Twice Shy (24 page)

She shambled up the stairs to Fey's room and knocked twice. She tried again, banging on the door with her fist to be heard over the noise. The door shook, but there was no response. She turned the knob and walked in.

"Fey, I found your—"

Fey lay on her bed in flannel PJs, propped up with a pillow, covered in bloody vomit. A surgical tubing tourniquet lay slack around her bicep, and a needle protruded from the vein in her elbow. Ani rushed forward and dropped to her knees next to the bed.
Oh, you stupid girl.

She put her cheek in front of Fey's mouth, felt hot breath even as her stomach growled at the smell.
That's so gross.
She put her hands to Fey's neck and felt a weak pulse.
Very weak.
She patted Fey's cheek.

"Hey, Fey. Wake up." She patted harder. Nothing. "Fey?"

She snatched the phone off the nightstand and called home. Her mom picked up on the first ring. "What's taking so long?"

"Fey's in trouble, Mom. I think she OD'ed on something."

"I'll be right there. Call 911."

"Okay." She hung up and dialed.

"911?" A pleasant male voice answered. "What's the nature of the emergency?"

"I think my friend had a drug overdose." She was surprised how calm her voice was. She gave the address as she watched Fey's chest rise and fall.

"We're sending an ambulance. Stay with her until they arrive."

"Okay," she said. Fey's chest rose, then fell, then stopped.
No no no.
Ani waited for it to rise again. It didn't.

She pulled Fey off the bed and started CPR. She scooped vomit out of Fey's mouth with her fingers, tilted her head back, took a deep breath, and blew into her mouth until her chest rose. No response.
Except for a growing desire to bite Fey's tongue.
She did it again. No response.
Come on!

She straddled Fey and compressed her chest thirty times, then breathed in her mouth again. A shadow fell across her vision—her mother stood in the doorway.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked.

"CPR!" Ani said, then re-straddled her to continue chest compressions. She was twelve counts through when Fey coughed, spluttered, and gasped. She didn't regain consciousness, but she was breathing.

"That was incredibly stupid," her mom said, dropping to her knees.

"What?" Ani asked.

Her mom didn't meet her gaze. "You're on an old serum, Ani. We haven't tested your saliva since...."
Since I burned up the old guy in the basement.

Ani looked down at Fey.
No.
She wouldn't let it be true. She burst into tearless sobs. "No, Mom, it can't—"

She started to shake.

Her mom knelt in front of her, pried her mouth open, and swabbed her tongue. "Done is done. You deal with the EMTs when they get here. I'll let you know." She turned and walked out.

Fey's mom was still passed out, so Ani rode with Fey to the hospital. She seemed stable in the ambulance, but was whisked away through the ER doors, leaving Ani in the waiting room alone with her thoughts.

Six hours later she was paged to the nurse's station. Her mom was on the phone. Ani's mouth went dry, the world slowed to a stop. Standing next to an expectant nurse, she schooled her voice to neutrality.

"What's up, Mom?"

"You need to come home soon so you can be ready for school tomorrow."
School?

"I thought I'd stay here with Fey," Ani said.

"Straight A's, remember? I'm not going to back off on that. I don't care what happens. I called you a cab, so don't leave the waiting room."
Oh, great, she's punishing me.

"What about Fey?"

"She doesn't need you right now. Doctor Banerjee is looking after her. He has some experience with these kinds of things." She'd never met him, but this was the second time her mom had mentioned him. Ani made a mental note to Google the guy.

"What about..." She looked askance at the nurse. "...that thing? You know, that problem?" If she was paying attention, she didn't show it.

Her mom snorted. "These tests take time. We won't know conclusively until tomorrow, but the fact that she's not dead yet is a good sign. Trust me, if everything's okay you'll be the first to know. And if it's not... Well, we'll deal with that if it happens." The line went dead.

Ani handed the nurse the phone, then went back to the waiting room and waited.

Chapter 26

It felt weird riding to school without Fey. The reprieve from her iPod was nice, but kids she barely knew kept harassing her for details. It seemed that everyone on the planet knew that Fey—no, it was Fey's mom—no, it was really Fey—was dead, in a coma, OD'ed but was okay—no she's in the ICU, no it's jail, no it's a rehab facility. They were positive that it was crack, meth, alcohol, crunk, cocaine, acid.
God, people are stupid. "Crunk" isn't even a drug.

