Poison Me Sweetly (19 page)

“Micah, I don't want to go in,” I snap at him as he
floats in the water near my dangling legs. We're at the vacation cabin that mom
and dad rent for a week each summer. It's hotter than Hades, and we'd gone down
to the dock. I'm sitting on the edge, my legs dangling over as they slowly
swing back and forth in the water.

Micah's in the lake, floating easily as he tries to
coax me into the water. “C'mon, Zoey. I promise not to let anything happen to
you.”

I shake my head. “No. It's too deep.”

“I won't let you go.”

“No.”

He sighs and runs a hand through his wet hair. “I'll
do your homework for a week,” he says with resignation.

My mouth drops. “No way!”

“Way,” he grumbles. “You should learn how to swim.”

“You're serious,” I realize.

“Yeah. You're a total brat sometimes, but I don't want
you dead. Too many pools when we go to parties.”

“No, I mean about the homework,” I say. Micah's a bit
of a goody-two-shoes. Rarely does he do anything that's against the rules. He's
the type that never gets in trouble. It's irritating when I'm the one who gets
grounded constantly, and he just smirks and shakes his head every time. He's
also never offered to do my homework before. He's super smart, and I've
harassed him in the past, begging for him to just do my homework so I can be
done with it and move onto something fun. He always chose to help, but nothing
more.

“Homework for a week. Is it worth it?” he taunts.

“Hell, yeah.”

“I figured as much. Get in here.”

I chew my lip for a second before carefully turning my
body, and I begin to lower myself down into the cool lake water. My hands grip
the edge of the dock tightly, my knuckles turning white.

Micah moves in closer, and he settles his hands on my
sides. “Let go.”

“I can't. I'm scared,” I say through chattering teeth.

“Face your fear. Let go. I've got you.”

“Micah...”

“I won't let you go. I promise...”

My eyes slowly open as I wake from the dream. The
memory of Micah's promise makes my breath hitch as I lie there, staring up at
the ceiling. He said he'd never let me go, but he did let me go. He left me
here all alone, and I in turn, I was abandoned by parents that I had thought
once loved me.

There’d been so much laughter in our lives before that
fateful party. That summer at the lake had been the last time we’d vacationed
before Micah’s death. My heart clenches as I remember how much fun we’d had
that week. I think my favorite memory would be the water balloon fight Micah
and I had started. I still remember my dad’s expression when Micah nailed him
in the chest while he’d been sitting on the deck, reading the morning paper.
Dad—always up for some fun—didn’t hesitate to join in. He’d grabbed a balloon
from our stockpile of ammunition and went searching for mom. He’d caught her
while she’d been in the middle of doing breakfast dishes. For an hour, we’d
raced around the property, pelting each other with water balloon missiles.

The sound of our laughter from that day echoes in my
head, taunting me with what had once been. I can’t remember my parents uttering
a single laugh since Micah died. Micah’s death changed us all.

I draw in a deep breath and try to calm my emotions. I
need to leave the past in the past, or I’ll start the familiar decent into the
darkness that’s always waiting to swallow me up.

It's Friday, and I have class this morning. I can't
skip, especially after skipping last week when I'd had that nightmare and
stayed holed up in my apartment the next day. Bitter loneliness sweeps through
me, but I determinedly shove back the sheets.

It's just another day.

Get up and deal.

I take a quick shower and leave for campus. I put my dream
out of my head and concentrate on my class as I try to distract myself from my
dreary thoughts that haunt me constantly. By the time I leave the building, my
stomach grumbles loudly, and I decide to grab some food.

It's when I spot them that I realize I've been fooling
myself.

The group is standing in front of the Engineering
Technology Building, and as my eyes rest on them, my body aches with the need
to go join them. They've breached my barriers. They're already
in
. My
eyes rest on Ace, and he's laughing at something Bev has said. They all were
never non-friends. I can call them every name in the book, but the fact of it
is, they'll still mean the world to me. I've come to trust them. To lean on
them when I've always been so incredibly independent.

They're going to hurt me. But walking away will hurt
me more.

That's when I catch sight of the blonde hanging all
over Caleb. It's the same blonde from the party, and a cool, derisive voice in
my head tells me to pull up my big girl panties and get over it. He'll never be
with me. And even if I would allow it, my crazy moods would chase him away. I
feel incarnate hatred for the blonde as sickening jealously unravels within me.

I'll let the others in.

But Caleb...

He’s the one I need to stay away from. So why can't I
resist him when he's around me?

Micah appears to me while I am sitting on my couch, my
eyes focused on my laptop as I work on some course work later that afternoon.
When I pull my eyes away from the screen to rub them, I spy him sitting on the
other end of the couch.

My entire body stiffens.

His familiar brown eyes soften as he gazes at me.
“Hey.”

