Rare (22 page)

T
HE
NEXT
few days were tough. Leaning on people didn’t come easy to Pete, and the more he had to do it, the more bad tempered he became. The only person he didn’t growl at was Maggie, and that was because he spent most of her visits asleep. Inevitably, I took the worst of it, but every time I thought of backing down or calling him a prick, I’d remember the whole summer I’d spent staring blankly at the bedroom wall. Pete’s temper was hard to take, but it was real; it was
him
. I’d take it any day over the other, more alarming effects of his head injury.

It took a while for him to fully regain consciousness, but as he became more aware and lucid, any relief I felt was muted by the strange and illogical holes in his memory. The gaps in his head didn’t make any sense. He remembered going underground to work on the train wreck, but he didn’t remember the shift leading up to it. He remembered that Danni was my sister, but he couldn’t remember how she’d appeared in our lives.

There were other things too, little things like the layout of our new apartment and the names of Maggie’s neighbors. They probably wouldn’t matter to anyone else, but they mattered to Pete. I wanted desperately to help him, but it took me a few days to figure out how. With newspapers banned and words hard to come by, I resorted to my fail-safe method of communication
—
my sketchbook. I drew everything I could think of: our apartment and everything in it; Maggie’s ancient cooking pots; the battered old wallet Mick insisted was molded to the shape of his ass. I even, after some persuasion from Pete and reluctant permission from his neurologist, studied Tim’s face from a photo Mick brought me and drew him too. When the ever-present pain in his head was manageable, he scrutinized every scrap of paper I gave him. Sometimes it helped and sometimes it didn’t, but from his shattered perspective, it seemed to be better than nothing.

A day or so later, I left Pete trying to make sense of Maggie’s scatterbrained conversation and retreated to take a shower and track down Ellie. I hadn’t seen her since the night of Pete’s surgery. She’d been back every day to check on Pete, but I always seemed to just miss her. I took a shower and sat down on the bed, resolving to call her. It was early evening when Joe came to wake me. I sat bolt upright as he shook me. His strong hands kept me on the bed, but I’d near put him on his ass by the time I figured out it was him.

“Sorry, dude,” he said when I’d come to my senses. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. I came to tell you I’m leaving. I’m going out of town tomorrow, so I need to get home and get myself together.”

“No, I’m sorry.” My heart slowed as I came back to the present. “I must have been completely out of it. You’re leaving? Where are you going?”

“New York,” Joe said wearily. “I’ve got some business to wrap up there.”

I rubbed my hand over my face. I’d never quite understood what Joe did for a living, but I knew he’d cut his New York trip short when Pete had been hurt. “How long will you be gone?”

“A few days, maybe a week.”

“Is Danni going with you?”

“No, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

I stamped into my sneakers and checked my cell phone. Dr. Gilbert, my therapist, had left me a ton of messages. At some point, I would have to listen to them and call her back. She probably thought I’d slit my wrists.

“Ash?”

“Hmm?”

Joe sighed. “Can you get a hold of your shitty attention span for a second?”

“Sorry.”

Joe eyed me for a moment. I usually hated being scrutinized, but Joe had learned how to handle me from Pete, and he rarely got it wrong.

“Look,” he said. “I know this is totally the wrong time to say this, or maybe it’s not. I don’t know, but you need your friends right now. I’m not going to be here for a few days. Danni is. I know things are complicated between you two… hell, between all of us, but she wants to help. Can you do me a favor and at least try to let her? For me?”

There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for him. Long before any of my bullshit had come to light, I’d always known Danni was his one true love. If things ended badly between me and her, there was every chance she’d leave Chicago. I couldn’t let him be hurt like that. “I’ll try. I promise.”

“There’s something else too.” He looked down at his hands. “I know it wasn’t my story to tell, but I… I can’t handle any more secrets, dude, I just can’t. You two have a lot to work out, but she’s your family… or at least she’s going to be.”

I had an idea where he was going, but I couldn’t find it in myself to be angry with him. “You told her I was abused in foster care?”

“I told her everything. I’m sorry, Ash, but I had to. She knew I was hiding something huge, and it was going to destroy us. I need you to trust me, but I need her too. She won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

“Is she here?”

“Not right now. Her dad just flew in; she’s getting him settled at her place.”

“Her dad’s in town?”

Joe rolled his eyes, though he seemed surprised by my easy acceptance of his loose tongue. “Yeah. Between here and work, she was worried about the dog getting lonely. Fred’s going to keep him company.”

“Fred?”

“Yeah, Fred. He’s a cool guy, you’ll like him.”

I couldn’t think of a reason why I’d ever find out, but I kept that to myself as Joe walked me back through the hospital. We parted at the main entrance as he headed home to pack for his early-morning flight. It wasn’t easy to see him go. Having Pete in the hospital was hellish, but that was about to change, and I wasn’t sure I could face it without Joe by my side.

I hadn’t told Pete the doctors were getting ready to discharge him. He was miserable in the hospital and I knew he’d jump at the chance to escape, but it wasn’t that easy. After days and days of postsurgical tests, the doctors had finally concluded his liver was safe and his blood work sound, but that was about all they could tell me. The long-term effects of his head injury were still unknown. His fractured memory and shattered sense of balance, the constant pain and nausea
—
the doctors said it could go on for weeks… months, if indeed it ever went away.

It was a daunting prognosis. In the hospital, there was a whole team of doctors and nurses. At home, it would just be me. I hadn’t set foot in our apartment since Pete had been hurt, and he, well, he could barely remember it at all. After the initial rush of relief, reality had set in. Pete was out of danger, but he was still a long way from recovery. He needed me in a way he’d never needed me before
—
in a way
no one
had ever needed me before
—
and it scared the hell out of me.

