Saving Quinton

by Jessica Sorensen

  My arms are tucked under my head and I'm motionless on the outside, but on the inside my mind is running a million miles a minute, all thoughts focused on the water, the way it drips, moves, how I want to drink it because I'm thirsty, yet I'm not drinking and I don't want to get up to get a drink. And it's sort of become a project for me--not to think of anything else. Because if I do, I know where my mind is going to go and it can't go there, because then my feelings will go there and I'll be breaking my promise.

  But no matter how hard I try, I can't not think about her. Beautiful Nova Reed who shouldn't even know me, yet she does...or did. I thought she'd outgrown her time with me and my loser ass, but then she called. After nine months, to chat about that video I made back when there was a ray of light left in my life. Nova was the light and I was stuck in the shadows all the time except for a few moments when she touched me, kissed me, let me touch her, and I couldn't avoid her light, if that makes any sense. Actually, it probably doesn't. My head is in this really weird place, where I'm high but the drips of crystal in the back of my throat are becoming few and far between. I'm fading, crashing toward a rocky bottom, and the sharp rocks are going to hurt if I don't get wings and fly again. I'm going to shatter. Break into a thousand shards of glass and metal. Like a car wreck. Like the fucking wreck that I caused, twisted and broken--unfixable. Like Lexi and Ryder. Unfixable because of me. Shit. I need to stop thinking.

  "Dude, you're fucking spacing." Tristan cracks through my thoughts as he enters my room, rapping on the doorway. He has a T-shirt on and a pair of baggy jeans and his blond hair looks wet for some reason, but I doubt it's from a shower, since ours has been broken for days.

  "Why's your hair wet?" I ask over the music, slanting my head to the side, and a drop of water falls into my eye, rehydrating it.

  His fingers move for his hair, which gives me a view of his forearm and the small holes and scabs covering his skin, some outlined with shades of blue and purple. "Oh, I washed my hair in the sink. It reeked like vodka for some reason...I think someone might have poured it in my hair last night when I passed out on the living room floor."

  "Yeah, I can see that happening." I redirect my concentration back to the drip in the ceiling. "You have a knack for crazy things happening when you pass out, which is a sign that you might want to stop."

  "I'll stop when you stop," he says, because he knows I'm not going to, and it makes me feel like a terrible person, even though I'm not certain he means it. Still, I should at least challenge him, but at the same time I can't give up the one thing that brings me a drop of peace in the murky lake that's become my home.

  "So are you going out tonight with me after we make a pickup?" He changes the subject, glancing around at the nothingness that pretty much fills my room, except for my sketchbook that's on the floor. His gaze briefly lingers on it before he looks up at me. "Dylan said he had some shit for us to do over at Johnny's...well, he said stuff for you to do, since he's still pissed off at me for screwing over Trace and there's a good chance he could be there."

  Johnny is the guy who supplies Dylan with large quantities of drugs for him to deal and sometimes we get drugs from Johnny ourselves. Trace is one of the guys we deal to regularly. Trace actually has a lot of money, at least in comparison to us. He also has a lot of connections, which means pissing him off is a very bad thing. About a week ago Tristan "accidentally" shorted him a couple of ounces, one of which he sold and the other of which I have no idea what happened to--we probably used it and I didn't even know. When Trace asked him for his thousand hundred bucks back for being shorted the ounces, Tristan replied that he didn't have it--that he'd spent it. Tristan's dumb ass managed to get away without getting his ass kicked. He did come home with a huge bruise on his face and I think all of us have been expecting Trace and his guys to break down the door and beat us up until Tristan pays him back.

  "As much as Dylan is an asshole, I'm with him on this one," I tell him. "You're lucky Trace and his guys haven't broken down the door and beat your ass. Remember what they did to Roy and his girlfriend after they stole from him?"

  "Roy was an idiot," he says. "And didn't know how to lay low."

  "No, he tried to lay low," I reply in a firm voice. "But they found him and beat the shit out of him. He ended up in the hospital and almost freaking died...and they raped his girlfriend."

