Deeper We Fall (13 page)

“Hey Lex!” I skipped the rotten step and dashed to the front door and into Lexie’s waiting arms. Sometimes she hugged, and sometimes she didn’t. Today was one of the former.

“We’re going to the zoo!” She sang, trying to spin around in a circle. I looked at Mrs. Davis, who gave me a tired smile. The sun caught a few gray hairs she hadn’t had the time or maybe the money to get fixed at the hairdresser’s.

“Let’s go,” Lexie said, grabbing my hand and trying to drag me back out the door.

“Lexie, why don’t we sit and talk for a while. You can show Lottie your pictures.”

“Come see my pictures,” Lexie said, changing directions and trying to drag me to her room. I held onto her elbow to make sure she didn’t fall. The entire house had been Lexie-proofed. The hard corners on furniture had been covered with foam, the knives had been put in a locking cabinet, and anything else that Lexie could use to hurt herself had been gotten rid of, or put in a place she couldn’t get to.

Lexie’s room always made me choke a little when I walked into it. In an effort to try and help her keep continuity or some such crap, they had left everything as it was on the day of the accident. Not just the things on the walls, but everything else. Lexie’s dresser was like a shrine, with her endless tubes of lipgloss, the pictures of the two of us in frames that she’d painted, a movie ticket from the day she’d gotten her first kiss from none other than Joel Ostrander. That boy got around.

But her room wasn’t the same. There were now finger paintings that she’d done as part of her therapy that covered the posters of half-naked guys and bands and pictures of Paris. Lexie had always wanted to go to Paris. Now her poster of the Eiffel Tower was covered over with what was probably a kitty. Or a dog. Or a giraffe. I couldn’t really tell. Not that it mattered.

“See?” Thrusting a picture in my face, she flopped down on her bed and stared at the ceiling.

“It’s gorgeous, Lex.” It wasn’t really a picture of anything, just a swirl of colors, but it was really pretty. Before the accident, Lex had been our art teacher’s pet student. Some of her paintings were still hung around her parent’s house. Another shrine to who she had been.

“Lex?” She didn’t answer. Sometimes she got lost in her head and went into a semi-catatonic state. The only thing to do was wait for her to get out of it.

“You ready to go?” Kay poked her head in, holding Lexie’s coat. She saw Lexie on her bed and I could hear her sigh, even though she didn’t.

“Lexie, baby? You want to go to the zoo?” No response.

I always wonder where she went, in her head when she got that still. You could never get her to talk about it after she’d come out of it. She’d just snap, and be back.

It was a short episode, only lasting about five minutes. In that time Kay called her name at least twenty times, snapped her fingers in front of her face and tried anything to get her to come back from wherever she was. No response.

Chapter Thirteen

Zan

“Zack said you hurt your hand,” my mom said when she called me. I should have known that Zack would squeal. I’d told him that I’d fallen or some such shit, but he knew better. I was grateful Devin was gone again, or else I wouldn’t have answered the phone.

“It’s fine. It was an accident.”

She sighed.

“Zan, are you taking your medication?”

“Yes, Mom.” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice so she wouldn’t think I was being defensive. Defensive people were most often lying.

“Alexander, I know that things have been hard for you, but you don’t have to take them out on me.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Steve and I were thinking of making a trip up to see you and Zack. What do you think?”

“Yeah, sure.” I would be in deep trouble if they came up. Steve missed nothing, and he would know I was off my medication. I’d tried to stop taking it a number of times in the summer, but he always caught me. Steve and I didn’t see eye-to-eye and it wasn’t because I was taller.

“So I was just making some of those coconut cookies for Steve’s work party and I thought I might send some up to you. Would you like that?” The hope in her voice made me feel like an asshole for snapping at her.

When I was little and Zack would be off blowing things up in the backyard, I used to bake with her. Wow, I hadn’t thought about that in a long time.

“Yeah, I’d love that. Thanks.”

There was a pause as both of us tried to find something to say. “Call me anytime you need to, okay? I miss you,” she said.

