Chapter 32

Drowning.

It's one of those things I didn't know I had to fear, not until I watched my twin sister fall head-first into the deep end of our cousin's pool at a Memorial Day cook-out.

We were four years old and neither of us knew how to swim without floaties.

The pool was off-limits. I remember that. It was still too cold for us to swim, and they'd only just finished ridding it of all the winter algae.

But when our ball rolled past the hedges separating the patio from the pool, and into the water, Izzy—stubborn and prideful, even back then—felt the need to get it herself, rather than ask for help.

It's all a bit of a blur—being that we were so young—with brief snapshots of clarity that stand out in my brain like flashes of a dream you can't shake.

The adults were right there, scattered around the yard and patio. Other kids—cousins from out of town we barely knew, some younger, some older—were running around, taking up enough of the attention, that by the time they saw what we were up to, it was too late.

I remember sneaking past the hedges, the sparkling blue water rippling under the hot sun.

I remember facing off with Izzy from opposite sides of the deep end. I was on my knees, next to the ladder, pushing at the water with one hand, and gripping the edge of the pool with the other. On the other side, next to the slide, Izzy was in the same position, but she was scooping the water toward her.

I remember how, working together, we got the ball to slowly, surely glide her way.

The music and chatter filling the back yard was just loud enough to muffle the sounds of our gentle splashes.

Stretching and leaning and wiggling her fingers…

So close, just another inch…

Her eyes widened just before she tumbled forward.

She didn't scream. I don't think she even realized what happened before she hit the water.

Her long, wavy brown hair rose up to dance over the surface while she sank, fanning around her head like a mushroom cloud. Water rippled out from around her, sucking her down, down, down, until her hair was just a dark shapeless blob growing fainter and fainter under the too-bright sun.

She was still so small—we both were—so she hardly made a splash when she fell in. Nothing to immediately alert the adults on the other side of the hedges…

Or so I thought.

I don't remember making the decision to jump in after her.

I don't remember why I didn't just yell for help.

One second I was kneeling on the edge, fingers gripping the concrete, and the next I was plummeting feet-first through eight feet of chilly water, fully-clothed in my new shorts, light-up sneakers, and favorite Spider-Man t-shirt.

I didn't know how to hold my breath, much less swim, so the pungent chlorine instantly burned a path up my nostrils, and down my throat. Gravity was pulling and releasing at my limbs like I was its marionette, and I couldn't tell what was up from down.

Death…

It wasn't something I really thought about before. Not really. I knew it could take people away from me, but I didn't know it could take me, a kid. Nor did I know where it would take me. I never thought to ask. I just knew it was somewhere far, far away; somewhere you couldn't come back from.

I remember terror like nothing I'd ever felt before shooting through me, making a beeline straight to my chest. It dug its claws in, sank its teeth in my heart, and squeezed like I was its prey, claiming me. Never letting up.

And I froze.

I just… stopped.

Eyes wide, all I could do was watch the way the bubbles around me dispersed as blackness creeped around my vision.

It was over. It was all over…

But then something weird happened.

The water… it started to settle, slowly, and then all at once. And no longer victim to gravity's vicious grip, I found myself suddenly… weightless.

For the first time since I hit the water, I felt in control.

The teeth pulled back.

The claws retracted.

The blackness receded.

My arms—arms that were, only moments ago, flailing—were now floating around my head, my fingers reaching, seeking above me. And it was then that I finally looked up, and I could see the sun—a rippling yellow light that didn't feel so blinding from way down here, under the water—and I didn't feel quite so scared anymore.

It was still there of course—that black, bottomless terror—hovering just behind me, breathing foully down my neck.

But it no longer felt like something I had to outrun, despite the water burning its way through me, setting me ablaze from the inside out. Despite the silence pounding in my ears so loud, I thought my head would explode.

Everything was just… muted, and it had all felt so very, very far away, like I couldn't be bothered to worry about it.

But then I saw Izzy—my brave, reckless, twin sister, who so rarely ever frowned or cried—and I remembered who I was. Where I was.

