Deeper We Fall (7 page)

Chapter Seven

Zan

I popped in another piece of the cinnamon gum that Miss Carole had given me to help replace my more destructive coping mechanisms as I walked back from breakfast the next morning. It didn’t really work, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to give it a shot. She hadn’t given up on me yet, despite my efforts to make her.

Running had also joined the gum in my repertoire of destruction-avoidance. I’d done it when I was younger, but the accident had dampened my passions until Miss Carole had suggested it. The thing I liked about running was that it gave me the same masochistic thrill as anything else, but it was more socially acceptable, and even encouraged.

I’d gotten a few texts from Tate, one of the only friends I’d had at Foster Ulham Academy (or, as Zack called it, Fuck Up Academy), but I hadn’t returned them. I knew what he wanted, and I was not letting him come up and hang with me. Hanging with Tate meant some combination of drugs, alcohol and mayhem, not necessarily in that order. He was a good guy, he just went too hard and too fast sometimes.

“Life’s a bitch, then you die,” he’d say. “So fuck it all and do whatever you want.”

“That doesn’t rhyme,” I’d say.

He’d take a drag from whatever he was smoking at the time and blow it out. “Who cares?”

It was a pretty grim worldview, but Tate had a lot of reasons for a grim worldview. Being abandoned by your parents and then being in a series of bad foster homes could do that to you. Not to mention all the stuff he wouldn’t tell me about. I knew there was plenty of that, too.

I really shouldn’t feel so shitty about my life. I shouldn’t bitch all the time, even if it was just to myself. Miss Carole was always trying to get me out of that habit. She could be a bit too sunshine and rainbows sometimes, but for some reason, it had worked to bring me out of my darkest place.

The time I’d gone stoned out of my mind to one of her sessions and she’d screamed at me for fifteen minutes straight had also helped. Because I knew she actually gave a fuck. No one had for a while, not even Mom or Steve, and it was just the slap in the face I needed.

I’d told her the truth that day, the first person I’d ever actually told. It was like ripping the words out of my throat to get them out, but I did. She listened, not making a sound, and somehow that made it easier. When she put her hand on my shoulder, it was like she was holding me up, because she was.

I glanced up at the sun, that lazy globe in the sky. Tomorrow I started my first classes. I hadn’t picked a major, despite Miss Carole helping me make list after list of what I was interested in. The truth was that I didn’t have any interests that could easily translate to an actual career.

Listening to old records, reading and running until I fell over weren’t career paths. She’d suggested working in a music shop, a bookstore and an athletic shoe company as possible places I could try until I decided.

The sun glinted on the hood of a car, making me shade my eyes, and then I saw her walking toward me.

Lost in thought, she didn’t see me until we had almost met on the sidewalk. I realized we were almost to the dorms. Her mouth opened just a little in shock before she snapped it shut and jutted her chin out, looking over my shoulder instead of at me.

I couldn’t stop looking at her. Once again, she was the eclipse, drawing me in. It sounds intense and it is, being drawn to look at someone like that.

Her chin trembled as she marched, trying to get past me. A part of me wanted to say “fuck it”, grab her arm and make her listen to me. To force the truth down her throat until she swallowed it. I wished that part was dominant. More dominant than the part of me that was scared out of my mind of what would happen if I did touch her, did tell her.

So I let her stomp by. Let my eyes follow her body, even though I had to crane my head to look backward. The wind caught her ponytail and it streamed out behind her.

I stood, until she turned a corner and I couldn’t see her anymore, and I was finally able to breathe. Yes, Zack had said I was whipped, but it was more than that. Charlotte didn’t just shake my world. She created an earthquake that had irrevocably changed the landscape of my life.

I changed out of my jeans into some grey workout pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt. I was going to boil, but it saved me from getting weird looks.  Then I put on my running shoes, and set my iPod to  shuffle, wondering what it was going to give me.

‘Circle Game’ by Joni Mitchell came on and I smiled. Perfect song. Her thin, haunting voice was just what I needed, singing about the carousel we all ride on, and how it goes up and down. Can’t go back, just forward. I burst from the dorm and took off, looking for the first trail into the woods I could find.

