CHAPTER FOUR
The Water Trio
LAKE
I hate being restrained and confined. I’m depleted and paranoid every time I end up admitted to a hospital. They shove brochures down my throat while holding out their hands for money. It doesn’t make me feel human. I haven’t felt real or alive for years. It’s worse when half the people I meet look at me with their noses scrunched and narrowed eyes, like I’m some sort of animal.
I know Brooks is here. I haven’t opened my eyes yet, but I can sense him. Brooks isn’t a bad person to have around. When he’s with me, I’m a little safer. He’s living his own life now, but he doesn’t go anywhere. He’s my best friend, and he considers me the same. I’m only half his blood, but he shows up for me every time I need him. Even though I keep disappointing him and he has no obligation to come see me, he does anyway.
Brooks moved away when we were still kids. I remember the day he left, because it marked the moment I recognized the different lives we would lead.
There’s a loud beep outside that repeats a few beats. I hear a door fly open to a car. A few minutes later, the phone is ringing. No one answers, but the noises don’t stop.
I roll away from the window to look at my sister. Her arm slinging around me. She looks up at the window. My sister, only two years older than me, but she’s been raising Brooks and me like we were her own. She purses her lips and blows out a gentle breath to get a strand of wavy brown hair out of her face.
“Brooks.” She nudges him with her foot.
I pull away from her arm and sit up. Dropping my gaze to my t-shirt, with tiny holes in the blue fabric and old splotches covering a faded logo. Our bedsheets are similar, old, ruined and stained. Just like my skin.
“Brooks, get up. Your dad is here.”
My nose is half scrunched. Everything around me smells like something unclean. I’m just as dirty. Our water was shut off weeks prior. I was too scared to clean off in the lake behind our trailer.
“I washed some of your shirts in the lake last night.” The calm tone in her voice pulls me out of my head. I meet my sister’s eyes. A gentle smile crosses her lips.
“You don’t need to worry about being filthy, Lake.”
She rolls off the mattress onto the floor, then springs to her feet. Her smile glows as her eyes glisten from the light shining in. She sticks out her hand and I instinctively clasp my hand with hers.
Brooks rises with a grunt. “I don’t want to go.”
River ruffs his hair with her empty palm. “Yes. You do.”
***
We meet Brooks’ father outside of our trailer. Each time I meet the man, he’s neater looking than before. He got messed up with my mother and she had his baby. So he took it upon himself to straighten up. He stopped the run-around game with her—quit letting her only hand over Brooks when it was convenient. He got a court order. She lost all custody.
His dad holds up brand new Spider-Man shoes, the ones that light up.
“Dad!” Brooks shouts, running to give his father a hug before examining his new shoes.
His stepmother comes up to him, ruffles his hair, and kisses his head. “We need to get your haircut, buddy.”
Her kind way of noting the matted clumps in his hair. She looks over at River and me, giving a sympathetic smile. Like my parents, Brooks’ father and his stepmother had little money. At the time, at least. But his family has love and different priorities. That’s the difference that cracks my hopeful smile. Brooks’ father and stepmother spent their money on shoes and haircuts, not alcohol, drugs, or gambling.
River nudges me closer. “Here’s his stuff,” she says to the adults.
Brooks takes his box from her hands. I filled it with all of our busted up toys the night before. I thought he’d need them more than I would. No. He deserved the toys more than me.
“Thank you, River.” Brooks’ dad gives her a side-hug.
He bows his head at me, but I stay still. Part of me is jealous. Brooks’ brand new sneakers are something I would never receive. I’d cry that my toes hurt in the ones I have on now. Be ignored, and cry some more.
I’m sure Brooks is thankful for his new shoes. He’s been stuck to this shithole for nine years, but once he pulls out of the trailer park, his gratitude will end. He won’t worry about the cost of things. Or what he needs to do to obtain them. The woman who kissed his head, a woman who didn’t even birth him, she’ll always buy him shoes before his toes ache. I’m eight. I shouldn’t worry so much about a pair of shoes, but I do.
