Determination (16 page)

Determination

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“Oh God, Jamie, I missed you, too,” he whispered back as he cradled my face in his hands for what I hoped was the very last time.

The work shirt hit the floor, and his stomach rumbled.

“I haven’t eaten today. Why don’t we order some food, do some blow, eat, and then spend the rest of the night in bed?” he asked. I forced myself not to cringe as he played with my hair and waited for me to answer. Once we did the coke, it wouldn’t matter anyway, so I agreed. With the decision made, I felt calm when I picked up the phone and ordered a pizza from the local place as he went to take a shower. I sat on the couch to wait and wondered what it would be like to die.

He never noticed the extra powder in the bag as he cut it into lines on the mirror.

I watched with detached interest as line after line reflected in the surface of the glass. He handed me a bill, rolled one for himself, and did the first line. The breath I’d been holding came out in a gush as he grinned and told me to do the next one. So, I closed my eyes, told Brian I loved him in my head, and tucked the bill into my nose as I inhaled the spiked coke.

The euphoric high rushed through my body like a sweet orgasm as the drugs entered my bloodstream. It took a minute for me to realize I didn’t feel any different from the other times I’d done coke with Steven. My nose burned a little, but I wasn’t sick or anything. Maybe I didn’t put enough of the rat poison in the coke to make a difference.

Steven did another line as I sat back on the couch and watched.

Disappointment welled in my chest. I’d thought it was finally going to be over.

Steven coughed, a harsh hacking sound, and I looked up.

“Man, this is strong,” he commented as he bent down to take the third line. My vision blurred as Steven fell back against the couch with a laugh. Even through the fog of coke, I could tell that his breathing had started to accelerate. Sweat dripped down his flushed face, and he reached for me, and I fell into his arms laughing. The room spun a bit as I straddled him and began to kiss his neck. His hands cupped my ass, and when I closed my eyes, I could smell the sweet scent of coconut.

The second line didn’t go down as smoothly as the first. In fact, I didn’t make it all the way through before I started to feel sick, which made the 100

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dizziness worse, so I opened my eyes. Confusion caused me to blink several times as my mind showed me Brian beneath me instead of Steven. His sweet face broke into a smile, and I lost myself in warm brown eyes. Driving him back against the couch with the force of my kiss, I caressed his face with my fingers and felt nothing but Brian’s skin. “I love you so much,” I told Brian as his lips met mine again. My lips moved to his neck as he reminded me he loved me just as much, and he forgave me. When his hand slid into my loose shorts and cupped my cock, I thrust my hips forward, welcoming the touch. I loved to feel Brian’s hands on me.

A cell phone rang, distorted in my head, as if it were ringing at the end of a long tunnel. When I opened my eyes and glanced down, just on the verge of an explosive orgasm, I saw Steven stare up at me.

My heart broke when I realized in my drug-induced haze that it hadn’t been Brian. It took me a minute to get my pants up and climb off the couch while Steven’s arm flailed out for the phone and managed to grab it on the fourth ring.

“O’Dell,” he said, slow and heavy into the phone. “Oh. Yeah, send him up.” He hung up and looked at me. “The pizza… pizza guy.

Wallet… on the… the counter.” His labored breathing made each word come out in a huff. It took me a second, but then I remembered the poison in the coke and felt a momentary joy that we were so close to the end. I took a deep breath and wondered if I should just do another line of coke and forget about the door. In a moment of clarity, I suddenly knew I didn’t want anyone to find us until after—no hospitals, no resuscitation. My Brian was dead, and I didn’t want to live without him. No matter what my mother said, I knew that he would be in heaven because he was better than most of the church people I’d ever met. Kind, generous, and loyal—if anyone deserved to be in heaven with God, Brian did. I knew I wouldn’t be so lucky. Taking Steven’s life would earn me a one-way ticket to hell, but I had no other choice. I couldn’t let him hurt anyone else because of me. I’d pay that price.

