Fans of the Impossible Life (20 page)

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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It was early, six a.m., when you woke up in Jeremy's room, lifted his hand off your chest gently, and let yourself out from under the covers. The sun was coming up earlier on these first spring days, and hints of the sunrise were creeping in along the edges of the shade on the window. You looked at Jeremy still sleeping before you left the room. You were always amazed at how peaceful he looked. You were jealous of that peace.

You closed the bedroom door quietly behind you. His dads always left a light on downstairs, so the hallway was brighter. You made your way to the stairs, feeling a little shaky. Nick took you to a party last night and you did more than you were used to. But you liked feeling that testing those limits was within your control. You got to decide how much.

You found yourself thinking about the hospital, lying in bed after the first surgery, when they hadn't yet realized that something was wrong and they would need to go back in. You would
cry in pain through the night, ringing the buzzer for the nurse so many times that one of them finally took it away from you. They would not give you more morphine. Well, now you got to make the call. Of how much you needed.

It was after the second surgery that you were done. You understood all too well by that point that no one there was on your side. There was no one sitting and keeping watch through the night in a chair while your roommate's TV blared on. When you did sleep you saw your mother in your dreams. You thought you heard her say that she would forgive you. That you had suffered enough.

So you tried to bribe an orderly, offered him whatever he wanted in exchange for enough Percocet to just end it once and for all. But a vigilant nurse saw that the pills were missing and the boy said you blackmailed him, hoping to save his job. It was close enough to the truth. Didn't really matter at that point.

“Yes, I wanted the pills,” you told them. “Yes, I want to kill myself. Yes, I understand what I'm saying.”

It took them a while to believe that you weren't kidding. You had always been so amusing.

The irony was that they had great drugs in psych. Beautiful hazy drugs that dulled your brain and made you stop caring about any pain that was left. You would have stayed there if you could, ridden out the years until eighteen on a lovely cloud of sedation. But it was only a temporary reprieve. Out here in the real world you were expected to be awake. To deal with things. And that was where the coke came in. Pot was lovely but coke
made you feel capable, like it was all possible again. Like you weren't fucking up absolutely everything.

You told yourself that you kept coming to Jeremy's after these nights with Nick because you didn't want Tilly to hear you coming in the house so late. But you knew the truth was that the same part of you that could have stayed in that hospital forever wanted someone calm to bring you back down. And he would let you in, no questions asked.

As early as it was on this morning, you usually tried to be gone before this. Tilly didn't expect to see you before bed at night since she was asleep by nine thirty, but if you weren't there in the morning she would start asking questions, and that was the last thing that you needed right now.

You made your way down the stairs, careful to avoid the spots that creaked, and headed toward the front door. As you passed the kitchen you saw another light on. Dave was sitting at the table, a cup of coffee in front of him. You stopped.

“Hi, Sebby,” he said.

“Oh, hi,” you said. “Jeremy let me crash last night. I hope that's okay.”

“Sure,” Dave said. “You want some coffee?”

You thought about just going, but it seemed better to try to pretend that this was a normal moment, Dave catching you sneaking out of his kid's room at six a.m.

“Okay,” you said.

He nodded and got up, poured you a cup.

“Black is fine,” you said.

He put the mug down on the little breakfast table across from him. You went to it and sat down in the chair.

“You doing okay, Sebby?” Dave asked.

“Everyone's always asking me that,” you said. You tried to smile, make it a joke. Your head hurt a little too much to make it convincing.

“Isn't it better than people not asking?”

“I guess.” You took a sip of coffee. It was good. It helped.

“So?” Dave said.

“I'm fine,” you said.

“Everything okay at home?”

“Home is . . .” You tried to think of something clever. It was not coming easily today. “Fine. Home is fine.”

“You've been staying over here a lot, haven't you?”

You looked up from your mug. Caught.

“I'm a light sleeper,” Dave said. “It's all right. You don't have to sneak around. We would rather know that you're here.”

“Okay,” you said.

