sneaking another kiss while her boyfriend went to get more beer. She got the Ativan from him, she told me, and put his number in my phone. Just like that, I had my first connection.

  I didn’t see what was happening to me until it already had. I think that’s how it happens for most people. Nobody wakes up and decides they’re going to become addicted to something. It starts a lot like my story did: a fun time with some friends. You try it, you like it, you do it again. Everyone around you keeps doing it, too, and some of them can handle it, some of them can’t.

  No matter what, you assume you’re one of the ones who can. That, in the end, was what undid me.

  So now, when I go back downstairs behind Charlie and hear Elise tell him, “I texted Zeke, he’s got our bars,” I freeze.

  Charlie notic
es. He gives Elise a look.

  “It’s okay,” I tell them, but I’m sure my stammer says otherwise.

  It seems like more than enough for Elise, who holds her hand out at me. “See?” she asks Charlie. “He’s fine.”

  “I’m, uh…I’m gonna walk around for a while, get the lay of the land.” I step between them and pull the door open, praying Zeke won’t be on the other side with God knows how much Xanax.

  When I’m halfway down the sidewalk, I hear Charlie calling me. Actually, he’s shouting, “Dude!” instead of my name, already forgotten.

  “Here’s your key.” He slaps a spare into my palm like a handshake.

  “Oh. Thanks.” Outside, with no walls closing in, I feel like I overreacted. Then I imagine it: sitting up in my empty new room all night, knowing it’s just a few stairs away. Maybe tonight would be pretty easy to resist.

  But what about the next one, or the next?

  “Uh, actually,” I start, then clear my throat as Charlie turns back, “I’m not sure this is gonna work for me.” I try to think up a good reason, and then decide that only the truth makes sense. “I used to have a drug problem.”

  “Oh.” He stares at the key I put back into his palm. “Well…it’s not like we do it a lot. And nothing crazy.”

  I used to be the same way, I think, but don’t tell him this. For one thing, they might be the kind of people who can take pills for fun. For them, it might be a phase.

  Or, in a year or two, they could wind up exactly where I did. There’s no way to tell, until it happens. Even if I told him this, though, it probably wouldn’t make a difference. I remember when things were still casual, for me. No one could tell me shit. I wouldn’t listen.

  We go back to the apartment. I get my bag. Charlie gives me my money back without a word, which I have to admire. I wasn’t sure I was prepared to fight him over it, if he kept it.

  “You’re leaving?” Elise pouts. “We were going to celebrate!” Her hand creeps up my arm.

  “Thanks, but…yeah. I’m leaving.” I slip out of her grasp. “I appreciate your help, though.”

  “It doesn’t seem like you do.”

  “Elise.” Charlie hits her shoulder with the back of his hand, softer than he did to me. I wonder if that’s a thing of his, but feel relieved I won’t be around here long enough to find out.

  “You need a ride?” Elise puts a new stick of gum in her mouth. “My roommate has a car.”

  “Thanks,” I say again, “but I’m just going to the Greyhound station.”

  “On foot?” Charlie asks. “That’s all the way across town.”

  “Already walked it once, today. It’s no big deal.”

  “That’s stupid.” Elise grabs her purse and pushes past me, wiggling her fingers over her head. “I live right across the street—I’ll get the keys and take you.”

  Charlie shrugs when I look at him for help.

  Elise is already across the street at another row of townhouses, waiting. I’m about to turn her offer down again, but my feet ache, just from standing here. The thought of walking all the way back makes every blister pulse in agony.

  I wait outside while she gets the keys. Her roommate’s car is small, but spotless, except for two distinct shoe marks on the dash.

  Elise tries to make conversation. I answer every question and make listening noises, but I don’t engage any further than necessary. I don’t feel like talking to anyone, right now. I just want to think.

  The only problem: all I can think about is Lila.

  “I don’t get it. You just got here.” Elise puts her hand on my leg after we pull up to the station. It’s more crowded than it was this morning. I watch the people instead of looking at her.

  “Wasn’t what I thought I needed.” My hands can’t unbuckle my seatbelt fast enough. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Yeah,” she says, scoffing. “See you around.”

  I haven’t even closed my door all the way before she takes off down the road. All it does is make me think of Lila again, when she tried to kick me out at the bus station a few days ago. I fought so hard to stay. If only I’d done it when it mattered most.

  Inside, I lose myself in the thinning crowd and look at the routes.

  Indiana isn’t where I want to go, but it’s the only place I deserve to go: back to my mess, left to climb out for myself.

  Eighteen

  Lila

  “I know this sweatshirt—this is Shepherd’s, isn’t it?” Tillie smiles as she picks up the hoodie from the floor. It’s covered in bits of leaves and grass, stepped on for two days straight.

  “Um...guess so.”