“Miss you too.” We hung up and I pounded my non-busted fist into the wall, only realizing seconds later that the wall I’d banged on belonged to Charlotte’s brother and his roommate. I heard one of them exclaim and then there was a knock at my door.

A very pissed Will Anders glowered up at me. I had at least two inches on him.

“What the fuck is your problem?” I didn’t answer, instead dissecting his face and finding all the similarities to Charlotte’s. There were quite a few.

“Did you, or did you not just bang on my wall?”

I wasn’t sure there were any words that I could use that would make him back down. He had come for a fight. “Yes.”

“Yes you did, or yes you didn’t?” His eyebrows puckered just like hers. I seriously needed to stop, or things were going to get weird.

“I did.”

“Listen, I know you’ve served your time and all that, but you being here is making my sister upset. No one makes my sister upset, not even me. So I swear to God, if you purposely do anything to make her more upset, I will fucking kill you. Understand?” His words were fierce, as was his love for Charlotte.

“I understand,” I said, nodding. I understood more than he could comprehend.

“Good.” He rolled his shoulders, as if he had accomplished something he’d been thinking about for a while. I almost smiled, but was able to hold it back.

“Sorry for banging on your wall. It won’t happen again.” He seemed stunned that I’d apologized. His bewilderment was also kind of funny.

“Okay,” he said, sort of rocking from foot to foot. Then he gave me a jerky nod and went back to his room. I couldn’t help the laughter that came out of me a few seconds later. I tried to hold it in, but it burst from me at the irony and the sheer fucking ridiculousness of life.

Lottie

“Again!” Lexie said after nearly every ride. I’d decided to give Kay a break, so she was on a bench reading a book while I took over for a while. The park was small, and nearly all of the rides were kiddie rides, but Lexie didn’t care.

While we were getting on a train that took us around the entire park, she stumbled, but I was there to catch her. A couple of pre-teen boys snickered behind us.

Lex was oblivious.

As we rode, she pointed out and tried to name every animal, but she couldn’t come up with some of the animal names.

“Lottie! It’s a…a…d…d,” she said as I tried not to say it for her.

“It’s called a fucking deer you retard,” one of the boys said. Oh no, that was so not okay with me. If Lexie hadn’t been sitting next to me, it would have been ON. Lex didn’t hear them, and the train moved on, but the boys continued.

At the end of the ride, I turned slowly and gave them each a sweeter-than-fucking-sugar smile, holding eye contact and not looking away. That seemed to make them a little nervous, but they laughed nervously and nudged each other.

I winked before I strode up to the person supervising the ride, who happened to look like an ex-football player who was a bouncer in his spare time. I’d left Lexie on the little train.

“Excuse me, but those three boys, right there have been harassing me and my friend and using foul language in a park filed with children. I’d like them removed, immediately or else I’m filing a complaint. And I don’t think the park would like the negative press.”

His eyes narrowed and he yelled out to the three kids, who were busy shoving each other and laughing about their exploits. I knew just what kind of men they’d make, and it made me sick to think about.

They froze when he walked up to them, and their eyes got wide for a second before they puffed up, accusing me of lying. Yeah, because I get my kicks by throwing little pricks like them out of zoos.

The guy snapped his fingers and another guy in a park t-shirt appeared and escorted the boys, who were yelling about injustice, away.

“Thank you,” I said as I got Lexie off the little train. The man looked like he wanted to help, but I waved him off. “She doesn’t like to be touched by strangers.”

“You left me,” she said, and I sensed an episode coming on.

“Just for a minute. I’m back now, see? I’m not leaving you again,” I said, taking her arm. “Best friends never leave each other, right?”

“Right,” she said, her face breaking into a smile.

“You have a nice day,” the guy said, nodding. “I have a brother with Down syndrome.” I gave him a tight smile before taking Lexie back to where Kay was lounging on another bench, feeding one of the tame peacocks that wandered the park.

“Did you have fun?”

“I’m hungry,” Lexie said. Kay laughed and started pulling snacks out of her bottomless purse.

