“She’s really pretty.” Nancy pushes up from my chest and looks down at the drawing. “I wish someone would draw me like that.”

I know she’s hinting at me to draw her, but I won’t. It took a lot for me to draw Nova and I only got there because she means something to me. But after I’m finished with the drawing, I’m going to destroy it, and force myself to forget about everything that’s happened between us. I’m not going to feel anything for Nova anymore. I’m going to go back to holding on to Lexi, like I should have been doing this entire time. If Nova doesn’t know where I am, then I can’t give in to the pull I feel toward her and she can’t give in to the pull she for some reason feels toward me. She’ll be safer if I stay away. And even though she can’t see it now, she’ll be happier never knowing that a piece of shit like me fell in love with her.

Now I just need to figure out a way to forget her—forget about life. About my emotions…the love I’m fairly certain I feel for her. I just want to escape it all and go back to living my promise to Lexi, continually seeking forgiveness from her, knowing I’ll never get it and that eventually I’ll die and never have to feel a thing again.

“How’s Tristan doing?” I ask, trying to distract myself from where I am and who I’m with. “You called the hospital, right?”

“Yeah, it was a pain in the ass to get them to release any information, but the nurse was spacey and I told her I was his aunt,” she says. “They said he’s still in recovery.”

“I still wonder what he took,” I say, knowing it’s beside the point. No matter what he took, he almost died and I almost wasn’t there to help him. “He was always mixing shit.”

“Does it really matter? What matters is that he’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I mumble. “And at least his parents are headed here and hopefully they’ll take him home with them.” I really hope they do. It took a lot for me to make that phone call, but after the paramedics got him breathing again, I knew I had to do it—had to help him the only way I could. So when the ambulance drove off, red and blue lights flashing, I made a call I didn’t want to make and everything that I expected to happen did. His mom blamed me when I told her Tristan overdosed, said it was my fault because I was a bad influence on him and that he was doing drugs because he lost his sister and that he was hurting inside. And she’s right.

Everything is all my fault and I just want to stop feeling it, go back to killing myself one hit at a time.

“And you’ll go with him?” Nancy asks as she leans back against the wall and observes me. “When he goes back home?”

I keep drawing because it’s the only thing that’s keeping me hanging on. Motions. Simple lines. A task to keep my thoughts centered. “No…I don’t have a home.”

“Then what? You’ll just stick around? With me?”

I don’t answer and silence drifts by. I can tell I’m making her uneasy. I’m not even sure whether she wants me to say yes or no but she keeps wiggling around and then finally she crawls down to the bottom of her mattress. “Are you about ready to try this?” she asks.

I force the nervous lump down in my throat, continuing to move the pencil across the paper. “You sure that it’ll help me forget everything?”

She smiles at me as she returns to my side with a box in her hand. “Baby, it’ll make you feel like a god.” She opens the box and starts to take my hand.

I jerk away. “But will it help me forget?” I need her to say yes before I commit. “I want to forget. All of this.”

She pulls out a folded-up white piece of paper and a syringe. “Sweetie, this will give you all of your heart’s desires and more. You’re not even going to be able to think about forgetting because you’re not going to be able to think.”

I nod, still focusing on my drawing, nervous, thinking about the last time needles entered me and all it did was fuck me up more by bringing me back to life. Hopefully this time it’ll take my life away. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

She smiles elatedly. “You won’t regret it.” She removes a spoon and lighter from the box, along with a rubber band, then starts working to melt the smack with the lighter. I keep drawing through the entire process, trying not to think about it, because if I do I’ll chicken out and then I’ll be left stuck in my thoughts and I need quiet.

When Nancy says she’s ready for me, I take the lighter from her hand, then lean over to the side, hold the paper out, and light it on fire. I watch it burn into black ash that flutters to the floor, feeling my memories fade with it, and soon I hope they’ll be gone. Lexi. Nova. Tristan. My guilt. Me.

“Give me your arm,” Nancy instructs as I sit upright on the mattress.

I stick my arm out onto her lap, trembling with nervousness, not just because of the needle, but also because of what this means. That I’m going to forget about everything and fully accept that this is what my life will be until I can finally rot away.

