Chapter Twenty-one #2
“I’m sorry, Sasha.” Her gaze turned sad, brows dipping together in remorse. “But… why couldn’t you help me?”
I shook my head softly, trying to understand her. “W–… what?”
The light above flickered once more. “You could have saved me.” Her words turned hard, her eyes, harder. “Why couldn’t you save me? Why didn’t you save me, Sasha!”
“M-mom…” I stuttered. Her hair shimmered for a moment, flickering under the light before dulling.
Her eyes, once so full of life, dimmed, deep and sunken.
I stumbled back at her spitting tone, a wave of shock pushing me away.
Except, there was nowhere to move back against as my feet fell into the air, and the small room we were once standing in began tilting on its axis as I fell into a pitch-black abyss.
Mama followed me just to the edge, screaming, crying, so loud it was as if she was right by my ear. I was falling and falling and falling, but all I could think about was how long I’d have to hold my hands against my ears before her voice subsided.
And somewhere distant, a softer voice echoed into the darkness.
Sasha.
Again, it called my name.
She called my name.
It was the same voice as my mother’s before she turned… into–
“You took my son, Sasha.”
My heart thudded against my chest so hard that I almost wanted to cut in between my ribs just to let it out. “I… Please.”
I choked out a sob as fear overtook me. “Please stop.”
Please stop.
I wanted out. I wanted to go back. This can’t be real.
“Is that what he said? Were those his last words? Did he beg as you did now?”
Morning came with a jolt to my muscles as I rose back to the land of the living.
I woke with a pounding heart and trembling limbs that seemed to be on edge, ready to catch me if I fell over.
I looked up at the familiar ceiling and let out a rush of air that felt lodged in my lungs.
Blinking away the bleariness, I lifted my head for something to focus on.
Upon setting my eyes on the lump hidden under the blankets, the recollection of last night came back to fill me in, and the heavy weight against my gut along with it.
Though, I wouldn’t lie and say I would rather face my mind again.
I didn’t know what time it was, but I was sure we missed the first half of our first period from how high in the sky the sun was.
I felt my sore muscles pull taut as I stood and tried my best to stretch the ache away from the uncomfortable sleep.
An unconstrained groan pushed out from between my lips before I turned my attention to Paris, still asleep.
I sighed, hesitantly pausing before I nudged Paris awake.
I didn’t know what I would be faced with, but there was only one way of figuring that out. “Paris.” No sounds came.
I tried not to panic as my hand pressed against the duvet, feeling the rise and fall of her chest as relief filled me.
This time, after nudging slightly harder, she merely let out a gruff sound. “Paris, you have to get up and eat something.”
The Dining Hall should be open now, and I wondered if I could run out and grab her a quick meal instead.
Finding it best, it was exactly what I chose to do, slipping out of her dorm with silent, furtive steps and returning in the same manner with a plate of salmon toast and a large cup of water. I found it odd, the secrecy I felt I had to move under, despite the vacant Quarter.
However, I’d been missing more and more of Mr Browne’s classes, albeit unintentionally, and I felt that one of these days he’d come searching for me.
Despite this, I was grateful for the reasonable absence. I didn’t want to look at Mr Browne and force any sort of normalcy I wasn’t up to feeling or portraying.
“Paris,” I called as I entered back into her unlocked dorm–a struggle with my hands full. I found her sitting up and looking around, as if lost. Her duvet pooled around her waist as she squinted at the light washing away last night’s bad trip through the curtain-free windows.
“Here.” I placed the plate and cup on her nightstand. “Eat this lest you get sick.”
Her eyes didn’t gain clarity, even when they shifted to gaze at me, a foggy sheen behind the glassy screen. She was too lost in the white void of her mind and the static scratching in her ears.
My jaw clenched as I forced the words out, a bit louder, “I’m going to call a meeting tonight. To give an update on Callum Queen. Besides that…”
Swiftly, before she could object, I walked to where she placed the small white bag and found it nestled between two papers, likely class notes, in the first drawer of her nightstand, “I’m taking this.
” I lifted it up to her eye level and watched as the fog slowly cleared with every slow blink she took. “Anything else you have?”
She didn't speak for a long time, until my arm began to ache from how long I’d been holding it up, and then finally, “What–… Sasha, what are you talking about?”
