Ballads of Suburbia (25 page)

“And you flash your damn hickeys at Christian.”

“They aren't hickeys!” My fingers fluttered to the neckline of my shirt, but Liam slapped his hand over mine to stop me.

“I don't want to see. Just like I didn't want to see you kiss Adrian from the porch.”

“You saw that? I was looking for you.”

Liam tugged at his spiked hair. “You obviously didn't look too hard. I just went outside for some air and you walked right past me. You left without me
again.”
His body twitched violently like he was going into a seizure. I tried to touch his arm, but he swatted me away. “First you ditch me at Denny's without any explanation. Then you don't even bother to try to talk to me before you run off with Adrian.”

“Liam, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking-”

“Damn right you weren't! You never think of me. You're so goddamn selfish!” He stopped and took a deep breath. His tone grew calm and even. “When I saw you kiss Adrian, everything Christian said seemed true. But I still wanted to believe in you. Christian tried to convince me to leave after you did. He said, ‘She's going to do heroin with him, Liam. She's not coming back for you.' But I was convinced you wouldn't ditch me. So, instead of comforting my best friend, I waited at Shelly's for you for
two
hours.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks. “I'm sorry, Liam. I just…I lost track of time.”

“How did you lose track of time and forget about me?” he demanded.

“I don't know.”

“I know.” Liam's voice was cold and he shook his head in disgust. “You're on heroin. Everything Christian said about you was true.”

“No, not everything is true. Let's talk about New Year's Eve…” I trailed off, desperate to organize my thoughts. Despite the grave situation, I was having a hard time staying awake. I fought to keep my droopy lids from closing.

Liam grabbed my face and forced my eyelids open with two fingers, screeching, “You're on heroin!” He released me and stomped over to Adrian's cigar box. The razor blade and straw still sat on top of it along with a thin dusting of brown powder.
Liam held it out in front of me. “You think I don't know what this is? Stop lying!”

“Okay,” I sobbed. “I snorted heroin. But only for the first time. Only because of what Christian did…”

Pure hatred filled Liam's eyes and he launched the cigar box across the room. It crashed into a wall, contents spilling everywhere, mixing with the rest of the rubble. “Liar! I won't listen to your selfish crap anymore. Fuckin' junkie,” he spat, and stormed out of the room.

I collapsed to the floor, crying and rocking myself, mumbling, “Just once. One mistake. Because of Christian.”

Momentarily, the room was silent except for the sound of my sobs. When feet crunched through the mess I looked up, expecting Adrian. But it was Maya. I'd completely forgotten about her. She'd let my brother have his say and now it was her turn.

She squatted beside me, crying as hard as I was, her face a mess of black eye makeup. “I wanted to believe you. I mean, I couldn't believe Christian would hurt you like that,” she stammered. “But I thought maybe there was a misunderstanding. Maybe since you were wasted, you got confused and thought Christian was trying to hurt you when he was really trying to help you.”

I wiped my nose on the back of my hand and told her, “I'm not confused.”

“No, you're not.” Maya sniffed and dabbed her eyes. She got to her feet, towering over me. “You're using heroin and you'll say anything to cover it up.”

She headed for the door. I pushed myself onto my hands and knees, trying to go after her. Not able to move fast enough, I shouted, “Why are you listening to Christian instead of me?”

Maya turned back. She bit her lip and whispered, “I don't have to listen to anyone. All I have to do is look at you. Sober up, Kara. So that someday your brother and I can forgive you.”

“No!” I screamed as she shut the door. “You didn't believe me and I will never forgive you!”

 

Adrian reentered his room moments after Maya left. I was curled in a ball on his bed beneath his comforter. He peeled the blanket back and asked, “What can I do?”

“Let me sleep,” I insisted.

Adrian did as instructed and I fell into a dreamless slumber while he and Quentin rummaged around, recovering the contents of the cigar box.

 

I awoke just before dawn. Blinking in the bleak gray light that crept in through the crack in Adrian's dark blue drapes, I needed a moment to realize where I was. Adrian slept on his back beside me. Quentin slept huddled in a sheet on the floor near the bed. I spotted the cigar box on Adrian's nightstand and carefully climbed over Adrian to reach it. Tucking the box under my arm, I sidestepped Quentin and tiptoed to the center of the room, to the spot where I'd been when I screamed at Maya that I would never forgive her.