“Alright buddy, time to go.”
Brooks tries to wave but almost drops the box. He twists himself around until he re-finds his balance. His stepmother takes the box from his hands. “Mama’s got it, baby. Say bye to your siblings.”
Brooks looks into the box as she takes it. His eyes widen. “I’ll see you guys at school. And, hey, we’re still all water. You’ll always be my sister, River. Lake, you’ll never not be my brother.”
For whatever reason, that remark makes me smile. So I reach forward and pull Brooks into a tight embrace. River leans between us, flashing her teeth and the gap between them. She tries to keep her tears at bay as she squeezes us together.
“Wait! One second!” Brooks pulls out of the hug and runs up to his stepmom. He reaches into the box and pulls out one of our Spider-Man action figures. A newish one his dad bought for his last birthday.
Then he runs over to me and forces open my palm, placing the action figure inside. Confused, I stare at his darkened eyes.
“Keep it,” he says. “I can’t play superheroes with you if you don’t have a superhero.”
***
“Lake.” I turn my head towards Brooks’ voice. He’s in the same uncomfortable chair. His hands are resting on his thighs. “Your doctor’s beat.”
I crack a smile. “Uh huh. Something happen?”
Brooks scoots his chair closer to my bed. He huffs every time he moves. I have no clue why he moves like that. He has a business degree, and he’s running his own company.
He’s jacked, and I hate him for being the better looking brother. But he’s always grunting and sighing like he’s in a loveless marriage with three kids. Not the young, successful, stupid guy he is.
“I asked to speak to him at the front desk.” Brooks gestures with his head and hands. “He stormed over, all grouchy and pissy. I let it go. He’s busy.”
Then he shifts his head. “I tried talking to him about… you.”
“About how long I gotta stay here?” I raise an eyebrow.
He goes quiet, giving me a non-innocent grin. I know about the promise he made. He can’t take the money he has shoved up his butt and fork it over to me. This mandate is a big hope for him.
It’d be nice if that hope would encourage him to go back to paying my medical bills, but what’s another twenty thousand when I’m already drowning in debt?
I suspect to feel nothing since I never do, but there’s a build in my stomach. It’s like something digging its own tiny grave. A pit. Filling it with nothing, because that’s what I have, nothing. Less than nothing.
Brooks can read the change in my face. I wait for him to give me a lecture. The clamping of his hands while he runs his tongue along his jaw. The strain. He wants to spit words into the air and let them hang. As he always does. Hoping his words will smack me into reality and give me what I need to fill up that pit and start fresh.
But that never comes. Not this time. He drops it. “Anyway, he seemed—” Brooks pauses, squints one eye and ponders. “Annoyed? Almost grossed out to be talking about your situation. As if half this floor isn’t crowded with heroin add- users.”
Brooks avoids the word addict. That word pisses me off. Especially when I can’t fuel my habits.
“Yeah. He told me he doesn’t like people like me.”
Silence. His neck creaks like he’s the star of a horror film. One of those creepy doll ones. With googly eyes. “He said what?”
I shrug. “You heard me. He cuffed me for no damn reason, too.”
The old hands are free now. Fletcher told the nurses if I was no longer aggressive, I could be set free. Funny, because the nurses were quick to free my wrists right after. Seems Dr. Faded-Flicker is the only one with a problem.
Brooks didn’t trust me when I told him I didn’t do shit to get cuffed. There’s a gleam in his eye now as he bites the inside of his cheek. “I’m starting to believe that.”
The story of how I got cuffed is one I wish I had a witness to. One that wasn’t afraid to defend me over Fletcher.
I wake up to the sound of my bed screeching around a corner. The bright hospital lights are stopping my sleepy eyes from opening. There’s a woman that follows the movement, yelling about terrible service. Her hand slams onto a solid object, coinciding with a distant man’s scream. When I manage to open my eyes, I’m surrounded by unfamiliar people. I sit up, panicked. I couldn’t recall where I was.
