Jessica Sorensen - Tristan: Finding Hope

I shake my head. I just found out yesterday at my doctor visit that I’m officially disease free again and I’m glad. “She knows it’s not normal to celebrate something like that, right? It’s not like I was cured of cancer or something.” I grab my own bottle of water that’s beside the cooler. “I got the disease because I was a fucking idiot and shared needles with a bunch of druggies.”

He scratches the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable, then takes along sip of his water. “Look, man. I totally get the self-blame and everything.” He raises his eyebrows as he puts the lid back on the water. “But trust me, just be grateful you’re clean and healthy now. We can celebrate that, right?”

I want to point out how many times I’ve slipped up on the clean part—the last time being only three weeks ago, a day when I did a line of meth—but I decide to be cooperative since he’s letting me bail on building early. “All right, I’m down for celebrating, but what I’d really like to do is get laid. It’s been a long time.”

Quinton rolls his eyes. “Only you.”

I hold back a smile and shrug, start packing up my tools, thinking about how I’ll go back to the hotel and sit there in the silence, wondering how long I’ll let the empty feeling go on. Maybe I’ll turn on some television, but not to really watch it. Just to hear the noise so I’ll try not to think about all the hell I went through and how much I want to fall back into to it.

But in the end it’s all I’ll think about, no matter what I do.

It’s always been a little awkward being around Nova Reed because we have some history together and now that she’s with my cousin, it’s just plain weird. I’m not even sure when I actually started liking her to begin with. I think it was around when I was eighteen and we had this really hot make-out session, or at least I thought we did until she started crying and then ran off. She was just always such a nice, good person and cute as hell and she saw me for some reason, although always as a friend. I’ve gotten to know her over the last few years and she really helped me out for a while after the first time I got clean. I managed to sneak in a few kisses here and there, but she never really reciprocated them. Then she fell in love with my cousin and I permanently went into the friend zone. Yeah, I’m that fucking cool. Seriously, it’s the story of my life. I’ve never really been in love, although I got close to with Nova. Never had a real girlfriend. Just screwed and screwed and screwed.

But I’m over Nova for the most part and happy for both her and Quinton. Well, as long as they don’t make out in front of me. That gets old really fast.

“So where are we going to go celebrate?” I ask, digging through my bag for a clean shirt. We stay in motel rooms when we’re on the road, living out of suitcases. The motel rooms are usually pretty crappy, but anything’s better than the run-down trailer homes and crack houses I’ve lived in over the years.

The motel we’re staying at right now has got a nice view of junkyard across the street, but it’s only a couple of miles from the house we’re building so it makes it easy to walk there. Nova and Quinton share the adjoining room next door, which allows me to hear noises I’d rather not hear. Right now, he’s wandered into my room and seated himself at the table near the window.

“Nova wanted to try that restaurant out on the north side of town.” He’s smoking a cigarette, the window cracked open so the smoke mostly goes outside.

It makes the need to feed my own nicotine habit rise and I take one out of my pack and light up, breathing in the sweet taste that feeds my craving. “A restaurant.” I frown, picking up the ashtray on the nightstand. “Seems kind of boring.”

Quinton sighs as he puts his cigarette out in the ashtray and gets to his feet. “Look, you know there’s no way she’s going to let us both go to a bar.”

“Well, she technically can only tell one of us to do stuff.” I make a whipping sound and motion my hand, pretending to crack a whip. It’s all fun and games, although I kind of mean it. He is whipped. I remember the days when we’d just sit around and get high and do nothing. I sometimes miss it, miss the stillness, and the lack of responsibility to do anything. Day by day. That’s what we did. But then again, we were kind of lucky to make it to the end of the day alive.

He rolls his eyes at me, but doesn’t argue. “Whatever man. You know as well as I do that you’ll come out with us.”

I balance my cigarette on the ashtray so I can tug my shirt over my head. “Fine, what time are we leaving?” I ask, picking my cigarette back up.

He checks his watch and then nods at the door. “Let’s get going now. We have to pick up Nova from the site and then we’ll take a cab downtown.”

“Fine, give me just a second.” I put out my cigarette, go into the bathroom to put on some deodorant and cologne when my phone rings from my pocket. I check the screen and see it’s my mother. I hate talking to her and I almost ignore it, but then realize that if I do, she’ll excessively call me all night.

“What’s up?” I answer, balancing the phone between my ear and shoulder why I spray on some cologne.

