Chapter 4
Ihad to make him understand.
“There are always endings. Everything ends. You know that.”
He kissed me back, right on the mouth. He was the first person to kiss me like I wouldn’t break since we’d been back. I sighed against him. Okay, I liked it. A lot.
“I am so sorry I wasn’t there when she dosed you. That you couldn’t have reached me if you had tried. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to hear your ecstasy confessions. I hate them a little bit that they all did. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when the police took you. Or any day since. I am so sorry.”
I threw my arms around him and held on. He shuddered against me. “What are my ecstasy confessions?”
“That you loved them. You told them.”
I smiled, pressing it on the skin by his neck. “You have to know I love you.” How could he think otherwise?
He audibly exhaled. “I do now. I love you, too. I love you so much. It’s been hell without you in my arms.”
“I… I don’t know if I should say this.”
He hugged me tighter. “Say anything. Anything.”
“I wanted you so much when I was in the police station. To be there with me. When it all started to hurt, when the drug left and I was empty. I wanted you.”
Barrett was so quiet I wondered if I had made a terrible mistake. But then he kissed my cheek. “I would have done anything for the privilege of being there.”
I laughed. “I don’t think you can call sitting with me in jail a privilege.”
“Sitting with you anywhere is a privilege.”
My laugh must have roused Phoenix. He opened his eyes. “Nice sight to wake up to, you laughing. What’s funny?”
“Sitting with me in jail as being something he should want.”
Phoenix blinked. “Not going to lie, I could think of other places I’d rather sit with you, but sure, we can sit in jail.”
I shook my head. They were being ridiculous. “For the first month I thought you would all come get me, and then, when you didn’t, I thought we were just done. I was going to call at some point after I was eighteen. But, yeah. I thought it was over.”
They both frowned and then Barrett hugged me.
“At first we thought they had sent you to a school. A boarding school. That’s what you’d always thought so that’s what we thought.
We looked at every school in the world. Phoenix was occupied and the rest of us don’t hack, so my parents were calling on every connection they had to find out where you were.
You showed up nowhere. Your family was so smug.
Your aunt has left New York to avoid Granny because she camped out outside her apartment.
But she was so dismissive. Couldn’t be swayed.
Even your uncle losing all his funding did nothing.
It makes no sense. If you hadn’t posted that comment when you did, we’d still be looking.
Phoenix was back with us by then, and he tracked it. ”
I smiled at him. “Thank you. Have I thanked any of you for getting me? I really… can’t remember.”
Phoenix put his head down on my hands for a second. “No thanks.”
“How is this possible that you’re all here? You’re all supposed to be in school.”
Jeremy walked into the room, spotted us, grinned and then sat down next to Barrett. “I’m texting Jules if you are feeling good enough to talk. He should be here too. He’s close by. Around the corner, getting coffee.”
I shook my head. “Julian shouldn’t be caffeinating. He looks exhausted. He should be sleeping.”
“Preaching to the choir.” Barrett shook his head. “He couldn’t really sleep after you were taken, and he isn’t yet sleeping.”
If we were going to wait for question-and-answer time, then I was going to sit back and enjoy the lake again.
It wasn’t long because Julian did come tearing in the room.
He smiled when he saw me and made Phoenix scoot over a bit so he could sit with all of us.
Sure enough, he had a cardboard cup in his hand, and he was sipping coffee.
“Alatheia is worried that you’re not sleeping.” Jer lifted his eyebrows.
“That obvious? Please don’t worry about me, Baby. I am worried about you. But actually I might sleep tonight because you are coming home.”
I gasped. “What?”
“Yes. They’re releasing you. The stuff you need to do next can all be done outpatient. It’s different than what Phoenix had to do. So, you can come home.”
I loved the idea of that, but the reality sunk in.
“I can’t go back to New York. Maybe not ever, guys.
I know this is going to be a huge problem.
I committed a felony. That much ketamine was a felony.
I only got out of it because I went to that place where they sent me.
Otherwise I was going to jail. I didn’t complete it.
I could be in serious trouble. Fuck. Am I in serious trouble? ”
Once my mind started to go it really went. A million worries all at once.
“Hey. ” Phoenix shook his head. “No. You’re not in trouble.
Charges were dropped entirely. Once Kit got involved it was handled.
