Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You) (29 page)

Helene was gone and now Jared was, too.

Aly stilled her pencil when she heard the soft knock at her door. “Come in.”

Her mother popped her head in. “Are you still up? It’s past eleven, and you have school in the morning.”

Aly glanced at her pad. “Sorry, Mom… I just… ”

Softly, her mother smiled. “I know, sweetheart.” Karen came the rest of the way in. Sitting at the edge of her bed, she ran a gentle hand through Aly’s hair. “Are you doing okay?”

“I think so.” Gazing up at her mom, she asked, “Are you?”

Aly’s mother pursed her lips, then offered a small, reassuring nod. “Some days. It’s getting better.” Then she placed a kiss on Aly’s forehead. “Get some rest. It’s late.”

“Okay.”

Karen crossed to the door and looked back at her daughter. “I love you, Aly.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

The next day, Aly rushed out into the bright morning sun with her backpack slung over her shoulder. If she missed her bus, she’d have to walk to school, and that was about the last thing she felt like doing since she’d spent half the night awake. Even when her mom told her to get some rest, none would come. She felt agitated, like she could feel something building – something bad. It wasn’t a premonition. It was just plain obvious.

Aly came to a stop when she saw the boy she couldn’t get off her mind walking ahead of her on the opposite sidewalk toward the main street. Spring had come, the morning air crisp but warm, but still Jared wore a heavy black leather jacket, his attention focused entirely on his boots as they ate up the ground in his long stride.

She rushed across the street, closing the space between them. “Jared, wait.”

He didn’t even acknowledge her.

She called out to him again, “Hey, Jared, wait up.”

He finally hesitated before he turned around, rushing a nervous hand through his hair. He bounced anxiously as he looked at her. Through her, really. “Aly… ,” he managed to say.

Aly frowned, unable to look away from his pupils, which had all but disappeared, his light blue eyes too wide, frozen ice.

He glanced away, and he raked his hand through his hair again. “Hey,” he mumbled into the distance.

Aly fidgeted. “How are you?” She cringed. What the hell was she thinking, asking something so dumb? How did she think he was?

Jared turned back to her, just blinked, looking everywhere but at her face.

“So, uh, we miss you at the house,” Aly ventured, feeling more like an idiot, completely out of her element. But weren’t they all? None of this was
their
element. Everything was wrecked, and all of them had been left on foreign ground. “Why don’t you come around anymore? I know Christopher would like to see you.”

She would like to see him.

She needed to see him.

Jared twitched. “I’ve just been busy,” he said at the same moment he looked behind him, back toward the busy street. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you around.”

Aly’s heart sank. She stood watching the boy who consumed her walk away from her, his head hanging toward the ground as he gripped the hair at the back of his head.

Aly closed her eyes, wishing for a way to make things better, even though she knew there was absolutely nothing she could do.

When she opened them, he was gone.

Aly frowned when she saw her dad’s car parked in the driveway after she got off from school that day. He never made it home before five.

Aly cracked open the door. The second she did, she knew something was off, could feel the tension in the air. Their house had been so much like that lately – off – emotions rising, then waning, heartbreak, then glimpses of joy, slipping back into overwhelming sadness. They’d diagnosed her mom with grief-related depression, had written her some prescriptions to help her get through the time they said would pass. There’d been some days when she never got out of bed, but like her mom had said last night, she was getting better.

Lately Aly never knew what kind of day it was going to be when she walked through the door.

Now she tiptoed inside. Today she wasn’t met with the deluge of sadness. Instead she found anger.

From the foyer, Aly listened to her dad yelling accusations. “They found heroin
and
stolen pills in his locker, Christopher… You’re telling me you knew nothing about this?”

Dread seized Aly, her heart feeling like it was going to falter while it pounded at the same time.

No
.

Aly eased closer, hid herself up against the wall so she could peer inside at what was happening in the kitchen where Christopher sat on a stool at the bar and their father stood looming over him.

