Saving Quinton

by Jessica Sorensen

  "I'll figure something out," he says, still looking like he doesn't give a shit, like he doesn't care what happens to him, and it makes me angry, not at him, but at myself. Because deep down, I have to wonder why he's here in this shithole. That maybe part of the reason is because I killed his sister and he couldn't handle the pain, just like I can't. "I'll go break into some houses and get some cash. I should be able to scrounge enough up over the next week or so."

  I'm not so sure, but it's a start. "We should get started like tonight."

  Tristan nods and I rack my brain for a better way to get him out of this, one that I know for sure will work. What I want to do is call his parents and tell them to come get him. I'm not sure how well that'd go over, though, considering they hate me and Tristan probably would get really pissed and refuse to go with him. And what if they said no?

  "Where'd you get that?" Tristan asks as he catches sight of the bag of food in my hand.

  I blow out a stressed breath as I glance down at the bag and remember I have other problems, too, at the moment, like how determined Nova looked to spend time with me--be with me. "Nova made me take it." I set the bag down beside my feet and lift my hips to take the piece of paper with her phone number on it out of my pocket.

  Tristan scratches the back of his neck and then collects the spoon from the floor. "Yeah, she seems to care about you, doesn't she?" He rotates the spoon in his hand as I grab my empty wallet and tuck the paper inside it, deciding to hold on to it for a while.

  "She cares about everyone," I mumble as the awkwardness between us rises.

  "Yeah, but she really seems to care about you," he says, watching my response with interest.

  "Maybe." I remember her words in the car, how she said she wants to help me. Me, the fucked-up druggie loser. I take the spoon away from him and toss it aside, then pick up the mirror and the plastic bag full of crystal. The crystal is calling to me, promising me that it'll let me forget everything that happened today with a simple taste.

  Tristan drops the spoon back onto the floor and steals the plastic bag from me, opening it up, then dipping his finger in the white powder. "So how did it go with Nova?" he asks distractedly. "I mean, what does she even want?"

  My hands start to quiver with my need to feel the taste of it--to forget everything that's happened today. Nova. Dylan. Trace. Lexi. Ryder. Everything and everyone. "To help me."

  His concentration is diverted to me. "What?"

  "She says she wants to help me." My eyes are glued on the bag in his hand, not on his words, not on Nova anymore. Everything is slipping away, which is why I love it--need it to survive.

  He studies me, skimming the tattoos on my arm. "Why?" He says it like he can't understand and neither can I. I'm worthless. He knows it. I know it. Everyone knows it except for Nova.

  "I have no idea." I pick up the spoon and fiddle with it to keep myself busy, bending the handle back and forth. Focus. "And I don't want to talk about it anymore."

  He arches his brow as he glances at the spoon in my hand. "Do you want to try that? Because I'm telling you, it's so much better than what you're used to. In fact, we could do a speedball."

  "I've already told you I'm not going to do that...I hate needles and mixing drugs," I say, chucking the spoon on the floor. "I just want to get spun."

  He scoots off the mattress and onto the floor in front of me, putting the mirror between us. "Then let's get spun."

  So we do and for a moment I forget my past, my future, how Nova made me feel something today. I forget about the heavy cloud hanging over us. How much bad shit could go down at any moment.

  I forget about everything.

  Chapter 7

  May 19, day four of summer break

  Nova

  It's been a long three days, filled with visits to Quinton that seem to be leading nowhere. We have the same conversations and he won't open up to me at all and I'm not sure how to bring up to him that I know about the accident, so I just keep dodging around it, lying to him. But bringing up memories like that is complicated and painful. I know because every time someone would even mention Landon's name after his death, it'd feel like a part of me died inside.

  When I'm not over there with Quinton, I spend my time hanging out with Lea. We haven't gone to the Strip yet, but we chatted about going out this weekend when it's late and all the lights are on, just as long as her uncle doesn't mind that we come home late. He actually just got home from his business trip last night and chatted with Lea and me for a little bit. He seems nice and even cooked us dinner while he asked us about our plans while we are here. Lea was vague about the details, telling him that we were here to see a friend.