I didn’t have to go too far before I could veer off the straight dark pavement and onto the uneven ground of a trail. The trees swallowed me up as Joni’s voice devoured my ears, blocking out everything except the pounding of my feet, the sound of my breath and the beat of my heart.

I stopped chanting her name in my head and thought just about moving my body forward, keeping it going.

It started to rain, but I kept going. Rain never bothered me. My hair streamed in front of my eyes, but I pushed it away and ran harder, my feet splashing against the increasingly wet ground. Lungs screaming, heart racing, I kept going.

From Joni to The Lumineers to Matchbox 20 to Ella Fitzgerald to Crowded House to Imagine Dragons.

Words and notes and songs, all played with the background of my heart. I welcomed the pain of my lungs, of my legs, of my body. It meant that I could still feel something, it meant I was still human, still living.

The ground was slick with rain, so my footing wasn’t as sure as it normally was, and I went down hard. I rolled over onto my back and watched the rain fall, letting it slap my face and run into my mouth and down my cheeks. Putting my arms out, I begged for the rain to somehow wash me away. Wash the last two years away. Wash away the memories and all the shit that happened until I was back to the way I’d been.

Closing my eyes, I wished for something that couldn’t happen.

After a moment or an hour, I sat up. My lungs were almost back to normal, but my muscles were burning and twitching. Good.

I had to go back to my room, but all I wanted to do was keep running until the woods ran out. I wondered where that would take me. If I could drive, I would have been long gone. I would have taken Zack’s truck, drained my measly bank account, taken a box of records, the player, my grandfather’s lighter and his favorite hat and hit the road. Never looking back. Putting as many miles as I could between me and Seaport.

After the accident, I could never bring myself to get my driver’s license. I would have had to go through driver’s ed, and that was sort of impossible while I was at Carter, since I didn’t have a lot of free time for something like that. Whenever I thought about getting behind the wheel, my blood crystalized into ice and I couldn’t swallow. Zack made fun of me and said I was a fucking pussy, but that didn’t change the fact that even thinking about driving scared the shit out of me more than anything else. Almost anything else.

I wiped the rain from my eyes. I was absolutely covered in mud. I should go back to the dorm, shower and figure out what the hell I was going to do to get through the next few months of my life, but I got up and kept running down the trail. I wanted to see where it ended up.

Lottie

Twice in twenty-four hours. I should have been holding onto myself, rocking in a corner or something. I was far from okay, but having my brother and Simon around was like holding onto two helium balloons that wouldn’t let me descend into the depths of despair.

It was an effort not to punch him as he walked past me that morning. I wanted to punch the stare right off of his face, even if I’d need a step stool to do it. I imagined doing exactly that, but by the time I’d decided to do it, he’d walked past me and I wasn’t going to say his vile name out loud.

I didn’t tell Will or Simon about seeing Zan the second time. They were already riled up as it was, and I didn’t want them doing anything stupid. So I shoved it aside, put on a happy face like I’d done so many times before and went about my day, trying to get acclimated to a place that felt like it was a foreign country.

There were voices coming from my room when I got back with my textbook burden. One female and one male. I opened my door to find Zack and Katie canoodling on her bed, whispering sweet nothings and groping.

“Oh, hey,” I said, so they would notice me. Both of them looked so wrapped up in each other that I was pretty sure I could have tossed a grenade at them and they wouldn’t have pulled apart.

“Hey, Lottie.”

“Hey, Hottie Lottie,” Zack said, winding some of Katie’s hair around his finger and giving me a smug look. She looked both uncomfortable and pissed that he’d called me that. “How’s Sexy Lexie doing?” Oh no. He was not going there. I bottled the rage that threatened to spew from my mouth and instead settled for a sweet smile.

“She’s doing great. So, I ran into your brother. What’s he doing here?” The momentary flustered look that passed over his face was only mildly satisfying.

“He skipped a year.” Katie looked mortified, but I couldn’t stop.

