Keaton School 01: Escape Theory (7 page)

“It was the first week of summer. We were supposed to go on some boat trip with his parents, but we were arguing all the time. Hutch said he wasn’t happy anymore. I thought he meant he wasn’t happy with us. But now maybe he meant.… He wouldn’t have done it if I was there for him. He should have let me be there for him.” Her voice caught.

“Isla, what happened to Hutch is nobody’s fault, okay? This isn’t your fault.” Devon leaned forward, forcing eye contact. It was important that Isla knew this. If she took the blame, then she was at risk. The girl was using an alias to feed an addiction; she was more than capable of hurting herself. She already
had
hurt herself.

“How do you know?” Isla sounded as if she were talking more to herself than Devon. “You didn’t know him like I did. I mean, we kind of pissed each other off from time to time, but there was a while there we were really in
love
. Like, I didn’t think it was possible to love someone that much, kind of love. It sounds like a stupid movie when I say it out loud but it’s true. And he all of a sudden says he didn’t want to see me? Thought we’d grown apart. It was so cliché, but it was my life.” She laughed bitterly. “That sounds like a stupid movie, too.”

“How did you grow apart? What happened?” Devon wasn’t sure this was actually relevant to counseling Isla, but she couldn’t help herself.
^‡
Their coupledom had turned them into Isla-And-Hutch, a unit, a
thing;
how could that relationship fall apart?

Isla shrugged. “I don’t know. He wanted me to lay off the pills,
and I thought he was being controlling. I refused to change for him. I thought I was proving to him that I could be strong. And once I was home in Portland it was easy to get whatever I wanted. So I didn’t have to change. I think I kept using just because he didn’t want me to. But, I don’t know. The way he did it, looking down on me, he was so fucking smug about it. It pissed me off.”

“What about now? Do you still think it was him, being controlling and smug?” The words just popped out of her mouth. Devon gritted her teeth. She was starting to sound like her mom.
Don’t judge; be supportive
. On the other hand, the non-counselor voice in her head couldn’t believe that Isla had essentially chosen pills over Hutch. Epic mistake. Any girlfriend would have talked Isla out of it, gotten her to kick the pills—whatever it took to stay with someone like Hutch. But maybe Isla with all her magic spells couldn’t conjure up any real friends to step in before her addiction took hold.

Can I?
Devon wondered. That’s what she’d signed up for with this peer counseling stuff. She had to try, to finish what Hutch would have wanted for Isla. She could help Isla see the error in her ways, without being pushy of course, and Isla could stop blaming herself for Hutch’s suicide—

“I saw him earlier that day, you know?” Isla began, almost as if reading Devon’s thoughts. “The day he … his last day. He was making a sandwich in the Dining Hall before going into Monte Vista. And you know what he did? Typical Hutch. He wouldn’t talk to me. He said I hadn’t changed at all. He knew I was still using. Condescending prick.” Isla twisted a handful of quilt into her clenched fist.

“And then he committed suicide that night with pills,” Devon murmured.

Isla snorted in disgust. “Hypocrite. Typical Hutch working his magic: Look at my right hand, so you don’t see what my left hand is doing. And I fell for it. We all did.”

Devon nodded but her head was spinning. “Was Hutch always
against the Oxy? He never took it with you?” If Isla was using a drug like that, he had to know. Maybe that’s why Hutch had inexplicably reached out to Devon again a few days ago, across the parking lot and all that time. Her chest squeezed tighter. He’d wanted to get pancakes. Like that night,
their
night. Like he’d been in an Isla haze, and had finally emerged to see that Devon was there the whole time.

“At first, maybe a few times,” Isla said. “But then he wouldn’t touch the stuff. Talked about not wanting to pollute his body and other crap like that.” She chewed another nail and spat it onto the floor. She squinted at Devon. “You really didn’t get the memo, did you?”

“About what?”

“Look, I can say this because he’s gone. Otherwise I wouldn’t be telling you shit. But, Hutch was supplying pills to like half the school. Nothing like Oxy, he wouldn’t go that far, but Adderall, Ritalin, Wellbutrin, Xanax, Prozac, Valium. If you wanted to go up, down, or sideways, Hutch was your guy.” Isla’s mouth curled into a half-smile.

Devon adjusted her notebook in her lap, anything to hide her face. “Yeah, I heard something like that,” she managed as nonchalantly as she could.

