The Right Time (29 page)

As she slipped her card-key into the lock, the anger reservoir grew the second she stepped inside the building. People weren’t bullshitting when they said they saw red. Her vision narrowed until all she could manage was to zip down the hallway like a robot.
Shit. Shit. Shit.

She tossed the suitcase onto her bed and let her gaze scan the room for an outlet. Her anger was building—fast. If she didn’t do something to vent, she’d start punching walls. Her right hand was still swollen from the last time she’d done that, and that had been over a month. The release felt great, but not being able to make a fist was kind of a pain in the ass.

There were only three things to do in her room. Jerk off, read, or play on the internet. Not good. When the dark feelings came, they were always worse when she was stuck inside.

Okay. It was wicked cold, but she had the right clothes for it. And being outside would help. It always helped. Quickly changing into her snowboarding clothes and boots, she strutted down the hallway while raising a middle finger to the fellows in the security office who monitored every move with their omnipresent cameras.

The recreation desk was open, thank fuck, and she checked out some snowshoes and poles. They’d help. Fighting through deep snow in just her boots wouldn’t let her get away as fast as she needed to go.

The blast of icy cold that hit her in the face was good. Really good. It let her focus on something other than the satisfying fantasy of her fist crunching a delicate bone in Maddie’s face.

The school was on a big piece of undeveloped land right at the base of the foothills of the Green Mountains. The campus itself was spread out over just a couple of dozen of their many acres, but students had access to the entire space. She’d always found that perverse, given they watched them every minute they were inside. They must have assumed everyone was too high or drunk to have the stamina to go far. Today, Townsend was going to show them the error of their ways. The bastards should assume nothing.

She needed a new perspective. The farther away she got, the better—for everyone. The snowshoes let her blaze her own path up the moderate grade of the foothills. She was winded after two minutes, but she had an amazing amount of determination when she set her mind to something, and she was bound and determined to climb to the top of the hill.

She wasn’t a great judge of height or distance, but after a while, her thighs blazed with fire. She had to really stretch to move up the hill, get the shoe settled, and use the poles to push up to the next step. Hard, painful work. But every time she turned around and saw the buildings shrink, she felt a burst of accomplishment.

The air was cold and dry and very crisp. It smelled good, too, piney and fresh. By the time she couldn’t make out details on the buildings, the sun had disappeared behind them, and her anger was just a memory. It must’ve been around four, since lights had started to come on across the campus. It got dark early—and fast, in Vermont.

Ignoring the approaching dusk and the pain in her legs and lungs, she soldiered on, pushing herself higher. Her body was covered in sweat, her breathing labored and loud, and her head had started to ache. But the anger was gone. Truly gone.

Finally, the summit was in sight. Summit was kind of an overblown term for the top of the hill, but it was technically correct. She leaned on her poles, while gasping for breath, sweat running down her back in rivulets.

After a while, she could stand and take in the scene. The whole damned campus looked like a little village in a snow globe, neat and tiny and pristine, with the wind swooshing the snow about in quick, dramatic updrafts. All of the lights were on, with just a few kids still outside, crossing campus. If she hadn’t hated the place so much, she would have been touched by how pretty it looked. She was finally away—far away. The only place she longed for. The only place she felt safe. Away.

After stomping around in a small circle, she had the snow packed fairly well. Removing her snowshoes, she plopped down onto it. Her butt would get cold, but she didn’t give a fuck. She was away. There wasn’t a road anywhere near. That made it much nicer. No one could hear her, or see her, or even get to her without a helicopter. If it hadn’t been such a pain to get here, she’d come every day. Or, she could just stay and freeze to death. It’d take days, maybe weeks, to find her, since she’d stashed her ID and its tracking chip as soon as she’d left the building. Hell, maybe they’d never find her. No great loss.

The melancholy thoughts that filled her mind made her a little uncomfortable, so she got up to take a look around. It was past twilight, barely light enough to see the contours of the land. Moving toward the west, she checked out that side of the hill. They must have sold or leased the land to a logging company, because it was stripped bare, a wide stripe of nothingness all the way down. That’d take a few decades to come back—if it ever did. Cheap fuckers. Couldn’t wait to make a few bucks at the expense of nature. She started to walk back to where she’d come up, but an idea hit her. It’d be more fun to go down fast. Damn, it would probably be a
very
fast ride. Minor problem. It was so dark she couldn’t tell how clear the land really was. There might have been stumps just below the snow.

Fuck it.
If she got impaled on a stump, she wouldn’t ever have another thing to worry about.

It would have been better to leave her gear, but she hated having to pay for it out of her spending money account, which was running dangerously low. One of her former friends had tossed a soda onto her computer a couple of months ago, and she’d walloped him with it, sending plastic bits all over the common room. She’d had to spend nearly every cent to replace it, and even though her mother was easy to trick, her accountant wasn’t. He’d check to see where all of her money had gone, and she wasn’t in the mood to have to explain or beg.

So she grabbed everything and held it to her chest. Snow was going to come up the back of her jacket, which would suck, but the only other option was to go down headfirst. Standing at the top, peering down, she considered that for a minute. But to hold onto her gear she’d have to go down on her back. Nah. Upside down and backward was too crazy, even for her. Without giving herself time to reconsider, she sat down and shoved her butt forward, starting out slow—very slow. Then she hit a bump and got a little air. That let her pick up speed. Now she was banging along the hill, the exhilaration of danger starting to make her heart race.

