Paperweight (14 page)

Finally, I turn. “Do you talk to my dad?”

“I've spoken with him once. I don't divulge specifics. But he cares about you and wants to make sure you're getting what you need while you're here.”

“Fine,” I say evenly. “Fine. But not her. She hasn't even called once since the funeral, did you know that?” I can tell from her face that she doesn't. “So it's pretty obvious that she
doesn't
care about me, so there's no reason for you to be talking to her.”

“Stevie, I understand that she's hurt you—”

“Don't you dare defend her.” I'm remarkably calm, considering.

“I won't. I understand that she has wounded you.”

“She doesn't have the right!” Is that me yelling? Is that my voice?

“She does. She's your parent and she's assuming the cost of treatment, so—” She stops. Knows she's just said something she can't take back.

Of
course
she's paying. I'm such a moron. Why didn't I realize? Like my father could shell out this kind of cash? No. No. I can't believe how stupid I've been. Of course it was her. I picture her writing a check in her Paris apartment, feeling smug and redeemed. Fuck her. I won't take another cent of her money.

“Stevie. Please. I can see that you're upset, and I want us to talk about this. If you're angry with me, we should talk about it.”

“I think I'm done talking,” I say. I stare past her, focusing on the flickering candle flame. With the slightest movement, I could tip it as I'm walking toward the door. I could make everything go up in flames.

Tuesday, July 15, 6:47
P.M.

ON Christmas and Easter, my mother forced Josh and me to wear fancy clothes made out of heavy, unfamiliar fabrics—velvet and taffeta for me, wool for Josh—and to go to church. My father always stayed home and labored over his latest manuscript.
You go listen to your stories,
he told her,
and I'll stay here and work on mine.
When I was very little, I worried about his soul for saying that.

It was a performance, twice a year, on schedule: clacking down the aisle in too-tight Mary Janes, sitting up straight, bowing my head at the appropriate times, sneaking games of hangman with Josh when our mother wasn't paying attention, which was almost never. We were her puppets, all gangly legs and big bright eyes, bobbing our heads on command.

No more. She can't control me, not even from Paris. I will not spend another night in this place. I'll leave tonight. No one can stop me.

At dinner, I execute a performance of my own. It is truly remarkable. I am calm. Composed. I sit across from the Cottage Three girls and Hannah and I slice my rubbery chicken breast with the artificial grill lines into pieces. I eat just enough. Slowly enough. Fearfully enough.

“You had a session today, right?” Next to me, Ashley pours a second glass of tea. She cuts her chicken breast in quarters and shoves one of the pieces in her mouth. “With Anna?”

Hannah's burgundy-penciled brows arc. “Chew and swallow before you speak, dear.”

“Sorry,” Ashley says, without chewing or swallowing.

“Yeah.” I stab a flat green bean.

“How'd it go?”

I shrug. “Fine.”

Ashley gulps her last few chunks of chicken in rapid succession. “I'm finished. May I get coffee, please?”

Hannah frowns at Ashley's plate. “Go ahead.”

While the others work their way toward coffee, I debate actually finishing my meal and getting a coffee of my own. It is, after all, the Last Supper. And I could use the caffeine tonight. But there's so much left on my plate and already I feel sick. And there are other things to worry about. I slip my hand into the pocket of my jeans to find the pills I've stashed there. I feel a quick, hot flash of guilt.

Ashley returns with her porcelain mug and individual creamers.

“Hazelnut and vanilla,” she announces, and the others murmur their approval. “Tomorrow, though? I'm doing two hazelnuts. Or a hazelnut and a peppermint.”

“That's disgusting.” Teagan scrunches her nose.

“Whatever. It's good.” Ashley empties the creamers into her coffee and wraps her hands around the mug.

“Are you getting coffee, Hannah?” I ask.

“As soon as the rest of you are finished,” she says.

“We are.” Teagan nods at her plate, then Cate's.

“And I won't be requiring my usual after-dinner cappuccino,” I say.

I think Hannah's squinting at me, but it's hard to tell the difference between her disapproving face and her normal face. I smile. With a labored breath, she heaves her whale body out of the chair and goes to stand in the coffee line. Cate and Teagan follow.

“Hey.” I widen my eyes at Ashley's mug. “Can I have a sip?”

Ashley trains her gaze on Hannah's back. “I dunno.”

“Come on,” I plead. “I was like a caffeine addict at home. I never get coffee here. I'm in withdrawal or something.”

