The Art of Losing Yourself (20 page)

I flung the covers off my legs, squinting as I opened the door, stepped out into the brightly lit hallway, and knocked on Gracie’s open door.

She turned around with her backpack in hand and saw me standing in the doorway dressed in a tank top and matching pajama bottoms. The vent in the hallway breathed cool air onto my shoulders. Goose bumps marched up my arms. I drew a mental picture of my sister standing behind steel-reinforced walls and tried to figure out the best way to breach them.

“How was your first day of work?” I asked.

“Fine.”

I scanned her room. A four-poster bed with a rumpled white comforter. Matching curtains. Nightstand, dresser, linen chest. Mostly bare walls except for a canvas with a verse from Revelation. Nothing about the space looked like Gracie at all. I tucked a strand of curly hair behind my ear. “You know, we can redecorate this room if you want. We could even paint the walls. It might be fun.”

She lifted her shoulder, annoyance radiating from her pores and saturating the air.

The smart part of my brain knew that the easy solution would be returning to bed. The masochistic part of my brain had me standing my ground—halfway in the hall, halfway in Gracie’s room. I was going to break through her animosity. “I hear you went out for debate.”

She unzipped her backpack and dug for something in her bag. “I didn’t
go out
for debate. Reyas wanted me to check it out, so I did.”

“Did you like it?” Honestly, I couldn’t see Gracie liking debate any more than I could see Ben coaching debate, but I wasn’t about to say any of that out loud.

I stepped toward her, as if my closeness would force her to answer. The subtle way she shifted so that her back remained toward me did not go unnoticed.
“You can’t take it personally.”
Ben’s words mocked me, because how
could I not take it personally when she didn’t act this way toward him? “Are you going to join the team?”

“Can’t.” She pulled out a notebook. “I have a job.”

“Debate’s more important than a high school job.” The words sounded like I borrowed them straight from my father. Had I really forgotten what it was like to be a teenager? I shook my head and tried again. “Anyway, you have a job. I’m paying you to help me at The Treasure Chest. You’re not going to ditch me, are you?”

Gracie huffed. “You’re the one doing the ditching.”

“Me?”

“I heard you talking to Ben. Starting on Monday, you’re going to work at The Treasure Chest while I’m in school. Unless you’re cool with me dropping out, I don’t see how that will make me very much money.”

“Gracie, we can still work at the motel together.” Granted, it would be a little trickier. Gracie and I had been getting home after seven each weeknight. Now that I would be resuming my one o’clock wake-up calls, I couldn’t afford to do that. Not without bags under my eyes on the camera. I needed to be in bed by seven, which meant dinner had to be at six, which meant I’d have to be home by five thirty, which meant I’d have to leave no later than five. Gracie didn’t get home from school until three thirty, and it took a good half hour to get to The Treasure Chest. Weekday evenings were definitely out.

“When?” she asked.

“We have the weekends.”

“Debate has tournaments every weekend.”

“I’m sure we can figure something out.” I gave her a weak smile. “Debate would look great on your college applications.”

She looked at me like I didn’t get it, like I was the most delusional person on the face of the planet. I probably was. Gracie had never given any indication that she was interested in college. She tossed her backpack on the bed and walked past me, out into the hallway.

“Are you going somewhere this late?” I called after her.

“Ten fifteen isn’t late.” She hurried down the stairs and walked out the front door.

G
RACIE

Parker lived in a colonial mansion at the end of a cul-de-sac. Spotlights shone onto the home and cars leaked out of the driveway onto the street. It was nothing like the parties I went to in Apalachicola. Those were always in the basements of low-income houses or in the living rooms of seedy apartment complexes.

I’m not sure why I bothered knocking on the front door. The bass thumped so loudly it rattled the windows. When nobody answered, I pushed the door open and stepped inside to the house party to end all house parties. It seemed like the entire student body of Bay Breeze had squished themselves inside, either mingling or dancing or flirting, red plastic cups in hand. Surprisingly, the music wasn’t half bad—some grunge band with a decent vocalist. Nobody noticed me standing in the doorway, and for a second I considered leaving. I sure didn’t belong. But then I remembered Eli’s hand on Chanelle’s waist and I pushed my way through the crowd in search of Parker.