I didn't want that blackness to come for her.

Take me, take me, but not her, never her, I begged silently.

She couldn't have been more than two feet away from me. How I got to her, I have no idea. But after all that struggle, she was right there, within arm's reach.

Her amber-brown eyes the same shade as mine were open wide and petrified; her rosy mouth parted. Her lanky arms were floating out next to her head just like mine, but her fingers were downturned and motionless. She was frozen, not unlike how I was.

Looking back, we couldn't have been under the water for more than seconds, even though the image that sears across my brain is one that carries an eternity. Because just as I reached for Izzy's ghost-white fingers, desperate to get to her, desperate to find a way to get her up, up, up toward the light?—

Something grabbed my wrist, yanking me away from her.

Bubbles exploded out of my mouth as I screamed silently into the water, flailing my legs, trying desperately to free myself.

No, I remember begging and begging and begging. Take me, not her, please…

Please, please, please don't take her from me, don't?—

AGE 18, MARCH

Gravel kicksup under my tires, blowing dust clouds up into the rain-strung night. My high-beams sweep across the narrow, winding dirt road—the only light seen for miles.

Even the moon and stars couldn't be bothered to make an appearance tonight.

I have half a mind to cut my lights out of spite.

"All Around Me" by Flyleaf crackles through my old speakers, but I don't turn it down, even when the speakers strain and the windows rattle from the pressure.

It's only 9:30, according to the clock on my dash. Early for them—for this—but I'm not surprised. If anything, I should be relieved that they've already tapped out, and I can finally get this over with.

This day.

This night.

Whatever shitshow I'm about to walk into.

But instead, all I feel is a hollow sort of inevitability. The kind not even fear or dread could puncture.

With every second, it grows more suffocating.

More unbearable.

I had no idea emptiness could be so heavy.

I shift in my seat, giving the gas pedal a little more juice. Almost there…

I knew I'd be getting the call at some point tonight, and have been bracing for it all day, laying in bed with my headphones on, watching the shadows creep across my room as the morning gave way to afternoon, and the afternoon gave way to evening…

Counting the minutes tick, tick, ticking by on the clock on my nightstand—the numbers flickering blood-red over slate walls.

The road levels into a straight, narrow drag, and I squeeze my steering wheel—the leather creaking, my fingers aching. My foot presses further down on the gas, and my vision tunnels as the engine revs loudly, the car shaking as it accelerates. In the corner of my eye, I watch as the needle on the odometer spikes.

Looming pine trees rush past on either side of me, stretching and disappearing into the shadows.

The music is blaring—and yet all I hear is a roaring in my ears, growing louder with every second.

I clench my jaw and press down harder…

Harder…

Flooring it.

Almost there…

The road turns sharply, and I'm ready for it.

I slam on the brakes, lighting the world up red, and crank the wheel. My back tires skid, kicking up a wave of dirt, and I'm flying, blond hair swinging across my eyes as the car goes 'round and 'round.

Dirt and rain and darkness whirl into a vortex, until I wonder if maybe it will actually swallow me up this time.

My heart tumbles in my chest, and my body is vibrating right along with the car as it whips and whips, before skidding to a sudden, rocking stop. With me parked horizontally across the road, headlights boring into the woods.

Chills explode across my skin—nerve-endings sparking to life. Clouds of dirt hover outside the car, boxing me in. It's as if time has seemingly stopped, if only for a split second.

Everything is utterly still—quiet—save for the music still playing, the rain coming down, and the rhythmic swiping of the windshield wipers.

It's me. The stillness is me.

I feel a bitter, breathless not-quite smile creeping up my cheek. It feels as wrong and ugly as I'm sure it looks.

I run my tongue over my lips, allowing myself to finally take a breath. Gently turning the wheel, I ease my foot back on the gas, and straighten the car once more.