“Hey sweetie,” she says sweetly and I can tell she’s on her meds by the sound of euphoria in her voice. It’s Ryder’s birthday tomorrow and she always gets overly emotional during it and ends up having to take a few sedatives over the course of the week until her emotions pass. The first time I got high was actually from her stash. “I was just calling to see when you were going to be home.”

I grab my wallet off the bathroom counter and tuck it in my back pocket. “I already told you, I can’t make it out there right now, Mom.” I fuck around with my blond hair, trying to get it out of my face, but it’s gotten too long and keeps falling into my eyes, so I give up.

She gives a really long, drawn-out sigh. “Tristan, you have to. It’s Ryder’s birthday.”

“It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago,” I remind her. “And you didn’t even call me.”

“I’m sorry I forgot… but this is important. You need to be here.”

“It’s not that simple,” I tell her, leaning against the wall, staring at the mirror across from me. I can see me so should she, right. I do exist. “I’m in North Carolina right now.”

“North Carolina? Why are you way out there? It’s so far from Wyoming.” The longer she talks, the higher she sounds and the more pointless I realize this conversation is. “Look, I have to go, Mom. I’m headed out.”

“With who?” She pauses. “You’re going out with him, aren’t you?”

I should just lie to her. It’d be easier if I did. But I hate lying and I hate that she wants to push me to hold grudges against Quinton. I’ve made my peace with it. Accidents are accidents. Shit happens. And holding on to it is tiring. “If you mean Quinton, then yeah.” I head toward the door. “Look, we’ve been over this. You can stay mad at him if you want. Do what you have to do, but I’m choosing to let it go.”

“Let your sister go,” she gasps. “Tristan Morganson, how dare you. Don’t you say that. Don’t you dare.”

I stop in front of the door and press my fingertips to the bridge of my nose. There’s no point in this conversation. We’ve had the same one for years and it’s becoming a broken record. “Look, Mom, I have to go. We’re going out to celebrate me being disease free,” I say, knowing she won’t acknowledge it—anything related to my drug days she won’t, because she’s ashamed of me. I open the door. “Call me tomorrow if you feel like it.”

“You’re a terrible son.” It’s her last attempt to make me feel guilty, to lure me home.

“I know,” I say, slipping on one of my boots. “And I’m sorry for that. Tell Dad I said hi.”

“Tell him yourself,” she snaps. “I’m not your messenger.”

“Bye, Mom.” I hang up the phone and stuff it into the back pocket of my jeans before I put my other boot on and step outside. It’s still hot and muggy, but that’s June in North Carolina.

Quinton is outside smoking, sitting on the curb just in front of the door. I’m surprised to see Nova sitting beside him, since we were supposed to be picking her up. She’s talking to Quinton, her blue eyes are all lit up, so she’s excited about something. She’s still wearing her work clothes, jeans and a black tank top, her brown hair braided to the side. Her face is sun-kissed and she looks gorgeous, but she’s not mine and I shouldn’t be thinking about her that way.

When she leans in and kisses Quinton, I almost back up and sneak into my room, pretend I’m sick, just so I won’t have to see it, but mid-kiss she must sense I’m there because she opens her eyes and smiles at me.

“Hey you.” Her smile brightens as she stands up and walks over to me. “Congrats, by the way. I’ve been meaning to tell you that all day.”

Leave it to Nova to congratulate me on being disease free. “What, just congrats?” I joke. “What, no card?”

She lets out an exaggerated sigh, her lips quirking with amusement. “Sorry, but I couldn’t find one for your exact situation. I think I’m going to call up the card companies and suggest that they need a hep C-free line.” She grins.

“Oh, I’m sure that’ll go over well,” I say as Quinton joins us, handing me a cigarette as he lights up one himself. “I can just picture it now. A needle on the front and inside ‘Congrats on not being a disgusting user anymore.’ ” Just talking about the needle makes my veins throb with need.

Nova’s face instantly falls and Quinton shoots me a warning. “What’s wrong?” Nova asks. “You should be happy, but you’re not.”

She’s right. I’m not. I don’t think I ever really have been. Half the time I’m not even sure why, but today I know. My mom’s got me feeling guilty about Ryder and her birthday. I envied the high I could hear in my mom’s voice, not just because it’ll take all the emotional pain away but because it’s easier to deal with being so alone when I’m out of it. But I’m good at faking being happy and I plaster a smile on my face. “Sorry. I just didn’t sleep very well last night… I had a lot of stuff on my mind.”