“It wasn’t a big deal or anything. Just a little Adderall to help kids study or Valium to help them take the edge off the Adderall. Whatever they needed. But Hutch made sure they actually needed it. He knew how much everyone was taking, kept the doses low.” Isla shrugged. “I guess he was still kind of looking out for people, in his own twisted way.”

Devon’s chest constricted again. Images of Hutch—smiling at Devon, leaning against that dirt-covered car … toasting her with a Nutter Butter … they popped and were gone. Her mouth was dry and she had to lick her lips to speak. “So why’d he do it all? If he wasn’t taking anything himself?”

“I guess because he could. He had access. Most of the campus is
taking this stuff anyways, so might as well bring a little quality control to the situation. He said it’s like that in Europe. At the bigger raves out there they have people who will test your ecstasy to see what it’s cut with. At least someone could make sure they’re taking stuff that doesn’t kill ’em. Ironic, huh?”

“Yeah. Definitely.” Devon picked at a loose piece of rubber on her flip-flops. Her head was swimming in a million questions, new shades of Hutch rising to the surface like bubbles.

“But at the end of last year he quit it all,” Isla continued. “Stopped dealing. Even stopped drinking coffee. Didn’t want to be controlled by it anymore. That’s why he wanted me to stop using too.”

Devon couldn’t think of an appropriate response. This version of Hutch wasn’t new to Isla. But to Devon he’d always been a faraway buoy in the choppy ocean of Keaton. Now, in death, the closer she swam to him, the further away he seemed.

“I don’t know what he got into this summer. But something changed. If we were still together this wouldn’t have happened. It just wouldn’t.” Isla sighed heavily. “What are we supposed to do now? How come he gets to check out and leave the rest of us to pick up the pieces? It just doesn’t seem fair. What about me? How could he do this to me?”

“I don’t know,” Devon said.
I really don’t know. But I have to keep swimming
.

D
EVON WAS WRITING ABOUT
Isla’s deteriorating physical condition. It would be good to keep track of if she got better or worse: The red scratches, the low weight—

Her door flew open.

She straightened her back against the wall. Sitting cross-legged on her bed was always a more comfortable place to study, as long as she remembered to stand up every now and then.

“Yo, bitch, did you steal my Origins mask again?” Presley demanded, barging into the room. She started rooting through the
bottles of lotions on the bedside table. “It’s made of volcanic ash and you know that doesn’t come cheap.”

Devon tucked the session notes under her pillow. “So the ‘Quiet, studying’ note on the door wasn’t clear enough, I see. Good to know.”

“Please, you know that doesn’t apply to me,” Presley was already opening and smelling different bottles. “Whore-ella Deville, cough it up, where’s my volcanic ash?”

“Bitch, please, I have my own volcanic ash. Why would I need yours?” Devon smiled. As much as she loved quiet privacy, Presley’s reliable interruptions insured that Devon would laugh her ass off every once in a while, like a normal human being.

Presley rubbed a glob of lotion into her palms. “You don’t have any like Pepto or something do you? My stomach’s been kicking my ass. I totally barfed up dinner.”

“Eww. That might have just ruined taco night for me.”

Presley threw the hand lotion bottle at Devon. “If the mystery meat hasn’t ruined taco night for you yet, then I just did you a favor.”

“Good point.” Devon sighed. “But, I don’t have anything for your stomach.”

Presley checked herself out in Devon’s mirror. She was wearing her typical dorm uniform, flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt, and her curly blonde hair in a loose knot on the top of her head. “I hope I’m not like
sick
, sick. That would totally blow. Oh, speaking of blowing, b-t-dubs, what’s up with you and Gaa-raant! Roar. Someone worked out over the suuuh-mmer.” Presley liked to sing words for emphasis. She reveled in her terrible voice, an invisible karaoke mic on at all times.

Devon stretched out on her bed. “Pres, this whole Hutch thing.…”

“What?

“I just—I don’t know. I don’t want to gossip about how hot Grant is.”

Presley turned to her. Her blue eyes softened for a second. “Sweetie, the Hutch situation totally sucks. But that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have a little fun.” Presley smelled her hands. “Mmmm, lemon. I like that one. You should get more of that.”

Devon had to laugh again. “How are you not more, like, in shock about all this? You and Hutch were on the newspaper together.”