“Dad, I promise you,” Christopher said, his voice low and pleading. “I haven’t been doing any of that stuff. Yeah, I drink some and I’ve gotten high a few times, but I haven’t been
using
. And it’s not like Jared wants anything to do with me now, anyway.”

Christopher’s confession did nothing to calm their father. Instead he roared, “I can’t believe you, Christopher. After all the trust we put in you? Go to your room. You’re grounded… indefinitely.”

“Dad – ”

“Go.”

Christopher’s chair screeched against the tiled floor, and he stormed down the hall to his room. The slam of his door rattled through the house.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh on him, Dave?” Karen looked up when she spoke. Aly could see she’d been crying again. “He’s sixteen… and the last two months have been really tough on everyone. You need to be a little more understanding.”

“What I don’t understand, Karen, is how Jared could do this to his dad. After everything? Does he have any idea the hell he’s already caused his family? And now he’s doing something like this? My God, Karen, the kid had enough drugs in there to get him on intent to sell. He’d better thank his lucky stars he only got expelled and they’re charging him with possession.”

“He’s hurting, Dave.”

“That’s bullshit, Karen. That boy doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and I don’t want my kids anywhere near him. I won’t stand aside and let him take my family down, too.”

Aly’s mom started crying again. “Dave, please.”

Her dad pressed his palms to his wife’s cheeks and tilted her face up to him. “I’m just protecting my family, Karen… what’s most important to me. Don’t ask me to compromise that.”

Aly slid to the floor. She’d already known… had seen it so clearly this morning. She wasn’t surprised. It didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified for him, that he wasn’t hurt and scared and broken.

Because she knew that’s exactly what Jared was.

Buzzing filled the confines of the small room, the vibration of the gun an oppressive weight. I struggled for air. A slow blaze lit along the surface of my skin, the burn of the needle branding my chest. I was fucking gritting my teeth, my hands clenched into the tightest fists, my heart racing.

I always knew she’d be another mark. Another scar. Another sin to add to the insurmountable others.

“You doin’ okay, man?” The tattoo artist pulled away from the job, looking up at me in twisted concern, like maybe I was the biggest pussy to ever step through his door.

The guy had me pegged. I was in pain. But not the kind of pain he was faulting me for. This hurt in the fucking darkest place of my spirit, where the obscene consorted with the vile.

“Yep. Perfect,” I forced out, my nails digging into the palms of my hands.

The guy wiped up some of the blood and ink with a paper towel, then leaned in close to color more. “Just about finished here.”

I nodded, but was unable to say anything while I submitted to the abuse the memories of her face inflicted on my already defeated mind. It was already November. More than two months had passed since I left her begging my name, since I fully laid it all to waste, since I swung the final blow.

The greatest lie I’d ever told had been told to Aly.

Yeah, I’d walked away, but there wasn’t a chance in this godforsaken world that I could forget about her.

That girl was unforgettable.

Fucking perfect. Too bright to fully see.

So I’d done my best at blocking her out. The days had blurred and bled, slowed and sped in an unending spiral of city lights and drugs and alcohol. I’d filled my body with just about anything I could find, searching for something to take away the ache she had left behind. But there was no high that could reach the bottom of this low. Nothing came close to touching it. Nothing dimmed or dulled it. Nothing could erase it. It was like this cancer that ate and fed, rotted and decayed.

Memories of her had only intensified the void that her touch had somehow managed to fill. Even if it were only for a time, she had, and maybe that’s what stung the most. I’d been foolish enough to think I’d treasure those memories, as if I’d find some sort of comfort in them once I was gone. Now I’d give anything to take them away. Because I couldn’t fucking stand knowing she might be hurting like me.

There wasn’t a second that went by that I didn’t think of her, that I didn’t regret the fact that I had skimmed and touched and taken, not a second that passed that I wasn’t wishing that I could take a little bit more.

Yeah, I was one sadistic masochist.

“This looks really cool. Wasn’t sure this was going to blend in with that other tat, but it came out good.”

I said nothing, just tensed and ground my teeth while he seared her to me.

When the guy finished, he cleaned and covered it. “You’re all set. Take that off and wash it in a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

I paid him, left a hefty tip because I figured he deserved one after having to deal with my squirming ass the entire time I’d sat in his chair.