  She seems more relaxed, now that we’re past the state line. When we pulled out of her neighborhood, I asked if she was leaving anything important behind. “Not important enough,” she’d answered, wringing her hands. They were shaking again.

  Now, her hands are perfectly steady as she folds the sweatshirt and sets it on the backseat. “Guess Shepherd used my car while I was gone,” she says. “Not that I mind.”

  “Actually,” I start, then clear my throat. “The sweatshirt’s in here because...he came with me. To find you.”

  “Really,” she exclaims, still smiling. “Well, where is he now?”

  I hate the sadness that hits me, all at once, just as strong as when I cried my eyes out in front of that empty lot. “I’m not sure. He took a hundred bucks from my purse yesterday at the hotel, left a note, and then bailed.” Fighting the tears again takes every bit of my willpower, but I manage. “Good riddance.”

  “He stole from you? That doesn’t sound like him.” She glances back at the sweatshirt, as though it’s somehow proof of Shepherd’s worth. “I hope he hasn’t relapsed. He’s done so well, the last year.”

  “Wh— Relapsed? You mean the pills?” Vaguely, I remember him mentioning something about that, but he’d made it clear he didn’t want to get into specifics.

  “Pills,” she nods, “or, you know, whatever. Any of the other stuff.”

  My throat is suddenly parched. “What, uh…what other stuff?”

  “Oh,” she says quietly. “I really shouldn’t say anything else. It isn’t my place. If he’d already told you, that’d be one thing, but....”

  “Please.” I draw in so much air, my chest hurts. “I want to know. I mean...it might help me understand why he left.”

  In my periphery, I see her watching me. “Not that you have to tell me, but was there something, you know…going on, between you two?”

  “No.”

  I think I hear her laugh under her breath. “You answered that awfully fast.”

  “It doesn’t matter what happened. He told me he was looking to get out of town, which was part of why I invited him to come with me. He could be anywhere, by now.” I speed around a truck hauling lumber, twigs and chunks of bark flying in its wake. “I’m never going to see him again. So you might as well tell me about him.”

  Tillie thinks a minute, then sighs, “All right. But if he gets mad at me for telling you, I’m throwing you under the bus.”

  Outwardly, I smile. Inwardly, I sneer: he can’t get mad if he never finds out, and he can’t find out if he’s gone forever. “When I disappear, it’ll be for good,” he said, the day we started this trip. Job well done, I think. It almost makes me cry all over again.

  She cracks her window and puts a cigarette to her lips, then takes it out. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “Not if you don’t mind me bumming one.”

  She smiles. “Filthy habit. I quit years ago, but this mess with Nick really got to me, I guess.”

  I nod as she passes me one, already lit, her lip balm on the filter. “I started again when Dad got sick.”

  We smoke in silence for a moment. I decide to prompt her. “So—about Shepherd.”

  “Right.” Tillie exhales through the crack in the window and eyes another truck beside us, this one carrying an entire shed, fully built. “Did he tell you his dad kicked him out, a
few years ago?”

  “He did.”

  “But he didn’t tell you it was because of drugs.”

  I shake my head.

  “It was the pills and cocaine at first, I think. I’m not sure if his dad actually knew yet, but the catalyst was when he caught Shepherd stealing from his mother’s purse.”

  I chew my cheek. “So it’s a pattern.”

  “I don’t know about that. He seemed very remorseful over it, even before he got clean.”

  He seemed remorseful over pawning the locket you engraved for me as a baby, too, I think about adding, but decide against it. It would just upset her—and it probably wouldn’t make me feel better, even if I do deserve a little revenge.

  “At some point, I guess, he and his girlfriend got mixed up in heroin,” she goes on, oblivious to the fact I almost clip a guardrail as she says this, “and he eventually got fired. By then I’d caught on, so I gave him an ultimatum: he could live on the streets, or he could go to rehab. He picked rehab.”

  “I didn’t know he was even an addict.”

  “He’s very private. I think he’s still ashamed over it, to be honest. Not that I think he should be. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Heroin is a pretty serious mistake,” I blurt, laughing out of sheer nerves, simply because I don’t know what else to do. I can’t picture the Shepherd I know doing drugs, let alone something as serious as heroin.

  “He’s over a year clean,” Tillie says. “At least, I hope he’s still clean. If he is, that’s quite an accomplishment, so I hate him acting like he needs to pay some kind of...I don’t know, penance for it, his entire life.”

  Her use of the word “penance” reminds me of our conversation about his father, how everything Shepherd did disappointed him, because it wasn’t tied to the church.

  It also reminds me of what he said the next morning, by the bus station: “I don’t want to drag you down.”

  “So he got his girlfriend into heroin, too?” I ask. The only thing harder to imagine than Shepherd doing heroin, is Shepherd getting someone else to do it.