“Was that before or after he was in the state youth facility? I mean, I’m sure they had wonderful educational programs, but it seems kind of odd that he would both be able to skip a grade and then get accepted here, you know, seeing as how he has a criminal record.”

“After.” His eyes narrowed and I caught a glimpse of the guy who’d stood behind me and tried to get me into that truck so many years ago. “Hey, babe, I’m really sorry about last night, but it was a guy thing, you know?”

It took a second for Katie to answer. She’d been busy following our verbal ping pong battle.

“Sure. I understand.”

“So I was thinking I should take you out tonight to make up for it. This guy I met last night is having a party. You want to go?”

“I guess,” she said as he kissed her cheek. She didn’t give him a gooey smile, but she still took his hand and let herself be led away.

“See you later,” she said.

“Bye, Hottie.” Zack gave me a little finger wave and I wanted to grab them and snap them off one by one, but I just waved back and smiled. After the door closed, I collapsed on the bed. This was going to be a long fucking semester.

Chapter Eight

Lottie

When my eyes cracked themselves open the next morning, and I saw the stained ceiling tiles above me, I had a panic attack and thought I had been kidnapped. It only lasted for half a second, but it was enough to really wake me up. I turned my head to the side and saw Katie, sprawled out in her pink nest, her mouth open and one foot sticking out of the blanket.

Attractive, that was.

I craned my neck to look at my clock. It was only seven thirty. I didn’t have to be up, so I was mentally kicking myself for deciding to be awake so early. I got myself up and ready, trying to be quiet so I didn’t wake Katie.

It was a strange situation, suddenly being thrown into a forced-intimate situation with a complete stranger. Granted, I could have done the social media stalking, but it was a little too late now. God, what if I had found out about her and Zack this summer? That would have put a damper on my beach days.

When I came back from the bathroom, Katie was awake.

“Hey,” I said. I wasn’t a real ‘good morning’ kind of person.

“Good morning,” she said with a wide yawn.

“I’m, um, going to breakfast with my brother and Simon. Do you want to come?” I didn’t think she did, but it would have been an asshole move not to ask.

“No, I’m meeting the girls for brunch later.” I assumed they were probably the same girls I’d met before. I still hadn’t figured out which one was which.

“Okay, well. See you later.” Awkward moment.

“Yeah.” I shut the door headed for the stairs down to the second floor.

I banged on Will and Simon’s door, knowing at least Simon would be awake.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he said, looking as if he’d already had twelve cups of coffee and maybe some uppers.

“Hey,” I said, walking in and noticing Will was still sacked out, sprawled all over his bed. I took a little running jump and pounced on him.

“Wake up!”

“What the fuck?!” He blinked several times before he realized it was me. “Damn, Lottie, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Why the hell are you so perky?”

“I took my Valium this morning.”

He rubbed his face and grabbed for a shirt.

“Seriously, why is everyone awake?” he said, glancing at the clock.

“Because normal people are up at this time.”

“I don’t want to be normal.”

“Well, congratulations, you’re not.” I mussed his already-mussed hair even more before I went to sit on Simon’s bed. I didn’t want to antagonize Will too much before he’d had his daily dose of coffee from the illegal coffee pot they kept hidden in the closet and would only bring out when they used it.

“I have some English Breakfast if you want it,” Simon said, handing Will his cup.

“Not feeling that today. I’m in a Green mood. Thanks anyway.”

“Sure.”

Will took his sweet time getting ready, so Simon and I sat and played the picnic game. It was stupid, but we always ended up laughing.

“I’m bringing apples,” I said.

“I’m bringing apples and blueberries,” Simon said.

“I’m bringing apples and blueberries and cocaine.”

“I’m bringing apples and blueberries and cocaine and drama.”

We continued like that until one of us messed up. It was usually me. Will was finally ready, so we headed downstairs.

Of course the first person I saw when I walked in the cafeteria was Zan. He was sitting by himself reading, of all things, and drinking coffee. I fought the urge to turn my head so I could read the title on the spine.