“You could always finish your dinner,” she says pointedly.

“It's . . .” I avert my eyes. She doesn't deserve this, I know. But I can't tell her the truth. “. . . still really
hard
for me, you know?” I make my voice small. “Just a sip. Please.”

Ashley slides her mug in my direction. “If I get charted, I'm telling.”

“Thanks.” It's easier than I thought it would be. In one smooth motion, I pull my hand from my pocket. Lift the mug to my lips and take a small sip. It's shitty coffee, but it really does taste
incredible. Before I lower the mug, the pills go in and disappear. Simple. “Thanks,” I say again. I swallow the guilt. It had to be done. She's been too frantic at night lately.

“So how're things going with Kyle?” I ask. I'm talking too fast. I can't help it. “Is it weird, having a male shrink?”

“I guess. Anna's better, I think. I tried to put in a request to change therapists.”

“What happened?”

“I got it back with a note on it that said
Thank you for using your voice.
” She takes a sip. I hold my breath. She takes another sip.

“But nothing happened?” I'm practically sweating.

“Kyle's still my therapist. But at least I used my voice, right?” She laughs, and her whole face opens up. I'm glad, because that's the way I want to leave her.

The pills work quickly. Ashley is yawning during evening snack and can barely keep her eyes open as we trudge up the hill to the cottage. I let her lean on me for support.

Minutes after lights-out, I hear the even, steady sounds that tell me she is asleep. In the dark, I dress in my jeans and Josh's sweatshirt, then gather a few things and pack them in the backpack I brought on the plane. My cell, the money I stole from Dad before I left, my wallet, the journal, a pen, and a change of underwear. I leave the pills in the drawer. I won't need them anymore. I'll be home for the Anniversary. I'll come to my end the way I've always planned. I tug Ashley's bunny from her grip and stuff it in the backpack. Then I go back to my bed. Pull the covers up to my chin and wait.

I count the seconds, and right on schedule the bedroom door opens. I almost feel the heat of the flashlight.
One, two.
Then the door closes. Silently, I peel back the covers, put on my sneakers, and slip into the hall.

I haven't even reached the cottage door when I turn back. I ditch my backpack on the floor and riffle through it. I tear a small piece of paper from the journal and scribble my cell number on the back. Then I take out the bunny. Carefully, I tuck it next to Ashley and pin the scrap of paper beneath the digital clock on her shelf. Then I'm gone.

Tuesday, July 15, 11:26 PM

OUTSIDE, I move low and fast. I suck in dry, cold air every few seconds when I realize it's time to breathe again. There are enough nurses crisscrossing the property that I know I'll be lucky to make it to the main road. I shouldn't have eaten tonight. I would be quicker, lighter.

I hurry alongside the fence that borders the pasture and the red dirt road. My path gets darker as I leave the shuddering porch lights of the cottages behind. I curse my mother with every step. She thinks paying for this place will erase her sins. I hope they call her as soon as they realize I'm gone. I hope she feels powerless. I hope she knows: She did this. This is her fault.

The ground turns solid beneath me as the tip of my sneaker meets asphalt. I think I'm supposed to turn left. Isn't that the
way I came in, strapped next to Cotton Candy in her shiny white van? But I don't remember exactly. . . . Maybe it's right. No. Left. I'm almost positive. One last look behind me, and then I start to run.

I run as fast as I can toward nothing. It's dark—too dark to see anything but the dingy white of my sneakers as they hit the asphalt. There are no cars, no streetlights. Just a few stars above me, which makes it hard to tell how far I've gone. That's the thing about progress: it's relative.

The desert yawns on either side of me, purplish cactus shadows spearing the sky. My backpack slaps against my spine.

If you do it right, running is supposed to be what Shrink calls a “
healthy coping skill.
” As long as you don't freak out and accidentally run twenty-eight miles on the treadmill before you pass out and fall off (
ahem,
Cate), running is supposed to release these feel-good chemicals in your brain. According to Dr. Singh, people like me don't have enough of these chemicals. So hypothetically, if a person wakes up one day wanting to kill herself because she feels bad about her dead sibling, there's an easy solution: Go for a run!

Running is supposed to loosen you up, bring anger to the surface, send it splashing to the pavement like sweat. Tonight the reverse happens. The farther I go, the tighter I get. My lungs are bursting and my legs are throbbing. My body opens up and absorbs all the anger in the universe. Sucks it in like I'm this desperate, empty human sponge. It seeps into my bones, into the deepest part of me. I picture the anger cells, with their oozing irregular edges, multiplying in my body like cancer.

