Finding Hope (13 page)

M
y
phone beeped with a text.

Do you really care about me? Or are you just saying you do to keep me around?

D.

My stomach dropped when I read it. It wasn't the first time I'd seen his insecure side. Devon worried about all kinds of ridiculous things: that I was cheating on him, that I didn't really like him, that I was laughing at him; things that couldn't be further from the truth. I knew how to handle it though: I'd send a message reassuring him that I cared more about him than anyone else.

A day would pass and he'd send me an apologetic text, blaming his mood on Melton and how much he hated it there. He'd thank me for being understanding, and say that without me, he had nothing.

I hadn't told Devon that my brother was missing. I didn't like keeping a secret from him, but our relationship was the one thing in my life that hadn't been tainted by Eric and his problems. As soon as I told Devon the ugly, sordid truth, it would be.

Devon had asked once why I'd chosen Ravenhurst. I'd told him it wasn't because of the friendliness of students (LOL!), but that I'd wanted to get out of Lumsville. If I'd been honest, I would have told him about Eric right then. That as much as I loved my brother, he was tearing me apart. And that I didn't want to be Eric Randall's little sister anymore, I just wanted to be me, to have an identity that wasn't linked to Eric the Hockey Player, or Eric the Junkie.

So, when he sent me a text, questioning our relationship, all my energy went to reassuring him. Making sure he knew how much he meant to me. I couldn't lose him now.

Friday, October 3, 9:44 p.m.

From:
Hope

Whenever this place gets to be too much, I touch my necklace and everything feels better. It's like you're with me all the time. You are the only thing making this place bearable.

Dangling

From a thread

Suspended, breath

Catching in my throat.

The drop won't kill me.

But how will I catch

What I lost?

Friday, October 3, 9:50 p.m.

From:
Devon

We should run away together. Where would we go? Anywhere is good. As long as it's me and you …

His words made me melt. I read each text over and over wishing he was beside me, to hear the words from his own lips. Some days, I wanted to talk to him so badly. To know that I wasn't alone.

Mom called me daily with reports. No one had heard from Eric and the police had turned up nothing. Mom and I had run over the possibilities. He must have come to the city. Where else would he go? But he had no money. He could have hitch-hiked, we reasoned, and was probably holed up in the city, but where? I scanned the gates of the school, huge metal ones with an auto sensor and an alarm on them. I was sure that one day he'd show up outside of them, begging to be let in.

The other possibility, the one that neither Mom or I said out loud, was that he was dead. We both knew the lifespan of a meth addict was five years. We'd done our research at the beginning of his addiction. “You're going to die!” we'd told him. But he didn't care.

That's when I knew the meth had him. Nothing we could do would loosen its hold.

I flipped through my journal. And found an empty page.

Serrated tentacles strangle

The life out of you.

Whipping across your future,

Cutting it to shreds,

Inescapable.

We struggle for you.

But we get sliced

Out of your life.

“Fuck you, Eric
,” I whispered.

Tears fell onto the paper, splotches of wetness that blurred the lines. Nothing was clear anymore.

 

S
torm
pressed her nose against my cheek. I pushed her away, but she nipped at my finger, like we were playing a game.

Burying my head under the pillow, I tried to ignore the hunger pains rumbling through my stomach. I needed to sleep.

The smell of shit made me open my eyes. She'd taken a dump on the floor in front of me. “Fuck, Storm!” I shouted. She bolted to the other side of the room and hung her head. Her tail stopped wagging.

I looked around. What difference did it make in this hole? A pile of steaming dog shit was an improvement.

How long had I been out? And, before that, how long had we been amped? I didn't know what day it was or even if it was still September. Days, weeks, months blurred, they swam past me. The world lost focus.

Cramps ripped through my insides. I needed to eat. I reached into my pocket. Thin. Where had the wad gone? I'd been robbed. Mugged by one of the assholes in the house. Fucking junkies.

Rage boiled in me. I pulled everything out of my pockets. The rubbing alcohol was gone too. No, it wasn't. It was on the floor beside my mattress. Hope's poems, the photos—I let everything fall to the floor.

They'd left me with one fucking twenty-dollar bill. Had it been Leo, parading around as my friend, doling out his lines to me?

I went looking for the bastard, stumbling down the hallway. I opened the door with his name on it, but his mattress was empty.

As I walked down the creaky steps, I had a flash of memory. I'd given him some of the money. In an act of speed-induced generosity. How much? I'd stuffed some bills into his sweaty hand, insisting he take them. “You're the best, Calvin,” he'd said.

I had to sit down on the stairs as the memory sank in. Storm nosed me. Absently, I patted her head. I could feel her heart beating fast in her chest. “Come on, Storm,” I said and stood up, hanging on to the banister so I didn't tumble down the stairs.

The kitchen was empty. Every cupboard, bare. A cloudy glass sat in the sink. I filled it and drank till I thought my stomach would burst. The water tasted metallic, slimy on my tongue.

I was going to pass out if I didn't get something to eat. On the table, an old loaf of bread. I ripped the plastic bag open and stuffed a piece into my mouth. Under the bread was my notebook, the one with
CALVIN
scrawled on the front. My writing—messy, barely legible—filled the pages.