I should've woken Adrian and asked him to take me home to see my brother. I should've apologized to Liam and forced him to listen to my side of the story.

Or I should've woken Quentin and asked him to take me to Cass. I should've begged her forgiveness for the incident in the locker room, told her she was right about Christian, and asked her to talk to Maya with me.

But six days before, I'd awoken bruised and hungover and I'd buried all of my feelings in an attempt to do the right thing, to protect Liam and Maya, to hold our fragile group together. I'd failed and I didn't have the strength to try again.

I opened the cigar box and took out the razor blade. I studied my arm, the bruises that had started to fade near my wrist. I could cut over those or I could cut higher up where my skin was unmarred aside from old scars. I remembered the rush that cutting provided, but I also thought about the way my arm ached afterward. Hadn't I felt enough pain?

Heroin, on the other hand, had been completely painless and it obliterated every thought, every memory. Maya's plea to get sober rang in my ears, but I couldn't. Last weekend, I'd fought demons for them. I'd lost. Now I needed relief.

I rifled through the cigar box again for that little vial. It was nearly empty, but there was enough for two lines. I poured the powder out on top of the box, cut the lines as precisely as I would if I were carving them into my own skin, and snorted.

I deserved this oblivion, this total numbness. At least for a little while. Once I felt strong again, I'd stop and get Maya and Liam back.

JANUARY-JUNE 1995
[SECOND SEMESTER OF JUNIOR YEAR]

T
HE FOLLOWING
F
RIDAY,
I
WOKE UP
late for school as usual and found a note taped to the kitchen counter that read: “Liam and Kara—You're having dinner at your father's house Saturday night at six. No buts…Love, Mom.”

It was the end of finals week. They'd announced the divorce right after finals in June. What would the big news be this time? My first instinct was to ask Liam what he thought, but of course he hadn't spoken to me all week.

So after I took my last test, I trekked to Adrian's. I'd gone to his house every day after school that week. His parents were on a cruise, so Adrian, Quentin, and I had the place to ourselves to snort lines and write the “Stories of Suburbia” screenplay. I'd been surprised to discover that though they'd continued to gather newspaper articles, work on the script had ceased when I stopped hanging out with them.

“You were the best screenwriter out of the four of us,” Adrian told me with a grin. “Cass is pretty good, but not as good as you.”

I'd been nervous about running into Cass because I hadn't seen her since our fight, but she never showed at Adrian's. When I asked Quentin about her, he said, “She's studying. She's taking the school thing really seriously lately.”

Adrian, on the other hand, had stopped going to school again. He'd decided it was pointless since he wasn't going to graduate with his class at the end of the year. When I got to his house at noon, he answered the door groggily.

“Time to wake up and listen to me complain about my life,” I announced, pushing through the door and heading for his bedroom.

Our relationship was different this time around because my attitude had changed so much after what happened with Christian. I could take Adrian or leave him and he knew it, so instead of being elusive like before, he offered himself for the taking.

I plopped down on Adrian's bed. Covered with rumpled blue sheets, naked pillows whose pillowcases were stuck between the mattress and the wall, and a gray comforter splotched with ink stains, it was still the neatest spot in the room. He'd never bothered to pick up after our ransacking. A new layer of crumpled notebook paper, scattered newspapers, and dirty clothing covered the things we'd smashed on the floor.

Adrian stood in the center of the room, rubbing his tattooed arms. He took off the Dead Kennedys shirt he'd been wearing for the past three days and switched it out for a Naked Raygun shirt, revealing his defined torso for a split second. I felt a twinge of desire, but it was nothing like my swooning moments of the past, even though he still looked as good. Better even. He was a little leaner, his cheekbones slightly more prominent. His hair and the stubble on his face were scragglier than usual. Maybe this was evidence of increased drug use, but if so, he wore it well.

Adrian grabbed his cigarettes and an ashtray off the windowsill and joined me in bed. I chain-smoked my way through three cigarettes, ranting about the note, ending with “So what do you think it means? I bet they're getting back together before the divorce is finalized. They were so horrible together. God, they're stupid.”

Adrian plucked my cigarette from my hand before the smoldering filter could burn me. “Yeah, parents suck,” he agreed, offering me another smoke and lighting it for me. Then something happened that had never happened before: Adrian opened up to me without me asking. “Want to know what mine did last fall?”

Realizing that he meant the period of time right after I left him, when he disappeared for a month, curiosity overwhelmed me. “Yeah.”

