“Lea, please don’t do this!” I cry, falling to the floor. “You can’t do this! You’re my friend.”

It gets quiet and moments later the door opens. Lea stands in front of me, her hair pulled back, her eyes watery like she’s been crying.

“It’s because I’m your friend that I’m doing this.” She crouches down in front of me with the phone in her hand. “Nova, this whole save-Quinton mission is destroying you.”

I shake my head, rocking back and forth as I kneel on the floor. “No, it’s not.”

“Yes it is,” she insists, getting to her feet. “Now start packing. Your mother’s flying down here to drive us back up to Wyoming.”

And just like that, all my hope is taken away. It’s over. And once again, I didn’t do anything right.

I manage to get to my feet and then I lock myself in the bedroom, opening up my laptop and turning on Landon’s video again. I set it down on the bed, then lie down and curl up in a ball, watching it—watching him fade away right in front of my eyes.


Quinton

I hate myself, but it’s easier to bear because I’ve got drugs in my system and my mind’s not quite connected to anything that’s happening around me. This room is just a place and Nancy is just a person and I’m just another junkie loser fucking someone I don’t care about because I want to get high again. And when I’m done, I hate myself even more. I’m nothing but a shell, ready to crack, ready to crumble, and I’ll start the whole process over because I can’t seem to get to that final step where I fully give up.

“I’m going to go get a drink of water,” Nancy says after I slip out of her, her skin damp.

I nod, feeling hollow as I put my boxers and jeans back on. “Okay.”

“Don’t go anywhere,” she jokes as she walks from the room.

I almost laugh. Where the hell would I go? I don’t have any money, any drugs, any place to live. I have absolutely nothing and decide that this is rock bottom. This is my own prison of hell and I’m locked inside it.

God, I just want it to all be over.

I’m drowning in my pain, deciding that it might finally be time to give up, that I’ve slammed into rock bottom, torn apart and left to bleed out, when I hear a deafening scream from the living room. I suddenly wonder if I was wrong and that maybe rock bottom was within reach, but I needed to take a few more steps to get there. I get up and hurry out of the room. As soon as I catch sight of Tristan on the sofa, I’m thrown back to the mental state I lived at right after the accident, the one where I had to painfully feel the consequences of everything I’d done, when everything was so raw and heavy that it felt like it was killing me.

Tristan’s skin has turned sheet white, his lips blue, and he’s foaming at the mouth as his body shakes. For a moment I just stare at him, feeling pounds and pounds of weight stack on my shoulders.

“What’s wrong with him?” Nancy asks, covering her mouth and backing away with tears in her eyes.

Guilt and fear are about to smother me but I fight to keep breathing. “Get me a phone!” I shout, running up to the side of the couch.

“Why?” Nancy cries as she backs into the wall.

“Because I’m going to call an ambulance.” I kneel down beside Tristan, my hands shaking, my pulse frantically beating. There’s so much foam coming out of his mouth and his chest is barely moving, yet his body is moving so much. “I think he’s…” Holy fucking shit. “I think…I think he’s OD’ing.” My words tumble out of me and reality swallows me up in one large breath. This is my fault. I should have been taking care of him better. I owed it to him. But instead I was too caught up in my own problems, like Nova. “Fuck!” I should never have gone out with her today.

Regret.

Remorse.

Blame.

I’ve felt it all before and I feel it again, like needles under my skin, stabbing their way to the surface. Everything’s falling apart and it’s all my fault.

The next few moments move in clips. Nancy gets me her cell phone and I call an ambulance. But she tells me to wait outside, that she’s got too many drugs inside her house. I tell her she’s fucking paranoid, but she flips out, so I carry Tristan outside while he fights to breathe, his skin getting paler and paler, his lips bluer. I stop when we reach the edge of the parking lot and by the time I set him down, his chest has stopped rising and falling altogether.

I feel myself break apart as I push on his chest and put my mouth to his to his, giving him CPR, trying to breathe for him, live for him, keep him from leaving, like how everyone else left.

One more breath.

One more.