My pulse is pounding. Sweat coats my hands, and the back of my neck. I ease a hand off the wheel once I'm moving again—at a much more reasonable speed—and run it through my tangled dirty blond hair, pushing it back off my face. My fingers tremble from the rush, teeth threatening to chatter.

Much better.

I work my jaw, crack my neck—reacquaint myself with the bones and flesh that make up my body, like they haven't abandoned me these last six months.

As if it's not all a farce, hiding nothing but an empty husk.

The song playing from my speakers draws to a perfectly timed close, just as I spot my turn up ahead, indicated only by a single white X sprayed over a telephone pole. Before the next song kicks on, I lower the volume to a whisper.

There are no street signs out here in the boonies, but everyone knows pretty much everyone and where everything is around here. Even someone like me, a recluse, and a stoner one at that, who's all but had these backroads memorized for years now.

The road I turn onto is narrow, even more narrow than the one I just turned off—fit for only a single lane. It dips down through fields of crushed corn husks—a wintry, barren wasteland—and then just up ahead, over another hill, past more woods, there will be an abandoned farm.

Old man Hollinger's place.

He's in a nursing home now, and his grandson has all but turned his property into party central these last couple years, seemingly doing his best to try to run the place literally into the ground.

It's the smoke and embers swaying and dancing over the treetops I see first. And then there's a break—a clearing—and it's the sea of cars, all parked haphazardly surrounding a rundown farmhouse half-buried by more trees and overgrown weeds. Most cars sit dark and silent, but a few are lit up, casting harsh shadows all about the woods and the white slatted two-story with the sinking awning and crooked porch.

A couple of girls smoking next to a black Dodge pivot their heads, sparing my arrival an ambivalent glance before returning to their conversation. I vaguely recognize them from school.

I ease down the brakes and turn the wheel, swinging the car off to the side, before slamming to a stop. Shifting into park, I reach for the key, kill the engine.

And in the plummeting silence, I freeze, momentarily choked by the quiet.

My heart thumps heavily in my chest, and what little life I felt moments ago, fizzles just as quick as it came.

I don't even call it numbness anymore.

Numbness is supposed to be fleeting.

There's supposed to be an end in sight.

But barring a fucking miracle, I don't see that happening anytime soon. But at least when I'm alone, I can sit with it—get lost in it—and not try to keep up fucking pretenses.

There's a tapping on my window and I flinch, whirling around. The narrow figure steps back into the shadows, head hanging, her black hair curtained around her face shining like oil in the haze of light.

The pale pink dress she's wearing stands at stark odds with the oversized black leather jacket half-covering it—courtesy of her cousin, I assume—and the dull grays and browns of the wooded night pressing in around her.

The pink also stands at odds with the hard look on her round face when I open the door and peer up at her, though I don't have far to go.

Ivaiah McAllister is tiny, even at fifteen. Barely scraping five-foot. She seems even smaller out here, in the dead of night, all but swallowed up by a too-big jacket.

I climb out, towering over her by several inches.

She crosses her arms and stands as tall as she can get, jutting out her chin. Her green eyes dart around, looking everywhere but at my face.

I make her uncomfortable, I think. Hell, I make a lot of people uncomfortable these days, even my own parents…

Especially them.

I clear my throat. "Any word?" I rasp, feeling my lips move, but barely register that it's my voice speaking them.

Another thing that happens a lot these days.

"Just texted him, said we were here," she tells me. I notice her phone's clenched in her bone-white hand. "He said they're upstairs. Bathroom."

A hard swallow works its way down my throat.

Without a word, I brush past her, heading for the house, dirt and slush kicking up around my black Chucks. My brain pings off with a belated reminder to lock my car doors—a leftover sign of life in what is now an otherwise wasteland—but like most nerve-firings in my brain, I ignore it. What's the worst that could happen? Someone steals it?

The rain seems to have let up some, but I barely notice as icy droplets ping my face and dampen my hair, melding with the emptiness that clings to me like my very own impenetrable forcefield.

What it's keeping out, what it's protecting…

Well, I don't want to think about that. Not if there's any chance of me surviving what's waiting inside for me.

