12. THE TURNING CAROUSEL

12

THE TURNING CAROUSEL

Archer

My head spins when I try to get up and I blink a few times, my heart beating like it's going to rip out of my chest. My head feels so heavy.

Fuck.

"You okay there, Archer?" A hand touches my leg and I swat it away.

"Don't fucking touch me."

This girl has been trying to get my attention all party long, but I am at my limit. I am tired of this shit. I'm tired of all these pointless parties, hanging out with these girls and these people I hate. I'm tired of pretending.

I need her.

I need my Peach, but she doesn't care about me anymore. She left me and she doesn't care.

She doesn't care.

I groan trying to hold a more aggressive reaction.

Thinking about her hurts. Whenever I do these days, I always need at least one shot so I don't completely lose it. I am walking a tightrope, and the fall will have me losing all sanity. My friends want me to stop drinking and getting high, but they don't feel what I feel. They are heartbroken too, but I need her.

They don't understand that I need her. Breathing is hard without her smile. Without her touch. And everything about her just hurts now. Whether I see her smile or frown, whether I remember the good times and her coming over to serenade me, it all just hurts. It fucking hurts. And I am losing this battle slowly.

"You don't look…" she touches me again and my eyes fly open. I'm a little dizzy, but I grab her hand and I yank her closer.

"I said don't fucking touch me. I don't belong to you." Doesn't she know I belong to Peach? Only my Peach has rights to me and my body.

Terror crosses her features as she stares at me with green eyes, eyes that aren't my Peach's.

"I need her." My back touches the couch, my body shaking a little.

"Arch, come on, man." Harvey comes next to me, and Jaden is next. They pull me up.

Fuck, I didn't realize how high I was. I don't feel my body.

"Take me to her," I say.

They don't understand I need her. I need her.

"Arch, man. Don't." I hear someone say and I'm not even sure who it is.

My eyes see movement, but I'm not entirely sure what's happening or where I am exactly. Then I feel something soft. I try to focus and look around.

My room.

Harvey appears in front of my face and grabs it. "Arch, man, you can't continue like this."

A hot tear slides down, releasing some of the pent-up emotion in my chest. My bleeding heart.

"But I need her, Harv. Don't you understand? I miss her. I know she misses…" I drift off. Words failing me.

Why don't they understand?

"She's gone. You need to accept it, okay? She's gone." Jaden comes next to Harvey.

"No. She is just hurt. I…I am not coping. I'm not coping without her. Don't you understand?"

I can't accept what they are saying. Don't they understand I can't accept it?

My friends look at me like I'm insane. I don't like it.

"Are you taking your medication, Arch?"

I try to think but it's hard. My pills. My pills.

Thinking is so hard. My brain is foggy. I'm tired.

Blackness shrouds me and I don't resist it.

***

Caleb

I go upstairs when they don't come down. I find Harvey and Jaden standing over Archer's lightly snoring body. He must have passed out before he could undress. But he looked pretty out of it.

"What's wrong with him?"

Harvey walks to the window without turning, a sniffle alerts me he's crying. I close the door to the loud music downstairs.

"He's getting worse," Jaden says, a worried look on his face.

"Has he been skipping his pills again?" I ask.

"It seems so." Jaden nods.

"Fuck." I near my passed-out friend. The little high I was in subsides and I sober. My heart hurts for my friend. This thing with Summer is really getting to everybody in the house.

It was one thing when she just broke up with us and she was carrying on with her life but seeing her actually date someone else is fucking up everyone. We even stopped reporting when we see her. None of us want to hear it anymore, and if you happen to be the one that sees, then you die inside with it alone.

Project Move-on and make-her-miss-us-by-moving-on hasn't been panning out great. We all hate it, but Harvey and Jaden are determined to see it through.

"We need to watch him," Harvey says, coming back to stand beside Jaden.

I pull Archer's pants off and shirt before they help me roll him in.

"Yeah, we do," I agree.

"We can't afford for him to go manic," Jaden says and Harvey and I definitely agree with that.

Archer's mania episodes are very few and far between because he makes sure to take his medication and we all look after each other, but when they happen, none of us like seeing it.

The last one was five years ago. He burned his parent's beach house and went totally off the grid for five days. He never said where he went. It was sad, I loved that beach house.