He tried to be involved right away. You’re one of us.
We take care of our own. Right or wrong we use our influence.
Your family isn’t the only family to know a judge.
And no, for now you’re not going back to New York. ”
Barrett nodded. “Outpatient. You stay here. Come back here for the clinic. We have a big house and a small house on the lake. We’re in the small house and you’ll be with us.” He smiled. “Granny is coming down soon, and then we’ll all be together.”
Okay. That sounded better. I pulled my knees up and let my head sink down to them. I needed a second like this. I just did.
Jeremy reached around Barrett to rub the back of my head. No one said anything, so they were maybe silently judging me, but I preferred to think that they were giving me a second and that was fine.
After a few seconds, I lifted my head. “Sorry. I guess I do that now. I put my head on my knees.”
“I can think of worse coping mechanisms.” Phoenix smiled.
“All right. So question and answer. Um. I know I’m a Monk. How are you all here? Shouldn’t you be at Pullman and Columbia?”
Julian gave the answer. “Well, Jer and I have graduated. We had enough credits and the school was happy to play ball with my parents, so to speak. We’re done.
College applications sent in, but we aren’t going anywhere until everything is settled and you are fine.
Only New York schools, which maybe we’ll need to redo if you are really set on no New York. ”
“Let’s wait a second and give her a chance to settle into her new reality.” Jer stood. “But yes, we’ll move schools. This is about us being together. Not about where.”
That was really sweet, only I couldn’t have them screwing up their whole lives for me. Maybe Jer anticipated what I was going to say because he lifted his hand up. “Don’t say it.”
“Okay.” I smiled. Yep, he had read that correctly.
Phoenix squeezed my knee. “I have to finish school. You have to finish school. We don’t have to finish at Pullman. We can go anywhere. Even online. Whatever happens, we’ll do it together.”
I loved that thought. It settled my stomach a bit. He and I were both going to have to repeat Junior year. We’d do it as a team.
Barrett shrugged. “I don’t like school. I was happy to leave for a bit. I’ll go back if you end up in New York, or I’ll go somewhere else. None of us could concentrate with you gone and Phoenix going through this time. School is on pause for the Lents. Our fathers, too. They’re all here.”
“To be fair, only Eric can’t work. He has to actually be at the office.” It was Phoenix’s turn to stand up. “And he seems to be keeping busy. Helping here a lot.”
Their lives were all on pause. I hadn’t asked them to do that, but they had.
“Okay.” Jer made me meet his gaze. “Start talking. What happened with you? Don’t spare us details. I want to know how bad it got. I need to know. Please.”
It was so unusual for Jeremy to say please.
I sighed. “Well, I think you know what happened in New York. I grabbed Phoenix’s bag of ketamine.
I got caught with it. They left me in a jail cell all night.
My aunt gave them permission to conduct a drug test on me which of course was bad because Maggie had drugged me.
A detective questioned me, and I didn’t tell them anything.
” I directed that to Phoenix. “I’m not a snitch like Hal was or whatever. ”
He shook his head, fast. “Red, I would have preferred it if you had told them it was me.”
“No, they didn’t want to know whose ketamine it was. They wanted to know where it had been purchased from. I didn’t tell them. I told them I didn’t know. I didn’t want you to get in trouble with Joe.”
He shook his head. “Joe is no longer a part of my life. But, you had no way of knowing that, and you just kept trying to save me.”
“I felt really sick.” I’d already told Barrett I’d been aching for him, I didn’t need to rehash that right then.
“But the lawyer my aunt hired told me they had made arrangements for me to go away to a school for bad kids. They had taken all these parts of my life and lined them up so they fit a narrative. I ran away from home to live with a known drug abuser. I got in trouble in school. I was on drugs. I was carrying a felony’s worth of ketamine.
They said I could go or I could go to jail.
” I had to get up and move. I walked over to the window so I could stare at the lake.
Arms came around me. Jer’s voice was gentle. “I should not have insisted you talk.”
“No, I get it. You want to know. I would want to know.” I sighed.
“I puked in a garbage can, and then I followed him outside where there two guys with a van. They told me it could go easy or hard but it was going. I told them I wasn’t a problem.
No one would believe me. And then they drugged me, which was awful because I was already so messed up from the night before. ”