“Look, I’m not like some heartless jerk. I get it.” Presley applied some of Devon’s mascara as she spoke, her mouth curled into an ‘O’ as she forced her eyes open. “But listen: The whole school moping around isn’t going to change the fact that Hutch is dead and gone, and that it was his decision. I mean, I feel bad for his family and all, but writing poems in my journal or contemplating life over tacos isn’t going to change anything. Hutch was clearly in a shitty place. I just hope he’s happier now. You need more mascara.”

Devon blinked. She felt like
she
was being counseled now. Hearing these cliché condolences wasn’t helpful; it was just annoying—even coming from Presley, whom Devon loved precisely because she never, ever engaged in bullshit. But the fact remained: Devon didn’t believe Hutch really meant to kill himself. Now she understood Isla’s irritation at everyone’s fake frowns and false hugs. They all felt like futile attempts to remedy something that could never be fixed. No matter what anyone said, Hutch was gone. The emptiness left behind sucked up each stupid platitude (“He will be missed.”) like a vacuum, leaving behind what you started with. Nothing.

“Oh come on, is this counseling thing going to make you a downer all year? Cause, if I gotta find a new best friend who actually likes to have fun, tell me now.” Presley had a goofy grin on her face. She waited for Devon to pick up the cue.

“So … Grant.” Devon said, without much enthusiasm.

“Grant,” Presley said back. She plunked down in Devon’s chair.

“He did come to visit me, and not during visiting hours. You think.…”

“I totally think. If he dropped by unannounced during the first
week, you know what that means. He was thinking about you this summer.” Presley drew out the last sentence as if she’d just cracked the Da Vinci Code.

“Ya think?” Devon doubted it. Guys didn’t exactly seek her out. Presley usually acted as Devon’s hook-up guru, pushing her together with whatever wingman was attached with Presley’s current boyfriend. Their system had yielded precisely 2.5 hook-ups for Devon in the last two years. The half was when Presley was hooking up with a local surfer in Monte Vista. Presley and her surfer made out on the beach while Devon and the surfer’s friend, Whateverhisnamewas, huddled in his crappy van for warmth. He smoked joint after joint until just before passing out he said to Devon, “You’re totally bang-able. You can go down on me, if you want.” A true charmer. The ever optimistic Presley had insisted that if Whateverhisnamewas hadn’t passed out, he would obviously have hooked up with Devon—thus the half point.

“Yeah, I think. Someone’s gonna get la-aaaa-id.” Presley sang again.

“I don’t know.” Devon flopped onto her back. The glossy white ceiling reflected her room in rippling waves, Presley’s blurry head of yellow hair and blue pants, and Devon, a wavy white form on her colorful bed. “Hey, did you know Hutch was dealing pharmaceuticals last year?” Devon asked the ceiling.

Presley plucked a lip gloss from Devon’s table and tried it on. “Yeah, I scored some Adderall off him last year for finals. Way to change the subject, President Ho-bama.”

Devon rolled over. “Whatever, Former Vice President Al Whore.” Her smile faded. “Jesus, am I the only one that didn’t know what Hutch was doing?”

“Probably,” Presley said.

“Do people think it’s weird that Hutch OD’d on the one kind of pill he didn’t sell?” Devon was beginning to feel like the only one at Keaton who was left out of the Hutch party. First she doesn’t make
the list for his suicide text. Now she discovers that everyone
but
her knew he was running a pharm ring at school. Yes, it was petty, but why
not
her? Not that she was waiting around to buy pills from him, but it felt unfair that Hutch kept a huge piece of himself hidden. Weren’t they closer than that?

“I wouldn’t say weird.” Presley’s voice broke into her thoughts. “More like, ‘not totally surprised.’ But you’re right: Hutch never had Oxy. It was like a rule of his. Wouldn’t give out the hard stuff. Strictly performance enhancers. He said it was something about messing with the system. Fighting the Man, all that. Like, I heard he even hooked up Jin Soo with prescription strength Rogaine because Jin was freaking out about losing his hair early.”

“Jin is losing his hair?”

“Not anymore.” Presley flashed a smile. “Look, dork, it’s almost nine thirty
P.M.
Pete’s coming over and we’re getting the language lab before anyone else. Seriously, who told these freshman all the hook-up spots? It’s not cool. Not cool at all.”

Devon mustered a smile in return and sat up in bed. “Wait, I’m seriously behind on the intel. I thought you and Pete broke up?”

“We did. He apologized yesterday. Bought me flowers, and this necklace. See?” Presley leaned over to Devon. She could smell the lemon hand cream. “It’s a compass. He said I’m his True North. Isn’t that cute?”