I gasp for breath, but if I stop I may never start again—or I
might come to the conclusion that I've lost my mind. I've been teetering on the edge of crazy for a while now, but this! This is new. Heading into the empty desert in the middle of the night with no real plan. It's enough to make me laugh out loud.

Without losing pace, I pull out my cell phone and money, counting the bills. It's not enough to take a cab to the airport. I'll have to hitchhike at least part of the way. Eden. I need to call Eden. I stop for a second, bending over and spitting into the dust. I dig for my cell and power it on. I'll ask her to buy me a ticket. She can do it; I've seen her plunk down her dad's credit card at the end of a marathon booze session. Just a ticket, and I'll pay her back and I won't owe her anything. I can get myself to the airport if she can get me home. I press and hold the two. Imagine Shrink's face when she realizes I'm gone.

Hey, boys and girls, it's Eden. You know what to do.

“Eden,” I wheeze into phone. “I really need—I have to—can you call me? Call me back, okay? Call me.”

I press the two again. It's late there. Or is it early?

Hey, boys and girls, it's Eden. You know what to do.

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. She'll call back. She'll get the message and she'll call back.

In some deep part of me, though, I know she might not. Not if helping me will ruin her buzz or sidetrack a hookup or inconvenience her in the slightest. Because Eden serves Eden, and no one else.

Why didn't I see it back then? Why didn't Josh see it? If only one of us had understood her, Josh would still be alive. But we didn't, because she was just too intoxicating. She played us both, because it was nothing more than a game to her.

On the last night of seminar, Eden captivated the crowd. Her voice was dark and syrupy, and the bar was silent. She read something that she thought was deep, something about a relationship with a younger man. I watched her and tried to pretend she wasn't talking about Josh.

“His naïveté was white and temporary, like snow,” she murmured into the mic.

God
, I thought.
Seriously?
But then she smiled, just for me. I stared at her lips. Tonight they were tangerine and wet. My mouth puckered, like I was sucking something sour.

“She's really good.” Josh's hot wintergreen breath on my ear made me jump.

“Yeah,” I whispered at my hands. “I guess.” I wondered if he was here for me or for her.

“So, this is where you guys had class every week? Cool.” He was trying too hard, like he had been for weeks. Things had been weird between us ever since he'd come home late that night. Weirder still since I'd kissed Eden for the first time. And in the week since the kiss in her apartment, there had been more. More hands on each other, sneaking deep into places they never should have gone. I couldn't stop. I didn't know how.

“Yeah,” I said. “It was alright.” The Stacks looked different tonight: the tables shoved against the far wall, replaced with rows of rickety mismatched chairs facing the podium in front of the bar. The floor was scuffed but clean. There were two leafy plants on either side of the podium. Pinkish punch in a cloudy plastic bowl in the back, with finger sandwiches and limp celery sticks.

“Sass.” I heard his little boy voice like when we were kids. “I think I might like her.”

I looked at the ceiling. There was a brownish water stain directly above us.

“I know it's weird for you, the idea of us . . . together.”

I nodded.

“It's just . . . She's so
pretty.
And nice and funny, you know?”

Pretty. Nice. Funny.
For a second—just a second, it didn't last—I was furious. He was my older brother. He was supposed to say disgusting things like
hot piece
and
pussy
. He wasn't supposed to say
pretty
and
nice
. That made it so much worse.

He was looking at me, and I couldn't stand to look back. “I think this could be something real. Something good.”

Please. Don't.
But I couldn't ask him. He deserved whatever he wanted. I'd known all my life that he was better than me, in a deep-rooted way. He was what our dad would call
good people
. You could slice him down the middle and even the very center of him would be fresh and green and good. My center was rotten.

“I . . . think she likes you, too.” I'd tell her tonight. Soon.

“For real?”

I didn't have to answer, because Eden looked up and then everyone behind us was clapping. So I just nodded and clapped, too. Next to me, Josh lifted his thumb and middle finger to his mouth and whistled. I didn't know he could do that. Maybe he'd done it before. Maybe I hadn't been paying attention.

“I'm not supposed to tell you, but Dad's out right now, getting champagne,” Josh said as everyone stood up. The bar was crowded. Almost everyone held a mini-plate in one hand and a
plastic cup of punch in the other. I reached for a plate and some dead-looking celery.