One woman around me jumps as I rise. She pushes me back onto the bed.
“Where am I?” I ask her.
She raises her lips towards her flared nostrils and turns from me. I sit up again and tug away at the blue-fleece blanket.
My voice gets louder. “What’s happening?”
“Don’t worry, Lake, we’re moving you upstairs,” another woman chirps, and she gives me a gentle smile. “You need to lie back down. Okay?”
All I want is for someone to explain what’s happening. I can’t remember what happened and I don’t know what going upstairs means. I push at the one nurse who ignored me and try to get up. A heavy hand braces my shoulder and shoves me. The man yells to get cuffs. I cup my hands onto the fabric of his white coat and push him back to the wall next to us.
White coat, I realize. I throw up my hands and relax on the bed. I’m in the hospital. I overdosed. The nurses here are nice. Nobody is trying to hurt me, and the woman that saved my life is having me moved upstairs.
“You stupid junkie.” The man, Fletcher clenches his jaw. He springs up from the wall and forces me back down. I’m struggling to not knock out his fucking teeth for the insult, but I’d prefer to not reach the edge of his rough side.
“Sorry.” That’s all I manage.
He makes a disgusting face and digs his hands at me like I’m still a danger. One nurse returns with cuffs. Her shoulders rise right to her ears and her elbows dig into her waist.
Fletcher yells, “cuff him!”
“No, I’m not—” I squirm. I don’t need to be cuffed. Dr. Fucker shoots me a look. He’s treating me like I have rabies. As if I’m about to murder him and everyone else in the hospital.
“Angel?” I look around me as the metal cuffs clasp against the raised bars on my bed. I sway, attempting to free myself from Dr. Fletcher’s grasp. “Angel?” I repeat.
She’d help me if she was here. She already has once. I’m sure she’d come running again, so if she’s not hearing me, she isn’t here.
“Let go. I was confused.”
He snickers. “Sure you were.”
He’s digging into my skin so harshly it feels bruised. I brush the nurses away as they try to cuff me, turning in my bed, kicking my legs and screaming out for Brooks and Angel. Fletcher is shouting again. I don’t pay attention.
I’m not an animal. I’m human. People like Dr. Failed-Condom abuse their position to take advantage of whatever they want. I knew he didn’t have any empathy for junkies when he came to tell my barely alive-self about my health. When he murmured under his breath that I was lucky to be alive because he was only saying it to say it. I know that still as he holds me down in the middle of an ER hallway, picking at my buttons until I do become aggressive.
I’m swatting at Fletcher when a sharp stab stings its way into my arm. Within moments, my hands are too weak to clench into fists. I fall back against my mattress. Fletcher grabs onto one of my wrists and cuffs it. The nurse does the other. The last thing I see is the smug smirk on his lips.
***
“It was weird.” Brooks runs a hand along his chin. “I told him Serenity has been a major help. I don’t know, maybe they have an employee of the month. Some sort of bonus. That girl deserves it.”
I shrug in agreement. Angel deserves a bonus. Even if she’s the most stubborn rom-com obsessed woman I’ve ever met. She’s been visiting me every chance she gets. Sometimes just to bicker with me on her breaks. I don’t understand why she’s made it her mission to stop by so damn often. For whatever reason, I don’t mind as much as I expected. She doesn’t pity me. She talks to me like I’m a normal person. Within a couple of days, her existence has become comfortable.
It’s a nice distraction from the bullshit going on. Honestly, I’m only being an ass because my chest and my brain aren’t on the same page. I don’t do relationships. I especially don’t get anywhere near rom-com loving balls of sunshine, but I can’t stop the subtle peace I feel when she walks into my room.
“He seemed even more uncomfortable that I mentioned her,” he continues. “I said I’m glad Lake’s made a friend, to be petty.”