I slipped back into his room. Pete was asleep and Mick was dozing in the corner chair. I kicked him awake and sent him home. At night, it was the two of us, and I liked it that way. With the lights turned off and his hand in mine, it was all too easy to shut everything out. I put my head down on his bed, and for a few dark hours it was just us.

Tonight, though, with my impromptu nap keeping me wired, I didn’t feel like sleeping. Instead, I pulled my stool up close to the bed and took out my sketchbook. After I’d attempted to sketch Pete’s life for him, it hadn’t taken long for me to give into the urge to draw for myself. I tried not to record the more sinister side of Pete’s injuries, but it was impossible to resist drawing him. Before the accident, I’d never really sketched him. I’d drawn images that made me think of him
—
symbols of strength, warmth, and love
—
but I’d never drawn
him
. Now I’d started, it was like a dam had burst. I wasn’t so good with faces, but I drew other parts of him: his arms, his chest, and his hands.

His hands… man, they captivated me. During quieter moments with him, I’d developed a newfound obsession with them. He’d always liked
my
hands, but I’d never understood it until now. A few months ago, he’d considered getting some new ink. I wondered if I could persuade him to let me etch one of his hands.

“What are you staring so hard at?”

I smiled as his eyes fluttered open. How the hell had he known I was staring? Maybe I was too predictable. “I was lookin’ at you, fucker.”

“Me?”

I hummed, adding the final touches to the abstract sketch of his curled-up left hand.

“Show me?”

I passed it over, hoping he wouldn’t flick through the rest of the book. He stared at the sketch. For a moment, he seemed amused until he zoned out and dropped the book disinterestedly onto his lap.

He turned away from me and clicked on the TV, cutting me dead. I was getting used to that, the way he blanked out and stared into space. For a while, there was no life in him at all until he seemed to remember something he’d obviously had on his mind.

“Mick told me the cat’s out of the bag.”

I glanced up from my sketchbook. I’d retrieved it from his lap and started a new sketch. “You mean your firehouse buddies found out about your sordid double life?”

His lips twitched like he was fighting a smile. He shut off the TV, forgetting about it as quickly as he’d forgotten about me, and eased onto his side. “Something like that, but they’re not my buddies. They never have been.”

I steadied him with my free hand. “Is it bad?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. It’s not like I’m going back there.”

My pencil froze on the page. I’d been taking this a day at a time; I hadn’t considered what I’d do when Pete returned to his job. “You’re not going back to the firehouse?”

“Look at me, Ash.” His tone was bitter. “Even if I wanted to, there’s no way I could ever go back.”

I set my pencil down. On the inside, I was so relieved I could have cried, but I didn’t want him to see that. Despite all the crap that came with it, he loved his job; it was who he was. I couldn’t imagine him doing anything else. “What will you do instead?”

Pete shrugged. “I don’t know. I had a plan before all this, but I can’t remember it now.”

“You had a plan?”

“I think so.”

“You never said.”

“Didn’t I? Shame, you could’ve told me what it was.”

He didn’t seem to have anything else to say. To change the subject, it seemed like the ideal time to discuss his discharge from the hospital.

His reaction was more muted than I’d expected, or perhaps even hoped, but it didn’t matter. After fifteen days of pain and heartache, he was finally going home.

I
DRUMMED
my fingers on the back of my cell phone. I’d waited to return Dr. Gilbert’s calls until I figured she’d be out of her office. At eight o’clock on a Monday evening, I hoped I’d be able to leave her a message. No such luck. Not only was she at her desk, but she had time to spare, and she wasted none tapping into my nerves about Pete coming home. It didn’t take her long to figure out one of my biggest worries wasn’t Pete’s health, but rather the OxyContin script he was bringing with him.

“To get past the fear of relapse, you have to face it. If you’re truly worried you might slip, then take the necessary precautions, but be sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. Pete needs you to be strong for him. There’s no reason you can’t do that, Ash. You just have to believe you can.”

Easy for her to say, but I got her point; now I just had to figure out what she meant by “necessary precautions.”

The following day, I surprised myself by confiding in Danni. It was the second time she’d come to my rescue in the space of a few short hours. The first had come in the shape of an escort home. Mick had offered to drive Pete back to the apartment, and it took me a split second to realize I couldn’t get in his car. My life and the way I dealt with it had changed hugely over the past year or so, but I was tired and stressed. I couldn’t do it. When Danni offered to come home early with me to check the apartment was ready, it seemed like the perfect solution. Mick didn’t care either way, and Pete… well, he didn’t seem to notice.

We took the L back to our neighborhood. The train was packed with rush-hour commuters, so we had to stand close together. Danni was practically on top of me. I could smell her hair. It smelled nice, like vanilla with something else… cherries, maybe. It reminded me of a candy store I used to play behind when I was a kid. It was one of the few good things I could remember about Texas, and it kept me in a pleasant enough daydream until we made it back to Edgewater.

It felt weird to be back in the apartment. It had only been a couple of weeks, but it seemed like a year. I felt a little lost as I stood in the hallway, but Danni dragged me out to buy groceries before I could dwell on it. On the way home, I got Pete’s scrip filled at the drugstore. When Danni caught me staring at the bag like it was about to explode, it felt natural to tell her why.

“I’m an addict.”

I’d never said it aloud before.

Danni followed my gaze to the ominous paper bag. “Do you want me to keep the hard stuff at my place?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“How long have you been clean?”

I shrugged. “Define ‘clean.’ I haven’t smoked any heroin for four years, but I’ve slipped in other ways. I took some benzos a few months ago.”

“How many?”

I frowned. “What? Benzos or months?”