Like two woefully unprepared civilians stepping into a battlefield, side by side Ivy and I weave through the maze of cars, bypassing the occasional group of onlookers smoking and drinking and chatting indistinguishably amongst themselves.

I can't tell if I'm being stared at, or if it's just my paranoia. Either is a good possibility.

Rock music thumps from inside the house, growing louder and more discernible the closer we get.

Our path narrows once we hit the stone walkway leading to the porch, and Ivy shifts behind me.

She's too fucking young to be here. Not even sixteen. She doesn't even have a driver's permit, much less a license. I had offered to pick her up, like I try to remember to do when these things come up, but she just hung up on me, like she always does.

The first time this happened, it didn't even cross my mind that she didn't drive when I called her up to help. Not until she showed up in a fancy ass black Mercedes, and told me it's a good thing Waylon taught her how to drive last summer.

Maybe before, I would've cared more. Did the right, responsible thing, and kept her out of this.

But this is now.

And now, it's a miracle if I remember to brush my teeth every day.

The crowd draped across the steps easily parts for us, almost like they were expecting us. They probably were. It's the usual people I find at these sorts of things. Location might change, but it's all the same. They know why we're here. Who we came for.

Their pity ekes out like toxic sludge, clogging the air, and making it hard to breathe. Even walking becomes cumbersome. The floorboards leading us inside, through the open doorway, might as well be quicksand, tugging us down. With every step forward, the crowd seems to thicken and draw closer, and their stares and knowingness from behind glazed, dilated stares as we pass are the hands pushing us under.

Ivy's all but pressed against my back, and I reach an arm back, hooking it around her to keep her close.

Somewhere, a glass shatters, puncturing the heavy beat of "Rope" by 40 Below Summer blasting from the stereo in the far corner, and someone boos. "Party foul!"

I look around, peering over the sea of heads. There.

We have to cross the packed living room to get to the stairs. People stand and bob their heads along the wall. In the middle, there's a dining room table stacked with liquor and beer bottles and red plastic cups. There seems to be a game of beer pong going on in the midst of the mess. A ball arcs across the room, and cheers go up, clashing with the bass shaking the walls, the floor, the windows…

I lead the way, shouldering my way through the tight throng of bodies. Ivy grips the bottom of my shirt, staying right on my heels. There's some shoving. Drinks splash us. But we make it through, no worse for wear.

The banister creeks in my grip when we reach the steps, the soft, polished wood slick against my clammy hand.

At the top of the stairs, the hallway opens up before us like a great maw, dark and surprisingly empty.

It swallows us whole.

The music and noise from below fades some, or maybe it's just that my heart's beating that loud. It's all I can hear now—a thunderous whooshing that fills my ears, making me feel like I'm underwater.

It's a simple set-up—a straight and narrow hallway, with closed doors on either side of us that I presume lead to bedrooms. I don't even bother checking to confirm it. Instinct carries me straight ahead, to the closed door dead ahead at the end of the hall.

Light fans out across the hardwood from the crack underneath. And the closer we draw, more things register—like the creaking pipes and running water.

The shower…

My vision tunnels. Pulse speeds up. Fists clench.

My face feels funny—slack, like my flesh has disconnected from my skull.

Outside of myself, I watch as a pale, slim hand reaches for the glass door knob and turns it.

The door's thrown open, and the overwhelming stench of vomit assaults my senses, returning me to my body. Reality slamming back into me with a borderline painful vengeance.

The curtain's drawn away from the tub directly facing us, revealing the two fully clothed figures struggling under the spray.

A dark head whips around, droplets of water flinging everywhere. Hazel eyes dart wildly around before settling on mine. They widen under the hair plastered over his forehead, drawing attention to the red, glassiness surrounding his irises.

His mouth fumbles for words.

He's lost weight, I realize dully, taking in the way his soaked shirt clings to his heaving ribs.

My eyes drag over the hunched form Waylon's currently got his arms caged around. His hand is wrapped awkwardly around a stubbled, slackened jaw.

