Leverage (4 page)

“Katy…” I started, but didn’t really know what else to say.

Revulsion twisted and coiled around my stomach. I wasn’t sure what I felt, but I did know, whatever it was, it didn’t feel good, or right. Regardless of the situation, I’d crossed some imaginary line of impropriety. It wasn’t cheating technically—I knew that much—but it was wrong, and I felt tainted somehow, soiled, and deeply ashamed.

More than anything, I worried I might have ruined my last tie to my best friend. Katy deserved better from me. She was in shock, as I was, but undoubtedly more so. She and Leo had shared a remarkable bond, and now, here I was, polluting it, desecrating it. I was repulsive, and couldn’t believe Katy didn’t agree. I rested my elbows on my knees and shook my head, offended by my own selfish behavior.

I felt the bed tremble beneath me. I turned and saw Katy curled up in a ball, her knees pulled in tight and her arms drawn around them as she wept silently into my pillow. She looked so small, so vulnerable. I grabbed a blanket and threw it over her, then sat down beside her, my hand on her back.

“Look, K…I…I’m sorry. I don’t want you to think that I… I mean…it’s not like I didn’t…enjoy it or anything. It’s just…” I sighed, frustrated with myself. Nothing was coming out the way I wanted it to. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage…of you, of the situation. That was wrong. Leo was my best friend.” I turned away, my elbows back on my knees and my head in my hands. “Fuck, I am such an asshole.”

Katy spooned me from behind, rubbing that now cool, damp spot against the heat of my skin and making me shiver, not with a chill, but in self-loathing. She wrapped the blanket around me and settled her chin against my shoulder. Her tears continued to flow down her cheeks and onto my t-shirt. I pulled my head from my hands and turned toward her. She wore the tiniest of smiles, bitter and sad, and stroked the back of her fingers down my cheek. Her eyes tracked her finger as it traced along the stubble of my jaw then fell away. She refocused her gaze on mine.

“You are the furthest thing from an asshole, Conner Maguire.” She slid off the bed and repositioned herself at my feet, squirreling in between my knees and taking my hands in hers. New tears welled up. “I miss Leo so much. It hurts so bad, I can’t bear it. There is no one else who understands that, Conner, except you. You get it, because you loved him, too.” She turned her face and rubbed her cheek against my fingers.

“It might not have been appropriate,” she continued, “but…I think we needed each other. I think we are the only two people in the whole world who can comfort each other right now.” She came up on her knees and placed her palms on either side of my face. “What you did for me, what you gave me, it was so beautiful, so tender. For just a few moments, I forgot about the pain, and I remembered…us. The three of us, together again. Because he was there, Conner. With us,” she said then placed her hand to her heart. “Leo was right here.”

I gave her a look that said I didn’t believe it then dropped my gaze to the floor. But she tipped my chin up and stooped to gain my focus again.

“Leo would have wanted you to be there for me, Conner.”

I shook my head. “I seriously doubt it. Not like that anyway.”

“He loved us both. He would want us to do whatever it took to help each other through this. Leo wasn’t selfish or jealous, Conner. You know that. He was like your brother. He told me so, many times.”

She leaned in and wrapped her arms around my neck, allowing the blanket to slip from her shoulders. She was naked in my arms again.

“Don’t beat yourself up over this, Conner,” she said, her hands rubbing over my back and through my hair.

It felt so natural to coil my arms around her slender body. No matter the guilt, I couldn’t fight the urge to let my hands glide over her smooth, supple skin, down her back, over her butt, and along the outside of her thighs then back again.

She unfolded her arms from my neck and pulled back, taking my hand in hers and guiding it first to her breast, then lower, over her flat stomach and to the warm, moist place between her legs. I watched her face as she closed her eyes and tipped her head back, moaning gently as she pushed my fingers deeper inside her.

I abandoned all control, as well as my guilt, and crashed against her. We dropped to the carpeted floor, our lips locked together as we both gasped and panted.

“Please, Conner,” she said into my mouth. “Make me forget.”

And I did. I made us both forget.

For a little while anyway.

I woke up alone, the space beside me cold and empty, much like my soul. Awake less than a minute and my head already felt ready to explode. I was so dehydrated, spasms seized the muscles in both legs. I needed something to drink, anything, and fast. I dragged myself out of bed and searched for an unopened bottle of 5-Hour Energy, or even just a can of Coke, something with enough caffeine to help me focus for the next five minutes. All I found was a half-empty bottle of Gatorade, but it was enough to quench my thirst and ease the leg cramps.