A chime jingled overhead as I stepped out onto the sidewalk. Night lay low against the backdrop of the lurid street.

Vegas, baby.

Dark laughter rumbled deep in my throat as I shoved my fists in the pockets of my jeans. People flocked here to seek its pleasures, to indulge and gratify. But this… this was what they didn’t want to see, what they didn’t want to acknowledge, the seedy and the slum, the addiction and poverty that abounded on the outer streets, tucked just out of sight.

Why the fuck I’d come here, I didn’t know. I’d intended to return to Jersey, but I ended up in the shittiest motel on Fremont Street. It was like I couldn’t physically force myself to go that far, couldn’t stand the thought of placing so much distance between us that it would seem as if our worlds didn’t even meet.

I scoffed.

They never had.

All of it had been
the
fantasy. All of it
the
girl. As if I could have ever been enough. As if I could ever
stay
.

The only reality that remained was the spoils of what I’d taken.

I strode down the sidewalk, ducking my head between my hunched shoulders, doing my best to avoid all the stares, the taunts, and the pleas. It was impossible. Voices swarmed, filled my ears, fueling this foreboding that fried every last one of my nerves. I was on the fucking edge. I knew it.

If there was any way to end it, I would. But fate was never my friend. No doubt, it’d intervene and once again condemn me to live out this life.

I just didn’t know how to endure as I paid out this debt.

I headed down the wrong street I’d been down every night. When I got here, it’d taken me about an hour to figure this shit out. All I’d had to do was look for the right dead end.

Tonight, Keith was exactly where I knew I would find him.

I bought a bag, balled the poison up in my fist, and crammed it back down deep in my pocket, fucking hating myself more than I ever had.

The easy way out.

I
knew
I didn’t get the easy way out. I’d accepted that the day they sent me away. There was no escape from this truth. Even if I touched on oblivion, reality always came back. Still I tried. I fucking tried because I couldn’t do anything but run from the pictures of Aly’s face that constantly assaulted my mind. The sick part was how badly I wanted to hang on to them, too, the way she’d made me actually
feel
, as if I were almost alive.

I jogged across the street toward the dump that I called home. The red
V
ACANCY
sign flashed near the front of the destitute lot, like this eternal beacon for the damned, because I couldn’t imagine a soul saved in this infernal place.

Hell.

No question, that’s where I’d found myself.

I let myself into the isolation of the motel room. I flipped the light switch. A dull bulb blinked to life in the corner of the room, illuminating the hollow space.

Never before had I felt so alone.

Wandering in, I let the door latch shut behind me, rubbing a hand down my face and over my jaw.

I looked around.

God, I missed her more than I had any right to.

Slowly, I crossed the room. Springs squeaked as I sat down on the edge of the worn-out bed. Grabbing the half-empty bottle of Jack from the floor by the neck, I unscrewed the cap and lifted it to my lips. Welcomed the burn. Wanted it. I lifted it again and again, swallowing down the fuel that fed the fire that continuously raged.

How much time passed while I sat there, I didn’t know. Time no longer mattered. Numbness crawled out along my limbs, not enough to erase, just enough to distort, to cloud the fucking unbearable ache that had bound itself to my heart and mind.

My head spun and the bag burned in my pocket.

Climbing to my feet, I stumbled toward the dingy porcelain sink mounted against the far wall. I pulled my shirt over my head and worked loose the bandage from my chest. Heavily, I leaned on the sink, staring at myself in the mirror, unable to look away from the eyes staring back.

Sickness seethed in the pit of my stomach, stretching out, clawing at my insides, which seemed to be fighting for a way out of this body, like they, too, wished for an escape. I pulled the bag from my pocket. Sweat beaded up on my forehead, hatred pouring free.

I clenched my hand around it, knowing it wasn’t the drug, but Aly that had a hold on me.

Motherfucking trigger
.

