Chapter 6
CHAPTER
SIX
BEFORE
Icouldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.
No. That wasn’t entirely true.
There’d been Jell-O shots last night. Maybe some chips. I just couldn’t recall the last time I had something that counted as a proper meal. Vodka definitely didn’t make the cut. Especially not after I’d just finished trying to empty the contents of my stomach again.
River hadn’t been exactly right about that. Turns out, even after a couple of bumps, if you’ve passed the threshold for how much alcohol a body can take, you’ll still get wrecked.
I had no idea how I had gotten home last night. Opening my eyes to watch my bedroom wall spin had been a surprise.
The past couple of weeks had been a blur, ever since the fight with my mom.
Since River. I might’ve gone to school once or twice.
Mostly, I stayed in bed during the day and snuck out at night.
I did a few shoots. Got invited to parties.
Sometimes Holly came with me, sometimes she didn’t.
I wasn’t even sure if she’d been there last night.
I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My eyes looked empty—just as hollow as I felt. When things got this bad, it was like the world went quiet. Sound dulled. Color drained. Everything faded into white noise. And somewhere in that static, the small voice always returned.
Whether I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, or making out with some stranger at a party, it whispered.
What’s the point?
What does it matter?
Nobody likes you.
You’re a waste of space.
You’re a bad person. Everyone’s going to figure it out—just like she did—and then you’ll be alone. Finally, all a—
A knock at the door snapped me back.
I turned toward it, swiping a hand under my nose. It had been leaking nonstop. Maybe I was getting sick.
“Noah, are you in there?” my dad called.
“Yeah.” My voice came out hoarse. What the hell did I do last night? I cleared my throat.
“Come out here for a second. We need to talk.”
My stomach dropped. That pressure in my chest returned, hazy but heavy. I felt like a kid caught in a lie.
“Sure.”
I pulled on some sweats, brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, and checked the mirror again. Not great. Not that it mattered.
He was sitting at the edge of my bed, elbows resting on his knees, fingers laced. My eyes flicked to my closed bedroom door. The feeling intensified.
He looked up and met my gaze, then took in the rest of me. His face fell—not with anger, but sadness. And somehow, that was worse. My eyes burned.
I forced it away.
“Sit, hijo.”
I dropped into the desk chair in front of him. “What is it?”
His eyes shifted toward my nightstand. I followed them. The baggie sat there, half-empty and damning.
Panic hit me like a tidal wave. “Dad, I—”
“We’re not playing that game, Noah,” he said, cutting me off. His gaze held steady until I nodded. “Jaz found it this morning while she was doing laundry.”
“It’s—”
“I said we’re not doing that.” His voice was firm now. “We’re going to deal with this. You and me. I’m not letting you throw your life away. I won’t let this eat you up. And you are not going to lie to me. Tell me you understand.”
I stared at my lap and gave a weak nod.
“No. Tell me you understand.”
“I understand.” The words came out barely audible, but he didn’t make me repeat them.
“No more modeling.”
I looked up. His expression didn’t change.
“But—”
“I’ve already spoken with the lawyers. I’m getting you out of the contract, and I’ll talk to your mother. No. More. Modeling.”
I nodded, a faint breath of relief slipping out through the panic.
“You’re going back to therapy,” he continued. I must’ve made a face because he added, “I don’t care if you don’t like the one you’ve got. We’ll go through a hundred if we have to. But you’re going back.”
I sniffled. “Okay.”
“I don’t want you skipping any more classes. And when we get back from the holidays, you’re picking a sport and joining a team.”
I frowned. “Why would I—”
“This isn’t a negotiation, Noah. You’re joining a team.”
“Fine.”
“Good. Where’s your phone?”
I raised a brow, but at the look on his face, I reached into my bed and rummaged until I found it. I held it out to him, but he shook his head.
“I want you to go through your contacts. Find the person who gave you that”—he nodded toward the nightstand—“block them, and delete their number. Right now.”
I found River’s number and did as he asked. “Done.”
“This only works if you don’t lie to me, Noah. I don’t want it—not even a tiny white lie.”
“I won’t lie. I promise,” I said.
His expression softened slightly, and I sank back into the chair.
“How long have you been doing it?”
“Two weeks,” I answered without hesitation.
The tension drained from his shoulders. He rubbed both hands over his face, and when they dropped back to his lap, he looked older. Worn down.
Your fault again.
