28. Chapter 28
Asher
I don’t have much to look forward to, but I did look forward to vegging out on the couch with some beer and enjoying the atmosphere of the party. As it happens, my plan isn’t working out so great.
Ethan and I got here together, but he quickly disappeared with his old high school buddies, abandoning me in the middle of the room. As I should have predicted, Lilith was quick to walk up to me and slide her arms around my neck, squealing into my ear.
“Ash! I’m so glad to see you.”
She sat me down on the couch with a beer in my hand that I now try to sip but can’t for the knot of anxiety in my throat. I haven’t been able to eat anything either. The last time I ate was at Sidney’s Diner with Noah.
I wish he were here right now.
I wish he’d show up by the door, reach out a hand, and take me away from this place.
“Well?” Lilith slides up to me like an excited little puppy, which means she must be high on some strong upper.
If that didn’t give it away, her jaw grinding manically around a piece of gum would have.
“How’ve you been? You’re going to tell me now, right?
Now that you’re not with that weird guy with the long hair and the dead eyes? ”
I say nothing, just keep trying to sip on my beer. I have to get drunk to get through this.
“What happened to you? Did he chain you in his basement or something?” She throws her head back in a laugh, and when I don’t refute her question, she gasps. “That’s it? Ash, what happened to you?”
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that question or contemplated it myself, and I still don’t entirely know the answer beyond the obvious technicalities.
“I was dying?…?and he saved me.”
“What?” Lilith chews her gum incessantly, jaw clenching tight. “You’re not making sense, babe.”
I want to glare at her, tell her not to call me that, that we’re over, but all I do is look straight ahead, observing the party going on around us.
I fucking hate these people. All of them.
That big, scary-looking biker in the corner and his tiny bird-named boyfriend.
Joshua, who’s always out of his mind on drugs and always happy to offer me some.
That dude with the bandanna around his head and a goofy smile on his face—Ravi, I think his name is. He seems like a nice dude, to be fair, though he seems more committed to having a fun time than handling his job as a bouncer.
And Lilith? I should hate her most of all.
I should smack some sense into her and tell her it wasn’t okay, what she did, but I feel too numb to do any of it.
Too numb to do anything more than stare glumly into space.
When I feel her fingertips stroke the back of my hand, I stiffen and pull away.
She makes a distressed sound, as if she’s entitled to touch me.
Fuck this shit. I can’t do this anymore.
“Where’s Joshua?”
Lilith snorts. “Fuck do I know.”
I shoot up from the chair with the adrenaline rush you get from making a decision like the one I just made, and I go into the back room, where I know the off-the-record business takes place.
I find Joshua sitting on a beat-up-looking sofa together with all sorts of shady people, but I don’t care about them. I care only about one thing.
“Hey, I need something.”
Joshua raises his brows as he looks me up and down. “Been a while, Dalton. Where you been at?”
“Doesn’t matter. Just give it to me.”
“Got any money?”
It’s only now that I realize I left my debit card with Noah, and I don’t have any cash on me either. “You’ll get it later. You know I’m good for it. Just?…?please, fucking give it to me.”
Joshua rolls his eyes. “All right, all right.” He hauls a small plastic bag out of his pocket and places it firmly in my hand. “Have some manners next time, dude.”
His last words don’t register. I haul ass out of there and go find Lilith again. She’s right where I left her, in deep conversation with her friend Savannah.
I walk up to them. “I need to borrow your shit.”
Lilith stares at me. “What the fuck, Ash? You really think I’d let you use my shit, especially after you’ve been shacking up with your weird-ass boyf—hey!”
While she’s talking, I reach into her pockets and get what I was looking for.
I hear Lilith calling after me, distraught, but before she can catch me, I bound upstairs and lock myself in the bathroom, leaving the others to another night of drinking and drugging and arguing and fucking, and I hate them all—every single person on this planet.
Except for him .
Fuck, I miss him.
I lean both hands on the closed bathroom door and feel my eyes burn with tears.
I trail my hands down to where he cut me, and I press my fingernail into the scab, wishing the wound were deeper, wishing it hurt more, so I could feel something other than this pain.
I know what would make it all go away, though, and I hold it in the palm of my hand.
Finally, I’m going to feel good again.
Pulse running wild, I rip up the packet of brown powder I got from Joshua. Fuck, that smell?…?My eyes roll to the back of my head, but at the same time, tears press thick and heavy in my throat.
I want to do it so badly, but at the same time, I?…?Fuck?…?Fuck?…?No, I have to! I have to get rid of this feeling. I have to feel good; I have to?…
I bang the back of my head against the wall, wanting to scream, but the sound that comes out is dry and miserable, a coughed-out sob.
“Noah,” I whine. “Noah.”
It sounds like a plea. A plea for what, I don’t even know.
I feel like the ground has opened up beneath my feet, and below, there is only a black hole that beckons me to dive in and destroy myself.
I can’t do this without him. Without Noah, I’m going to end up in that black hole, sooner or later.
If I don’t jump, I’ll stumble and fall. In some distant future, I can see myself fighting it, but it’s a hopeless pursuit; the cravings are too strong, and I’m too broken and wrongly wired to fight them.
But tonight?…?tonight I have to try. Not for myself, but for him.
I dig my fingers into my cut, harder, and I sob with the pain, trying to breathe through it.
The contents of that plastic bag are going to kill me, unless the grief kills me first, unless the pain takes me under.
How can one human being feel so much pain?
How can I stand this? I can’t do it alone, but I don’t have anyone who can help me.
My brother doesn’t give a shit about me, Lilith is a bitch who’ll throw me under the bus the next time she sees fit, and Noah?… He hurt me. We can’t be together.
The walls are closing in on me, the noose around my throat is tightening, and I have nothing, nothing , to make me feel better.
I hold my salvation in my hands, but before I know what I’m doing, I’m shaking the contents of the bag into the toilet bowl and slamming my hand on the flush handle, seeing my only means of escape whirl around and around and disappear into the darkness.
This is it. Was I a good boy now? Can someone come and fucking praise me, and convince me I didn’t just commit the biggest mistake of my life?
I wanted relief when I flushed the drugs, but there is none. I wanted to be proud of myself, but the feeling ripping me apart is nothing like pride. I just feel like nothing fucking matters anymore.
Being sober doesn’t matter. Being alive doesn’t matter. All that matters is I don’t have Noah anymore, and nothing will matter until I do.
What’s the point in fighting, anyway? I should have shot myself up with the shit I flushed down the toilet and then asked for more.
It would’ve been such a relief to let myself surrender?…
There’d be no more expectations, no pressure to succeed.
And I’ve never been good at meeting expectations in the first place.
So why didn’t I do it? I don’t even know the answer to that question myself.
Something has changed in me, but I don’t know what. Noah did something to me. He did a lot of things—both good and bad.
Through the roaring rush of blood in my ears, I hear voices downstairs. High voices. Distressed voices. I open the bathroom door, and one voice in particular makes me do a double take. It can’t be. Out of all places?…?of all people?…
It’s him. He’s here.
My chest fills with relief and dread at once.
Relief because he came for me, because I’ll get to see his face.
Dread because he doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t know how to act in a place like this, and those raised voices are already making that fact known.