Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
SOFIE
I stare at my phone screen. At Zach’s text.
Something’s come up
I have a million questions, but I’m not going to ask them. Because maybe I don’t want the answers.
You okay?
Yeah
I lower onto my bed and gaze around my room. Everything looks the same. Same dresser with the four coats of white paint. Same pictures framed of me with my friends, my high school graduation, a Christmas party with Dad, Jesse, and Linnie. Same soft bed with the yellow comforter, the side chair with a sweatshirt draped over the back, same jumble of shoes at the floor of my closet.
So why does it feel different?
Barren. Faded. Stale.
I pull my pearly white sweater over my head, the one I had imagined Zach slipping off me in the darkness, his eyes drinking me in, filling with desire. I exchange it for one of Dad’s flannels, tying the tails tight at my waist. The hug of fabric grounds me. I slip off my jeans—the only ones I don’t do barn chores in—and step into my cozy fleece pants with the worn patches in the knees. And then I wash my face in the bathroom, removing all trace of a girl who had something special to look forward to.
I check my phone but Zach hasn’t messaged me with anything else.
Come over , he’d said. Not can you come over or wanna hang out later , but a demand.
Like he needed me as much as I needed him.
I’m tempted to say something, but I feel like a bird whose wings have been clipped.
Get it together, girl . Something came up. It happens.
When I come out of my room, Dad and Linnie are in the living room, watching Is It Cake?
“I thought you were going out,” Dad says, no doubt sizing up my change in outfit.
I shrug. “Change of plans.”
“You want to watch with us?” Linnie leans past Dad with an eager gleam in her eye. “One of the bakers made a ski boot cake. I think he’s gonna win.”
“Sure.” I take the other side of the couch. I try to focus on the show, but my mind is tumbling end over end. This is the couch where Zach rubbed my feet, his gaze soft and full of so much promise. Where we talked in the darkness, and I felt so close to him.
After the show ends, Linnie gets ready for bed, and I drift to my room. Dad stops by, leaning past my doorframe.
“You doing okay?”
I put on a brave face. “Yeah. Just tired.”
His caring gaze lingers. “You hear from Jess?”
With a shake of my head, I reach down to turn on my bedside lamp. For an instant, I’m transported back in time, to fumbling in the drawer for condoms. A thick lump clots in my throat.
“You want to talk, I’m here,” Dad says, and I’m wondering if we’re still talking about Jesse.
“Maybe. Tomorrow, though. ”
Dad’s expression stays that same steady calm, but there’s emotion behind his eyes, like he can sense the distress churning through my insides. “Okay. Sleep well.”
When he melts into the hallway, I close my door and release a slow breath.
I check my phone one last time, but there’s nothing new from Zach.
Ava’s you’re the strongest person I know floats through my mind. It’s true, yet why doesn’t it comfort me?
After a restless sleep, I autopilot through my morning. Dad offers to take Linnie to school instead of riding the bus, and they clamber out the door, bringing in a gust of cold air that tastes of snow.
The thickening clouds sour my mood as I drive to the employee lot and take the bus to Finn River Ranch. Ava’s off today, and I’m partly relieved so I don’t have to listen to her try to cheer me up.
Teague Lennox and Arlo are standing outside the Childcare Center entrance like they’re waiting for me.
“Hey, Sofie,” Mr. Lennox says while Arlo’s face lights up.
“Hi there.” I smile, and it feels genuine.
Arlo practically jumps into my arms. It reminds me a little of when Linnie was little. She still hugs me now, but there’s nothing like the koala-tight hugs from a little human. I squeeze him back as Mr. Lennox beams.
“Any decisions I should know about?” he asks.
I shift Arlo to my hip and give him a wink. “I think that hug sealed the deal.”
“So… you’ll accept the job?”
A minor TV celebrity breezes out of the Childcare Center door dressed in matching yoga clothes, barking orders into her phone.
I turn back to Mr. Lennox, my heart pounding into my throat. Am I really doing this? “I need to clear it with my family.”
“No problem,” Mr. Lennox says.
We head inside, and Mr. Lennox checks Arlo in while I don my apron and get the lay of the land. Three children so far, plus my coworker Dinah. It should be an easy day.
My answer to Mr. Lennox settles in my gut like a brick. It felt good in the moment. A year of Arlo’s hugs and traveling the world with a movie star.
Kirilee and Ava’s words ring in my mind.