I opened the window and let the damp, frigid air sweep into the room and across my bare skin. It felt like needles piercing every exposed inch, and every inch was completely exposed. I had nothing clean to wear. But the misty chill felt good. It helped clear my head enough so I could get dressed and sort through the mess of unwashed clothes and empty receptacles, tossing each aside in their newly assigned corners while I searched for my cell. I felt like the walls of my room were closing in on me. I had to get the hell out of here.

After four weeks of Katy telling me how right it all was, how Leo would approve because he’d loved us, and that only I had the ability to mend her shattered heart, the pieces I’d forced together, like a mismatched puzzle, began to break apart. The bond wasn’t strong enough to make up for the fact that they just didn’t fit. There were gaps and uneven edges, places where the joints rubbed raw. It didn’t look any better than it felt.

I’d known all this from day one, but I’d let Katy manipulate me into doing things I knew were wrong. It had become a way for us to deal and accept what we’d become to each other—another coping mechanism in the wake of Leo’s death.

The evidence of that lay strewn across my disheveled room. Empty beer cans and vodka bottles, energy drinks and baggies of pot. Instead of going to class each day, we studied the art of denial and self-medication, to deaden the ache of loss and the distaste of our perfidious relationship. I think we each had different reasons for starting down that path. I wasn’t sure, but for Katy, I think it was about the connection I had to Leo, like brothers, she’d said. She seemed to need that, like air in her lungs. Or maybe more like heroin in her veins.

Godammit, where the hell is my cell phone?

For me, it was simply a way to help me forget. Not just Leo’s death, but also what I had allowed myself to do and become afterwards. Self-loathing wasn’t a strong enough term, but I was too weak to turn away. She’d gotten under my skin, much like a burr, but by the time I’d noticed, I felt I deserved as much. Only now it had become painfully infected. Yet I still couldn’t stop myself. Katy was more than just beautiful with a body every man coveted. She was a fucking wet dream. She did things to me I didn’t even know were possible, much less think the all-American college girl would know about or consider doing. I wondered where she’d learned it all. Surprisingly, Leo had never boasted about her abilities.

Their relationship became an enigma in my mind. How he had ever stepped out of bed each morning was beyond me. I could barely move I was so sore, and I was tired, like completely-physically-exhausted-tired, and I don’t mean from all the alcohol and weed. I needed a triple-shot of 5-Hour Energy each morning just to open my eyes. But it was a vicious cycle.

Once I was awake enough to function, Katy would begin her daily spiral, and I would be required to perform. I’d become a fucking machine, literally. But the parts were wearing out, and I couldn’t cope any longer. I needed caffeine to get up, then booze to come down, then Red Bull and vodka, then Katy and pot, over and over, four, five, six times a day.

I hadn’t attended class in nearly three weeks or turned in an assignment in over two. I had email notices from my advisor, the registrar, and every one of my professors or their aides, not to mention my parents. Even Tyler had called and emailed.

I’d discarded each email, unanswered, deleted each voicemail, unreturned. Hell, I’d stopped listening to them altogether and rarely even turned on my cell anymore, which is why I couldn’t seem to find the damn thing.
Shit
. I was completely out of control and powerless to stop it. Part of me didn’t want to. What the fuck else did I have? I was just waiting for security to come kick me out of Hansee. Every time someone knocked on the door, I thought it would be them, ready to haul my naked ass away.

Yet the better part of me
did
want to stop. I didn’t think I could survive one more day, mired under another layer of booze and pot, of sex and revulsion, and my utter failure at self-restraint, not to mention the weight of my grief, which I hadn’t even really begun to face yet. How did I get here so quickly? If it was possible for me to fall so far so fast, surely I would destroy myself in but a few more days, a few more hours.

I moved the search for my phone to the closet. The little, red cooler we kept there was gone, which explained why Katy wasn’t here. She’d gone out for supplies. I needed to make a move before she got back and I changed my mind, before her clothes came off and her mouth performed its magic, before she pushed me down and settled her satiny flesh around mine.

Finally, I found my phone up on the highest shelf in the closet. Katy must’ve hidden it up there to keep me from connecting with the outside world. The battery was low, only three percent.
Crap!
I didn’t stop to think. I just dialed. Thank God for speed dial. My fingers shook so badly, I don’t think I could’ve hit more than one button with any accuracy. The phone rang four times.

“Pick up, pick up,” I said as I bounced on the balls of my feet. Even though, by that point, the room had cooled to probably fifty degrees, a thin layer of sweat sprouted over every inch of my flesh, and my heart felt ready to burst. “Come on!” I screamed into the phone, but after six rings, it went to voicemail. “Fuck!” I stomped my foot and threw my phone against the messy, unmade bed.