I leafed through it, trying to make sense of the words. There were lists, plans, things I needed to do. Everything urgent. Filled with exclamation marks and underlined.

One whole page with nothing but Coach Williams' name written on it.

I rushed to the sink, barely making it before I vomited up the bread and water. Undigested. It gushed out, filling the sink.

 

I
knew he'd come.

When Ms. Harrison knocked on my door at eight o'clock at night and asked me to come with her, I didn't ask why. I followed the staccato clip of her sensible heels through the common room. The urgency of her steps drew the attention of the other girls. I kept my head down, ignoring their curious looks. The echo of her footsteps stopped when we got to the cavernous front entrance. We were alone, except for the security guard who sat at his desk, surrounded by monitors.

“I don't want to upset you,” she warned me. “But someone at the front gates wants to see you. He claims to be your brother, Eric.”

I let out a sigh of relief. He was alive.

And at the gates of my school.

My stomach twisted. The reprieve was over.

Ms. Harrison put a hand on my shoulder and met my eyes. She could have been pretty in a willowy way. Thin lips, pointed nose, a body like a ballerina's, but she went out of her way to dress like a spinster. In her long skirts and prim blouses, I could almost see cats winding themselves around her ankles as she sipped tea. “You don't have to see him, if you don't want to. We can tell him to leave.” I could see the concern in her face. “We could call your parents.”

“No,” I said quickly, “they told me he might come by.”

She looked at me doubtfully. “It's unusual for a sibling to show up at our school like this, Hope.” Her meaning was clear. The security guard would have tipped her off. He'd been on his own for almost three weeks.

“He's always like this, really unpredictable,” I reassured her. “But he's not dangerous or anything.”

She hesitated. Panic seized me at the possibility of not being allowed to see him, but I stayed mute, giving her my best impression of wide-eyed innocence. Ms. Harrison sighed and relented. She ushered me to the security guard's station so he could point to a blurry figure on the security monitor, pacing in front of the gates.

My voice caught in my throat. It was him. I looked at Ms. Harrison. “That's Eric,” I said.

She nodded for the security guard to buzz the front doors open. Suddenly desperate to see him, to know he was okay, I raced across the parking lot.

“Eric!” I shouted when I was within arm's length of the gates. Scrolled black iron, they cast dramatic shadows under the amber street lights.

He turned. I recoiled.

His face was skeletal—sunken cheeks, hollowed eyes. His hair lay matted and twisted on his head, unwashed. And his clothes. I shuddered at the filth. He had the jacket, the one I'd left for him. Why did that make me feel better? He still looked like death. The jacket probably weighed as much as he did. His body odour made my eyes water. He must have been wearing those clothes since he left Lumsville.

“Haha!” he laughed, holding onto the bars and jumping up and down. As if he'd won a million dollars. “I told the fucker you went here! See!” He pointed at the security guard. “You see! I told you she was my sister.” Triumphant.

And then he started rambling. About someone named Storm, who he'd left at home. And about Calvin, and how he'd found a place to crash but needed money. He wouldn't have bothered me if it wasn't important. He just really, really needed some cash. He'd pay me back, he promised.

Tears welled in my eyes as he spoke. He was high, amped up on the meth. His movements continuous, one long, jerky circle as he hopped, paced, and twitched. I curled my toes, willing him to stop. Slow down. Be my brother.

Mom had warned me not to help him if I saw him. To call her and she'd deal with it. But watching him in front of me, I felt myself crumble. He'd come to find me. Of everyone, I was the person he counted on. I couldn't let him down.

“Eric.” I just wanted him to look at me. To stop moving for one minute so I could see his face, find some glimmer of the person I used to know. “Eric!” I said louder, trying to get his attention.

He stopped, his eyes wide, grinning at me. Like a cartoon, a funhouse creation at a carnival. “Here, take this,” he said and passed a scribbler to me through the bars. “Everything's in there. All my plans. Read it, okay? It's really important.” And then he gripped the bars, pressing his face against them, urgent and intense. “Don't lose it, Hope. We'll need it.”

We
.

“Why? What's the plan?” I asked, playing along.

He gave me a sweet smile and my heart melted. “You'll see. Just read it, okay? I'll come back soon.” He started to walk away and then turned back. “Oh, shit. Hope,” he said, jamming his hands into his pockets, then pulling them out again, running them through his hair, over his face, rubbing his neck, sticking them back into his pockets. “Got any cash on you? Like, anything at all? I swear, I'll pay you back.”

My breath came quick, a heat rising up in my stomach. Mom had said not to. But what would he do if I didn't?

“Come back tomorrow,” I told him in a rush, before I lost my nerve.

Eric sneered. “I need it now. Fuck.”

He needed it now to get high. By tomorrow, he'd have crashed and he'd be looking to eat. I knew the pattern.

“I don't have any now,” I told him firmly. Like how Mom would set rules, just before she broke them.

He seethed at me and I was glad there were bars between us. It wasn't him, though. It was the meth, coursing through his blood, making a devil appear where my brother used to be.