The more Ani deflected their questions, the more they pressed, until she shrieked at the top of her lungs. In the stunned silence she murmured, "I said I don't want to talk about it." When they got to school, Mrs. Sidlauskas pulled her aside and gave her a lecture about the dangers of startling the bus driver.

She was mobbed anew when she got off the bus and again at the beginning of each class. Even teachers asked her for details, which she didn't share. As she limped her way to the bathroom—just as an excuse to escape Trig for a few minutes—she heard hushed voices from around the corner.

"I heard that she and Ani were shooting up when she passed out...."
Leah.

"Bobby told me that Ani sold him bad drugs last fall...."

"I heard that she called her mom before the ambulance to help her hide the evidence...."

"Yeah, that's why her mom's not in school today...."

Ani stepped around the corner. Two senior boys she recognized but didn't know were talking to Leah. The boys saw her and looked away, red-faced. Leah met her eyes and stepped forward in challenge.

"Yeah, we're talking about you and your meth-head girlfriend, freak. Are you sad you didn't kill her, so you'd have an excuse to cut your wrists for real?"
I might have.

Ani averted her gaze and walked around them. Leah grabbed her arm and the boys stepped back. Ani looked at the hand on her arm, then down to the floor.

"Let go of me," she said through gritted teeth. Adrenaline—or something like it—surged through her, but it was somehow flat, muted.

"What if I don't?" Leah asked.

"Just let go." Her hands balled into fists.

"Or what?" Leah said, twisting. "You'll kill me, too?"

Ani allowed her face to go slack and looked Leah in the eyes.
A pretty girl for such a cruel look.
Ani grabbed her wrist and pried it off her arm. Behind Leah's gelatinous eyes, Ani could smell her brain, pink-gray and glistening and so, so inviting.
I wonder how she'd taste?
She licked her lips. "Yeah. Maybe I will," Ani said.

Leah tried to pull away. It was like wrestling with a doll. Leah clawed at her hand, gouging her skin, but Ani barely felt it. She stepped forward, forcing Leah back into the wall. Leah punched her in the gut, a vague sensation in the back of her mind. Ani grabbed her other wrist and stepped forward again, pinning her against the wall. As Leah struggled her eyes widened, and she started to sweat.

"Jesus, freak, just let me go." Her eyes begged.

Ani bent Leah's wrists backward. Against the wall, she was forced to her knees.

"Please let me go. Please."

Ani looked down at her—she was crying now—and smiled. "Don't ever touch me again, Leah. Ever."

The bell rang, shocking Ani out of her funk. She let go and stumbled away, shoving past the gaping boys. She looked back when she reached the end of the hall. Leah sobbed on the floor. The boys were comforting her, but their eyes were on Ani.

What the hell is wrong with me?

*  *  *

After school she went with Jake to visit Fey in the ICU. After several pints of other peoples' blood and a couple of liters of plasma, Fey looked pretty good. Peaked, too skinny, and weird without her makeup, but good. She was conscious and talking, and her vitals looked good.
She'd be at death's door if...
Ani couldn't even bring herself to think it.

"Hey, Fey," Ani said. She set the potted chrysanthemums she was carrying next to the bed. "You look pretty good." Jake smiled at her.

"Better than last night, huh?" She sounded weak.

"How do you feel?" Jake asked. Ani grabbed Fey's hand in both of hers, gave it a good squeeze.

"Achy. Sick. Like I have the flu."
Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit!

"No surprise, huh?" Jake asked.

"I guess not... I'm just so...." She closed her eyes and sank deeper into her pillow. Her lips murmured, but no sound came out. Ani held her hand for a while. When her breathing slowed and she fell asleep, Jake stroked back her hair and kissed her on the forehead. Ani gave her hand a final squeeze, and they left.

When she got home, her mom was drinking coffee at the kitchen table, a color print-out in front of her.

"What's that?" Ani asked. "Fey?"

Her mom took a sip of coffee, then pushed the paper over to Ani. There were two smeary graphs on the page. Her mom pointed to specific blotches. "These are the markers for ZV DNA." Ani's heart jumped into her throat. Her mom pointed to the other graph. "This is the sample I took from Tiffany."

Ani compared the two, her eyes flashing back and forth. Most of the splotches on the left graph were absent on the right, and vice-versa. "So, Fey's okay?"

