Thicker Than Water (13 page)

“I'm sorry—I know I've been absent a lot . . .”

“Please.” Dr. Schafer rolled her eyes. “Absent is when you are sick or when you have an appointment. What you've been doing is cutting class.”

“I—” I didn't know what to say, considering she was right. “I'm sorry.”

She shook her head and sank down into her desk chair.

“You're so bright—so talented, CeCe. You have your whole life ahead of you. Now, so close to graduation, is
not
the time for you to throw all that potential away.”

I nodded. “I know that.”

“You know that you can talk to me if you need to.” Dr. Schafer gentled her tone and I clenched my jaw.

“It's okay, Dr. S,” I said finally, giving her a weak smile. “I'll be fine.”

“So, then, I will anticipate seeing you in every class from now on, right?”

I swallowed hard. “Right.”

I told myself it wasn't a lie when I wasn't positive of the outcome. And I guess it was good enough for her, because she let me leave without another word.

I pulled into the driveway after school and had to pause for a duck couple to cross over the gravel. As I parked, a handful of Jane's French hens were scratching around in the dirt next to the seed shed. When you live on a farm, you're never alone. It's something I'd learned to get used to. It took me a
little longer, though, to see the person sitting on the porch, the rocking chair next to the door leaning backward ever so slightly. When I got closer, my stomach lurched.

Cyrus looked strangely small in the chair, but gangly, too, like his body was growing too fast and his limbs had nowhere to go but out. He was dirty and his eyes were closed. I watched him, waiting for the telltale rise and fall of breath. His rib cage didn't expand. I pressed a hand against his chest.

Then, like him, I stopped breathing.

I couldn't remember much after that, at least not until we got to the hospital and I realized where we were—a place far more familiar to me than I liked admitting. London County General's waiting room still had the same pressed-wood chairs upholstered in vinyl. It was like a tablecloth, but depressing—the opposite of a cheerful, checkered pattern in a bright color. I think this one was called “puce.” Some earwax-looking foam was busting through the seams like the aftermath of an explosion.

Jane was sitting in a chair across from me instead of the love seat/couch thing that was right next to me. We could have been swapping magazines. Instead, we didn't even speak. I watched her foot shake and at first I thought that she was nervous. Then I realized those nerves weren't from worry—they were from impatience. They were sign language for
I've been through this enough. Cyrus will never get his shit together.

Dad was back in Recovery with Cyrus and the team of
doctors and nurses who revived him. It was the first time Cy had been a part of a team in a long time. He was a pretty integral part, too. Everyone had rallied around him.

At the house, I'd had enough wherewithal to call an ambulance. Now, at the hospital, I could barely flip the pages of my
People
magazine. My hands were shaking like Jane's foot, but they had less to say. My shaking wasn't nerves, either, but it was evidence that I cared. There was worry wrapped up with hunger. The last time I ate had been that morning and my stomach was growling loud enough to embarrass me.

When Dad came out through the automatic double doors, the kind that sweep in two different directions, Jane and I performed the obligatory “rise for the news” and stood in front of our respective chairs. Dad headed for Jane first, wrapping his arms around her middle like a small boy. I didn't know if I should have been jealous. Part of me wished he'd have come to me first. The other part of me knew that him clinging to me like that would be the landlocked equivalent of drowning.

“Janey, oh, Janey,” Dad was half sobbing into her shoulder. Her face was sort of impassive and I winced on my father's behalf. Watching the beginning of their end was becoming excruciating.

Finally, Dad let go of Jane and came over to me. He let a hand smooth over my hair. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery, as though he had a terrible case of hay fever.

“We're so lucky, CeCe. You were there just in time. Had it been much longer, well . . .” He choked on another
tortured cry and I pressed my lips together until they hurt under my teeth.

“You helped save his life, baby.”

I hadn't been a baby in a long time and I really hadn't saved anything. I couldn't help but wonder if I'd done a good deed or created a monster.

“Can we see him?” Jane asked in an uncharacteristic show of concern. Dad nodded.

“As soon as they move him to a room. They want to monitor his vitals overnight, but we're hoping he can go home tomorrow.”

Jane exhaled hard and I remembered she was in a hurry. She wanted to see him to get it over with. She gripped her purse in one hand like she'd bolt at any minute.

Cyrus was moved to a double room, but was alone in it when we got there. The bed closest to the door was stripped down to its plastic cover. I could see a metal bedpan on a side table and tried not to gag. Just beyond the curtain divider, I saw Cyrus's feet and ankles, pale and flaccid like dead birds. There was a time, not that long ago, when all his strength resided there.

“How you feeling, son?” Dad asked. I pulled the curtain back to make room for Jane and me to stand next to the bed. Cyrus was hooked up to an IV that was pumping him full of clear liquid. He had electrodes attached to his chest that were wired to a beeping monitor. It beeped out of habit, as opposed to beeping as a warning. It was like trying to sleep through a firm alarm when the battery wants you to replace it.

