Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
TEN YEARS AGO
Adam
I pull open the door from the garage to the basement, still buzzing from my date with Madeline, when I hear a voice yelling from upstairs, “What the hell is this?”
Recognizing the angry tenor of Jason’s dad, Phil, I close the door behind me as quietly as possible.
I’ve only heard Phil yell a handful of times in the years that I’ve known Jason, and it’s usually when Jason really screws up.
The last time I remember him sounding this angry, Jason sideswiped a parking column and left a huge dent down the side of Phil’s BMW that cost thousands of dollars to fix.
“Jason!” Phil roars. “Get in here right now.”
I hover by the stairs with a mix of alarm over what my best friend did to inspire this kind of reaction, desire to be there to support him, and apprehension about being detected and pissing off Jason’s dad even further.
“Is this yours?” Jason’s mom Colleen’s voice drifts in now. “I found it in your pocket when I was doing your laundry.”
I blink, my mind running through all the contraband items that might have been in Jason’s pocket.
Condoms? He’s been hanging out with Liza Blum again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were doing it.
But Jason’s mom is a doctor, and I always got the feeling she’s not an idiot when it comes to teenagers and sex.
She’s more likely to be glad he’s using protection than mad about it.
I hear the crinkle of a plastic bag. Shit, did they find his weed? But then Phil’s angry voice carries down the stairs again. “Is this cocaine? Are you using cocaine ?”
Shaken, I grab the railing and sit down on the bottom step.
This past weekend when Jason and a few other guys from the swim team had disappeared at the party at Tom Burke’s house, I suspected they weren’t just smoking weed.
But I thought it was an occasional thing he did at parties.
I can’t believe he’d bring it home with him or carelessly leave it in a pocket.
“Uhhh…” Jason mumbles. “Well…”
“Have you lost your damn mind?” Phil bellows. “What is the matter with you?”
“This is highly addictive,” Colleen cuts in. “Not to mention a gateway drug to even more powerful substances.”
“It was just once at a party,” Jason says, his voice subdued.
“It’s never once at a party. I treat patients all the time who believed that, and now they’re battling addiction, their lives ruined.”
“That’s not going to happen to me.”
“ Damn right it’s not ,” Phil roars. “Do you know what could have happened if you got caught with this? You could be arrested, and there goes your future. Princeton isn’t going to take a kid with a criminal record. Have you thought about that?”
Jason remains silent, and I’m sure he’s shrugging.
I wish I could be there to support him, and maybe give him a punch in the face, too.
His parents are right, he is putting his future at risk, all for a good time at a party.
It’s not the first time he’s taken this life his parents have given him—nice house, nice car, college fund—for granted.
But it’s the first time he’s really put it in danger.
“I’m going to flush this down the toilet,” Colleen says. “Is there any more?”
“No.”
It takes me a moment to realize the thumping I’m hearing is Phil’s footsteps on the stairs directly above me, from the main floor up to the second-story bedrooms. Another set of footsteps follows, along with the sound of Jason’s voice yelling, “Stop!” Less than thirty seconds later, the house vibrates with a series of violent bangs and crashes.
My eyes widen, and I sprint up one set of stairs and then the other, skidding to a stop in the doorway of Jason’s bedroom.
Heart pounding, I heave out a breath of relief that the noises I heard weren’t Jason and his dad in a physical altercation.
Instead, Phil is yanking the drawers out of Jason’s bureau and flinging them on the floor.
Jeans, T-shirts, and baseball uniforms scatter along with balled socks, a handful of condoms, a white envelope, and a bunch of other junk.
Phil grabs the envelope and flips it over.
A stack of photos floats to the floor. Next, he reaches for a small, zippered pouch and spills out a toothbrush, comb, and toothpaste.
“What are you doing?” Jason bends over to gather the photos, and as he shuffles them together, I spot a picture of me and him with Madeline along with a handful of other images, mostly of Madeline, before he shoves them into a book.
“You’re not going to find anything else in here.
” He picks up the condoms and stuffs them in his back pocket.
Phil continues to flip drawers and toss things from Jason’s closet before he’s finally satisfied that there are no drugs anywhere.
He stands in the center of the room, breathing hard.
“I’m of half a mind to ground you until you graduate.
You want to ruin your life and risk going to prison, I’ll show you what that looks like. ”
“What?” Jason says, his voice tinged with panic. “You can’t do that. I have baseball this spring. I’m a varsity starter.”
“You should have thought of that before you brought drugs into my house.”
Jason gapes at him. “If you ground me, I’ll miss out on all the parties and prom and everything. It’s senior year… You can’t make me stay home.”
“I can if you want access to your college fund. This is utterly unacceptable. You’re putting your entire future on the line.”
“It was only one time.” Jason spots me in the doorway and looks at me with pleading eyes.