“Remember how the one time I brought you here, my dad came barging in and said I couldn't be here unless I followed their rules?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, well, I was fine with that. I had friends' couches to crash on. I had a car to sleep in when I wore out my welcome. Then, the morning I woke up and found you gone, I found my car gone, too. I walked home and didn't see it in the driveway, so I looked in the garage. My dad had cleaned it out just so he could lock up my car. Needless to say, I was pissed. So I put my fist through one of the windows.” Adrian mimicked a sharp jab, then his left hand cascaded down his right arm, illustrating “Blood. Lots of it. My parents came running out and I stood there like a crazed beast, screaming, ‘Gimme my fucking car!' And my mom cried about how bad I was bleeding.

“And my dad said”-Adrian took on a gruff monotone-”‘Adrian, the car is ours. You can't have it until you get some help.' I said fuck that and put my fist through another window. Of course my asshole dad called the cops, so I took off, all bloody and everything.” Adrian stubbed out his smoke.

“Where did you go?”

“I wandered the city for a few days. The Blue Line runs all night, you know, so I slept on the train. I spent a lot of time by the lake, got high with strangers in every neighborhood in Chicago. It's a beautiful city.” He smiled.

“I know.” I thought of the way the lights blurred against the lake when we sped along Lake Shore Drive in his car.

“But I had glass in my arm and the wound was getting infected, so I had to come home.” Adrian shrugged nonchalantly, but I gaped at the thick scars on his right wrist, noticing them for the first time. “As soon as I walked in, my dad called the cops again. I didn't go to jail or anything. My parents checked me into a psych hospital.”

“Really?” I asked, horrified.

Adrian grinned darkly. “I'm a sociopathic drug addict. But I'm also really good at playing the game. I was out in twenty-eight days and now”-he reached for the cigar box he kept his stash in-“back to old patterns. My parents don't care as long as it's not in their face. That's the point of my story, Kara,” he said wisely as he spilled heroin onto the slick, razor-scarred top of the cigar box. “Parents are surface level. If yours get back together, it's an appearance thing. Don't trick yourself into believing otherwise, and get the hell out of there as fast as you can. Okay?”

He chopped two thick lines with a razor blade and handed me the straw.

“Okay.” I snorted my line.

After he snorted his, we settled under the covers of his queen-size bed. We drifted off for a while, and when I came to Adrian was talking. His voice sounded distant and delayed, like he was calling from another country and the connection was bad. “I really want to apologize for how things ended between us. I'm glad we're getting a second chance. I…” He nodded off for a moment before picking up midsentence. “…really fucked up. You were the first girl who actually mattered and it scared the shit out of me. That's why I couldn't sleep with you or, you know, say…”

“I love you?” I finished his sentence, hoping he'd repeat my words.

He didn't take that particular second chance, though. He cleared his throat. It was like telephone lines crackling; suddenly our connection was clear. His voice grew louder and he spoke at a normal pace. “When you left I realized that you were the only girl I'd ever given a shit about. I never had girlfriends because I never clicked with anyone like that. I had friends and I had chicks I hooked up with. Then there was you and you were both and it confused me.” He laughed and it sounded strange, like an echo from somewhere else. “I'm a sociopath, remember. I don't understand human interaction.”

I laughed and it sounded just as strange, like it came from another room or another time or maybe it was left over from last summer. Lots of things were left over from last summer. Like kisses. My lips found Adrian's and when we kissed, it felt raw and pink like the thick scars on his wrist. I pulled back, let my head drop against his shoulder, and drifted off for a while.

Then we were kissing again and it felt better this time, like drinking cold water. I drank for a long, long time. His hands started to explore my skin and vice versa, but his touch felt like sandpaper and his skin like a rocky beach with all the scars and the bumpy tattoos. I imagined mine felt the same. So I let go of him and curled into a drug haze.

I awakened to the sound of him chopping more lines and sat up to snort another. Then came more cool-water kisses and this time touching each other felt smooth like wet pebbles. Adrian pulled the gray blanket over our heads. I felt safe, enveloped by a cloudy sky. I got naked under the comforter and so did he.

Sex with Adrian for the first time was gentle, painless because of the drug, but there was none of the wild passion that fueled our make-out sessions in the past. Heroin made it all about sensation and less about emotion. We wouldn't sleep together often, but when we did I was high; it was the only way I could do it without remembering Christian.