“You’re so smart, hijo. So much smarter than this. You have everything in life going for you. So why? Was it just for fun?”
I didn’t know how to answer. It wasn’t exactly for fun—not really.
It wasn’t even about the blow; that part didn’t do much for me.
What really helped was being out of the house—getting wasted, losing myself in the throngs of bodies, letting the music take over until my head went quiet.
And the coke… it just kept the night going a little longer.
But no, it wasn’t particularly fun. I was just tired of drowning.
Tired of the thoughts. Tired of circling my own mind, replaying her words until they sank deeper, cutting sharper every time.
He was wrong, and I could name a hundred reasons why.
I didn’t have anything going for me. But at least this way, I didn’t have to face it all the fucking time.
I sniffled and tugged the hem of my T-shirt over my face, scrubbing it dry before I could make things worse by crying. “No, not just for fun.”
He tapped his fingers against his thigh. The silence stretched too long.
“What happened between you and your mom?”
“Nothing.”
“Noah, you promised not to lie.”
I shook my head. My eyes burned, and I touched the feeling just long enough to shove it deep down. Tucked it into a box where it couldn’t hurt me. This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t feeling anything. This wasn’t real.
I inhaled deeply. “It was just a fight.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Your mother—she’s not a bad person, Noah.”
All you do is take, take, take.
Push it down. Don’t let it slip.
“She just never learned how to handle her frustration.”
Tighter.
“When she’s upset, she might say things she doesn’t really mean—”
“Some things can’t be unsaid.”
He exhaled through his nose. “What did she say?”
“What’s the point? She’s never going to apologize,” I muttered.
“She’s been trying to reach out—”
“No. She’s been pretending it never happened, trying to buy my affection. But she’ll never admit she did anything wrong. Heaven forbid…” I stopped, clicked my tongue, and shook my head. “What’s the point?”
No one ever believed me. A teacher once told me I was being dramatic. My therapist said I was projecting. And Dad—he always took her side. Always.
What was the fucking point?
“The point is that you’re depressed.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head.
“You haven’t been eating. You haven’t been sleeping. You’ve been drinking and using drugs. Cocaine, Noah. You’re fifteen. You’re just a kid,” he said, and though his voice cracked, there wasn’t any anger. Just worry. Fear.
There was something pressing down on my chest—something heavy and invisible. That was the only explanation for the way it ached to breathe.
I kept my eyes closed.
“This isn’t nothing. It’s eating at you. And if you don’t face it, hijo, it’s only going to get worse.”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to say I’d tried. But what if he saw it too? Whatever it was she saw in me that made her pull away.
Maybe I was too much. Maybe I was making it out to be worse than it really was.
I bit down hard on my lip.
“I’ll talk to the therapist if you want me to,” I whispered.
He let out a heavy sigh. “You can’t outrun everything.
And just because I’m worried doesn’t mean I’m not mad.
” The bed creaked as he stood and looked down at me.
His face said otherwise. I’d seen my father angry before—this wasn’t it.
Anger didn’t make my chest ache like this.
“You’re grounded indefinitely, and I’m having Jaz check your room every day.
If we find anything else, you’re going to rehab. ”
I nodded.
“I know I’m not always available, Noah. But I’ll be here when you need me. Reach out. What happened—this—it can be a blip in your past if you let it. It doesn’t have to define you. These things are dangerous. If you let them, they’ll take root before you even realize it.”
“I know, Dad.”
“Go flush it. I’ll wait,” he said, glancing toward the nightstand.
I stood and did what he asked me to, watching the powder vanish down the drain.
It didn’t mean anything. Not really. Throwing it away didn’t make a difference.
I was still left with the same mess I’d started with.
I looked up at my reflection.
See?
Same mess.
Almost three months later, life felt a little different.
I’d stopped having my room searched every day. The reprieve of privacy was nice. I hadn’t touched the stuff since the talk with my dad, so I had nothing to hide, but it was a welcome change when it no longer felt like an episode of To Catch a Smuggler.
Choosing volleyball had been easy. It wasn’t the most popular sport, which meant there was room for me on the team—even if I wasn’t a regular.
Plus, I’d played for years with my cousins during winter break, so I was actually decent.
What I hadn’t expected was the level of commitment from our team captain, Colin.
I genuinely liked the guy, but he was a sadist. Behind his laid-back jock persona, he was all drills.
Brutal. Relentless. Drills. And I wasn’t exactly in peak shape.