Lexie fell asleep on the way home, which gave me a chance to talk to Kay.

“Her violent episodes have been getting worse. Her therapist can’t figure it out, so they’ve been doing some more tests. I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

She leaned her head on the hand she wasn’t using to drive. I wanted to say something, anything that would make sense, or make it better, but I’d learned a long time ago that words for things like this were useless. Even for me.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be dumping this on you.”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Davis. I’m just sorry I can’t do more.”

“Oh, sweetie, you’ve done more than a sister would have done, and I’m so grateful, but you have to have your own life. You’re in college now and you’ve got a lot of responsibility, and that doesn’t include taking care of Lexie. I’m her mother, that’s my job.”

I’d always hated it when people talked about being a parent as a job. Like it was something that was forced on you, something you were obligated to do. Not something that was a joy, a reason to get up in the morning. Not something that you were blessed with.

I glanced at Lexie, with her face mashed against the window and thought about the time when I’d had a crush on this guy, Andrew. We were in sixth grade, at a dance, and Lexie convinced me somehow to go up to him and ask him to slow dance.

Unlike in our fantasies, where the guys would smile and sweep us off our feet and then we’d go and make out under the bleachers and live happily ever after, he stuttered and said no. Crushed, I went and cried myself out on Lexie’s shoulder in the bathroom before she went up to him and verbally castrated him in front of all his friends before spreading a rumor about the microscopic size of his penis that followed him all the way through high school. That was Lex though. Extreme in every aspect of her life. It wasn’t until after the accident her mother found out about her secret self-inflicted navel piercing. By then it didn’t matter.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, sitting back in my seat.

Kay whispered something under her breath, but I heard it anyway.

“I wish you would.”

Chapter Fourteen

Zan

Zack texted me later that afternoon, asking if I wanted to go for a run with him. I usually ran alone, but then I could tell him to call Mom and he could fulfill his mandatory brotherly time and I could get another run in. It wasn’t exactly an ideal situation, but I’d suck it up.

“Hey bro,” he said, showing up at my door in a wife beater and black shorts. I had my long sleeves and pants on, as usual.

“Dude, it’s like a million degrees out. Why don’t you lose the sleeves?” He knew why. “You’ve got the tat now. Girls love shit like that.” My eyes found his scars, several criss-crossing his legs, and a few on his arms. Mostly from broken glass when we’d all be thrown from the car. His injuries were the least severe of the three of us. Even then, he’d gotten lucky.

I shook my head and closed my door behind us.

“You should call Mom. Steve wants to know how that new workout thing is going.” Steve and Zack had spent nearly the entire summer devising a new workout regimen for Zack that would make him faster, stronger, better. As if he wasn’t already.

“I have been such a slacker. It’s just been so nice to have some alone time with Katie without worrying about her mom walking in and asking us if we want some cookies.” Dear sweet Regina. She thought the sun shined out of Zack’s ass. Just like everyone else.

“Did I tell you about that time she actually did that?” He laughed as we exited the building. “I was right in the middle and she just barged in. I thought Katie was going to die.”

He jogged in place and earned a few approving glances from a pair of girls strolling by. He grinned and winked and checked out their asses. I was beginning to regret this.

“Come on, I’ll race you.” He shoved me in the chest and took off. I waited a half second and followed. Zack may have been stronger than I was in the muscle department, but I could kick his ass when it came to speed. All those muscles caused too much wind resistance.

I soon caught up with him as we dodged pedestrians and made our way down to the track that looped around the football field. Zack always preferred the track to the unpredictability of the woods.

I slowed to a jog and he fell into line beside me.

“You got laid yet?” Zack was terrible at starting conversations.

“I’m celibate now.”

“Bullshit. There’s plenty of girls here. What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m just not into that anymore.”

“Wouldn’t have anything to do with Hottie Lottie, would it?”

“Can you not call her that?”

“That answers my question, then.”

“Shut up.”

“You are such a pussy.”

“Do you really think she’s going to go for the guy who she hates more than Satan?”