  It's late morning and I'm sitting in the guest room at Lea's uncle's house with the computer screen aimed at me so I can see myself as I get ready to record before I head over to Quinton's for my daily visit. I have the curtain pulled shut to avoid any glare. My brown hair is wavy and runs down to my shoulders and the blue studs in my ears match my tank top. I have shorts on and no shoes. "It's been three days of going over to see Quinton and the time I spend with him feels so short and the time in between feels so long because I'm always worried about what he's doing when I'm gone." I lean forward in the chair, getting closer to the screen. "I still hate going over there, though, because it's so terrifying...his place. I'm not even sure why. If it's because there's so many rough people walking around doing things that are bad and illegal or if it's the fact that if I didn't change paths, I could have ended up there." I pause, considering my next words carefully. "What's really hard is that sometimes I can see myself there, sitting beside Quinton on the shitty mattress in his room. I can picture myself there getting high beside him, connecting with him, and life is so different. Less stressful." I make a guilty face. "Maybe that's not the right word, because it is stressful in a different way, but it's like you're so wrapped up in drugs that you can't register the stress until it's too late and everything's falling apart. I don't want to get sucked into it again, but it's so easy and even though I won't tell Lea this"--I lower my voice and lean closer to the screen--"there's been a few fleeting seconds where I think why not? Why not just join him again? What's stopping you? Which makes me wonder if maybe I'm not the right person to save Quinton." I raise my arm in front of the screen and get a shot of my scar and tattoo. "But then I look down at this and I remember that place, where I was so lost, drifting, drifting, drifting. I could have died and it wouldn't have mattered," I say. "But right now it does matter because I want to live."

  I sigh, knowing I'm rambling at this point. "Honestly, I don't know what exactly I'm trying to say with this recording, other than to get my thoughts out." I faintly smile. "Sort of like a diary." I click the camera off and shut down the computer. I slip my sandals on and grab my bag, ready to head out, hoping that I can continually remember, never forget just how bad things can get, because it's what keeps me going.

  *

  Later that day I pull up to Quinton's apartment building. Even though I've been here four times, I still get extremely nervous just thinking about walking up to Quinton's door. And when I get there, I always wonder about everything that could be going on on the other side of that cracked door. If he's doing drugs right at this moment. If he's okay. If he's overdoing it. If he's alive. I hate to think it, but he looks so bad, so scraggly, so beat up that I have to wonder if he'll even answer the door or if one time I'll come over here and he'll be dead. I know it's really messed up to go to the dark possibilities instead of the lighter ones, but when you've seen as much dark as I have, it's hard not to automatically think of the bad.

  Thankfully, today, when I knock on the door, I get a brief respite from the dark when Quinton answers. I feel even better when he quickly steps out, so I don't have to go inside. He's got a wrinkly black shirt on and cargo shorts that are frayed at the bottoms, and his hand is still bruised but not as swollen. His hair is shaggy and he's starting to grow a stubbly goatee.

  "Hey," he
says as he starts to shut the door, but then he gets this really weird look on his face, like he's torn. Then he holds up a finger. "Can you hold on for a second?"

  I nod, barely able to keep up with him as he rushes back inside, leaving the door wide open. The sunlight heats up my back as I stare inside the stuffy apartment, the air laced with smoke coming from a lit cigarette on an ashtray on the coffee table. Delilah's passed out on the sofa in the living room, her arm draped over her stomach as she sleeps on her back. I haven't talked to her yet and I'm sort of glad because I have a feeling that conversation isn't going to go very well. Not just because she's been a bitch to me on the phone, but because if she does decide to be nice to me, I know I could possibly be swept up in being her friend. And being her friend means getting high. And I'm still not sure how I'd respond if I were actually offered something.

  As I'm watching the smoke snake around the room, Dylan unexpectedly strides out of the hallway and over to the coffee table. He looks like a skeleton, but they all do really: bony arms, bald head, his cheekbones shaded, bags under his eyes. He also seems distracted, oblivious to me as he hunts the room for something.

  At first, anyway.