It burned against my flesh, and I squeezed it tighter, felt the anxiety wind me tight. Every damned day, it was this way. I was like this fucking disaster because I didn’t want anything but to be free, but there was no freedom for the condemned.

And I hated.

I hated.

I hated.

I slammed my fist into the mirror, shattering it into a million pieces. “Fuck!” I roared, the sound bouncing off the walls.

I don’t want this
.

The mirror rained down, shards of glass splintering as they fell, crashing down into the sink, pinging as they skittered across the floor. The skin on my knuckles gave, splaying wide. Blood seeped forward. And I could feel it, the snap as I finally slipped over the edge I’d been teetering on for so long. My fists met the wall and remnants of the mirror again and again as if I could beat this need out of me. The bag was crushed so tightly in my hand it was as if the force alone would cause it to disintegrate. Evaporate. Cease to exist.

Or maybe I would.

There was no pain, just the fury that had taken me whole for the last six years.

And I was panting, reeling, gasping.

Fucking lost.

“Shit.” I clutched my head in my bloodied hands and the bag fell to the floor, my eyes frantic as they darted around the confines of the suffocating room. That feeling of confinement only escalated the anxiety that gripped me tight, provoking the rage inside. I choked, couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t do this anymore.

Snatching my shirt from the floor, I dragged it back over my head, fumbled around for my keys, and ran out into the night. Tonight the darkness was thick, no moon in the sky, just the echoes of distant revelry. My bike gleamed like this flagrant symbol of escape just outside my door. I kicked it over and flew from the lot, pegged the throttle as I took the bike to the road.

The cool fall air beat furiously at my face, the rumble of my bike vibrating in my ears. I sped through the streets, lost myself in the frenzy, gave in to the need to escape even when I knew I never could. I had no idea where I was going because I had no place to go. This… this was my fate because I had no right to be in this world.

The lights thinned out around me as I consumed the road, and the city grew dim as I left it behind. I hit the open desert, the glare of my headlight splaying out across the pavement. My hand was fucking shaking as I pinned the throttle as far as it would go.

I hated.

God, I hated.

I forced it faster, this rage inside me spurring me forward, pressing me harder. There was nothing for me in this city.

Nothing for me anywhere.

That
emotion brimmed to the edges of me, heavy and thick, my chest tight with that fucking rock that would forever be lodged just at the base of my throat. I leaned into the curves and welcomed the air that pelted and whipped, the chill that stung, welcomed the anger and the hate and the anxiety that were my constant companions.

They were the only steady I knew. The only things I could count on.

I shouted into the driving wind, cast my fury at the nothingness because that was exactly what I was.

Ahead, the road curved to the left. Sharper than I thought. I took it hard, and I felt the quiver of the bike. I fought against the wobble of the handlebars, fought to conquer the shot of instability that rolled through the length of the bike. I righted it and struggled to focus on the blurring road. I blinked hard, trying to clear the fog from my mind.

An abrupt right came up fast. So fast.

“Fuck” fell silently from my mouth, maybe as a plea as I flew into the turn. I leaned and braked hard, everything shaking before I felt the back tire begin to skid. Then the front wheel caught.

And I was flying.

Weightless.

A long time ago I’d lost control. I’d lost it the moment I’d given in to carelessness, when I’d taken the most important thing in this world and set it aside while I strove for the trivial.

Darkness surrounded me, gutted me, wrapped me inside out. And it was quiet. So fucking quiet, nothing but my mother’s face filling up the bleakness that devastated my heart and mind. For a moment, I thought maybe I could feel her running her fingers through my hair, like she’d always done when I was a little boy, thought I could hear her soft, gentle voice whispering in my ear, thought I saw her looking at me like I was the light… when in reality she’d been mine.

I missed her. God, I missed her so much and it hurt and I wanted her to know it was the greatest mistake I’d ever made.

She shifted and faded, giving way to the girl. And Aly was looking at me exactly the same way, like maybe I was her light in the same way she’d unwittingly become mine.

My eyes went wide as I felt the ground rush up.

It was Aly.

Aly
.

Aleena.
 

And for the first time since the day I turned sixteen, I didn’t want to die.