I close my eyes and draw in a deep breath. I will not
panic. I'm not going to lose it, I'm going to deal with this. When my eyes open
again, he's still sitting there. It hurts to see him dressed in his jeans and
white polo shirt. It hurts to have him here but not be able to touch him.

“You're not running. That's good,” he says quietly.

“Why are you here?” I ask. I'm trying to be calm, but
my voice is shaking.

“Because you need help.”

“I need help?” I ask carefully. “From you? I don't get
it. You're just a hallucination. Imagining you isn't going to help put me back
together again.”

“You need help from them. Let them help. Let
him
help,” he says simply as his eyes pin me to where I sit.

Slowly, I shake my head. “No. You're just my
subconscious telling me what I want to hear. That it's okay to want to be near
him, but it's not okay. He's majoring in Education to counsel kids, he
understands my issues, but that's where it ends. I'm mistaking kindness for
more—” My voice cuts off and I stare at Micah with dawning horror. “Oh, shit.
I've gone from freaking out and going mental, to now conversing with my dead
brother.” Somehow, this seems so much worse. I'm accepting that he's here. That
can't be any good.

I shove my laptop aside and hurry for my bedroom. I
shut the door and fling myself on the bed, my hand reaching for the nightstand
drawer. The pills are right where I left them last—waiting for when things get
bad enough that I want oblivion without the hangover. After swallowing the
sleeping pill, I grab my iPod off the nightstand and shove the earbuds in my
ear canals. Then I curl up, shutting my eyes tightly as I pray for the music to
drown out my fearful thoughts.

I wake suddenly.

Music is still blaring in my ears, and I wince from
the volume. With a wide yawn, I pull them out of my ears and shut off the iPod
as I try to figure out what had woken me in the first place.

That’s when I hear them. Voices are coming from my
living room.

What the hell?

I slowly sit up and look around my room. It's still
light out, but my clock on the nightstand tells me it's going on seven-thirty
in the evening. I'd slept for over three hours.

The voices are still coming from out in the apartment.
Masculine voices that are low murmurs. Are they really here? But how... The
spare key. They've never dared to use it, and there's never been an emergency
where they've had to. I should be mad that they'd invaded my personal space. I
have a hair-trigger temper, but evidently it’s on vacation, because the only
thing that I feel is confusion.

Feeling curious, I climb off the bed and walk out of
my room. My bare feet are silent on the carpet as I enter the living room. I
pause in the doorway and blink.

Ace and Jeremy have made themselves at home on the
couch, and AJ is in my kitchen, digging through my refrigerator. Their voices
are low as they talk since I don't own a TV and they've literally got nothing
but each other for entertainment. How long have they been here?

Ace looks up and catches sight of me. His expression
becomes unreadable. “Well, well, looks like Sleeping Beauty woke up.”

AJ's head pops out of my refrigerator, he studies me as
he shuts the door. “About damn time. I was a little concerned you were sleeping
so heavy. Rough night last night?”

“What are you all doing here?” I ask with confusion.

Ace rises to his feet and points to where he was
sitting. “Sit,” he orders.

I don't like his tone. “I'm not a damn dog.”

He glares. “I said sit the fuck down.”

My eyes widen slightly. He's pissed. Like really
pissed. Remember when I said that when Ace is pissed, you hit the deck? This is
me hitting the deck. I meekly walk over and sit down. I know, it's laughable,
right? Me going meek and obedient? Seriously, though, Ace doesn't get mad very
often, and when he does, it's not pretty. It gets downright ugly. I watch as AJ
ambles into the room to stand near Ace, while Jeremy stays sitting on the other
side of the couch.

“What is this?” I ask as I gaze at them.

“An intervention of sorts,” AJ replies as he gives me
a determined look.

My attention shifts to Ace as crosses his arms over
his broad chest. He’s staring me down, his gray eyes grim. “Shit happens. You
deal, you move on. I don't care how much it fucking hurts. You
move on
.”

I stiffen up, and Jeremy speaks up quietly from his
side of the couch. “We know your brother died in a car accident and you were
with him. We figured that out a long time ago. We looked into old newspaper
articles recently and found that you were trapped in the car for an hour until
someone came upon the accident.”

My breathing increases as I feel panic building. “You
had no right!” I jump to my feet, fists clenched.

“You gave us no choice,” Ace retorts. “You lose it on
a regular basis nowadays. We are done waiting for you to open up and explain
this shit you go through that literally breaks you down every damned time.” He
moves and gets in my face, eyes flashing furiously. “Do you know what it's like
to see you like that? To see you curled up on the floor, broken and sobbing,
while we can't do anything to help you? You think seeing
me
unconscious was bad? At least I wasn't writhing on the floor with some damn
emotional pain tearing me apart while you stand there helplessly,” he snarls.