  But as I instinctively take a step back, his eyes elevate to me. I've never been a fan of him. He was too intense and treated Delilah like shit. Plus, he always seemed angry all the time, no matter what was going on.

  He looks calm now, though, which might be more frightening than when he's angry. "What are you doing here?" he asks as he picks up a tiny bag off the table.

  "Waiting for Quinton," I answer quickly, stepping back until my back brushes the railing.

  He winds around the coffee table toward me. "No, I mean what the fuck are you doing here in Vegas?" He halts at the doorway, staying in the shadows, clutching the bag in his hand. "Weren't you like going to college or something?"

  "Yeah, but it's summer break," I explain nervously. "So I decided to come down here for a while."

  "To see Quinton?" he asks, giving me a look like he thinks I'm a moron. "Interesting."

  I nod, not saying anything, hoping he'll leave, but all he does is stand there and stare at me. It's really starting to creep me out when Delilah sits up on the sofa. She says something, but her speech is so slurred I can't understand her. Then she stumbles over to Dylan, her red hair tangled around her pale, thin face, her cheekbones hollowed out. She's wearing a T-shirt that barely covers her thighs and, like Tristan, she has a few sores on her arms. She also has a massive bruise on her cheek, like she's recently been in a fight. That's when I notice Dylan's knuckles are covered in scabs like he scraped the skin on something. Delilah's face, maybe. I have to wonder.

  "Baby..." She trails off as Dylan turns around and gives her a gentle shove toward the sofa.

  "Go lie down," he calls over his shoulder in an icy tone.

  She keeps herself from falling by grasping the back of a chair. "I...need..." She blinks around the room and despite everything we've been through, all the crappy moments we shared, my heart twists inside my chest.

  "What's she on?" I ask, inching forward, preparing to help her.

  Dylan turns around and slams a hand on each side of the doorframe, blocking my way in. "That's none of your damn business."

  I stand on my tiptoes and glance over his shoulder at Delilah. "Delilah, are you okay?"

  She stumbles over a glass pipe on the floor as she makes the rest of the short walk back to the sofa and then flops down on her back. "I'm fine...go...k..." She waves her hand at me, shooing me away.

  "You don't look fine," I say, wondering what it would take to get Dylan out of my way.

  Dylan leans to the side, shielding her completely from my view. "She said she was fine. Now back off," he growls in a low voice.

  I tip my chin up and meet his sullen eyes. I think about saying something like "Fuck off," which is completely out of character for me, but at the same time being here isn't really me either.

  I never manage to find my voice, though, and instead Dylan just ends up smirking at me for a painfully long minute. When I see Quinton emerge from the hallway, I exhale deafeningly and Dylan seems pleased about the fact that he was making me nervous.

  Quinton glances at Delilah, who's lying on the sofa with her eyes shut, as he makes his way across the room. He doesn't say anything as he pushes Dylan aside and squeezes between him and the doorway. Dylan glowers at him and Quinton seems edgy, even placing his arm around my back and hurriedly guiding me away from the door. "You ready?" he asks.

  "Yeah..." I peek over my shoulder at Dylan, who's watching us walk away, lighting up a cigarette. It creeps me out even more and I scoot closer to Quinton, feeling a little safer being near him.

  Dylan stays that way until we're halfway across the balcony and then goes back inside the apartment, shutting the door behind him.

  I turn around and focus on walking. "Is Delilah okay?" I ask Quinton.

  He shields his eyes from the sun with his hand. "She's as okay as the rest of us."

  "She seemed out of it."

  "That's because she was."

  "What's she on?"

  He hesitates, his hand on my back tensing. "You really want to know?" he asks, and I nod. "She's on heroin."

  "Do you..." I inspect his arms, noting they're sore-free, but I want to be sure. "Do you do it?"

  He shakes his head with no hesitancy. "Not my thing."

  "Oh." I'm not sure if that makes me feel better, because he still does drugs. "What about Dylan?" I ask as he guides me around a man standing in the middle of the balcony, smoking. "What's he on?"

  "His asshole-ness," Quinton begrudgingly says.