The room swam as I grabbed Steven’s wallet from the breakfast bar. When I walked past the couch to answer the door, I noticed he had Determination

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stopped moving. I didn’t know if he was still breathing. The air in the apartment had started to solidify, and the door seemed so far away.

Brian’s face swam before my eyes—not the Brian from California, but the sweet boy I kissed that day in our tree house.

“I love you,” I told him as my knees gave out and the plush gray carpet rushed up to slam into my face.

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Eight

“SO, WHAT’S his name?”

“Sam. He was my roommate freshman year. This is his senior year, so we moved into an apartment together. It’s been amazing.”

“That’s great. Any plans for after college?”

“Yeah, he wants to go to graduate school out here actually, so I may be applying to… hey, I think he’s waking up.”

The conversation didn’t make any sense to me, and I couldn’t make my brain function enough to figure out who the voices belonged to. My head and chest ached, which confused me further. I didn’t understand how I could be in pain if I were dead. When my hands flexed involuntarily, I felt a pinch on the top of the right one, so I made an effort to relax it. Sounds were becoming clearer as my mind started to focus on my surroundings. I could hear a sort of rhythmic beeping, something—a cart, maybe—being rolled across the floor, and murmured conversations. The room seemed bright outside of my closed eyes, but I just didn’t want to open them yet, afraid of what I might see.

“Jamie, can you hear me?”

The voice sounded so familiar, but the pain in my head wouldn’t allow me to concentrate long enough to figure out who had spoken. I blinked rapidly against the blinding light of the room. The face in front of me seemed to radiate with an ethereal glow, framed by soft, iridescent brown curls. My breath caught in my throat as he smiled, and I knew in that moment that I was dead.

“Brian,” I whispered, the name scratching out of my dry throat through cracked lips. His smile grew, and tears welled in my eyes. I Determination

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never thought I would see him again, and I wondered again where we were, or maybe if he was a hallucination or a vision sent to torment me.

The vision explanation seemed more and more likely as Brian’s face distorted around the edges, as if he were melting. I felt a wave of nausea when the room started to tilt and spin as if I’d been drinking heavily. Fear made adrenaline course through my blood, and as I reached out for Brian, I noticed my arm trembled. Nothing came out when I tried to talk, just gurgling nonsense.

My body went rigid, as if someone had shoved an iron bar down my spine. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t even breathe. A helpless tear fell down my cheek seconds before my body started to convulse. I heard Brian scream, and everything faded to a white blur.

WHEN I woke next, all I could feel was a dull, exhausted ache.

Everything from my head down to my legs hurt, almost as if I’d been in some kind of accident. Too tired to attempt to understand, I opened my eyes to an empty room. Disappointment flooded my chest, and I squeezed my eyes closed to stop the welling of pain in my heart. Brian must have existed only in my imagination. A choking sob tore from my throat, and I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. A toilet flushed somewhere in the distance, and I heard the sound of a door opening.

“You’re awake.” A pale boy with short blond hair and glasses wiped his hands on his faded jeans and came to stand by my bedside.

“I’m Adam. I’ve heard a lot about you, Jamie.” Tired and confused, I just nodded. I really didn’t care what he was talking about.

“Where…?” I started to ask when the door to my left opened and Brian walked into the room. A sling held up his right arm. His eyes were shadowed and haunted. Our eyes met, and he turned quickly to sit on the edge of the bed.

“You scared me so badly,” he whispered. His left hand hovered a few inches above mine for a moment before he let it fall onto his leg.

“I thought you were dead,” I whispered back. I really wanted to reach over and take his hand, but my arms ached. Too tired to move just yet, I stayed still and looked up into his face. The exhaustion I saw 104

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framing his red-rimmed eyes, the stubble on his face from days without shaving, and the way he didn’t touch my hand had me worried. I still hadn’t accepted that Brian was real, but his distance bothered me all the same. “Where are we?”