Bang, bang, bang!
Each bounce jostled her, rattling her brain, but she was getting air!
Wham!
That was definitely a tree stump, but it only got her shoulder. Not bad.
Wham!
Another one. This time in her lower back. Then the angle changed and she felt like she was going straight down.
Fast!
Just like falling down a long flight of stairs, each bump knocked the wind out of her. Gasping for breath, she flailed, trying to catch something with her feet, a hand, but she just kept falling into nothing… Then she slowed, now able to hear the crunch of the icy snow as her body broke through it. Every sensation was heightened now as she came to a stop, the only sound her labored breathing in the still, night air.

She lay flat in the snow, one arm still tightly clasping poles and shoes to her chest. The sky was an inky blue, with two stars shining brightly in the clear night. Cold seeped into her back, and she realized that was the snow she’d picked up on the ride.
The ride.
A fleeting thought hit her, of bringing Maddie out to do it again—as soon as her bruises healed.

But the bitch was history.

She lay there, waiting to see if the anger flared up again. But it didn’t. Oh, it’d come back. Probably the next time she saw her. But at least it was gone tonight. She had a little wiggle room.

Stiffly, she rolled onto her side, and got her feet under her. Not bad. Nothing broken. She opened her coat and shimmied, letting a few pounds of snow drop out from behind. Then she put the snowshoes on and started to work her way back to the proper side of the hill. Her back was starting to stiffen up, her shoulder throbbed like a bitch…and she didn’t have access to a goddamned Oxy. Sobriety sucked!

Hennessy finished dinner early, having gone over to eat the moment the dining hall opened. Now it was only six, and none of her suite-mates were back yet. She and Townsend usually spoke on the phone every Sunday night at six, but since they’d just spent three weeks together, she thought it’d be best to skip tonight. That might let her get her mind focused on school, rather than goofing off.

But even if she didn’t call Townsend, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her. Now she sat down at her computer, and found herself wandering around the internet, trying to distract herself. After blowing a half hour, still musing about Townsend, she found the home page for the Boston chapter of Al-Anon. She blinked at the page for a moment, unaware she was looking for it. Her subconscious must have taken over, so she let it be in charge. There was a meeting not five minutes away, and it started at seven.

Hennessy got up and went to the window. The sills were wide and sturdy, just the right size for her to perch on while looking out. It was dark, but she could still watch her fellow students rush back to their houses. Coats zipped, hoods up, hands shoved into pockets, they leaned into the brisk wind, fighting to stand tall. Sometimes it felt like that was the essence of life. One long fight. A constant struggle. Gloomy thoughts could easily send her into a funk, so she consciously tried to think of an action plan to right herself.

Finding that Al-Anon meeting had sent her mood plummeting. But why? She got up and went back to her computer, stood behind her chair and poked at the mouse. The screen lit up again, with the meeting time lit up like a beacon. Yes, she should go. Getting back into Al-Anon would help her be a better partner for Townsend.

Turning her head, she looked at the pile of books, reams of handouts, and neatly organized note cards she’d created. So much work.

Without giving herself time to whine, she slipped her coat back on, laced up her boots, and took off. It was crazy to add another commitment to an overfull schedule, but keeping herself on track would help Townsend. Her sobriety was a hell of a lot more important than any class, any paper, any seminar.

Fewer than fifteen minutes later, she was sitting on a folding chair in a chilly meeting room on Mass Av. They went around the room, checking in, then it was her turn to speak. “Hi,” she said nervously, after standing so the others could hear. “I’m Hennessy and I’m…” Her instinct was to say she was the child of alcoholics. That’s what she’d always said before. But that’s not what her mouth did. “Falling in love with an alcoholic,” tumbled out, shocking her.

There were around twenty people in the room, most of them significantly older than her. But they all looked up and gave her their attention when she kept going.

“My parents are both alcoholics, with my mother probably end-stage. I started going to Ala-Teen when I was in grade school, so I’ve been getting lots of helpful feedback about alcoholism ever since I can remember.”

She took in a deep breath and let her eyes close. It was easier to talk when you didn’t see sympathetic eyes gazing at you. “I’ve avoided dating, or even getting close to anyone who showed the slightest interest in me, mostly because I didn’t want to be around alcohol. Where I’m from, having fun centers on drinking, and I didn’t want the temptation.”

Now her eyes opened and she caught a few encouraging smiles. “But I met someone this past summer. Someone who knocked me right off my feet.” Images of Townsend filled her mind and she felt her mouth quirk up in a grin. She couldn’t even think about Townsend’s beautiful smile and not give one right back. “I guess the good news is that she’s sober. My…” She swallowed hard and forced herself to say it. “My girlfriend is sober.” A burst of fear clamped around her heart, feeling like it would rip it from her chest. “But for how long?” Tears started to fill her eyes and her body shook. “I’ve been babysitting alcoholics since the day I was born. And now I spend a good portion of every damn day worrying about my girlfriend.” Her gaze flitted across the group, looking for someone who might have the answer. “Why have I let myself fall for someone who was headed right to where my mamma is today? Why am I so damned attracted to her? I know she’s gonna break my heart. They
always
do.” She could have gone on, probably all night. But she didn’t have anything else to say. Her question couldn’t be answered. Not in any way that would make sense.