Promiscuous (15 page)

“Margot, what did you do?”

Leaning over her, I start going through the pockets of her trench coat. Margot loves this coat, it looks just like the one Ingrid Bergman wore in
Casablanca
. She’s told me that a thousand times. She wouldn’t want to die in it.
Would she?

My right hand closes around a small, plastic bottle. Of course, they don’t sell the big bottles at the Mini Mart. That might end up being her only saving grace. I pull the bottle out and shake it. It doesn’t rattle.

Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I reach into my pocket for my cell phone, but it isn’t there. At that moment, it hits me that I left it in my backpack, and I left my backpack in detention with Grant.

“Margot, where’s your damn phone? Tell me you brought it with you!”

I keep going through her pockets, until I find a second bottle of aspirin. This one is only half-empty. How many pills is that? I’m trying to do the math, but my brain is being flash-frozen by panic. I’ve watched enough medical soaps to know that they’ll want to know, at the hospital. That’s always the first thing they ask, isn’t it? ‘What did she take?’ Then, ‘How many?’

There’s still no sign of Margot’s phone, so I shake her.

“Margot, where the fuck is your fucking phone?”

But Margot won't tell me, or she can't. My blood chills. I realize this isn’t like one of her silent treatment episodes. She's not doing this for attention, or for dramatic effect. She did this to escape. She doesn't want to be saved.

Frantically, I pull open her coat and start going through the inner pockets. I’m being rougher with her than I should, crying and yelling at the same time. “God damn it, Margot! Why couldn’t you have worn something with less pockets!?”

My fingers brush something hard and plastic, but it’s just another bottle. Herbal diet pills, this time. Carl called them vitamins. They’re all gone, too. Knowing Margot, she probably took those first, trying to build up to something more lethal.

When I’ve searched the last pocket and come up empty, I fall back on my heels in front of her. A sob of frustration and helplessness finally escapes my chest. I use it, trying to appeal to her soft heartedness, if I can’t move her with my anger.

“Margot, please. You can’t leave me here. I can’t make it without you.”

For the first time since she started the process of killing herself, Margot looks me in the eye. Her head droops forward, like she’s too tired to keep holding it up. Her lips bend upward in a sad smile.

“You’ll be fine, Tash,” she says. “You’re so strong.”

“Fuck you!” I spit back, through gritted teeth. “You’re all I’ve got! Damn it, Margot, I will
not
be fine!”

But then it dawns on me: I’m strong. I can pick her skinny ass up and carry her. I can save her.

Kneeling in front of her, I wrap my arms around her waist and pull. She tries to fight me, but the pills have already started to kick in. She’s too weak.

I lift her far too easily, but even then, carrying her is a struggle. I drag her to the car and clumsily push her into the back seat. I’m crying so hard now I can barely see, but somehow I manage to start the car.

“Don’t you die yet, Margot,” I yell at her, through gritted teeth, the entire way to the hospital. “Don’t you dare fucking die! Do you hear me? I will have them put the wrong name on your grave stone, I swear to God!”

When I get to the Emergency Room, it’s like everything starts moving in slow motion. I burst through the doors like some kind of psychopath, screaming for someone to help me. People are staring, but I don’t care. I grab the nearest person who looks like they work there and pull them toward my car. I’m babbling incoherently, sobbing. I keep trying to tell them what she took, and how many. But no one seems to care. They just shove me out of the way and take Margot. I watch her disappear behind a set of double doors, and someone tells me to sit in a chair and hands me a glass of water. I don’t drink it, though. I just sit there, staring at the floor, wondering if now is a good time to throw up.

Eventually, someone comes up to me and asks me if I’m the one who brought Margot in. My eyes snap to attention. “Is she dead?”

“Are you family?” The blonde girl in scrubs looks barely older than Margot and me, and yet she’s copping an attitude like she’s the Angel of Death herself.

I stand up, until I’m towering over her, even though my legs feel like they’re about to give out. I give her my best ‘do not fuck with me’ glare. “Is she dead?”

“No,” she says, her voice gentler this time. “But we need to contact her family, for paperwork. Can you give me her parents’ phone number?”