“You’re in the hospital. They brought you in two days ago, and this is the first time your eyes have been open.” His breath caught on the last few words, as if they were hard for him to say. I wanted him to crawl into bed and hold me, as he had when we were at the apartment, but he wouldn’t touch me.

“What’s wrong with me?” I didn’t know what had happened earlier, or if it would happen again, and I didn’t like not knowing. Brian hesitated and glanced up at the other guy standing next to him.

“What do you remember?” Brian asked, his voice careful. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it, but the words came anyway.

“I remember watching you get shot in the chest. I remember watching the blood spread across your T-shirt as I tried frantically to get to you. I remember being bashed in the head just after you collapsed. I don’t remember too much after that except begging that him to let me call an ambulance. That’s when he told me that it was too late, that you were dead. Then I died too, only my body didn’t understand that yet. I remember how much I hated myself, how much I hated him. Things get blurry after that, but I do remember finding the rat poison and putting it in the coke, and I sort of remember how peaceful I felt doing the lines and knowing that it was over.” The horrified look on Brian’s face stopped me cold. I swallowed hard as I realized what I’d just said.

“Adam, I think we need to talk alone for a few minutes. Can you…?” Brian started, but Adam just put his hand on Brian’s arm.

“I’m going to go get some food. After being kicked in the head so many times in karate, you know, my short-term memory is for crap,” he said as he squeezed Brian’s shoulder and then headed for the door. “If I don’t get a text from you, I’ll just head back to the hotel. I’m sure Sam has found something for us to do this afternoon. It was great to see you again.” Brian nodded, still shell-shocked, and Adam left the room.

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“Who is he?” I asked before Brian could start asking about my confession. It didn’t really matter, but I was curious, and it would help me stall for time.

“That’s Adam.” At my blank look, Brian frowned slightly, and then his voice sounded worried. “Don’t you remember? I told you that I started karate after I got out of the hospital back in Alabama. Adam and I met at the dojo and became really good friends. He happened to be here with his boyfriend touring graduate schools when he read my post about you being in the hospital. When he sent me a message, I said he could come and see me here.” Brian shrugged and went very quiet and still for a moment before tears began to roll down his sweet face.

“Why, Jamie? Why would you…? I don’t understand.” He took a deep breath, and I waited for him to gather his thoughts before he tried again.

“Why would you try to kill yourself? Why didn’t you just let him do the stuff and…?”

“I thought you were dead. He told me you were, and I didn’t want to stay here without you. Doing the drugs with Steven was only to keep him from hurting anyone else like he hurt you. I just couldn’t stand it, knowing that it was all my fault. I hated myself so much. I still do,” I admitted and finally looked away from his tear-streaked face.

“God damn it, Jamie,” Brian choked, stood up, and walked to the window near my bed. “Just when I think you’ve stopped, you find a whole new way to break my heart.” I actually felt the pain wash over me in a dizzying wave of fear and heartache. The hopeless surrender in his voice made it sound as if he’d given up. Brian had never said anything to me, not once, to make me think he didn’t want to be with me anymore, but that sentence hurt me to my very core.

“I thought you were dead,” I repeated in a broken whisper. “I just couldn’t keep going anymore.” He continued to stare out the window, but I could see him shaking. The quiet sob that broke from him was like a knife in my chest, and I tried to roll to my side to get out of bed and go to him. Brian glanced over and came back to sit next to the bed.

“Don’t get up, Jamie, please,” he told me quietly before sitting back down on the chair next to the bed. The hand not held up by the sling rested in his lap.

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“I saw you fall, I thought…. What happened after he… after we left?”

“The doctor said that the bullet went right through my shoulder. If he’d shot me on the left side, or in the stomach or something it would have been worse. My cell phone was on the table near where I fell. I called Mike. He called an ambulance and told them he was my brother so he could get in to be with me,” he explained.