Once I pushed through the mosh pit of bodies in the great room, I found myself in a fancy kitchen—all stone flooring and marble countertops and stainless steel appliances.

“What’s up, Gracie!”

I turned toward the sound of my name.

A pink-faced Parker leaned against the kitchen island with a couple girls by his side, his red cup raised in the air. “You looking for the beer?”

“Not really a fan of beer.” Even though I had to yell over the music, I didn’t think Parker heard much besides beer.

“Come on.” He waved his hand sloppily in the air. “Follow me.”

And so I did. We made our way through the kitchen, into a small living room, and through a sliding-glass door that led out to a giant double-story deck, where the music wasn’t nearly as loud and two kegs sat on the edge of a patio table. An impressively long line of teenagers wound down the steps, onto the lower level of the deck, where there was a hot tub and, beside that in the
manicured yard, a swimming pool. Both were filled with kids my age. Not too far from the kegs, a couple boys passed around a joint. Parker hooked his arm around the shorter kid and snagged it from his hand.

“Hey!” the kid said. If his red, half-opened eyes had anything to say about it, he’d had plenty of puffs already.

“Perks of being the host.” Parker smiled a straight white smile with zero trace of dimple, took a deep inhale until the end of the joint burned orange, then held it out to me.

I hesitated.

“You came here to have some fun, right?” Parker held the joint higher.

I stared at the offering. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done it before. And if I wanted to forget about Dimple Face and his beautiful girlfriend (or whatever she was), this was the perfect opportunity. I took Parker’s offering once, then again, and again. Until one joint became two and my eyelids grew heavy, my mouth dry. Time became jumbled and somehow I had a red cup in hand and the other two boys were no longer around.

I took a long drink, the foam tickling my upper lip.

“Did you bring your swimsuit?”

“Never.”

Parker found this hilarious for some reason, and the more he laughed, the more I laughed. Turned out, I kind of liked him. He was at least better than football-playing, churchgoing, Chanelle-loving Eli Banks.

“Your eyes are beautiful.”

Ugh. How had I actually fallen for such a line? I drained the rest of my cup. Parker filled it up and found us a spot near an unoccupied piece of banister. “So are you gonna join the debate team or what?”

I could feel the alcohol working its way through my veins, turning my teeth numb. “You know, I’m getting really sick of that question.”

“Okay then, new question.”

I took another drink.

“How does it feel being Banks’s new project?”

“What do you mean?”

“He has this thing about the outcasts. Likes to take them under his wing. Turn them into upstanding Christian citizens.”

The warmth in my belly turned cold.

“Me, on the other hand? I happen to believe in accepting people as they are. And I also happen to believe that you, in particular, are not interested in being an upstanding citizen.”

“You would be correct.” I drank my second cup.

Parker refilled it. Then again and again. As I drank, he talked. About what, I couldn’t say, except that everything he said was funny. Parker Zkotsky amused me. At some point—I wasn’t sure when or how—we were no longer leaning against the banister. We were sharing a chaise lounge and Parker wasn’t talking anymore. His lips were on my neck and his body was on top of mine and I couldn’t think straight enough to tell him to get off. The entire world spun. But it didn’t really matter because somebody lifted him off for me. Whoosh, he was gone. Like he weighed the same as a gnat.

I squinted up at my rescuer. Of all the faces in the world, Elias’s swam above me, and all I could do was put my hands on my stomach and laugh.

“C’mon.” He took my arm and pulled me up into sitting. “I’m taking you home.”

“Hey, you’re not her dad,” Parker said.

Elias shoved him. He stumbled and fell. A line of staring teenagers blurred in and out of focus as Elias pulled my arm around his neck and lifted me to standing. “I can’t go home. My home’s in Apalachicola.”

He half led, half carried me through a house that was crazy and loud, out into the front yard, down the driveway, and into his car.

“Apalachicola.” I kept saying the name. It felt funny on my lips.

He buckled my seat belt, climbed behind the wheel, and slammed his door shut.

“You better tell me if you’re going to be sick.”

I cupped my hand over my mouth. “Don’t talk about it and I won’t be.”

