Second to No One (24 page)

I clenched my bloody cheek in one hand. As I looked back up at Lauren, I saw her hand go to her mouth. Within seconds, the pills were gone.

“No, Lauren!” I leaped at her, but it was too late. She was pushing me away with both hands while laughing and chewing and swallowing. I heard the front door open. Jess called my name.

“We’re over here!” I yelled back. “Hurry!”

“It’s not like it was rat poison.” Lauren laughed and hunched over forward in the swing. “I’m not suicidal if that’s what you’re afraid of.” She swayed in the swing. Back and forth, back and forth. “I wouldn’t dare be suicidal. They’ll lock you up in the nut house for something like that. You must be crazy if you love someone enough to make you act like this. Crazy.” She became sullen as she twisted the empty bottle in her hands. “They’re just antidepressants. Antisadness. Antiheartbreak. Anti
crappy
friends.” She looked up at me with glossy eyes. “Anti-Gemma Mitchell.”

A moment later Jess was at my side.

“I tried to stop her,” I stammered. Jess looked at the blood on my cheek, then at Lauren and the empty bottle.

“Lauren,” he said in defeat. He immediately bent down and picked her up in a cradle hold. I was surprised that she let him, but by the way her body fell limp in his hands, I wondered if she had the power to resist.

Jess put her in the back of his car, and Drew slipped in next to her, letting Lauren’s head fall onto her lap. I instinctively climbed into the passenger seat, though I knew if Lauren was more conscious, she wouldn’t want me to be there.

Jess drove as fast as he could to the community hospital in Franklin. Drew had called them on our way, so the ER was expecting us. Before I had a chance to unbuckle my seatbelt, the paramedics had Lauren on a gurney and were rolling her through two sets of double doors.

I sat in the waiting room with Jess and Drew for what seemed like an eternity. Bryce showed up sometime in the middle of it all, and around eleven o’clock, Drew and Bryce walked over to a vending machine and stared blankly through the glass while talking in low voices.

“I shouldn’t be here,” I said when Jess and I were alone. Jess was sitting in the seat next to me with his head resting tiredly in both of his hand. He turned to look at me as I spoke. “She wouldn’t want me to be here. I did such a horrible thing.
We
did such a horrible thing. “

Jess sat straight up and rubbed one finger along the bandage a nurse had put on my cheek. “This isn’t the first time this has happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s overdosed before. About a month ago. She got a C on her algebra test. That was all it took.”

“I had no idea.” I looked up at Drew who had come back in the room and was listening to our conversation. “Why didn’t anybody tell me?”

“She didn’t want us to,” Drew said as she sat down next to me with her arms folded tightly over her chest. “She didn’t want us to tell anybody.”

“We didn’t really know what to do,” Jess said. “So we were just trying to be there for her as much as we could.”

“Until tonight.” Drew glared at Jess.

“I know.” Jess clasped his hands in front of his face. “That was bad. I wasn’t thinking.”

Drew continued, “She’s been dealing with depression for a long time. It’s pretty severe. Her dad wanted to admit her into a hospital to try to help her, but Lauren’s mom didn’t think she needed it.”

Jess added, “That’s why they left Iowa and came here to Franklin. They were trying to get away from him.”

I couldn’t believe there was so much to Lauren that I didn’t know. It was true, the two of us had never really bonded nor had any heart-to-heart moments. But I couldn’t believe I had been so blind. How could I not even know that she had overdosed or that she was so depressed? I looked at Jess. “Is that why you asked her to the Christmas dance?”

Jess nodded. “After we went out the first time, I decided not to ask her out anymore because I didn’t want to hurt you. But she started calling me every day and telling me about all of her problems.”

“I feel bad saying this,” Bryce said. “Especially considering that she’s in the hospital and all. But Lauren can be pretty manipulative.” He nodded at Drew. “You even said that yourself.”