Dave took a sip of coffee.

“I've been wanting to talk to you, actually,” he said.

“Okay,” you said again.

“Did Jeremy tell you that I'm an alcoholic?” he said.

You shook your head.

“I'm in AA. I've been sober for twenty-two years now. I started drinking in high school.”

“Okay.” You only seemed to have one word today and this was it.

Dave took another sip of his coffee before continuing.

“I just want you to know that I'm here to talk about anything,” he said. “If you ever need someone to talk to.”

Your head was starting to hurt again. You stood up.

“I need to go,” you said.

“Okay,” Dave said.

“Sorry,” you said. “I'm fine, though.”

You left him sitting there at the table with the two coffee cups, went out the front door. It banged shut behind you. No point in trying to be quiet now.

The sun was up. Stephanie was probably awake and would notice that you weren't in your bed, so you would have to make up some lie about going for an early-morning run. Would Tilly believe you were on a fitness kick all of a sudden?

You started running just to back up your story. It felt terrible and then you liked how terrible it felt and then you went faster, as fast as you could pound your feet down onto the pavement across town, back to your neighborhood, where you were going to spend the next two years lying any way you knew how. Lying like breathing, because those were the only two things allowing you to survive.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Molly Stern's parents were going out of town the first weekend in May, leaving their house in the care of their teenage children, and Molly had decided to throw the “biggest, baddest party” St. Francis had ever seen.

“There is no way that we are missing this party,” Rose informed us. We were all working in the art studio after school. I had convinced the janitor that we could be trusted to stay late, Sebby brought us coffee, and we were holed up with the intention of finishing our projects so we could install the exhibit the next week and have it up for the last month of school.

“If homecoming was any indication of what that girl is capable of, then this is going to be the show of the century.” Rose said. She was hot-gluing her many cardboard pieces together, periodically crying out in pain as she accidentally glued her fingers instead.

“It's just going to be Sarah and Anna throwing themselves at the
upper-classman boys who will go anywhere there's alcohol,” Mira said.

“And you don't think that has any entertainment value?”

“Yeah, if your goal is to see JV cheerleaders flash their boobs.”

“Are you just hoping to see some boobs, Rose?” Sebby asked. “Is that what this is about?”

“Oh yeah,” Rose said. “I've got a one-track mind and it's all about JV boobs.”

“Dirty, dirty girl,” Sebby said. He rolled some of Mira's extra fabric into two balls and shoved them into his T-shirt. “How about these?”

“You're not really my type, hon. No offense. And anyway, this party is going to be hilarious.”

“We'll be the only ones who show up,” Mira said. “We'll end up playing Twister with Molly all night.”

“Awesome,” Rose said. “I love Twister.”

“I'll go,” Sebby said. “Molly and I are total BFFs.”

“Excellent. Jeremy?” Rose turned to me. I was sitting at a drafting table sketching, thinking about the details I still had to add to my hidden painting.

“What?”

“You coming?”

I looked at Sebby. He was wrapping a piece of red silk around his neck.

“Does this look ghastly?” He turned to Mira. “Do I look very ghastly right now?”

“You always look ghastly,” she said.

I hadn't seen Sebby in a couple of days, since the last night he stayed at my house. He had shown up later than usual. It was almost three when I got his text and went downstairs to let him in. He lay down with me, but an hour later I woke to hearing him in the bathroom down the hall, throwing up. I wanted to go to him but I was afraid to make any more noise, afraid for my dads to hear more than one person walking around. When he came back to bed he was shaking, and I held him while he sweated through his clothes, neither of us sleeping much.

He hadn't been responding to my texts since then. And now here he was with us again in the art studio, acting like nothing was wrong.

“Jeremy?” Rose said.

“What?”

“Molly's party. In or out?”

“I'll go if you guys are going,” I said, looking at Mira.

Mira looked at Sebby. “You really want to go?”

“Yeah, why not? I missed out on seeing Molly barf at homecoming.”