Water and foam swirling down the drain.

Oh.

"I-I had to… I didn't know what to do. S-something wasn't r-right."

I say nothing. When I look up at Waylon, I feel nothing too.

His chest rises and falls heavily. His soaked black hair is plastered to his temples, curling wetly over his knitted brows. He licks his lips, catching rivulets of water running down. "H-he didn't l-look right," he chatters out.

The body in his arms contorts suddenly with more bone-wracking heaves.

But nothing more than a line of spittle trickles out

He slumps suddenly, his knees giving out, and Waylon scrambles to keep a hold of him as they both start to go down. Ivy and I rush forward, catching them, just before they both go crashing down face first into the puke-splattered tub.

Blinking rapidly, I catch them from the front, stumbling to a knee on the slick, hard tile, just as a hard, damp chest crashes into my cheek. Icy water pelts me, shocking my system.

"Fuck," someone says. Maybe me.

I close my eyes.

Hold my breath.

Just for a second.

Mason…

Rangy arms hang over my shoulders, and there's a hitched breath—almost like a sob. He slumps fully then, as if whatever fight he had left in him gives way completely.

Somehow, we all tumble out of the shower stall, landing in a wet heap on the too-small rug. The tile is a cold shock to my system, that has me gasping.

I instinctually shove a barely coherent Mason on his side. Scrambling up on my knees, I lean over him, chest heaving. I blow the hair out of my eyes and sweep my gaze over his shivering body. His pinched face. The ever-present shadows under his eyes.

He's lost weight too…

His skin is pale, almost blue, but something tells me it's just from the cold shower. He's breathing just fine—nostrils flaring gently with each inhale. He's okay…

Okay as he can be.

"What did he take?" I barely feel the words leave my throat.

Waylon sniffs, and I look up through my wet lashes just as he falls back on his ass, arms crossed over his knees. "I dunno. Didn't tell me. He might just be really fucking drunk. He's been throwing them back since I picked him up this afternoon." He shakes his head, jaw ticking. Something tells me he doesn't believe his words any more than I do.

Fuck, Mason, what the hell are you doing?

I look down, and brush the tangled wet brown hair from his eyes.

At my touch, they crack open.

I shift on my knees, and palm his cold, wet stubbled cheeks, lifting his head. Using my thumbs, I pry his eyes open, revealing an endless canvas of pale, icy blue. Pinpoint pupils. "What did you take?" I whisper, knowing I probably won't get an answer.

His lips tremble, fumbling like he's trying to speak. His teeth have started to chatter, and I feel the prickly gooseflesh rising across his arms as if it was my own.

With a shocking amount of strength, he lifts a hand. It trembles like it weighs a thousand pounds, before slamming against my collarbone.

And then there are fingers skating over my neck, fumbling and grasping for the collar on my jacket. He uses his grip on it to heave himself up onto his forearm, so he's half sitting, half laying down.

He works his hand higher, bypassing my throat, and finally taking a more solid root when he clasps my jaw, holding it so tight, my teeth dig into the inside of my cheek, and my lips push out.

A searing pain ignites my eyes, and my chest collapses with the breath that punches out of me, coasting over his slackened, upturned face. We're that fucking close. He smells of vomit and beer and vodka and sweat, and yet I barely even notice.

Not with his hand branding my skin.

Not with his pale blue eyes staring straight through me.

Not when he's telling me in the raspiest of voices, "You're here," like it's a fucking revelation.

I'm here. I'm here.

That useless organ in my chest twitches, momentarily shocked back to life in a way speeding and spinning my car into oblivion could never achieve.

It throbs when his lips creep up in a sleepy, boyish smile.

And it's suddenly all masonmasonmason rushing through my veins.

He blinks heavily, the slash of his brows dipping to kiss his thick, water-clotted caramel lashes.

He's beautiful, even when he's at his ugliest—a husk of the person I once knew. Barely even recognizable these days, and yet my soul still aches for him, always. More now than it ever has.