I let out a strained sigh at her raspy words, shaking my head and trying to push down the frustration. “Where is the rest of it, Paris? I’m not an idiot, so don’t lie. I know how this works.”
I shoved the bag in my trouser pocket, well aware of the risks involved in carrying it, yet I remained careless, what with the protection Thaddeus promised.
I was sure it didn’t cover a situation such as this one, but I let myself be comforted by the thought, nonetheless.
She groaned and ran her hands over her face, shoving her thumbs over her eyelids and smudging her eye makeup further. “I don’t know, Sasha. I don’t know.”
“Paris… Don't lie to me.”
“I–…” She went to speak before her eyes fell on the cup of water, and she didn’t wait before surging for it, downing it as if it were a shot of alcohol.
When she finished and wiped the drops of water slipping down her chin with the back of her hand, she tried again.
“Sasha… Okay. Okay, that has all happened.” She eyed the toast for barely a few moments before giving in and reaching for the plate as well, speaking again through mouthfuls, “You can’t tell anyone, Sasha. ”
I reared my head back at her words, wanting to claw my hair out. “Do you think that’s my next move? Paris, you were on drugs. You went to rehab and got better, and now you’re relapsing.”
She groaned. “God, I don’t need another lecture, I know, okay? I know.”
I didn't mean for my voice to raise, hell, I hadn’t even realized it had.
“No, you don’t know! You-you… I was–Paris, this ends now.
You hear me? You are done with all of this or I’m telling Jett.
” she recoiled at the name and fear washed over her eyes.
I didn’t want to do it, and even if this was merely a threat, I had to make it sound real.
“She’ll be more than happy to send you back to rehab, because you don’t just owe yourself your health. You owe it to the board.”
She pushed the plate away along with her blanket and stood to face me, despite her limbs threatening to fail her. “Okay, okay, okay, just-just don’t tell Rain, okay? I’ll stop, I’ll get better, I promise, just don’t tell anyone, please, Sasha.”
I was never going to buy her words, despite them being what I’d wanted to hear; they weren’t enough. “Give me everything else. All of it.”
She didn’t need me to elaborate as she nodded frantically and rushed to every hiding place she could find in her dorm, pulling out drinks and bags and pill bottles. I hadn’t realized, until then, how long ago she might have relapsed.
I should have known. I should have known since The Gallery when she couldn’t stop drinking that goddamn wine.
She handed it all forward, and yet I eyed the pile spread out on her bed in front of me skeptically. “This is all of it?”
Glumly and slightly shamefully, she nodded. “Yes. I swear.”
I nodded and began collecting it, trying to carry it all towards my dorm.
When I’d returned back to hers, I found her pacing, rushing to me when I entered and speaking faster than when she raised her hand and recited correct answers with such avidity.
“Sasha, listen, I know what I said and I promise I’ll stop, I promise, but just–I just need one more fix and then I’ll be done. I promise.”
“No.”
“Sasha–”
“I said no, Paris.” My words were clipped and sounded with finality, but she persisted.
“You don’t understand, i-if my father finds out, he’ll send me back to rehab or-or-or try to force me back into going on those god-awful suitor dates.
He’ll force me into marrying someone for his benefit, and I–” Her voice cracked as she choked over her words.
“Rain will write to him. I know she will, she did the same thing with Wolf.”
I took in the information she dumped upon me and tried pulling it apart, biting into it, word by word.
“Paris, one more fix isn’t going to help the situation with your father.
If you need help, you know the Founder’s Society will provide it–I will provide it in any way that I can.
This is just a temporary fix to a problem you’re too distorted to find a permanent solution to because you’ve got these drugs meddling with your system. ”
She shook her head, her words coming out angry now.
“You don’t understand. Rain snitched on Wolf–did she tell you that?
She had him sent to rehab, and that’s why he won’t talk to her!
But he’s better now, he-he never needed all the doctors and the programs. And I don’t need them either.
I just–I’ll heal on my own. I can do it, I know I can, you just have to trust me. ”
She wasn’t listening to a word I said, and any other time with any other person, I would have taken advantage of her state and pulled more details from between her lips.
But I couldn’t bring myself to focus on the words coming out of her mouth, placing the pieces of Wolf and Rain’s estranged relationship aside.