Linnie and Dad would be okay for a year. And when it’s over, I would have the money for school.
So why does it feel so hard to say yes?
Later that night, I don’t get a chance to talk to Dad because there’s been a problem bear incident at one of the forest service campgrounds. I make dinner for me and Linn, help her with her homework, and after barn chores, I fall into bed, exhausted.
But sleep doesn’t come. Jesse is leaving tomorrow. In a last-ditch attempt to pull my family together one last time, I invited him to join us for breakfast. Even promising him my famous pancakes. Dad’s maybe it’s okay to let him go rattles around in my mind.
Maybe it is.
The blare of my alarm wakes me from the middle of a bad dream, and I snatch my phone to silence it. But it’s Jesse, calling.
“Fie,” he barks. “Neve OD’d. I think.”
I check the time—it’s 3:17 a.m. “Where are you?”
“The hosp—” His voice cracks. “It’s my fault.” He’s sobbing now. “I never meant?—"
“I’ll be there.” I rush out of bed.
“Okay.” He hangs up.
Frantic, I tug on a hoodie and a pair of leggings, then thick socks. When I bolt from my room, Dad is in the hallway. So is Linnie.
We stare at each other. “I’m going too.” Linnie nostrils flare, like she’s daring me to object.
“We’ll all go,” Dad says.
We silently hurry out the door into the night so cold it bites my cheeks. The aspens give a soft crishhhhhh in the brisk wind as we race for Dad’s truck .
Fear and anticipation coil in my gut like some sort of prickly reptile trying to burrow free. I watch the dark landscape pass in a blur while I flex and relax my fists, my nails digging into my palms.
If Jesse’s using again…
If he’s drawn Neve into the underworld, too…
“We’re in this together.” Dad sends me a quick glance from where he’s hunched over the wheel.
I swallow the hard knot in my throat.
From the backseat, Linnea is quiet. After high school, when Jesse spiraled, I did my best to shelter our little sister, but addiction is a hard thing to hide.
What’s going through her head right now? And if things are as bad as they seem, how will I take care of her and Jesse?
Dad cruises into the hospital lot and parks the truck. We all jump out. Linnie slides her hand into mine as we make our way across the pale concrete. Maybe I have this all wrong, and she’s the one taking care of me.
The glass doors whoosh open, the bright lights inside disorienting and harsh. I’ve been here before, and my feet know where to go. I walk to the gray-haired man behind a white counter with a giant name tag that says EARL.
“I’m looking for Neve Mayfair. My brother Jesse Whittaker brought her in.”
Earl slides his black bifocals to his nose and scans a computer screen. “Room three ten.”
“Thanks.” I hurry to the elevator, flanked by Lin and Dad. The elevator music is playing instrumental Christmas tunes, another signal that we’re in an alternate reality because Halloween was practically yesterday.
Silently, we step from the elevator and follow the signs to the Behavioral Health floor. A man in scrubs behind the nurse’s station looks up as we enter, but down the hall, leaning against the wall like it’s the only thing keeping him upright, is my brother.
His wavy brown hair is wild like he’s been pulling at it, his oversized hoodie draped on his skinny frame, his hands shoved into the pockets of his baggy black jeans. When he sees us, his eyes fill with anguish. He inhales a ragged breath. I cross the distance and grab him in a tight hug.
He grips me and sucks in a sob.
“They saved her.”
I sigh into his chest. I get the meaning behind these simple words—that when he brought her in, she was dead, or close to it.
“Thank God.” It’s hard to let him go but I do.
Linnie dives in, wrapping her gangly arms around him and squeezing her eyes shut, like the effort is taking all of her concentration.
“Her parents are coming,” Jesse says when they part.
Dad jerks his chin toward the door. “Is there anything we can do for her?”
“The first twenty-four hours are the hardest,” Jesse says, swallowing hard.
Shit, this is bad. I release a shaky breath. “Does she want to quit?”
“After this, she won’t have a choice,” Jesse says, his tired eyes flicking in Linnie’s direction. His protectiveness of her taps my heartstrings.
Down the hall is a vending machine and some chairs clustered around a plastic table. I want to know how Jesse is mixed up in this—how deep—but I’m protective of Linnie, too.
Dad seems to read my mind and nods to Linnie. “Let’s grab a couple of sodas. Neve might be thirsty when she wakes up.”
Linnie gives him a scowl, like she knows this is a ploy to separate her from me and Jesse.