And I've never hated myself more.

"You're here," he says again, his voice hitching with wonder. And this time, with it, a sort of stillness settles over the room. I feel the penetrating stares of the others as they grow quiet, all of their attention tunneling toward us, but even if I could pry myself away, I don't think I would.

Waylon and Ivy might as well not even be here anymore. The party downstairs? Gone. The music thumping through the floor? Poof.

Nothing else exists. Nothing but the icy fingers searing into my skin, and the heart in my chest shaking off dust as it creakily pumps back to life, trying futilely to infuse some warmth into my veins. My bones. My skin.

Nothing but the pale, bleary blue eyes peering up at me like he's finally found a way out of the dark, cold Hell that's held us hostage all these months.

Nothing but the boy telling me, "You're here, you're here," like he's been waiting for me all along.

I'm here. I'm here.

His smile widens, creasing his watery blue eyes, and he's murmuring—lips moving, stumbling over words I can't make sense of.

Except for one choppy sentence. It stands out glaringly against whatever else he murmurs.

"Don't go… please… angel."

And just when I thought we might finally, finally stand a chance of fucking thawing, it's all ice and darkness once more, and I remember.

I rear back, tensing, and quickly avert my gaze to stare hard and unseeing at a crack in the tile.

My chest squeezes as realization and guilt and unbearable grief barrel through me.

I'm a fucking idiot.

Mason whimpers when I rip my face from his hand.

It's not me he sees. It's not me, it's not me.

His breath hitches just as my eyes seal shut.

Breathe. Just breathe. He's drunk. High. Out of it. Not his fault.

I start to push off the floor to stand, but he just follows, tumbling after me. I flop down on my ass and catch him with my arms under his pits. Over his head, I find Waylon staring blankly ahead, eyes redder than they were moments ago.

Next to him, Ivy sits on her knees, chewing the corner of her lip. She's looking around the room at a loss, clearly uncomfortable.

It's stupid. Irrational.

But I feel like it's my fault.

Like all of this could've been avoided.

Mason wraps his arms fully around me, and I work my aching jaw side to side. "Come on,"

I mutter, blinking rapidly. "Let's get outta here. Way?"

Dazed hazel eyes lift to mine, and I don't miss the wrinkle that forms between his brows. Or the agony that shines back at me a moment later.

Sucking in my cheek, I look away. "Can you help me get him to the car?"

"Sure," he chokes out..

Ivy's quiet as we help heave Mason off the floor, and start making our way back downstairs. Waylon stumbles a bit when we get in the hall, and I ask, "You okay?"

"Yeah."

He's drunk, but nowhere near as bad off as Mason. If anything, I get the feeling dealing with this sobered him real quick.

As if summoned, an image of the scene we walked into only minutes ago flashes through my mind. The way Waylon was holding Mason up in the shower, his fingers clasped awkwardly around his face. The vomit…

"I didn't know what to do. Something wasn't right."

I steel my jaw, shaking it off, trying not to imagine what that might've looked like. For it to be that bad—so bad, Waylon didn't think twice before shoving his fingers down his best friend's throat.

"Do you think he…" I sigh, adjusting my grip on Mason. I twist the back of his soaked shirt in my hand. His arm drapes heavily around my neck, hanging lifelessly over my shoulder. His feet drag, shuffling over the floorboards. "Does he need a hospital?" I finally manage to force out.

There's a long pause, then, "No. No, he threw most of it up, I think?" Waylon says it like a question. Then, unnecessarily he adds, "He wasn't trying to kill himself."

I still.

"Maybe someone should keep an eye on him tonight," Ivy whispers quickly from behind us, also unnecessarily.

"I've got him," I mutter, staring straight ahead to where the lights and noises from downstairs wait for us.

A beat passes, then Waylon says awkwardly. "You sure?"

I shrug, though with Mason slumped between us, barely holding himself up, Waylon can't see me. "It's fine."

It isn't.

But since when is anything fine these days…