“Lie back down and get comfortable,” she tells me, and I obey, lying down on the lumpy mattress, which smells damp and smoky.

Her cold fingers brush my arm as she ties the rubber band and then flicks my skin a few times. “Try to relax.”

Easier said than done. But I try my best and take a deep breath. Then another. Then start sucking in air by the lungful. She shifts toward me, then the tip of the needle stings against my arm. I almost back out, shout at her to stop, but I keep silent and then the needle’s sinking deep into my skin.

“Come back to us, Quinton,” someone whispers. “Open your eyes.”

“No…” I mutter with my eyes shut. “Just let me go…please…”

“Don’t give up on us yet.” I hear the beeping of machines trying to breathe life into me—life I don’t want. I want to stay cold. Feel nothing. Disappear into the stars.

“Please just give up on me,” I beg, but they continue to pump life into me and I know that as soon as I open my eyes, I’ll have to accept that I’m alive and that Lexi’s dead. I wish they’d just let me go. I want to let go. I want to give up, tear my chest open, let it bleed out, but they keep sealing it up.

The needle plunges deeper into my vein and seconds later the smack enters me, potent, toxic, burning through my bloodstream, scorching its way to my heart. I feel a rush where I think about everything all at once and then suddenly I’m falling into the darkness and I can’t remember a single thing. I drift further from everyone still living, and move closer to the people who have left me. The pain disappears. My thoughts and memories disappear. Everything disappears and I disappear right along with it.

Chapter 14

May 28, day thirteen of summer break


Nova

“So it’s been two days since I lost Quinton,” I say to the web camera. My eyes are really large and there are bags under them because I’ve barely slept at all. My hair’s pulled up into a messy bun and I’m still wearing my pajamas. I feel like I’m tottering on the edge of falling, and clawing to hold on. “And I’m not going to lie, I feel like shit, which you can probably see from watching this video…” I trail off, not wanting to concentrate on my looks too much, but I don’t want to concentrate on the other stuff I have to say either. I drag my fingers down my face as a loud breath slips out of my mouth. “God, I don’t even know what the point of recording this is, other than to tell you that I’m giving up—that I can’t see hope anymore…so I’m giving up.” I choke and immediately want to take it back, but I can’t because it’s really happening. “My mom’s here to take me home. I could have fought her more but I think it might be time. Not to give up but to let go…because I can’t handle it like I thought I could…but God it hurts…knowing that I’m about to walk away and he might be out there somewhere hurting or even dead…”

“Are you ready to go, sweetie?” My mom sticks her head into the guest room of Lea’s uncle’s house, where my stuff is packed and ready to go.

I shut the computer. “I guess so.”

She gives me a sad look as she enters the guest room. “Look, Nova, I know that you’re really disappointed that you didn’t get to help your friend, but we can’t make people do things they don’t want to do. Sometimes you can’t help people no matter how much you want to.”

I get up from the chair and bend down to unplug my computer. “I get that, but sometimes it takes another person to wake you up from what you’re doing and make you realize that you want help.”

“Yes, but you can do it by yourself, too,” she says, rounding the foot of the bed. “Like you did.”

I start to wrap the cord around my hand. “I didn’t do it by myself.”

She looks puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I had help,” I say, putting the balled-up cord in my laptop bag. “From Landon.”

She’s even more lost, so I decide to explain. “I watched his video, the one he made before he…before he killed himself, and he said some stuff that sort of woke me up and made me realize I didn’t want to do drugs anymore…made me see what my life had become.” I think Lea’s been trying to make me see what it’s become now, but I’m fighting to open my eyes and accept everything.

She pushes up the sleeves of her shirt. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that…that you watched his video?”

I shrug as I slide my laptop into the bag. “Because I wasn’t ready to talk about it back then.”

“But you are now?”

“I guess.” Honestly, I’m not really sure why I’m telling her unless it’s because I’m emotionally drained. “But you should probably know that I told Quinton first, which I think says a lot about how much I care for him,” I say, zipping up the bag. She opens her mouth to protest, but I cut her off, holding my hand up. “Look, I know you don’t get it and I don’t expect you to, but just trust me when I say that I care for him and I probably won’t ever completely stop caring about him…he’ll always be a part of me.”