But it’s not working—he won’t breathe on his own. I feel like I’m dying with him only I’m not. I’m still kneeling here on fucking concrete while everyone keeps dying around me and I just sit by and watch, motionless, unable to stop it. I fucking hate it. I hate being here. I can’t do it. Can’t feel death again.

“Why do you keep doing this to me?” I cry out to the sky as tears stream down my face. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t. “I don’t want to live! Please just take me instead!” I’m not even sure if I believe in God or if he exists, but I swear if he does he hates me. Or maybe it’s just me that hates me.

Tears fall from my eyes and I start breathing for Tristan again, refusing to give up. Fighting. Refusing to accept another death. “Come on,” I beg through my hopeless sobs. “Please, please, just breathe.”

Please, please don’t die.

Chapter 13

May 27, day twelve of summer break


Nova

I have about twenty-four hours to figure out if Quinton’s okay before my mom’s flight lands and I have to go home. He never called me like he said he would and I at least need to know if he’s okay before I bail out on him, let him go, knowing I’ll probably hate myself forever for walking away.

I try to call Delilah’s phone, but she doesn’t answer, so I drive over to Quinton’s house. Lea argued with me about it for a while but gave up and got in the car with me, despite my protests that she shouldn’t go over there. If she knew the entire story of what happened, she probably would have put up a bigger fight, but I didn’t tell her, knowing this.

It’s a rare cloudy day and I’m grateful to get a break from the sunlight. Although when we pull up to the building, the gray sky over it makes it seem much more ominous.

Warning flags are all over the place when I get to their door. There’s a hole in it and the front window is cracked. But it’s not even just that. I have a bad feeling, like I did the morning I woke up and found Landon dead in his room. I knew something was about to shift and not in a good way.

“Nova, would you just relax?” Lea says as I cup my hands around my eyes and peer in through the window of Quinton’s apartment. The curtain’s falling down on one side and I can see right into the living room. The place is a wreck, more than it usually is. One of the sofas is tipped over and there’s an abundance of garbage and glass on the floor and there are more holes in the walls, Sheetrock all over the linoleum. The lamps have been bashed to pieces and the ceiling light is on the floor.

“No…something’s not right.” I glance over my shoulder at her. “I can feel it.”

“You’re not telling me everything,” she says, putting her hands on her hips. “Something happened yesterday—something bad.”

“Everything’s fine,” I lie. I’m not even sure why I’m lying at the moment. My mother’s already headed down here. Everything’s ruined. But saying it all aloud makes it feel so real.

I put my face up against the glass and try to see inside again. There’s someone lying on the sofa that’s still upright, arm hanging over the side, head turned to the other side so I can’t see his face. But from the bald head, bony body, and tattoos, I’m guessing it’s Dylan.

I step back from the window and glance out at the parking lot and the two vehicles out there, one of which is mine and one of which has four flat tires. The Cadillac that was here yesterday is gone. I don’t know what that means or if I can handle what it means—whatever happened between Trace, Tristan, and Quinton.

“Nova, I think we should go,” Lea says, glancing down the balcony with worry in her eyes as Bernie walks out of his apartment.

She’s probably right. We shouldn’t be here. I’m putting us at risk by making us stay, when I have no idea what happened yesterday.

“I just need to know if he’s okay.” I move back in front of the door and try the doorknob, but it’s locked, so I knock on the door. “I think he might be in some trouble.”

She picks at her fingernails nervously. “This entire place is trouble, Nova. You should have never been hanging around here.” She catches my arm, startling me. “And if that’s true, then you need to stay out of it.” She targets me with a stern look. “Focus on the bigger picture and how dangerous this is.” She motions around us, her gaze lingering on Bernie, who’s watching us. “All of this is.”

I jerk my arm away from her, more roughly than I meant to, but I don’t apologize as I slip my fingers through the hole in the door, trying to reach the lock, refusing to walk away until I know Quinton’s not dead.

I manage to get to the lock and the door opens up. “Thank God,” I mutter.

“Nova, please don’t go in there,” Lea begs, but I’m already over the threshold and she doesn’t follow me in.

It’s stuffier than normal, but that could be because all the garbage and dirty dishes from the kitchen are scattered all over the place. Whatever the reason, the air is so heavy and potent that it knocks the breath out of me.