I’m so pissed at him, I can’t believe he put himself in this situation, and a little part of me hopes his parents do ground him until the end of the year.
Maybe then he’d appreciate what he has. But Jason is my best friend, and I can’t let him miss out on all the fun of senior year.
Besides, he’s just enough of an idiot to sneak out and risk his parents paying for Princeton, too.
“They’re mine,” I blurt out before I can stop to think.
Jason and his dad turn to stare at me.
“What?” his dad stutters.
“The drugs, they’re mine. A guy gave them to me at a party.” I hang my head, hoping to look convincing. “I was feeling really down about my dad, and he said they’d cheer me up. But Jason saw him, and he took the bag from me before I could use it.”
Jason’s mouth drops open.
“Is that true?” His dad whirls around, and Jason quickly snaps his mouth shut.
“Uh. Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you tell us that in the first place?”
Jason’s face twists nervously. “Well…”
“I bet he was worried you’d kick me out of the house, and then I’d have no place else to go,” I cut in. “Right?”
Jason nods, half-dazed. “That’s right. You can’t kick Adam out. Please?”
Phil is silent, sizing me up, and I shift my weight.
Finally, he sighs. “Look, Adam. I know you’re not planning to go to college.
And maybe they don’t mind if you do this sort of thing working at the autobody shop.
I know your dad had a problem. But you can’t be bringing drugs like this into our home or risking Jason’s chances to go to Princeton. ”
I can’t help but wince at the implication that I don’t have a future to ruin, not like Jason does. But I just nod along. “Yes, sir.”
“We’re not going to kick you out, but is there anything else you’re hiding?”
From behind his dad, Jason shakes his head vigorously, and I follow suit. “No, sir.”
“Okay. I’m going to choose to believe you this time because I know you’ve had a hard time of it. But it had better not happen again.”
“It won’t.”
He nods. “You boys clean this up and head off to do your homework.”
Jason and I fling his clothes and junk back in his drawers, and then we go downstairs to the basement under the pretense of working on our biology assignments.
I immediately head to my dresser, where I’ve hidden the weed Jason likes to leave lying around.
In the bathroom, I dump it in the toilet and flush.
“That was amazing. I can’t believe you took the fall for me.” Jason stands in the bathroom doorway looking positively giddy. “Damn, that was a close call.”
I bend forward, pressing my hands to my knees as the adrenaline kicks in. That could have gone in any direction. What if they’d kicked me out? What would I have done ?
“Don’t ever bring this shit into the house again,” I hiss, waving the empty plastic bag and stuffing it into the garbage can. “If they find it, they really are going to make me leave.”
“You’re fine.” Jason gives me a shove on the shoulder as I push past him out of the bathroom. “You’re making tons of money now. You could afford an apartment. In fact, maybe you should get one so we can hang out there and do whatever we want.”
I give him a death stare. The money I’m saving from working at the delivery job is to rent an apartment in whatever town Madeline decides to go to college in, not have a place for Jason to party.
But the reminder of all that cash has my stomach churning again.
What if Jason’s parents had searched my things and found it in my underwear drawer? How would I explain it?
I take a deep breath in and remember that just because it’s a wild amount of money to me doesn’t mean I didn’t earn it or don’t deserve it. This whole thing with cocaine in Jason’s pocket is just making me paranoid. Still, maybe I ought to find a place to hide that cash better.
Jason holds up his hands. “Look, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise.” He throws an arm around me. “It means a lot that you stepped in and did that for me. I didn’t deserve it.”
“You’re my best friend. I couldn’t let you get grounded until the end of time.” My elbow jabs into his ribs. “It would have ruined my senior year, too,” I joke to mask the fact that inside, I’m still shaking.
An hour later, Jason heads upstairs to shower, and I yank open my drawers, digging around to make sure there are no more bags of Jason’s weed stuffed in any corners.
I find the pile of cash I’ve been saving in a shoe box, fold it into a tight wad, and roll it up in a ball of socks.
When that’s done, I expect to feel relief, but for some reason, my hands are still shaking.
Normally, I’d call Madeline to talk it over, and by the time we hung up, I’d feel better .
But this time, I can’t tell Madeline about any of this.
Jason might not want her to know about the cocaine, and it’s not my secret to tell.
But as I settle on the couch and flip on the TV, hoping that will distract me, I realize that it’s more than just keeping Jason’s secret that’s holding me back.
I’ve been purposely vague about my employment situation, and Madeline doesn’t know about the delivery job I’ve been doing on the side.
I didn’t tell anyone at first, just to try it out, like Jason suggested.
But then that insane amount of cash started piling up in my sock drawer, and I just keep it to myself. I’ll only do it for a few more months.
Just until graduation when we can leave town and start our new lives.