Chapter 21
NOEL
I guess I’ve never seen Luca so lost.
And maybe not so quiet, either.
On the way home, he’s dead silent. It’s just me staring through the windshield at the stoplights in the encroaching darkness to the tune of his old-ass music that I don’t mind and actually kinda like now, for all the shit that I give him.
I’ve even added a bunch of his favorite songs to some of my Spotify playlists—one of these days I’ll surprise him with them, but I haven’t gotten a chance to yet. I should curate one just for him.
I didn’t expect him to be so upset about Demi, and I guess I’m touched he’s offended on my behalf.
More than touched—it is nice to have him so staunchly in my corner, standing up for me when it matters.
Nice to have anyone there at all, ‘cause usually it’s just me, myself, and fucking I, and that’s only when I can stop despising myself long enough to stand up for myself at all. Even my friends have deserted me now.
It really never ends.
We get back to mine and he’s still quiet and withdrawn, even when we get in the shower together and clean up the post-coital mess we didn’t get to before.
I want to ask about what happened at the cemetery but I don’t know if I should.
He’ll volunteer it when he’s ready, whatever awful thing it was.
Though maybe the reality of his dad dying is awful enough. On top of everything else.
Luca isn’t hungry when I ask what he wants to do for dinner.
He isn’t enticed by all the shiny takeout menus I’ve got stashed away in the junk drawer in my kitchen.
“Maybe later,” he says. “I just want to veg out. Or maybe take a nap. I don’t know.
” He does look so tired, with hollows beneath his eyes that aren’t usually present.
I’ve memorized his face enough to know that.
“Nap if you need to,” I tell him. “I’ve got some work to catch up on, anyway.”
“That’s fine,” he says. “I’ll let you be.”
I wonder if it’s more that he wants to be let be. Which is fine, I guess.
He’s in my bed and I’m at my desk, illustrating a cross-section of a heart in grotesque detail while I listen to him snore.
It is a soft sound, not obtrusive at all, and it’s sort of comforting.
Him just being here feels good and I wish he wouldn’t go back to Revere, although I know he will.
He has to. That’s where his baby is gonna be. I’ll just have to deal with that.
But I am dealing.
I’ve never particularly liked being alone, though circumstances have dictated I am often on my own.
It’s just something I’ve just had to deal with, coping with the wild places my mind will go when not otherwise occupied.
It’s easier now, with the therapy and the meds, much as I hate to admit it.
Still, I’m tempted to just toss them all in the toilet some days.
Even if I’m better like this, there are things I miss about my old self, intolerable as he was.
The way things came so much more easily, words and creativity, and I didn’t feel like a dampened version of myself.
But maybe I should get into it. Maybe I should just get over all that.
Bid my old crazy self goodbye once and for all, and welcome this new one I’m still settling into like a weird skin suit, feeling it out.
But there’s a peculiar kind of grief that can’t be explained when you “get better,” just because it doesn’t feel like the real you.
You’re mourning that old self, that person who dragged themselves through fire and over broken glass and persevered anyway, fucked up as they were.
This knew me, though…he’s alright. He doesn’t hurt himself all the time, and he keeps his head on straight, usually, and he’s managed to tread water instead of just drowning. He’s sorted out this mess of a relationship without ripping himself apart.
He gets the job done.
I didn’t really like him very much, anyway, the old me. Oftentimes I utterly despised him. But it was still me. And it’s still hard to say goodbye to that person, even if he was a piece of shit who made life more difficult than necessary, who left scars both tangible and not.
I’ve got this tendency to cling onto these things. Holding onto what hurts me, fist clenched around a burning ember, the smell of my own skin scorching and still not letting go.
I wonder how I’m gonna deal when my own mother goes.
I don’t owe her a single thing, but I keep going back for some reason anyway.
Even though all it’s ever done is hurt me, I still keep this threadbare cord between us.
I don’t know how to turn my back on her and I don’t know what I’ll feel when she does pass away, which could be anytime, from an OD or carrying out one of her many suicidal threats at last, or running afoul of one piece of shit boyfriend or another. Things I cannot save her from.
I just want her to get better. It was a hope easily clung to as a kid, when she wasn’t as bad, but still never winning any mother-of-the-year awards.