I flinch before drawing myself up to my full height
and standing toe-to-toe with him. “You think you can come in here and start
forcing this bullshit on me? Get out, asshole!” I try to move around him, but
he grabs me by the shoulders and I find myself on my ass on the couch.

He towers over me, hands gripping my shoulders firmly
so I can't go anywhere. “Wake the fuck up!” he roars. “We are trying to help
you. We're done watching you destroy yourself. If you think for one minute
we're giving up on you like you've done with us, you're in for a world of
fucking enlightenment,” he says tightly. “Friends don't turn their backs on
each other. The fact that you tried to do that to us pisses us off. We know
damn well we're more than just a good time. Sometimes you treat us like shit,
but we take it, because we care.” His eyes suddenly search mine. “Be honest for
once, Zoey,
admit
it.
Admit
you care.”

All the fight leaves me, and I sag back against the
couch. Ace's hands leave my shoulders, and he frowns down at me, trying to
decipher my reaction. My mind scrambles. What am I doing? Why am I even
fighting with them? Hadn't I just admitted this all to myself earlier today? I
need them. So why fight?

Jeremy cautiously moves closer to me, he touches my
arm. “Zoey. We just need you to talk to us. If you can't talk about the
accident, that's okay. But let us in. Help us understand you.”

I swallow hard, and my eyes shift to him. As he looks
back at me, his brown eyes cautious, I do the only thing I can think of. I
crawl into his lap and burrow into him as his arms wrap around me tightly. I
bury my head in his neck and fight the tears.

I don't understand why I have to make everything so
hard on myself.

The cushion dips behind me, and someone gently begins
to rub my back. I sniffle and say, “I'm sorry.” It comes out muffled, but they
can hear it.

“Don't be sorry. Nothing to be sorry for, Zoey,” Ace
says from behind me.

I can't look at them as I make my confession. “I care.
A lot. I...I'm scared.”

“Scared we'll leave you like your brother did?” AJ
asks from where he stands above us. Words fail me and I nod, still hiding.
“Honey, people aren't going to drop dead around you. What happened to your
brother sucks, but not everyone is going to die on you. The odds of one of us
dying is so small. You're worrying needlessly over something that likely won't
happen.”

“It's not just that...” My voice trails off. They
don't know about my parents’ abandonment, but I don't think I'm ready to share
it with them.

“What else is there?” Jeremy presses as he squeezes my
leg.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

They are silent around me.

After a long second, Ace speaks up. “Quit hiding. Turn
around and look at me. I like the Zoey that meets everything head on, not the
one that hides behind someone else.” This has me grimacing. I reluctantly pull
back from Jeremy and turn around to face him. He smiles with satisfaction.
“Much better.” The smile fades as he gives me a stern look. “New rules, Z.”

I look at him questioningly.

“We've lived by your rules for a year now. Now you
deal with ours. Take it or leave it.”

“Christ, don't give her a choice, dumbass. We just
made it clear she doesn't have one. It's a done deal,” Jeremy interrupts.

Ace gives him a frosty look before turning back to me.
“You have to take it as Jeremy just pointed out,” he says dryly.

My lips twitch. They're keeping me. It feels right and
scary at the same time. “What are these rules?” I ask tentatively.

“No more running. If you're upset, you tell us. We
don't need details, but we want to know where your mind is at, okay?”

I nod. That doesn't sound so bad. “I'm not good at
talking about my feelings, but I'll try,” I offer quietly.

“We know,” Jeremy says. “You can't change overnight,
and we accept that.”

The fact that they know I'm not good at this stuff,
makes me feel better.

“We're going to start showing you how much we care. We
won't hide it from you anymore. You're going to take it like a good girl and
deal with it,” Ace tells me.

A warm feeling begins to build in my belly. I'd be
lying if I said I didn't miss having a close friendship with someone. Now I've
got three friends, and things are going to start changing. I'm accepting that.
It won't fix me, but maybe...maybe it'll help. I nod.

“When you have your episodes, you come to us. We'll
get you through it. But you have to let us in when you get to that point,” Ace
says softly.

I look away, but once again nod.

“Would you consider looking into getting help with
whatever is going on with you?” AJ asks cautiously.

My head jerks up, and now anger begins to simmer
within my veins. “You all come in here unannounced, telling me how things are
going to have to change, and now you want this of me? What do you want, my body
and soul while you're at it?”

AJ holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright. Too
soon. Got it,” he murmurs.

“Are we done yet? I know you're trying here, but I can
only handle so much, and I can't continue with this conversation. I'll try with
what you've requested of me. I really will. But I'm starting to feel suffocated
here.”

“We'll sit through
The Notebook
tonight if
you're game,” Ace grits out. I'm not expecting it, and I stare at him. “Peace offering,”
he says dryly. “That, you can take or leave. I'm okay with, either.”