I’m not surprised. Brooks loves to be petty.
“He asked if she’d been visiting you. Told him yes. Then he muttered some stuff about her and walked off.”
“Weird.” I don’t like how that festers in my stomach. Something’s wrong with Fletcher. I knew that before and I’m feeling it now. “What did he say?”
Brooks shrugs. “Didn’t catch it. I think he insulted her. Not sure about what.”
My stomach rolls again. This time with anger. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. She saved my life. She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Nobody, especially not some fucktard asshole, should be insulting her.
“Anyway, I think she’s stopping by later.” He grins. “Try not to be grumpy and mean.”
I roll my eyes. “Other way around, Brooksie.” I go with the conversation instead of letting my anger bubble.
He raises his hands in a fight stance. I mimic him. “Told you to stop calling me Brooksie.”
He throws an air punch. I raise my hands and block. I miss fighting Brooks. When we were kids, we’d roll around in the mud more often than we showered. One time I knocked his front tooth out. He smiled at me with blood trickling down his face, twigs and leaves poking out of his mud-coated hair.
At some point, we stopped playing around. I Remember it well. I ended up in a hospital for the first time. I was on the floor, and I couldn’t lift my head from the toilet.
Brooks and I settled fights by rolling up our sleeves and taking a swing. Even if our anger had jack shit to do with each other. We’d meet in the yard to blow off steam if someone broke his heart or if I was an inch away from slaughtering my parents.
That day in the hospital, I lifted my fists, shaking and weak. I told him to hit me. He shut his mouth, hands on his hips, and stared. For a long time.
Brooks told me he couldn’t. He’s been trying to solve my problems with words since. So when he raises his fists from a distance and gives me hope that one day he’ll actually clock me in the jaw again, a dose of warmth clouds me.
“Little baby Brooksie.” I throw my air fist. He reels his head to the side. Brutal hit.
“Notice how only me and Serenity have nicknames? It’s almost like you like us.” He drops his hand and uppercuts the air. I hit my head on my pillow. Another critical blow.
“Nope. Hate you. Angel gets a pass for reviving me.”
Brooks rolls his eyes. He drops his hands. “So, what are we gonna do?”
“About what?”
“About you having a time limit.” His lips pinch. Then he runs a hand across his jaw and lips, but I see the stupid glimmer in his eyes. “I have something, Lake. And if you want it, you need to get sober.”
Ah. So our pretend play-fight a second ago was to soften how pissed off I’m about to be.
He keeps attempting not to smile. “Boston Hope will wean you off. You can’t avoid that.”
“Yeah. I got that.”
My brother takes a solid minute to talk. “I have letters from River, and an inheritance she left for you.”
My stomach drops straight down and explodes. “What?”
“I got her will settled a while ago. I’m not allowed to give anything to you until you’re sober.”
She left me letters? Water creeps onto my waterline, but I keep that crap in.
I loved my sister so much. I haven’t forgiven myself for the last time I spoke to her. I never imagined it’d be the last time.
“Brooks.” I feel sick to my stomach. “Can’t you just let me see them now?”
And almost on cue, my stomach seethes and I cough. Brooks and I both reach for the bucket, but I grab it first. I cough some more and round my back, then the vomit comes. A nice cherry on top of my day. A reminder I’m so close to being dead, yet so far from being alive. All at the same time.
“I made River a promise. You know that. I promised her I’d stop giving you money and enabling your habits. She put that promise in her will. I haven’t figured out how to handle that yet. But one thing is certain.”
“What do you mean—” I hack more. The world sinks faster now than when I found out I ODed.
Letters. She left me letters, and I can’t have them.
“You can’t run from this anymore, Lake. Not if you want to hear her again.” Brooks stands next to me awkwardly as I vomit. Comfort isn’t his strong suit. Ain’t mine either. I’m glad he says nothing. His past words are enough to stir up my gut.
You can’t run from this anymore, Lake.