Times when her desire to parent me cut through everything else, now and then.
Like when she attended my art show in fifth grade, to my surprise and pleasure, proud as anything when I won.
When she helped me with pre-algebra homework the rare moments she was sober, her mind shockingly quick with numbers.
Or bailing me out of baby jail with money I still didn’t know the origins of.
Things that meant so much to me in the absence of anything else.
But maybe she’s not my responsibility anymore. Maybe love in this case would really be just letting her go, and doing my own self a kindness for once. Maybe Luca isn’t the only one who needs to cut the cord.
It’s nearly 8 PM and my stomach’s growling.
I set down my tablet pen and stretch out my wrists, first the right and then the left.
I catch sight of myself in the large, standing mirror in the corner and suppose I’ve gained some weight.
It looks good on me, though. I’m filling out and not so gaunt and bony.
All my sharp angles are softening just a bit.
I started the summer looking and feeling like a zombie.
My phone’s blank of any interesting notifications but I pick it up and scroll anyway as I contemplate the contents of my fridge and whether I have anything worth warming up or if I should just order us a pizza.
Luca will be hungry eventually and I know the sort of gross crap he likes on his pizza, feta and artichokes and things.
It might cheer him up, if only a little.
And then I see a very interesting fucking picture indeed.
It’s a blurry selfie of Jamil on Instagram from roughly thirty minutes ago.
He’s clearly at a house party tonight, his red Solo cup hoisted high, but it’s not that fact that’s so remarkable.
It’s the fact that he’s standing side by side with Jordan, of all the goddamn people in this city, arms wound around each other’s shoulders like they’re the best of absolute friends.
Or more, maybe, because Jamil’s got his head all snuggled up against Jordan’s and they’re both wearing a sly smile.
Or maybe it’s just that they’re wasted, but Jordan’s a mean ass drunk.
He’s no Casanova when he’s had a few drinks, he’s a dickhead.
Honestly I’m fucking blindsided by this and my first instinct is to be hurt.
Traitorous piece of shit. I think the words mutinously, they almost escape my mouth, but I bite my lip and tongue both on them.
I cannot believe it, though. That he’s actually willingly spending time with my ex who I thought we all agreed was a toxic asshole.
The same ex who spiked my drink only weeks ago.
Not that they know that.
Which is when my anxiety spikes to record highs never before unseen.
He’s there with Jordan. Who can be, though I thought we all knew otherwise, charming and charismatic when he wants to be and maybe Jamil’s still vulnerable after his breakup.
And who maybe doesn’t have the greatest intentions toward him or anyone else at that party, for that matter.
And apparently just walks around with his mom’s narcolepsy medication—which also happens to be GHB, which, what the fuck—for fun like the apparent psychopath he is.
I immediately dial Jamil, but it just rings and rings. A second and third attempt are the same. And of course his voicemail’s full, not that I would bother to leave one, because if he’s not checking his phone then why would he check his voicemail?
Call me ASAP, I text him, but that’s not fast enough either. I don’t think he’s looking at his phone anymore. Too drunk, or…too late? Motherfucker. If something happens to him because I never spoke up—
I pause, take a deep breath and take a moment to assess.
Is it possible I’m overreacting? Just because Jordan tried it with me doesn’t mean he’s stupid enough to do it again.
I remember, vaguely, how scared he’d been of getting caught as I sift through my hazy memories of that night.
Surely he’s not that big of an idiot? It’s still not a chance I want to take anyway.
I’d rather show up and look like a loon than let something happen to my friend.
Plan B. I dial Danika instead as I slip out of my room, shutting the door quietly behind me so I don’t disturb Luca. And thank god she actually does answer, on the second ring, even, though she sounds irritable when she does. “Hello?”
“Are you at that party with Jamil?” I ask breathlessly.
“No, I’m at work. The dreaded clopening.” That is, closing tonight and opening tomorrow. I spare a sympathetic noise. “You caught me on break.”
“Okay, well—”
“Those kinds of house parties aren’t really my thing, anyway,” she goes on. “It’s usually a bunch of white boys getting wasted on like, Buzzballs and White Claws and making assholes of themselves.” She pauses. “How do you know about it?”