Shaking his head, Elias pulled away from the curb. “And you accused me of being cliché.”

C
ARMEN

“It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

Ben sat on the couch, his elbows on his knees, hair sticking up from his
head, his eyelids drooping with sleep. My frantic pacing was probably the only thing keeping them from shutting altogether.

Me? I was well past the point of tired. In fact, my emotions had run the gamut and were currently stuck on a circuit that alternated between seething mad and worried sick—one second convinced Gracie was doing this out of spite, the next, positive she had been kidnapped by a psychopath or killed by a reckless driver. I tried her cell phone again but got shuffled to voice mail. “Why isn’t she answering? And what are we supposed to do if she decides not to come home? At what point do we call the police?”

“Carmen, I’m sure she’ll come home.”

“But what if she doesn’t?”

“Maybe we should go to bed. Get some sleep. She’ll probably be back in the morning.”

I was about to tell him there was no way I could sleep right now. Every single decibel of noise, every single reflection of light outside the window would have my eyes popping open. But then the doorbell rang and my frantic pacing stopped. Gracie wouldn’t ring the doorbell. We’d given her a key. This thought had me turning panicked eyes on Ben, who slowly and calmly stood from the couch and opened the door. I braced myself for the police—whether bearing bad news or returning a juvenile delinquent, I wasn’t sure. Instead, it was Eli Banks, the receiver of Ben’s football team. He had his hand wrapped around Gracie’s waist, and considering the way her head lolled to the side, I doubted she’d remain standing if he let go.

Every single ounce of worry vanished into smoke. All that remained was anger—red-hot, incredulous anger.

“Sorry about this, Coach.”

Something about Eli’s greeting made Gracie laugh. “Coach,” she said, pushing away from him and stumbling into the foyer. She reeked of alcohol.

“Does your mom know where you are?” Ben asked.

“Yes sir. I wasn’t at the party, but I knew Gracie was going. I wanted to check on her. And this”—he motioned his hand toward a slouched-over Gracie on the couch, who twirled a string of dark hair around and around her finger—“is what I found.”

“Why don’t you go be Chanelle’s hero,
Eli
?” She half sneered, half slurred his name. “I don’t need you to be mine.”

Eli and Ben glanced at her, then back at each other.

“Thanks for bringing her home,” Ben said.

“No problem. I’m sorry it’s so late.” He gave us both an apologetic shrug, then turned around and left.

“Hey, Eli?” Ben called.

He stopped halfway down the drive.

“You’re a good kid, you know that?”

“You’ve said it before, sir.” And with one final nod, he climbed into his car and reversed out of the driveway.

I rounded on Gracie, but she had ceased twirling her hair and was already snoring away. I was fully prepared to rattle her awake and give her a serious talking-to, but Ben took my elbow and put his finger to his lips.

“You can’t think I’m letting her get away with this,” I hissed.

He locked the front door and draped a blanket over Gracie. I wanted to tell him not to bother. After the worry this girl put me through tonight, I’d prefer to let her shiver. Ben flipped off the lights and gently led me up the stairs, into our bedroom. “We’ll talk to her in the morning,” he said. “Right now she needs to sleep it off.”

“I can’t believe her. She went out and got wasted? Ben—alcohol?” Gracie was a lot of things, but I never thought stupid was one of them. Surely she knew alcoholism ran in families.

Ben sat on the edge of our bed and pulled off his shirt. “Judging by the smell, I’d say it wasn’t just alcohol.”

“She can’t do this. She can’t live here and do whatever she wants.” I shook my head, my frustration and helplessness swelling to the size of a hot-air balloon. “But the second I try to lay down the law, she’ll run away. And there’s nothing I can do about it. She’s almost eighteen. She’ll take off and I’ll have failed at this entire thing.”

“What
thing
?”

“Gracie being here. Under my care.”

“If your sister’s going to take off, that’s not on your shoulders.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Carmen, what are you trying to prove with her?”

His question popped all the fight inside of me. I sank onto my side of the bed. What was I trying to prove? Why did this feel so absolutely important and
so positively personal? I sank onto my side of the bed and shook my head. “I don’t know. That I can be a mom?”