That particular night was a blur of me and Adrian nodding in and out, waking up to kiss and do more lines. My first heroin binge. At one point, I called my mom to tell her I was sleeping over at Shelly's. I stayed in Adrian's room until six the next evening. Then he dropped me off at my dad's apartment, which was a block away from Scoville Park. Time to face reality.

 

Dad's place was sparsely decorated without so much as a photograph on the fridge. In the kitchen, Liam stared at the wood grain of the table, refusing to look at Dad or me. I felt momentarily guilty about sleeping with Adrian and about the line I'd snorted before I left his house, certain my brother could sense these things, but as I sat down beside him, I caught a whiff of pot smoke in his tangled, unwashed hair. I wasn't the only one who'd walked into the situation with drug-induced armor.

Even though Dad offered to take them, neither Liam nor I removed our coats. Gesturing to the empty table, I said, “I thought we were having dinner.”

Dad cleared his throat nervously. “I thought we'd go out together.”

I looked up at him. He seemed to have gotten smaller, skinnier in the past seven months. His closely shaven hair was graying faster and thinning at the top. His hazel eyes had lost their sheen, looked more sunken and beady. Without Mom and the two of us, he'd lost his luster. He'd gone from being my overworked but loveable daddy to an old man. That's why he wanted us back, I assumed. And this dinner would be to celebrate it. Mom would be waiting at the restaurant, smiling.

Dad asked, “Can I get either of you something to drink?”

He pulled a beer from the fridge for himself, so I requested, “Vodka and 7UP?”

“Not funny, Kara,” he replied with a grimace.

Dad sat down, took a deep breath, put his palms flat against the table, and then clasped them together. Jesus, how nervous did his own children make him? Just because he'd left us for a few months? Surely, he thought we'd be thrilled by his news and revert to our giddy little-kid selves, who adored him. Why was he so freaked?

After a long pause that made me think he was nodding out on heroin, too, he finally said, “So, I got a promotion.” He droned about the details for a while. Money. Blah-blah-blah. I waited for the part where he had the revelation about wanting to be a family again, but it never came. Instead, I suddenly tuned in to the words “moving” and “Wisconsin.” The next full sentence I heard twisted a knife in my guts. “Your mother said to tell you both that you have the option to come with me or to stay.”

Liam stood up and launched Dad's beer across the room, the glass smashing against the white cabinets. “You're abandoning us again?” he raged. “First you move out. Then Kara betrays me, and now you abandon us again.” He stared at us for the first time, jade eyes murderous. “Fuck both of you.” Then he took off for the door.

Dad stood there openmouthed and I snapped, “Don't worry, I'll go after him. But no, obviously neither of us wants to move to Wisconsin with you.”

It was the divorce announcement all over again. I chased Liam to Scoville Park like I had then, but now he hated me as much as he hated our father. I screamed his name three times before he finally whirled around in the center of the frozen hill and screamed back, “What the hell do you want?”

I rushed over to him, panting as I said, “I didn't betray you. At least I didn't mean to. And we need to stick together now.”

“Wasn't it Christian who suggested that last summer?” Liam crossed his arms over his chest and glared into my eyes. “When you betrayed him, you betrayed me.”

“This isn't about Christian. This is about our family—”

“Christian and Maya are more of a family to me than you, Mom, and Dad have ever been!”

“I'm sorry.” I winced, blinking back tears and begging, “Please tell me how I can help you.”

“Give me all your money so I can get the hell out of here,” he demanded, extending a cold, bare palm.

I laughed uncomfortably. “We can't really run away.”

“Who said anything about ‘we'?” Liam growled, shoving his hand into the pocket of his winter coat. “Just leave me alone. That's what you're good at. I don't want to talk to you any more than I want to talk to Dad.”

Before he could stomp off, I grabbed his sleeve. “You aren't really going to run away, are you?”

Liam wriggled out of my grip. “I'm surprised you aren't running away right now. To Adrian. To you know…” He put his finger to his nose, holding one nostril closed and pretending to snort a line. “Go get high, sis. I'm fine.” He took off down the hill before I could stop him.

“Liam, I'm going home,” I shouted after him. “I'll be there all night. Just knock on my door if you want to talk!”

And I did exactly that. I went home, stayed sober, resisted any urge to call or go see Adrian and waited up for Liam. I did not want to let him down again. But he never came to me.

In the morning, Mom woke me up screaming that Liam and her car were gone.