"He's not coping," Harvey says, weariness evident in his voice.

"Should we tell her?" I ask.

I know the relationship is over, but I know she still cares for him, and I don't know how much any of us here can really do to help him, but I think she can get to him.

"She made it clear she doesn't care." Jaden spits out with some venom.

"Look, I'm just saying that maybe sh—"

"No," Jaden interjects firmly, turning to me to glare.

"It was a suggestion, killer."

"She made it clear she's done. You want to show her and her boyfriend that we are still desperate little boys running after her at every turn?" Jaden lifts his eyebrows.

"Well, damn, I didn't think of that."

We've been the subject of a lot of talk around campus. Most of the news reporting that we are boys obsessed with her and can't let go. I mean, it's true, of course, but it wasn't easy to hear.

And it made us brush up on the plans of taking over this campus. The past few weeks we have been on our shit, trying to fight the social war. But it doesn't make it easier when we see her at parties or in class.

When our gaze always just naturally goes to her even in the sea of girls we deal with these days. But none of them make it any better.

"Yeah, well."

"We can handle our friend by ourselves. We don't need Summer and her…fuck." Harvey sounds pissed as he looks down at Archer and I sit down next to the snoring boy.

"How do you reckon we do that? Keep all the blunts and bottles away from him and supervise his medication intake?" I'm curious to see how they think we are going to do this.

We all know how sneaky Archer can be especially when he starts descending into depressive episodes, he can be great at fooling everyone he's in tip-top shape when he wants to.

"Yes," Jaden says.

"I will knock a few of his teeth in if it's needed." Harvey smirks and I smile, though a bit sad.

Silence befalls the room for a few minutes.

"She made her choice," Jaden says.

Harvey walks to the window again.

This is all fucked up. But I guess this carousel will keep turning and only the universe knows when it ends, but we are riding it whether we like to or not until the wheels falter.

The door opens and one of the girls from downstairs peaks in.

"Oops, are you guys busy with something?"

"Leave us," Harvey says.

"You guys are missed downstairs. Tremaine challenged you to a game." She retreats.

Harvey and Jaden head downstairs and I stay a while here. I open the drawer, find his stash and crush the weed before I roll one.

I'm tired.

I haven't told the others but I'm tired of pretending I am into this shit that we're doing. I am getting tired; I may not be spiraling like Archer, but I am tired.

I don't know when I fall asleep, but it's sometime after the blunt. Something slaps my face lightly and I wake up to find Archer looming over me.

"The fuck?"

"You're the one in my room like a creepy sleep paralysis demon," he says with a small smile.

"Sleep paralysis demon? The weed is frying your brain," I comment before I sit up. The sun is up too, and I yawn.

"What time is it?" I ask as he moves around changing his linen.

"Almost 8 a.m. Breakfast time."

You would say we are lying if I placed him last night next to this freshly bathed and clean-clothed, smells like fresh morning Archer.

I exhale loudly and my elbows meet my knees. I need to talk to him. I know we probably do need to sit with him. He can't continue like this.

"Arch…"

"Hm?" he tenses a little but doesn't turn to me.

"How can we help, man?"

Asking him what's wrong isn't going to help at this point, we all know what is wrong with him, but if he just tells us what we can do then we will do it for him. We'll do anything for him. We go to war for each other, and we stand by each other no matter what.

He doesn't answer immediately, just continues fluffing his pillows. Archer is the neatest. None of us are slobs but he takes the cake, sprinkled with a little OCD in his case.

"I don't know," he finally answers. He sits down and faces me at the edge of the bed. "I don't know, bro."

I swallow. What do I do with that? If he doesn't know then how can we help?

The door opens and Jaden walks in, Harvey behind him. Their eyes land on him and Jaden sits next to him. Harvey goes to lean by the window.

"Look, I know last night looked bad, I'm sorry. It's…it's a lot for me. I don't know…"

Silence.

"What do you need to be okay?" Jaden asks looking at him.

Archer looks away and we get our answer. We can't help him because only she can put him out of his misery.

"Fuck, Arch, we're still here. Can't you take care of yourself for us? We love you too and we are here," Jaden says, his voice sharp with frustration.

"You know it's different, Jay."

Silence again.

Indeed, we know.