I shake my head, my buzz flying away in the wind like loose powder. “You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” I say, looking away from her. “You did weed for like what? A couple of months. Weed’s nothing, Nova.” I encounter her gaze. “You have no idea how dark stuff can get.” I pause, rage erupting inside me, and for a moment I think about saying it aloud. What I did. How I killed my girlfriend and cousin—the entire story about how I killed two people, so hopefully she’ll realize the full extent of it and leave me.

She swallows hard, but manages to keep her voice even. “So what? Just because I haven’t done anything harder, doesn’t mean I don’t get things—don’t get death. I get what you’re going through.”

“No, you don’t.” I get in her face, hoping to scare her back, but she stands firm. “You lost your boyfriend because he chose to leave. I crashed a goddamned car and killed my fucking girlfriend and cousin—Tristan’s sister—I took their lives. And everyone fucking hates me for it.” I wait for the disgust in her eyes to appear, the disgust I’ve seen countless times, whenever anyone hears my story.

But she completely blindsides me and looks at me with sympathy. “Everyone doesn’t hate you. How could they, when it was an accident?” She stands firm and her voice is loud but it cracks. She’s not even shocked. Yeah, I told her I killed some people but I didn’t tell her who, yet it seems like she already knew. “I know it wasn’t your fault…I read the newspaper article.”

Suddenly it makes sense that there was no shock factor for her. She already knew about my messed-up, twisted past, what happened that night. How I was responsible for two people’s deaths. She probably even knows I died.

Something about the idea of her digging up my past elicits a dark and sinister feeling inside me. It makes me furious and not I-just-need-to-get-another-hit furious. She was the only one who didn’t fully know my story and now she does—now she knows what I am, down to the very last details.

“The newspaper doesn’t know jack fucking shit. Yeah, maybe the police report said it wasn’t entirely my fault, but ask fucking anyone.” I cup my hand over my upper arm, because I swear to God I’m feeling the pain again of when I put the tattoos there, sharp pricks, the burn, the pain I deserve—I deserve so much more. “Ryder’s parents, Lexi’s parents. You can even ask my father and they’ll all tell you that it was my fault…he even blames me for my mother’s death…” I trail off, losing my voice, as I remember all the silence between my father and me—how, growing up, I could always feel the distance between us, because every time he looked at me, he probably thought about how my mother died bringing me into this world. It makes me realize just how long I’ve felt this blame, just not as bluntly. “They’ll all tell you I’m a piece of shit that should be fucking dead instead of everyone else.” I’m on the verge of tears. But they’re tears of rage more than anything and I need to find a way to get them to stop. Find a way to get Nova to stop looking at me like I’m an injured dog that she just kicked and gave more pain to. Find a way for her to stop pitying me and get on the same page as everyone else.

I know what I do next is so fucked up there are no words to describe it, yet I can’t find the will to care inside my junkie body, which only sees life from delusional angles created by substances that let me see things how I want to. So I reach into my pocket and take out a plastic bag.

“You want to see how alike we are?” I say, opening the bag, watching her and her reaction. “You want to see what you’re trying to save?”

She tries to remain calm, but I catch the flicker of fear in her eyes and I think, There you go. Be afraid. Finally. I dip my finger into the powder, coating it with just enough to give me a bump, and then I put my finger up to my nose. I expect her to look away, but she doesn’t. Her gaze is relentless, confused, disgusted, curious. All sorts of messed-up shit. And it should be enough for me to put the stuff away, because I’ve obviously gotten my point across, but now that it’s out, I want it. So I breathe it in like it’s heaven, or a make-believe version anyway. Once it crashes against the back of my throat, it makes hurting Nova the slightest bit easier, and when she walks away, I feel twistedly satisfied, like I accomplished something, when I didn’t. I haven’t accomplished anything in a very long time. But the thing is, it doesn’t matter. None of this does. And when I walk back to my place—because I’m sure she’s going to leave my sorry ass—I’ll take hit after hit and barely remember or feel anything at all. At least not in a way that matters.


Nova

I have to walk away while we’re on the roof because it’s too hard to watch and he follows me down, staying a ways behind. I think he thinks I’m going to leave him because as soon as we step outside, he starts off toward this back area that leads to a stretch of desert, instead of toward my car.