Mira sighed in defeat. “All right. I'll go. But I'm not going to like it.”

“You better be careful with those self-fulfilling prophesies, Mira,” Rose said, setting a finished piece on top of her cardboard tower.

Peter came in to check on all of us before he left for the day and to go over some of the details of the exhibit with me.

“I haven't seen your project yet, Jeremy,” he said.

“I want it to be a surprise,” I said.

“Well, I think it's really going to be a great show. If you guys finish up we can start installing it next week.”

“I'm not going to finish,” Mira said. “I have a terrible assistant.”

“The worst,” Sebby said, making himself a turban out of some fabric. “You should fire him.”

“I was thinking,” Peter said, “we could have a little gallery opening. I can get some sparkling apple cider, cheese and crackers.”

“Fun!” Rose said.

“You guys can invite your families,” Peter said.

Mira rolled her eyes.

“Or not,” Peter said.

“Families are lame, Peter,” Sebby said.

“Well, either way,” he said. “I'm really proud of you all. This looks great.”

We worked for another hour after Peter left us, until the janitor finally came in and said he had to close up the building. The girls went to their lockers to get their stuff and I headed outside with Sebby. Rose was going to drive us all to the diner.

Sebby leaned up against Rose's car and took out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one, inhaled deeply.

“You're smoking?” I said. I had never seen him with a cigarette before.

“I am, in this moment,” he said, his voice cold.

Why was it always like this with him? Why did it always go back to this? As if suddenly I had done something wrong and just needed to wait things out until I was forgiven.

“Do you really want to go to Molly's party?” I asked him, hoping a change of subject would help.

“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

There was a moment of awkward silence, I looked to see if the girls were coming.

“Did you say something to Dave about me?” Sebby said suddenly.

I turned to him.

“What? No. What do you mean?”

“He talked to me. The last time I left your place. He was already up. He knows I've been staying there.”

“I didn't tell him,” I said.

“He seemed to know some other stuff too.”

I shook my head. “We haven't talked about anything.”

“No?”

“No. Why, what did he say?”

Sebby took a long drag off his cigarette.

“Nothing,” he said finally.

The girls came out the back door then, school bags in tow.

“All right,” Rose said. “Operation Make My Ex Go to Molly's Party with Me begins!”

“Oh no, is that why we're going to the diner?” Mira said.

“Also fries,” Rose said. “I can multitask.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Mira got dressed for Molly's party on Saturday night, carefully picking out her ensemble. It was almost warm enough to not wear leggings. The transition from leggings season to leg warmers and knee-highs season to bare-legs season was always exciting.

For a high school party, an ironic nod to authority might be nice. She picked out a green plaid dress that looked like something a kindergarten teacher might have worn in 1985. She would take a risk with the weather and go for the leg warmers. Finish the ensemble with a gold belt and her lucky dollar cowboy boots.

Jeremy was coming to walk over to the party with her. He had offered to pick her up and cryptically mentioned that he “needed to talk” to her. Mira had a feeling that it was about Sebby. Something was off with him, and she wasn't sure what to do to make things better. Magic words and ceremonies had
always been their solution before, to fix their unfixable problems. What else did they have?

For a boy who never seemed to stop talking, she knew that Sebby did not want to talk about these things. She hated how he could turn himself off when he wanted to, that he could so easily make her feel like she was on the wrong side.

She sat down at her vanity to fix her hair, looked at her face in the mirror. It had been a long time since she had really looked at herself. She looked too alone, suddenly. She wished that Sebby was here now. That they could be together before facing the rest of the world. That was how it was supposed to be. Recharging their batteries.

In the hospital they used to spend their time lying in one bed, sitting squished into one chair in the rec room. The other patients called them the Siamese Twins.

She put her head in her hands and tried not to cry.

Don't let this be a thing, Mira. This doesn't have to be a thing tonight. Just have a nice time like a normal teenager.

She looked up at herself again, picked up some bobby pins.

Jeremy would be there soon. She wasn't alone. It would be okay.