“Huh?” I heard Eden's throaty laugh bubble up from somewhere in the crowd. It made my body spark in places, and it felt good and it hurt at the same time, like a static shock.

“Real champagne. Pretend to be surprised. You could read us whatever you were supposed to read tonight.”

“Yeah. Sure.” I'd told my dad not to come. Told him it wouldn't be worth it since I wasn't reading.
There just wasn't enough time for everyone
, I'd lied. “Um, I have to tell Eden something really quick. Unless you and Eden want to go out after?” I pinched my mini-plate. It was a prop and we both knew it. Inside me, something welled up: a scream or a cry. Nothing would have felt better than to release it.

“Nah.” He scanned the crowd for her. “Tonight's your big night, Sass. Whatever you want to do, I'm down.” He gave me a side squeeze. We didn't really hug anymore. Neither of us could handle it. “Tell her I said congratulations?”

“Got it.”

Eden was chatting up a guy in a waiter's uniform at the very end of the bar. Even more than not wanting to share her, I didn't want Josh to be just another guy in her collection. He was too good for that.

She was wearing black jeans and a white V-neck. A black blazer. I could see her every line.

“Hey,” I said. “That was really good.”

“
Good
?” The corner of one side of her mouth inched up slowly. “You can do better than that. Jake here said my reading was . . .” She pouted, pretending to forget. “Remind me?”

“Inspired,” Jake repeated on cue.

“Inspiiiired, dahhling.”

She's drunk. Already.

“Can I talk to you?” I asked. “Like, alone.”

We left Jake and ducked into the hallway that led to the bathrooms. There were no signs on the doors, just two doors: one on the left and one on the right. You had to guess which was which.

“Wecan'tdothisanymore,” I said, all one word. It came out easier than I thought it would.

“What? Stevie—” She reached for me. I stepped back, just in time. I just wanted her to accept it, to let me go home. “What are you talking about?”

“This,” I whispered. “Whatever we're—it has to stop.”

“What are you, religious or something? People are people, Stevie.”

I didn't say anything.

“Is this about Jack the waiter?” she teased.

“Jake!”

“I
know
, Stevie. I'm screwing around. Just—what's going on with you?” This time, when she reached for me, I reached back. It was the wrong thing, but it was a reflex, the way when someone says “how are you?” you say “fine,” even though you're not. Her skin was hot and soft. My mouth opened a little.

“Josh likes you,” I said to the toes of her black boots.

“I like him, too,” she said.
Simple.
“But not the way I like you.” The boots took two steps forward, and then she put her hand on my throat and it fit perfectly. “And the fact that you're looking out for your brother like this makes me like you even more. Of
course, that's not the only thing I like.” She dragged her finger up to my chin and bottom lip.

“I'm fucked up,” I said.

“Me, too.” She took another step, pressing me against the wall. Lowered her mouth to my ear. “I don't think I'd like you as much if you weren't.”

My insides crumpled like foil.

“He'd want you to be happy, right?” Her breath was spicy with liquor.

It was selfish, but standing in the hallway with her heart beating against my chest and my heart beating back, I wasn't sorry. Josh had always been better at everything: Rows of plastic gold statues and ribbons and certificates in his room announced his glory. But this time, it was me. I was the best at being broken, and Eden wanted my kind of best.

I nodded. “But I can't.” I'd been carrying our lie for seven days now, and already it was too heavy. Eventually, I would drop it. It would shatter. Best to put it down softly now, while I still had control. “He's my brother, Eden.” I said it to the soft flesh of her earlobe. “You know? I can't.”

She exhaled, like she'd been holding her breath. “Yeah.”

“Sorry. I'm sorry.” I'd never been a crier, so I thought about everyday things, normal things: the way the sunlight leaked through the slatted blinds at
Le Crâpeau
and made backslashes on the carpet, the paperweight on Dad's desk that held everything in place, the perfect rows of bloody-red lipstick in my mother's makeup drawer. It didn't work; my body felt hot and full, like it could burst at any second.

“Me, too. I'm sorry, too.” Eden pressed her hand to my throat
and kissed me. Slowly, the way you linger in beautiful places you know you'll never visit again. I mapped her mouth with my tongue, swearing I'd remember every pink detail. I even let myself touch her, the white hollow of her throat, the way her bones made a perfect V above her heart. When she gasped, when her body stiffened, I thought maybe I'd done something right.

“What the hell?” Eden's mouth was open, but the voice leaking from her lips was my brother's. It was disorienting. It took me too long to understand.

It was Josh.