“Where are you going?” I call out, taking my keys out of my pocket.

He stops just short of where the asphalt shifts to dirt and glances over his shoulder at me. “I thought I was walking home.”

I shake my head, backing up to the car. “Quinton, I can give you a ride.”

A puzzled look crosses his face. “Even after what I did—even after I yelled at you? Even after what I just said…?” He trails off, like his emotions are getting the best of him again.

I need to make sure to do my best to keep him calm, because he seems pretty irrational right now and with drugs in his system, things could get ugly—even more than they are. “Nothing you said on the roof affects our relationship. Things are still the same. Although I wish they were different—better. Now would you please get in the car? It’s hot as heck out here and I don’t want you walking in the heat.”

He sniffs a few times, rubbing his nose, as he glances in the direction he was heading and then at my car. “Okay…yeah. I’ll get in the car.”

A small weight lifts from my shoulders as he climbs inside, but it’s back by the time we’re back to his place and he hops out before I even get the car to a full stop and without saying good-bye. I hate when people don’t say good-bye, yet it happens all the time and sometimes I don’t see them ever again.

I’m worried about never seeing Quinton again.

I start to drive back to Lea’s uncle’s house but I can feel a meltdown coming on as I keep picturing Quinton on the roof, shoving that stuff up his nose. Finally I have to vent, get it off my chest before I explode, so I pull the car into a gas station parking lot and take out my phone. Aiming the camera at myself, I hit record.

“I had to back off, even though I didn’t want to. What I wanted to do was slap him, then steal that damn bag out of his hand and throw it off the roof. What happened was intense, but it was partially my fault. I was pushing him and I knew he was high—easily breakable. But I was so determined to make him see the real picture, the one he can’t see, that I kept going. I tried to force him to admit things that clearly he can’t admit—that sometimes accidents just happen. But then I let it slip out that I’d read the article about the accident and that only seemed to piss him off…and then he…” I trail off, wincing as I recollect him putting that crap up his nose like he was inhaling a piece of chocolate. “He doesn’t even see what he is right now and it sucks because I’ve been in that place and I want to get him out of it, like I got out, yet I know that he’s got to be on the same page—realize things. And I’m still not quite sure what’s going to do that for him.”

I lower my head onto the steering wheel, still aiming the camera at myself. “How do you get through to someone who doesn’t want you to get to them? How do you save someone who doesn’t want to be saved? God, he reminds me so much of Landon…and I’m worried that one of these days I’m going to show up a few minutes too late again and all I’ll have left is a video.” The breath gets knocked out of me as I choke on my emotions and have to pause to catch my breath. “But Quinton has to want to be saved, since he hasn’t given up yet…I just don’t think he can admit it yet. I need to make him somehow…need to make him realize that not everyone in the world hates and blames him like he thinks they do.” My voice wobbles as I recollect how he looked when he told me that everyone blamed him for the deaths. The self-hatred burning in his eyes. “What I need is a better plan—help maybe. Because what I’m doing right now isn’t working very well…I just don’t know where to go to find it.”

I take a moment to gather myself before I sit up and turn the camera off. Then I drive down the road back to Lea’s uncle’s house, listening to “Me vs. Maradona vs. Elvis,” by Brand New, and the memories of the last time I listened to the song almost cause me to bawl my eyes out. It was the first time I got high and Quinton and I kissed. It was a kiss so full of emotions that were—still are—practically indescribable, and I’m pretty sure I’ll never experience a kiss like that again and I’m not even sure I want to.

By the time I get to the road that leads to the house I’m bummed out and the urge to count the mailboxes on the road is becoming uncontrollable and I give in. I make it to eight before I tell myself to shut up and be stronger, but that only makes me feel more anxious and helpless. I feel drained and Lea instantly knows something’s wrong when I walk inside the house.

“Okay, what happened?” she asks from the kitchen. She’s cooking something that smells an awful lot like pancakes and it makes my stomach grumble.

I drop my bag on the sofa and head into the kitchen. “It was a rough day,” I admit to her.