"Tiffany's okay," her mom said.

Ani's legs gave out and she fell into the chair. "Oh, thank God."

"You were lucky." Her mom took a sip of her coffee. "Very lucky."

"I know, Mom. It won't happen again."

"No, it won't. Now let's test you."

*  *  *

That Friday morning Fey got on the bus, ignoring the stares and whispers. She sat down next to Ani and shoved her over with her hip.

"So where'd you hide my stash?" Fey whispered.

Ani stared at her in dumb shock. "What?"

Fey lowered her voice even further. "I got home last night, thought I'd take a hit—" Ani opened her mouth to protest but Fey cut her off. "Just a little one, to take the edge off." She rubbed her arms. "I'm all itchy. So anyway, I go to grab it and it's gone. Poof. So what'd you do with it?"

Ani didn't know what to say. "Um... why would I take your stash?"

Fey rolled her eyes. "Why wouldn't you?"

"I'm not a thief."

Fey raised an eyebrow.

You know what? Screw you.

"Look, I didn't touch your stuff. There were a ton of people in there after I saved your life—remember that, me saving your life?—so maybe one of them took it."

"Jake's uncle's on the EMTs, and he said they didn't find nothing except for what I had on me. No cops have been there, my mom said so. That leaves you."

"Or her," Ani said.
Or you forgot where you left it.

"Mom doesn't know where I keep it."

Neither do
I.
"I don't know where you keep it. I don't know who took it, but it wasn't me."

Fey's eyes danced back and forth between hers. She frowned. "Fine. That's the way you want to be, after all I've done for you? Fine."

"Oh, that's rich. I save your life and you accuse me of taking your stuff? I should have, because you shouldn't be doing—"

"Who the hell are you to tell me how to live my life?"

"Who do you think you are, calling me a thief?"

Fey stood, snatching her purse from the seat. "Not for nothing, but Keegan's right. You are a bitch." She stomped toward the front of the bus.

What the heck was that?
Ani hoped she'd calm down once she went through withdrawal.

*  *  *

That night Mr. Brown came over for dinner. They had salmon. She had a Mediterranean bean salad, then excused herself to study—and flush it out. When she got up the next morning, he was eating Cheerios at the table, in Buffalo Bills pajamas.
Fan-freaking-tastic.
Mr. Brown and her mom went out that evening. At ten o'clock her mom called to tell Ani she wouldn't be home until Sunday afternoon, that Ani was under no circumstances to leave the house, and that Ani should be careful—Dylan was still out there.

This is getting out of hand... but who am I to keep her from enjoying her life?

*  *  *

Fey stopped speaking to her, on the phone and in person, and with her went Jake and the rest of the emos. Fey thought she was a thief, Mike thought she was a liar, and everyone else thought she was a drug dealer.
If you only knew the real truth, you'd all run screaming.
Ani was surprised at her own bitterness.

She'd picked a good week to become a complete outcast. The AP US History Exam was that Thursday, the SATs were on Saturday, and Ani hadn't been studying as well as she should have been.
Or much at all.
On Sunday afternoon she opened her AP review book for the first time and took the practice test at the kitchen table.

Her mom walked in when she was mostly done, and insisted on grading it. She took the answer key from the review book and poured over Ani's test, marking with a blue pen. Ani did her best to ignore her until she finished, but each disappointed
tsk
and sour grimace shredded her confidence. At last her mom set down the pen.

Ani looked at her with wide eyes.

"You got a two."
Out of five. Ouch.

"Alright, give me the review book. I'll get to work."

Her mom held out the book, but didn't let go when she grabbed it. "No piano, no drawing, no painting. No reading except for AP and SAT prep. You need to develop discipline, and now is as good a time as any."

Ani tore the book out of her hands. "Whatever, Mom." Her mom raised an eyebrow. Ani looked down. "Sorry, Mom." Her mom took her coffee cup and went to the basement.

*  *  *

Ani drifted through school with minimal human contact. No one spoke to her, even to be mean, and she spoke only if called upon in class. She didn't know what Fey had told him, but Jake eyed her suspiciously when he couldn't just avoid her. Leah, Rose, and Devon whispered their whispers and pointed their fingers, but she didn't let it touch her. More and more her thoughts turned to Mike, her former friend, her rescuer, her wrathful angel.
A big jerk who ignores me for a vicious bimbo with big boobs.