  It seems crazy that this is the way things are, but I learned really quickly when we moved down here that there are a lot more dangers with drugs than just doing them. There's also a lot of danger through exchanges, the people I meet, the people who think I'm ripping them off. But I'm not even sure they are dangers because most of the time I don't feel scared, knowing what could happen. The risk just exists like everything else.

  Tristan seems unfazed. "A, I don't have a girlfriend, so I don't have to worry about anyone but myself, and B, I'll figure out a way to pay him back...somehow." It's clear in his voice that he has no intention of paying Trace back. Tristan has no boundaries anymore, not just with stealing and taking drugs, but with life choices; he's always pushing toward danger. Never thinking about the consequences, veering toward a short life. We all kind of hover in the same place, always a few steps away from getting ourselves killed or arrested, especially with the large amount of drugs Dylan has in his possession sometimes when he's working a bigger exchange. But Tristan never seems to know when to pull back, and a few steps is more like half a step for him. I've had to stop him more than a few times from getting into fights, doing too many drugs, mixing the wrong drugs, but it's okay. I owe him so much more and I'll keep helping him--making sure that half a step always exists--until the day I die. It can be my penance.

  "It's not worth death." I have to pause to catch my breath. Saying the word "death," talking about death, or even thinking about it, can sometimes make me feel like I'm helplessly falling, even when I'm flying. "So stop stealing shit and find a way to pay Trace back before he gets fed up."

  "It's not worth death, huh?" Tristan questions, ignoring my remark about Trace as his forehead creases in confusion and I wonder what he's on, if the drugs are just getting to him or if he really questions if it's not death.

  "Not for you," I say with the little care I have left in me. "Drugs aren't worth your life ending."

  "But they are for you?"

  "Everything's worth death for me." I lose my breath again over the word. I need to stop saying it, but sometimes when I'm strung out, words just crash out of my mouth.

  He glances uneasily at the names Lexi, Ryder, and No One tattooed on my arm. "Just stop talking about death and get up and come do this run with me."

  "Where are you going?" I ask, but my voice gets washed away by the increase in the volume of the music as the drummer bangs harder on the drums and the woman singer belts out passionate lyrics that I swear to God are trying to tell me something. I become distracted by images appearing in my head, ones I've tried to put down on paper many times but can never seem to get as perfect as I want them to be. Nova with drumsticks in her hands, pounding to the beat while beads of sweat cover her smooth skin, but in the most beautiful way possible.

  Tristan goes over to a corner of the bedroom and turns the music down, tipping over the stereo in the process. "You've been listening to some real depressing shit lately."

  "I guess so, but does it really matter?" I ask, wiping a few water droplets off my forehead. "It sort of matches my mood anyway."

  "I was just pointing it out." He picks up a dirty shirt off the floor and chucks it at my face, then gives the side of the mattress a good kick. "Now get your ass up so we can go get this shit done. I have plans later tonight."

  I blink my dry eyes and force saliva down my throat a few times to rehydrate it. "I'm not sure I want to go anywhere right now."

  "Why?" he asks, backing up toward the wall. "You have something better to do?"

  "No, but I'm not really feeling it right now," I tell him. "In fact, all I want to do is lie back down and sta
re at the water stain on my wall."

  He relaxes back against the wall, shaking his head. "Okay, fess up, who the hell was on the phone?"

  I turn my head toward him, my brows furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

  "When Delilah gave you her phone like a week ago," he says. "You've been acting weird ever since and using more, too, which I'm not going to lecture you about, since I'm always getting pissed at you for lecturing me."

  "I've been acting as weird as I always do." I sit up and pick up the shirt he threw at me. "There's nothing wrong and no one called me."

  "Someone called you or else she wouldn't have given you the phone."

  "It was...just an old friend."

  He rubs his jawline contemplatively. "Was it who I think it was?"

  I slip my shirt over my head and put my arms through the sleeves. "Does it really matter?"

  "It seems to matter to you, which is weird because nothing ever seems to matter to you, except for the last few days," he states, moving away from the wall. He opens his mouth to say something, but then he pauses, debating. "It was Nova, wasn't it?"