Now what? God, I have to get out of here!

Then voices. In the hallway.

Was she back already? Had I missed my chance?

Okay, think. Think!

I grabbed my phone off the bed and speed-dialed one more number. It rang once, then twice, then…

“Conner?”

“Tyler, please…I need your help.”

The office looked cozy and comfortable, with warm wood paneling and colorful fabric on the large club chairs and sofa, but I felt anything but. I was a nervous wreck. If the staff didn’t know already, then they could certainly tell by my chalky pallor and the non-stop trembling of my extremities. Talia Gonzalo, the counselor who was checking me in, explained it was likely due to caffeine withdrawal rather than alcohol.

“Caffeine is a psychoactive drug, more powerful and addictive than most people realize. In sufficient doses, it can be lethal. Mixed with alcohol, it creates what’s known as wide-awake drunk.”

“What does that mean?” my mother asked.

She and Tyler sat together on the sofa just off to the side of the counselor’s desk. Their hands were locked together and rested on Ty’s lap. He wrapped his free hand over hers and stroked it comfortingly.

He glanced at Ms. Gonzalo then back at my mom. “Hannah, alcohol is a depressant, and caffeine is a stimulant. The energy drinks Conner was consuming made him feel less drunk, correct?” he asked and looked to the counselor for confirmation.

She nodded. “Yes, and he, therefore, most likely, drank more alcohol than he would have normally.” She looked at me. “Would you say that’s true, Conner?”

I sat, all sweaty and twitchy, in Ms. Gonzalo’s guest chair. My fingers gripped the armrests like I was about to be dragged off to prison to serve a life sentence. In my mind, it might as well have been. A thirty-day detox and treatment plan, that’s what I’d signed up for. Or maybe coerced into would be a more accurate description. Ty had insisted it was for the best. Said he’d been through something similar, only more intense and for a great deal longer. I knew he didn’t drink booze; I just didn’t know it was because he was a recovering alcoholic—another one of Ty’s secrets.

He’d been more than just a little surprised when I called him last night, but when I told him I needed help, he didn’t hesitate. He jumped into his truck, drove over, and picked me up. I gave him a brief explanation, confessing to the vodka and energy drink combination, and the pot, but I hadn’t said much about Katy or our weird relationship, except to say it was going badly, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Ty took me back to my mom’s, and we all sat down to discuss what steps needed to be taken. He asked if I was serious about getting clean.

“Dead serious,” I’d told him, and the next thing I knew, I was being processed into the Eastside Treatment Center in Bellevue.

I couldn’t hold Ms. Gonzalo’s gaze. Mine slipped down to my feet and studied the way they seemed to bounce with a mind of their own.

“Well, I was never much of a partier before, so I can’t say what’s normal.” I looked over my shoulder at my mom to gauge her reaction. She just looked at me with a sad, tight-lipped grin that was not quite a smile. I turned back and caught Ms. Gonzalo peering back and forth between them and me.

“Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Karras, I think we can take it from here. Conner’s an adult, so any information from this point on is confidential, unless he specifically expresses a desire to keep you in the loop. But for now, I think you two should let us get started.”

She stood and straightened the papers in the file folder on her desk then closed it. Her right hand shot out as they stepped toward her desk. They all took turns thanking each other. I pulled myself from the chair and folded my arms around my chest as Tyler clapped my shoulder then ruffled the top of my head.

“You did the right thing calling,” he said. “It’s the best choice. Won’t be easy, but you can do it.” He nodded toward my mother who had tears in her eyes. “We’ll both be here for you,” he said, looking back my way, “anytime you need us. All right?”

I gave them one curt nod, my gaze back down at my feet. I didn’t want to shake Ty’s hand and expose how raw my nerves were. He seemed to get that and stepped by me. My mom wrapped her arms around me, sniffling and wiping her tears away with a tissue.

“Everything will be all right, sweetheart,” she said then pulled back to look me in the eye. She put one hand to my cheek and smiled. “I’m very proud of you. Don’t ever forget that.” She kissed the spot above the bridge of my nose then scrambled past me.

Before Ty could follow, I leaned in to whisper into his ear. “Would you mind checking on Katy? I’m worried. She needs help more than I do.”

“No problem,” he answered quietly as he moved toward the door.

Mom took her place beside him, grasping Ty’s hand like she thought she might blow away. “I love you,” she said over her shoulder.

And then they were gone, and I was left alone with Ms. Gonzalo to confess to every sordid thing I’d done since Leo had died twenty-nine days, eleven hours, and twenty-six minutes ago.