Cyrus tried to clear his throat, but it was a dry, scratchy attempt. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“I'm sorry, Dad,” he managed to croak.

Maybe it was an apology that was supposed to make things better. Instead, I wondered why he couldn't have just left his apology without assignment, as a blanket statement. Unless, of course, he was sorry only for what he'd done to our father.

“Shh,” Dad said, putting a hand on Cy's forehead as though checking for a fever. “We're just glad you're okay.”

I sat in one of the folding chairs, but Jane's time had run out.

“I need to head back to the office . . .” she said, trailing off a bit as she glanced at the clock. She leaned over to give Cyrus a halfhearted hug before she left and Dad followed her out. I could hear heated whispers outside the door. I looked at Cy. He looked at me. I looked at my hands.

“Thanks for calling 911,” he said quietly. His voice was a little stronger.

“Sure.”

“I'm gonna get clean, CeCe.”

And, at first, I thought—
How? I mean, with the IV and electrodes, he can't possibly shower
.

Then I realized what he really meant. I watched him carefully. Suddenly, he was the one looking at his hands. His knuckles were swollen to the size of globe grapes and were almost as purple. Along the backs of his hands, the bruises followed the path of his veins and I knew they weren't from the hospital.

“You were shooting up, Cy.”

He followed my line of vision where it rested at the crooks of his arms. Then he coughed.

“I know. It was stupid. I—you probably won't believe me when I say this, but I was actually trying to save money.”

I stared at him then, trying not to shake my head or spit in his face.

“You're right,” I finally said. “I don't believe you.”

Cy shrugged. “It's a stronger high—it takes less to get you where you need to go. So I wouldn't need as much. Wouldn't have to use as much or go to the doctor as much.”

“Oh. So you were an efficient junkie?”

I could've killed him right then. Right that second, lying there in that hospital bed with all those doctors and nurses and saviors to help him. I could've literally strangled him until he turned blue.

But then I saw him smile.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “An efficient junkie. Never took me as one to pinch pennies, huh?”

I swallowed. That smile struck my heart like a bullet—like a fist somehow infinitely harder than the ones Cy had sent flying in my direction. Harder than the linoleum floor. Harder than anything I'd imagined hitting me since the moment my mother left this earth.

I hadn't seen my brother's smile for almost as long. And I wanted to see it. I wanted to see it again and again and again.

“I know you don't believe me,” Cyrus said. “I wouldn't believe me either. But, really, I can't—I can't keep doing this
shit. I'm miserable. I'm gonna kill myself. I've got nowhere to go but down.”

He was already living in the basement and hanging with the dregs of society, so I didn't actually think there was much further to go. But I didn't say that. Instead, I said: “Well, I hope you're serious.”

And Cyrus said, “As a heart attack,” which was both completely appropriate in an ironic way and totally inappropriate in a cheating-death way.

“And I guess I should thank you for taking my pills,” he said. “I mean, I got super sick and shit, but it forced me to get here. To get clean.”

“How do you know it was me?” I asked him.

“Wasn't it?”

I shrugged. Better not to admit anything that could bite me in the ass later.

“The last time we were here was for Mom,” Cyrus said. “To pick up her personals.”

I blinked several times, then nodded. “Right.”

In the silence that followed, I remembered what my mother was surrounded by when she passed away—her favorite sweater, an afghan from her grandmother, framed pictures of our family, and total silence. There was no one in the room when she breathed for the last time. In the wake of second chances, I tried not to be angry and wish for a swap of family members.

I was willing to make a fresh start. I was. For the sake of the family we had left.

“I'm going to prove myself to you again, CeCe,” Cyrus promised.

I stared at him. I nodded. I leaned in for a hug and felt his warm breath, still circulating through his system, still keeping him alive.

And then I did something stupid.

I decided to believe him.

IT'S AMAZING HOW MUCH POISON A BODY CAN HANDLE. ACCORDING
to Cy's doctor, he was taking enough Oxys a day to sedate a handful of barnyard animals. It was no wonder that, when he came home, he was still shaking like a leaf. Even after a week of hospital-monitored detox, he was still in withdrawal.

I never really got Cyrus's fear of getting “dope sick,” but once I'd seen it in person, I understood what he'd been trying to avoid. There were moments when he was folding in and over on himself like something was trying to hide inside his body. At other times, he was practically clawing off his own skin, as though something was trying to force its way out.

That's how the drugs escaped Cy's life.

My life, on the other hand, still relied on them. Or at least the money they were bringing me. And the people they bound me to.

I'd made excuses to Lucas about Cy running out of pills early. I didn't say anything about him getting clean. Really, since I wasn't sure I believed it, I'd convinced myself that there wasn't a point in sharing the news.

Cyrus was camping out on the living room couch until he felt better—that way, Dad and I could get to him quicker. I didn't really mind helping out. This soberish version of Cyrus was nicer than the drugged one and even said “please” and “thank you.” But it was hard to strategize when I was busy frying up grilled cheese sandwiches that weren't for me or digging blankets out of the linen closet that I didn't need.