  "Why would you even think that?" I gather some loose change piled on the floor beside my mattress, the only money I have at the moment, and most of it came from walking around and checking car doors. If they're unlocked then we raid them and steal anything that has value. It's the only source of income I have other than dealing for Dylan. He uses us to deal and in return we get drugs and sometimes cash to buy more drugs, a roof over our heads, and what more is there? It's all I need--deserve. "I haven't talked to Nova in forever," I add.

  "So what?" Tristan retrieves his cigarettes from the pocket of his jeans, nudging a few quarters on the floor in my direction with the tip of his worn sneaker. "Nova seems like the sort of girl that would call after a year and you had this look on your face while you were talking on the phone...like the conversation meant something to you."

  "I'm surprised you were sober enough to see my face." I stuff a handful of coins into my pocket, then pick up the mirror that's beside the pile of coins, reach under my mattress to where my stash is, and pull out the plastic bag holding the white shards of crystal that's going to either let me numbly survive the night or kill me. "You've been on heroin so much lately, you've barely been conscious."

  He rolls his eyes as he removes a cigarette from the pack, puts it in his mouth, then cups his hand around the end and lights it with a lighter he finds on my floor. "Don't be a fucking hypocrite." He blows out a cloud of smoke as he takes the cigarette out of his mouth. "You do just as much crystal as I do smack. In fact you might even do more."

  He's wrong and I want to call him out on it, but then we'll start arguing and it could go on forever. I stare down at the mirror in one hand and the bag in the other, feeling nothing other than a desire to indulge in what's inside it. It practically screams at me: Take me, take me, take me. Forget. Forget. Forget. Everything will be fine once I erase your pain. Die. Be free from the guilt. "Point taken." My hands start to tremble as need consumes me. Feed the addiction. The hunger. The craving.

  "What point?" he asks confoundedly, offering me a cigarette.

  I take one and set it down on the mattress beside me. "I have no idea." Nothing matters at the moment except getting a line into my system, because if I'm going to move and think and talk, I'm going to need it to fuel me, otherwise I won't have the energy or willpower to function. One white line or maybe even two, then I'll talk and think and breathe again.

  With unsteady fingers I unseal the bag, then sink down on the mattress and balance the mirror on my lap. I pour a line across it, ignoring my reflection because I can't look at it just yet. Then I pick up a razor that's by my foot and break up the clumps with it. I grab one of the many emptied-out pens beside the coin pile, lower my head, put the pen case up to my nostril. Then I inhale through it like it's oxygen helping me breathe, live, survive. The white powder slides up my nose and when it reaches the back of my throat I blow out a breath as I tip my head back.

  "Feel better?" Tristan asks, scattering ashes from his cigarette on the floor before reaching out for the mirror like he wants to take a hit.

  As he steals it from my hand, I catch my reflection in the scratched-up surface. Pale skin, wide eyes rimmed with red, and so is one side of my nose, but I doubt anyone else can see the change.

  I pick up the cigarette and put it in my mouth. Then I get to my feet, light the cigarette, and go out into the hall while Tristan sits down on my bedroom floor and pours himself a line. I have to step over two people passed out on the floor on my way to the living room, a guy and a girl, neither of them wearing a shirt.

  Maneuvering around a pile of broken glass, I make it to the kitchen, which is basically part of the living room, only a curtain has been hung up to divide the two spaces. The place is a mess. Paper plates and cups, dirty pans and spoons, empty cereal boxes cover the counter. The sink is full of dirty dishes and it stinks like a trash can. There's empty cigarette cartons everywhere and a used syringe. I'm not even sure why I came in here. I'm not hungry or thirsty or anything really and there's probably no food anyway. I grind my jaw a few times, trying to remember why I even got out of bed. All I want to do is go back to my room and stare at the ceiling, because it was sort of becoming my sanctuary in there.