Jess took a deep breath. “That’s no excuse for what I did though. I’ve been telling her all along that I just wanted to be friends. That I just wanted to be there for her if she needed me. But I knew how she felt.” He looked at me. “And I shouldn’t have kissed you, not right in front of her.”

A nurse stepped into the waiting room, and all four of us looked at her. “You kids are here for Lauren?” she asked politely.

“Yes,” Drew answered for all of us.

“Well, she’s doing better. Her mother is here now. But she has asked that you all leave.” She furrowed her brow and pressed her hands together as though she were about to pray. “I can’t make you leave, but it’s what she wants. You won’t be able to see her tonight anyway, so you might as well go on home now and get some sleep.”

We shamefully picked up our jackets and left the way we had come in three hours before. Drew waved sadly at Jess and me as she and Bryce walked to his car on the opposite side of the parking lot. Jess opened the passenger side door of his car and waited until I was all the way in before carefully closing it and climbing in on the other side. When he was situated, he let his car keys rest on his thigh, and he let out a deep breath.

“You okay?” I asked, wondering why he wasn’t starting the car.

He turned to me, and when our eyes met, his shoulders fell, and he relaxed against the back of his chair. “It’s been a crazy night.” He reached toward my lap and took my hand in his.

I squeezed his fingers between mine and a million tiny goose bumps tingled my arms and head, “It’s been a crazy year.”

“I can’t believe you thought I broke up with you.”

“I can’t believe you told me you wanted to go back to being friends without seeing a need to give me any more of an explanation.”

Jess shut his eyes and shook his head, “I thought it was so obvious. I thought for sure you wanted to be with Trace. When he came over that night with that present, I felt so stupid. I felt like the third wheel. Then the next morning, it felt like you were avoiding me. I thought I was making things easier for you.”

“But what about later? Trace and I weren’t even dating, and you still just talked about wanting to be friends all the time.”

He let his head fall back against the seat rest. “You said you were on a break from dating. I took it as a hint.”

“I only said that because—”

“Because you thought I broke up with you.”

“I wanted you to think that I’d moved on.”

He squeezed my hand with a faint smile. “You did a good job of making me think that.” I was just about to lean across the arm rest and put the past mistakes where they belonged when Jess’s back stiffened, and his eyes turned outward into the dark night. “There’s something that I need to tell you,” he said slowly. “I’d really rather not, but not telling you is only making it worse.”

“Okay.” A pit began forming in the middle of my stomach.

“I made the mistake of not being straightforward with you last summer when I had to go to California,” he started, “and I don’t want to make that same mistake again.”

“No no no no no. You are not going to California again. I thought you only had to go there one time.”

Jess smiled softly. “I’m not going to California, Gem.”

“You’re not.” I took in a sigh of relief. “Okay, well as long as we’re together, then whatever it is can’t be that big of a deal.”

Jess let go of my fingers and rubbed his hands along his thighs. “Things haven’t been going well for my family this year. My mom can’t find work, the small amount that I bring home from the auto shop isn’t enough, and my dad doesn’t even give us enough alimony to make the house payments.”

“Jess, I’m so sorry.” I felt horrible. All this time I had been so wrapped up with what Jess was or wasn’t doing with Lauren that I hadn’t been there for him when he needed me. I hated to think about what Jess and his family had been going through across the street all this time when I had been so oblivious. “What can I do to help? My parents don’t have a lot, but I’m sure—”

“Gemma,” he interrupted. “I’m not asking you for money.”

“So what is it?”

“Gemma, things are bad. The bank is threatening to foreclose on our house.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

He rubbed his hands even harder against his jeans. “But yesterday when I got home from school, my mom was hanging up with my Aunt Sarah. She lives in Charleston, and she’s the manager of a restaurant out there. She can get my mom a job and her house is even big enough for all of us to live with her for a while until we can get our feet back on the ground. It’s our only option.”

I felt myself retract, and the passenger side door wedged into my back. “So what are you saying, Jess? What does that mean?”