He beckons with his arm, his gaze thoughtful. “Come on.”
Reluctantly, she follows, letting Dad sling an arm across her shoulders.
With a sigh, Jesse slumps back into the wall. “She didn’t get it from me.”
I level him with a look. “On the phone?—”
“We were at a party. Some girl on the ranch Neve knows. They were passing out candy. Neve wanted to try it.” He huffs a giant sigh.
From living with an addict, I’ve learned a lot, but candy is a one new to me.
“It’s like baby weed, okay?” he says, as if reading my mind.
“Except not, because why else would Neve be here? ”
With his gaze locked on the floor, he nods.
It’s not like rich kids partying at the ranch is anything new, yet an overdose is. Finn River Ranch is billed as an oasis in the crazy world of the wealthy or famous, a safe, peaceful place where members can recharge and enjoy the outdoors.
I glance at the little window in the door next to Jesse, but I can’t see anything inside. “So… this is a pattern?”
He sends me a wounded look. Right. He didn’t beg me to come so that I’d make him feel worse. “She’s done ketamine for depression. Sometimes, she takes pills.”
“Why do you think this is your fault?”
“Because I didn’t stop her.”
“Would it have been effective if you’d tried?”
He taps the back of his head against the wall.
“How long until Neve’s parents get here?”
“I don’t even know where they are. If it’s Belgium…”
“Have you slept?” I ask.
He scrubs his face with his hands. “I’m supposed to get on a plane in twelve hours.”
The door to Neve’s room opens, startling Jesse and me from our standoff. A man in blue scrubs exits. He tilts his head at Jesse, then me, like he’s not sure what to make of us, and then he notices Dad and Linnie walking toward us.
“Are you the family?” His ID card from around his neck says NURSE in black lettering below a picture and his name, Adam Rodriguez.
“Friends,” I say.
“I brought her in,” Jesse says. “Her parents are coming, but it might be a while.”
The nurse crosses his arms and widens his stance, and I feel a lecture coming.
“She stopped breathing for several minutes. We reversed the effects of the drug, but she’s on oxygen until she’s a little more stable.”
Jesse presses his knuckles against his lips, his eyes glassy and bloodshot .
Not breathing for several minutes is a long time. Neve could end up with long-term health complications.
“We have a lounge,” Adam says, nodding to a door on the right of the nurse’s station. “You can wait there.”
“Can we see her?” Jesse asks.
“She’s not awake.”
“I don’t care,” Jesse replies, his jaw tense.
Adam sizes all four of us up, no doubt making some sort of rapid assessment. “Keep it to two at a time, okay?”
I place my hand on Jesse’s arm, hoping the contact will keep him from going off the rails at this nurse who is just trying to do his job.
“We will,” I say.
Adam strides off, his sneakers squeaking on the linoleum.
“You go ahead,” Dad says to me and Jesse, nodding at Neve’s door.
I don’t really want to see Neve hooked up to machines.
“Can I?” Linnie asks.
Dad and I exchange a look, and I read his approval. “Okay. We’ll be in the lounge.”
Jesse opens the door for Linnie, and the two of them disappear inside, the door thumping shut behind them.
The waiting room smells of old coffee. The gray fabric chairs with their angular metal frames look like giant insects. There are crumbs on one of the tables, like someone ate a cookie. The idea is odd, given where we are.
“Is he using again?” Dad asks, crossing his arms.
“I don’t know,” I reply because the signs can be sneaky at first, and really, this is about Neve right now. I’ve never met her parents, but I’ve seen them at the ranch a few times. Her dad is a media mogul in several French-speaking countries and a few other places. Lithuania, maybe.
That Neve is using ketamine for depression management is gut-wrenching. Do her mental health issues have anything to do with her parents’ high-society lifestyle?
Dad follows me to the little coffee service alcove. “What about L.A.?”
“Not sure about that, either.” I search the drawers until I find one with coffee pods and load the Keurig machine with something called SUNRISE BLEND. My fingers shake as I slide a paper cup beneath the spout. “What do we do?”
Dad gently pulls me to him and wraps me in a soft hug. “I think we wait and see what he needs. What we can do to support Neve and her family.”
Unable to stop the hot tears pricking at my eyelids, I close my eyes and inhale Dad’s comforting scent. “Okay.”
A figure passes outside the room. It’s Sheriff Olson. Dad sees him, too. “I’ll get Jesse,” he says, and slips from my embrace.