  "Dylan wanted me to give you a message." Delilah unexpectedly strolls into the kitchen wearing a skirt and a red lacy bra. She always walks around like that, half dressed, and I don't know if it's because she's just comfortable with herself or because she's trying to get someone to fuck her.

  "Oh yeah?" I blink and then rub my nose, my jaw twitching as I take a soothing drag. "What does he want?"

  "For you to run over to Johnny's and pick up an eight ball for Dylan to sell. You'll have to pay him for it, but he left some cash." She holds up a roll of money as she reclines against the counter, sticking her chest out. "He wants you to go, since Tristan"--she makes air quotes--"'borrowed' from him last time and never paid him back."

  I graze my thumb over the end of the cigarette and ash flutters to the floor. I nod, even though I don't want to go down to fucking Johnny's, one of Dylan's suppliers. I want to go into my room and stare at the water stains. Maybe draw. But if I don't go to Johnny's then Dylan will get pissed and when Dylan's pissed everyone's miserable, since he's usually the one with the biggest stash and he has the connections to get more. "I already told Tristan I'd go with him."

  "Good." She stands up straight, stuffs her hand down her bra, and rearranges her breasts. "But I'm going with you, not Tristan."

  I put the cigarette out on the counter. "Who made you the boss?"

  "Dylan did." She grins as she struts over to me and traces her finger up my arm while tucking a roll of dollar bills into the front pocket of my jeans. "Because the last time you two went and picked up something for Dylan you had it finished off before you even made it home and we don't want that to happen again, since if it does, you'll both end up out on the streets and you're too good-looking to be out there." She winks at me. "They'll eat you up in a day."

  "So what are you now?" I ask, not necessarily pissed, just being blunt. "My baby-sitter or something?"

  "Don't you wish." Her fingers travel from my arm to my shoulder, then down my chest. "You know my offer's still on the table."

  "What offer?" I honestly can't remember and the longer I try to remember the more I think about drawing and the water stains. And Nova. Her lips. Her eyes. God, her voice triggered something inside me. Life maybe? And I don't want life in me. What I want is to forget, to stop thinking about Nova and focus on being where Lexi is, under the ground. Lexi. I need to be thinking about Lexi, get high enough that I feel closer to her--never forget her. Always love her. No one else.

  Stop fucking thinking of Nova.

  Delilah's hand drifts downward until she's cupping my cock through my jeans and I'm so numb at this point I can't even tell if I'm hard or not. Then she leans forward and puts her li
ps up to my ear as she presses her breasts against my chest. "You can take me whenever you want. All you have to do is say yes and I can wipe that sad look you always have on your face right off."

  I don't move her hand, shove her back, or breathe. It's not like I want her. She practically sleeps with anyone now, I think because Dylan's ignoring her and fucking other women, sometimes right in front of her. But for some reason I can't seem to find the willpower to move and when she stands on her tiptoes, ready to kiss me, I plan on letting her, knowing she'll be a really good diversion from the beautiful girl who called me out of the blue. The girl who has eyes that look blue, but are green, too. Who used to look sad but from the sound of her voice on the phone seemed happy and I wish I could be happy for her.

  Delilah's lips brush mine, her auburn hair grazing my cheek as she slants her head to the side and grabs my cock harder. I'm about to part my lips and let her and the drugs potently mix in my head and erase my thoughts, but then I hear someone say something from the living room and Delilah quickly jerks away like I'm made of fire.

  Her head whips toward the curtain, which is pulled back so we have a full view of the living room. "Oh thank God." She places her hand to her chest when she sees it's just Tristan. "I thought you were Dylan."

  "Would it really matter if I was?" he says as he walks into the kitchen. "He didn't care when you slept with me and I don't think he'll care about Quinton, just like he doesn't care about anything else you do."

  "Fuck you, Tristan," she snaps, flipping him the middle finger as she spins on her heels and puts her back toward me. "You're just pissed because I fucked you once and then wouldn't do it again."

  "Baby, don't think you're something special because you're not," Tristan retorts, blinking several times, high as a kite, and I doubt he even knows what he's saying. I'm not sure any of us do.