My mouth opens to tell her about Nana, but then I think of the look on her face. She doesn’t drive. She’ll be so scared. She could call a taxi, but then she’d show up here in her curlers and slippers, probably on the verge of a heart attack. She’s so old. What if it killed her? No, until I know for sure that Margot is going to be okay, I can’t let Nana know what happened. How it happened. It would break her fucking heart.

“I’m her family,” I say. “I’m eighteen. I’ll sign whatever you want.”

After that, the girl leaves me alone again. I sit in the waiting room for what seems like days. I stare at the linoleum until I start to see shapes. Then a pair of shoes stops in front of me. I look up.

“Grant?” My eyesight is still blurry from crying. I can already feel my eyelids starting to swell.

The man in the white coat smiles down at me. “No, I’m Dr. Blue. You must know my son.”

Suddenly, the niceness of Grant’s car makes sense. Also, his savior complex. All of it, he must have inherited those. His dad is a doctor. I was so stupid to think that he cared because of me. Because I was special. But no, caring just runs in the family.

I hate myself for thinking about Grant, even now, when my best friend could be dying in the next room. But teenagers are selfish assholes, after all. And I told you from the beginning, I’m a horrible person.

Dr. Blue turns out to be every bit as nice as Grant. He explains to me that Margot’s stomach is being pumped, but she’s going to be okay. At least physically—at least when it comes to the bottles of medicine she took. Then he starts talking about potential ‘long term’ side-effects. When I ask him what that means, he pauses.

“Are there any adults I can speak with, or are you Margot’s legal guardian?”

The word catches me off guard. It's almost like I can see it shooting out of his mouth in slow motion, jutting toward my chest like a CGI spear in one of those shitty made for 3D movies.
Guardian
. It thuds into my heart.

I'm stronger than her. Bigger. Taller. Tougher. I should have protected her from this.

“Her parents...” I clear my throat, covering the fault in my lie. “Our parents are out of the picture.”

I don't feel bad saying it, because it's true.

“I can call our Nana, but she's like, really old. I'm not sure if she could handle this right now. Not until we know for sure that Margot is going to be okay.”

That much is also true.

With a sigh, Dr. Blue sits down next to me. I'm surprised by the way he looks at me. It's like he's treating me as an adult. I sit a little bit straighter, wanting to earn his approval for some reason. I can't fathom why. His eyes are identical to Grant’s, though, and it is freaking me the fuck out.

He explains the rules about a mandatory psychiatric hold, which means the hospital has to keep her under observation until a psychiatrist can determine whether she’s still a danger to herself. Also, they have to notify child and family services, because Margot is still legally a minor.

“But her birthday is in two weeks.”

“Be that as it may,” he says, “she's still not legally an adult. Which means her health is a huge concern. She's in an advanced state of malnutrition. Now, I'm sure you do the best you can, but I don't know if the social services people will see it that way. They'll want to do an investigation into her home environment, see why it was able to progress this far.”

No
. That can’t happen. I think of Nana's pot supply. If they find it, they'll take Margot away for sure. She'll never survive in foster care. Hell, I only spent a week in it and I almost didn't.

“It's not the environment,” I tell him. “It's not Nana's fault. She doesn't know.”

I can't believe I'm doing this, even as I blurt out the words. It's her greatest secret. And it's not mine to tell.

“She does it to herself, because she thinks she's fat. She wears baggy clothes, so no one will notice. But she barely eats. And sometimes....” I stutter, knowing she'll never forgive me, if she finds out what I’ve done. “Sometimes, she throws up right after she eats.”

 Dr. Blue nods, like he already knew. And I guess he probably did, since he's a fucking doctor. But he probably needed me to say it. 

“Don’t worry, the psychiatrists will try to work with her on that. Anorexia is a disease, just like anything else. It takes work, but it can be cured. Worst case scenario, she might have to do a program. There’s an inpatient rehabilitation clinic in Gresham.”

That’s like, three hours away from here. “What, like AA?”

He does that pained Grant smile. “Sort of. That would be an extreme measure, though, and I’m hoping it won’t come to that. I can have her admitted here for a few days, and recommend some on-site counseling.” He pauses again, and I can tell he’s trying to find a more delicate way to put something. Just like Grant, when he’s trying to explain a math problem I don’t understand. “I’m guessing you don’t have health insurance?”