  "So he doesn't do drugs?" I ask, astonished by the idea.

  "No, he does," he replies, slowing down as we approach the stairs. "But high or not, he's always a dick."

  It's a lot to take in--maybe too much. Everything around here is so dark and it hurts to walk around in it, even if I'm only visiting. I can still feel it taking a toll on me. The heaviness. The fear. The temptation. So much could go wrong just from my being here.

  But you need to be here. You need to save him. Like you didn't with Landon.

  Quinton withdraws his hand from my back and we start down the stairs. "So where are we going today? Or are we just chilling in your car again?" He seems twitchy, his brown eyes really large and glossy and his nose red. It makes me sad to see it, how he's hurting himself.

  "Do you want to go somewhere else?" I ask, holding on to the railing.

  He shrugs as we reach the bottom of the stairway. "I'm down for wherever, just as long as I'm back by like five."

  I want to ask him why, but at the same time I fear the answer, so I keep my lips sealed. We climb in the car and I start up the engine and crank the air, trying to think of a safe place to go. "There's this good restaurant my friend Lea told me about," I say. "We could go get something to eat there."

  He waves me off. "Nah, I'm not really hungry."

  "Okay." I try to think of somewhere else, but I don't know Vegas very well.

  "I know somewhere we can go," Quinton says with a thoughtful look on his face, his honey-brown eyes temporarily lighting up. "But you're going to have to trust me."

  It takes me a minute to respond, because even though I want to trust him, I'm not sure I can. "Okay, but where is this place?"

  "It's a surprise." He gives me a smile, but it's difficult to see it because I don't think it's real, rather created by his high. But I play along, because it's all I can do. Pretend that it's real. Pretend I'm okay with everything. "Okay, but you got to give me directions."

  He motions to me to drive forward. "Get going and I'll guide you there." He winks at me. "Just relax. You can trust me, Nova."

  Even though every single part of me screams that I can't, I force myself to drive forward, letting him guide me, hoping I'm not going to do something stupid and make a wrong turn. Because one wrong turn can lead to a lot of damage.

  Quinton

/>   Dylan's been acting strange lately, even though we managed to pay him back with some money we stole from a house the other night. He seems more violent and erratic than he has in the past. I think all the smack is starting to screw with his head a little bit, so I don't like it when I walk out and he's paying so much attention to Nova. I shouldn't have left her out there alone, but the moment I saw her, my heart leaped in my chest, way too excited to see her. Such a wrong reaction and I had to go back and get enough crystal for a hit or two if I need it, if I get to feeling too much while I'm out with her.

  I'm actually probably way too high to be doing anything, yet somehow I find myself out and about. It's like one minute I'm back in my room, absorbing as much intoxicating crystal as I can, feeling my heart rate speed up to the point where I feel like I'm flying--feel like I could do anything, and then suddenly I'm driving in the car with Nova, flirting with her like we're on a date.

  Stupid.

  Stupid.

  Stupid.

  Yet at the same time I'm perfectly content with being stupid--with being near her, because I'm soaring.

  High.

  Confused.

  After I get her away from the apartment and Dylan, I tell her to drive and she does, trusting me, which she shouldn't, yet it pleases me in the most fucked-up way possible. By the time we're pulling up to the building, I can tell I'm going to mess this up badly. I can feel it, yet I'm too spun out of my mind to care.

  "So this is where you wanted to take me?" Nova asks, with a baffled look on her face at the sight of the dated motel that I found one day when Tristan and I were looking for a place to crash after we got caught shoplifting and had to find a quick place to hide. The thing is I'm still not even sure if we were ever being chased or if paranoia set in.

  I take off my seat belt because she always makes me wear it whenever I'm in the car with her. "Yeah. I know it looks a little sketchy, but we'll be okay," I tell her, and when she still looks skeptical, I add, "Trust me, Nova." My thoughts laugh at me, deep down knowing I'm not trustworthy, but it's like I can't get my emotions to link with my thoughts and my thoughts to link with my mouth, so I'm just saying stuff, cruising through the motions without thinking of the consequences.