He turned to me with pleading eyes. Eyes that begged me not to be mad. Eyes that begged me not to turn from him at this moment. “We’ve tried everything, Gemma. We honestly have. But we don’t have any other choice.”

“So what are you saying, Jess?” Because the way his voice was shaking and the way my heart was pounding, it sounded like what he was saying or what he was trying to say was that…

“We’re moving.”

Chapter 18

“S
o you guys kissed and
what, Lauren tried to kill herself?”

I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my beige wall. Bridget sat cross-legged on the carpet below me, throwing out questions that I didn’t have the energy to answer.

“I don’t know.”

“So did they pump her stomach?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t want to see any of us.”

“And that’s when Jess told you he’s moving.”

“Yes.” I blinked a couple of times, then closed my eyes completely. They stung under my eyelids.

“To Charleston.”

“Mmhmm.”

“For how long?”

“Forever, I guess. It’s permanent. They’re selling their house.”

“Can’t Jess just stay here and finish his senior year?”

I shifted slightly though it took every aching muscle in my body to do so. “I asked him that, but he said he can’t leave his mom alone with Vivian and Mags.”

Bridget leaned forward and wrapped her hand around my leg. “It’s going to be okay. I know it seems like the end of the world right now, but you’ll meet other guys.”

I felt my head turn, and I stared at her with a blank expression. Then I stood up and hypnotically began digging through my drawers for a pair of pajama pants.

“You know,” Bridget said as she pulled herself up on to the bed, “in another year, he was going to go off to college anyway. This thing you two have is cute, but life was bound to get in the way sooner or later.”

I ignored her. She couldn’t possibly understand, so I couldn’t blame her for being so ignorant. I found my long plaid pants that brushed along the floor when I walked. They were my favorite.

“You should go out with Clark again. Rick said he really liked you.”

Normally, I would have rolled my eyes at her. Normally I would have told her to get a life. But tonight wasn’t normal, so I didn’t say a word as I opened my closet door and found my way to my hands and knees.

“What are you doing, Gemma? Come on out of there. You can’t hide in there forever.”

I wasn’t hiding. I ducked around an old box then patted the dark floor with my hand. I felt an old pair of summer sandals and a shoebox full of Drew’s notes.

“You want to know what I think?” Bridget asked. “I think this is the perfect ending to your love story. If Jess wasn’t moving, then you guys would have this weird high school relationship that would grow old and awkward.”

I patted the floor a few more times until I felt what I was looking for. I took hold of it and pulled it to my chest.

“And then he’d go off to college and meet new girls. And what college guy wants to be tied to a senior in high school anyway?”

I crawled back out of the closet and stood up in front of Bridget.

“It’s much better this way. Let him leave on a high note.”

I was only half-listening to her as I unfolded the retrieved objected and squeezed it between my hands.

“What’s that?” she said, finally becoming aware that I was standing in front of her.

I turned it around and held it against my chest.

She read the pink and green neon words in front of her, “Someone who loves me went to California and bought me this shirt.” She looked up at me. “Jess gave that to you?”

“For my birthday.”

“You think he really loves you?”

I reread the green four-lettered word over and over. “I don’t know.”

“You’re lucky, you know.”

I sat beside her. “I don’t feel lucky.”

“A lot of people don’t know what it feels like to be truly loved by anyone their whole lives. You’re sixteen, and you’ve already found your soul mate.”

I sat down on the bed next to her. “A soul mate that is impossible to be with.” I hugged the T-shirt. “I don’t know, Bridge. Like you said, we’re in high school. Nobody in high school ever stays together. They always go off to college and find out who they really are and fall in love for real.”

“When does he move?”

“He’s not sure. Whenever they sell the house, I guess. It could be days or weeks. But definitely by the first of the summer whether the house is sold or not.”

“You’re just going to have to make every second count then.”

I knew she was right. As much as the thought was exhilarating, it was also depressing. Because every second I spent with Jess would be one second closer to the last.