I shake my head.
What gave it away, my torn leggings or my graffiti-covered shoes?

“That’s okay,” he says. “I’ll work something out with the financial aid office. We do write-offs for things like this sometimes. I’ll try to make sure Margot’s case goes to the top of the pile.”

“Why?”

He raises his eyebrows at me, the same way his damn son does. “I'm not sure what you're asking.”

I open my mouth, wanting to ask all kinds of inappropriate questions. ‘Why are you helping her, when she means nothing to you?’ Or, ‘What's in it for you?’ Or, ‘Why is everyone in your family so goddamn nice?’ But I don't.

Instead, for quite possibly the first time in my life, I just say, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says. “You can go see her now if you’d like, for just a few minutes.”

Before she gets admitted to a psychiatric ward, he means.

I must look concerned about that, because he says, “Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds.”

Then he stands up and leads me down the hall.

When I see Margot, I can't help but gasp. She's skinny, so tiny underneath those sheets.

“Hey, it’s about time,” Margot rasps, and my heart breaks all over again. “Where’s my muffin?”

Even now, even hooked up to all these scary looking tubes, she's trying to pretend like everything is fine. But nothing is fine. It never was.

“I’m guessing you saw the picture.”

Margot closes her eyes. “Leave it alone, Tash.”

“No. Sorry, I can’t do that.” Now that my best friend is going to live, my tears are drying up. Now, there’s nothing left but stomach acid and hate. “That horrible fucking bitch is going to pay.”

I start storming around the room. I'm so angry, my vision is blurring. I feel like every cell of my body is shaking.

“Tash.” The voice from the bed is surprisingly strong, just like the other day in the locker room. I turn around. Behind her thin, almost skeletal face, Margot's eyes are burning.

“Tash. You have to promise me. You can't go after Becca. It's your last strike. You'll....” She stops for a second, wheezes. “You'll get expelled. Promise me. You won't touch her.”

I go over to her bed and grab her hand. Her grip is also surprisingly strong. “Margot, look what she did to you. I can't just let this go.”

“You will,” she whispers. “You have to. I won't let you go down because I was...too weak...to take it, like you.”

My jaw clenches. “You are
not
weak. You are the strongest person I know. You're going to go to college and become an actress. You're going to get through this, and someday, we'll laugh at how stupid it was that we actually gave a shit what Becca Foster and her army of bitches thought of us.”

Margot shakes her head again, and in a perfect impression of Aragorn from
Lord of the Rings
, she says, “But it is not
this
day.”

I laugh until the tears return to my eyes. “Oh my God, even on your death bed, you're such a fucking dork.”

She smiles, but she doesn’t let it drop. “Promise me, Tash.”

“Be honest.” I try to change the subject. “Secretly, you’ve always wanted to do a death bed scene. This whole thing has just been one elaborate soap opera audition.”

Margot stares me down, refusing to break.

Finally, I give up, but I’m acting now too. “Okay, I promise.”

She raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“I promise I won't get expelled trying to take down Becca.”

“Good.” Margot nods and her head falls back on the pillow. It's obvious she's exhausted.

Almost dying will do that to a person, I guess.

But then she rallies, and her eyes fly open. “Will you tell Nana that I'm sorry? Make sure she knows...this isn't her fault.”

God, she’s such a better person than me. I squeeze her hand. “I will.”

After Margot falls asleep, I stand up slowly. I gently disengage my hand. I wipe the tears from around the corners of my eyes. I need to be strong now. I need to tell Nana, and somehow I need to convince her that it's not her fault. That it’s no one’s fault. That none of us could've seen this coming.

Even if I don't believe my own lies.

Because deep down, I know whose fault it is.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Two days after Margot almost died, I somehow manage to get out of bed.

My mom has already left for work, and I doubt she has any idea that I came home last night for the first time in 48 hours. I make myself some coffee with her French press, and choke it down, hoping it will make me feel human. But it doesn’t. I don’t know how I manage it, or what drives me, but I end up fully dressed and in the car without even really thinking about it. Numbly, I start the engine and put the car into drive.