Chapter Eleven #3
“She told you something she was excited about!” Parker yells, his voice almost shrill.
“She wants to do tech! I bet she’s gonna be good at it!
So just say, ‘Wow, Paige, that’s so cool, hope you have fun doing tech!
’ Jesus fucking Christ. Does every single conversation have to be about how we’re not doing things up to your impossibly high standards? ”
The silence following Parker’s outburst is like a vacuum. Zach’s vision tunnels, his breath coming quick and hard. One of Bea’s small, cool hands suddenly slides against his own. Her thumb presses against his knuckles. He focuses on that, trying to ground himself again.
“Mrs. Reid, it was so—it was so nice of you to make us dinner,” Bea says, maybe a little too fast, her voice far too faint and small to fill the quiet.
Zach can barely hear it over the blood roaring in his own ears.
“It was so nice. But we have homework, right, Zach, Isaac? So, we should really be going. It was so nice of you—”
“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Reid says softly as she stands.
“No, it’s okay—Isaac, can you…?”
“Yeah.” Isaac and Bea stand, their chairs scraping on the floor. Zach is trapped. Glued to his seat, swallowed up by knowing too much and not being able to say anything. He should say something.
“Zach,” Isaac says, shaking his shoulder. “Come on.”
“I’ll take him,” Parker says, suddenly. “Bea lives in the other direction.”
“We’re neighbors,” Isaac reminds him.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Mr. Reid erupts, his voice loud and open, one finger pointing at Parker. His voice fills up the room, fills up Zach’s head, making his temples pulse.
“Paige, give me your keys,” Parker says, ignoring his father.
“Stop, shut up,” Paige says, scrubbing her hands across her face. “I’ll go, I’ll take him, let’s just—let’s go, please.”
Mrs. Reid follows them to the door, apologizing quietly to Zach, Isaac, and Bea.
She does not, Zach notes, apologize to her own children.
Zach feels like he might cry, his throat tight, his heart racing.
He’s so overwhelmed that he forgets to grab his backpack from Isaac’s car before getting into Paige’s.
It doesn’t make any sense for Parker and Paige to drive him home—they should take Bea, instead—but he doesn’t have the willpower to point it out.
The tension is a piano wire around Zach’s neck as he sits stiffly in the backseat, trying to remember one of the million breathing exercises that he’s learned over the years. Is it in for a count of seven, or out for a count of seven? Zach’s lungs hurt after a count of five.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Paige says to Parker as she pulls out of the driveway. She nearly clips a car parked on the street. “Why do you always have to antagonize him?”
Zach is sitting behind the driver’s side.
He can see Parker in profile as Paige recklessly whips the car around in the direction of Zach’s neighborhood.
Parker’s face looks almost gray now, all the blood drained from his cheeks.
Zach lurches from side-to-side, pressing his hands into his lap.
His head feels like it’s full of wasps, his stomach churning.
He could vomit. Or shit himself. Both are equally likely.
“He’s a piece of shit,” Parker says fiercely. Neither of the Reid twins seem to be aware of Zach’s wheezing in the back seat.
“Everything is always about you!” Paige rages, her voice filled with tears. “God, we can’t even have a nice dinner because of you! Every fight this family has is about you; why do you have to ruin everything?”
Zach is watching even though he doesn’t want to—he’s watching Parker look at Paige, the way his face is scrunching up, crumbling, like he’s dying to say something real. Zach squeezes his eyes shut, leaning forward, his head in his hands.
“They’re lying to you,” Parker says, finally, like he’s ripping open a wound.
“Oh, god,” Zach gasps. He can’t do this. He can’t be here for this. This should be private, between Parker and Paige—and probably their parents too.
“Is he okay back there?” Paige asks, as if only now remembering Zach. Her voice is confused and wobbly, like she’s about to cry.
Parker pushes forward, ignoring her question, ignoring the sound of Zach’s rattling breath behind him: “They’re fucking lying to you, and they’re making me lie too. I didn’t go to rehab. I took all my pills and tried to—”
Pause. Raspy, watery breath.
Zach squeezes his palms against his temples.
“I was in the fucking hospital and they told me not to tell you,” Parker goes on. “That’s why they won’t let me drive the car or go places, and that’s why they’re making you babysit me all the time. Because I tried to fucking kill myself and they want to pretend it didn’t happen.”
The car jerks to a stop so hard and fast that Zach’s seatbelt digs into his sternum.
“I’m going to throw up,” Zach whispers. His hands scrabble for his seatbelt, fingers shaking as he pushes open the car door.
They’re still in the Reids’ neighborhood, and Zach crouches to the ground in the middle of the nice, quiet, residential street.
He puts his head between his knees and breathes and breathes, and he’s going to die right here.
He’s going to die because he somehow got mixed up with Parker Reid and kept his secret, he was part of this, and Parker is probably going to try and kill himself again, except this time he’s going to take Zach with him and—
“Hey.”
Parker’s hands are surprisingly cool on Zach’s face.
Zach looks up and Parker is squatting on the ground in front of him, his own face darkened in a flush, his eyes rimmed red.
They’re wet. His one blue eye looks almost grey with the unshed sheen of tears.
Suddenly, Zach is all too aware that he’s causing even more problems. The Reid twins don’t need him to be like this on top of everything else tonight.
Parker’s face goes blurry, because now Zach is crying, which only compounds his shame and humiliation.
Parker drops his hands to Zach’s arms and squeezes with his cool palms, his long fingers. Zach looks down at them, those fingers, their chipped nail polish and bruises and bitten hangnails. There’s a persistent ding ding ding ding coming from Parker’s open car door.
“Are you gonna die on me?” Parker asks.
Zach stares at him, slightly hysterical. “Possibly,” he gasps.
Parker’s cheek pulls at the corner.
“Is he okay?” Paige calls from the car, her voice waterlogged. She sniffles loudly.
“Yeah!” Parker shouts over his shoulder. He stands and pulls Zach up by the hands. Zach’s legs are wobbly. He struggles to breathe evenly as Parker guides him back to the car. “Look, he’s fine. He’s totally fine.”
Zach is not fine, but he gets in the backseat.
Paige is crying on the driver’s side. It’s muffled from where she’s pressing her lips together hard.
The kind of crying that she’s clearly powerless to stop.
Parker gets back in the car. They just sit there for a while, Parker staring ahead and Paige crying and Zach mentally trying to decide if he’s having a heart attack.
“Hey, Zach,” Paige finally says. She turns around in her seat, looking at him. Her face is red and splotchy. “Can we come over?”
Zach stares. He sucks in a wobbly breath. “Yeah,” he replies.
Paige’s smile is crooked, not reaching her eyes. “Cool.”
She turns back around, throws the car into drive, and steps on the gas so hard that the car struggles and lurches before ripping down the quiet, luxurious street. They drive too fast as they leave the neighborhood, whipping by the beautiful, false houses that line the street.