I was starting to think that Cyrus's sobriety was my way to duck out of the game. At that moment, I had a little less than two grand in a shoe box at the bottom of my closet. It was enough to enroll in a few classes if I went to a community college. Sure, it wasn't Edenton, but the first two years of college are mostly just required courses anyway. With a few semesters under my belt, I could transfer wherever I wanted.

“CeCe?”

Cyrus's voice had gotten stronger since he'd stopped puking every few hours. Now he could call for me instead of stomping his foot against the wood floor. When I left my room, I closed the door behind me. Suspicion still won out over potential change.

Somehow I'd thought that Cy's slovenliness had been an Oxy-effect, but I was wrong. In the three days he'd been home, our living room was no longer livable for anyone but him.

“What do you need?” I asked him, picking my way around the clothes, magazines, and trash that littered the floor.

“Dad said we're out of orange juice.” His voice still had a croak to it, like a career smoker or an amphibian. “Would you mind running to the store?”

It wasn't really a question of minding. If I didn't do it, Dad would have to go out, and he'd been doing just about everything for Cyrus.

“Yeah, that's fine. Anything else you need?”

“Maybe some more magazines?”

I looked at the ones littering the floor and raised an eyebrow. “Done with these ones, I take it?”

At least he had the decency to look sheepish.

“Sorry. I'm a slob.”

I bent to pick up some of the trash. “Don't worry about it.”

I pushed away a persistent thought—that cleaning up after Cyrus had become the rule, not the exception.

I texted Lucas to see if he wanted to take me to the grocery store—not exactly my finest date option. Still, it was time to tell him the truth and I wanted to get it over with. I'd run out of reasons not to have pills. I'd run out of energy to figure out what story to make up next.

Car's out of commission,
he texted back.
Can u pick me up?

The Honda was low on gas, but I caved. I convinced myself a twenty out of the shoe box wouldn't even make a dent.

Lucas lived in the only apartment complex in town; it was adjacent to the only town house community. When I pulled
up, he was standing outside his building, hands shoved in his pockets. I watched the way his fists unfolded, one reaching for the passenger door handle. I was beginning to love his hands best of all. I was beginning to love him, period, but I swallowed those three words when my heart vomited them into my mouth.

“Hey,” I said instead.

“Hey yourself.”

He leaned in and gave me a kiss, his mouth pressing hard against mine. Something hard bit my lip and at first I thought,
Teeth
. But when he pulled back, I saw the small silver stud at the bottom of his lip.

“New piercing?”

He nodded. “I got bored.”

The boys in my life equate boredom with needles. I tried to forget about the piercing.

“So, what are we getting at the grocery store?” Lucas asked, scrolling through my iPod. He'd downloaded a selection of heavy metal in an attempt to “broaden my musical horizons.” The music had an angry edge that made me uncomfortable. I could do angry all by myself. I didn't need guitar angst or drum fury.

“Orange juice,” I answered, wincing when he settled on Sonic Youth.

“That's it? You could hit up 7-Eleven for that.”

“I might get a few more things. Cyrus is . . . sick.”

The parking lot of Kroger was about half full; I picked a space next to the “Expectant Mother” spot. I looked at
the little stork on the sign and thought about the conversation between Jane and my dad, the one where Dad talked about having another baby. I pictured taking care of two brothers—one adult, one baby. I couldn't decide who would be more needy.

Despite my nonexistent shopping list, Lucas insisted on getting a cart. It was squeaky and a little wobbly, but he didn't seem to notice. Suddenly, I was involuntarily catapulted back a few months to the day he and Jason came to see me in the library, and that squeaky wheel on the book cart. Lucas and I hadn't even spoken yet. I hadn't felt anything but his gaze, but even that had made me hot underneath my clothes.

There was chemistry between us; I wasn't imagining that. And as we moved through the produce section, stopping at the bananas to grab the ripest ones, there was something purely domestic about the whole scenario. He was here. He was shopping with me. There weren't Oxys involved. He wasn't getting any action, save for when he grabbed my ass by the avocados. Maybe there was a chance of him staying with me, despite my losing the only asset I'd acquired.

“So, listen,” I said as we rolled down the dairy aisle and toward the refrigerated juices, “I need to tell you something.”

Lucas stopped to look at the yogurt and made a face.

“That Greek stuff tastes like shit. How come so many people are buying it?”

“I have no idea. Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, sorry.” He leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss
against my mouth. I felt a surge of something hot and heavy fly into my face—I think it was a combination of lust and blood and fear.

He made a gesture with his hand, as though giving me the floor. This was not an acceptance speech, but I took a deep breath anyway.

“You know how I said Cyrus is sick? He was—he just got out of the hospital a couple of days ago.”

Lucas raised his eyebrows. “Overdose?”

“Um, no. Withdrawal, actually. I found him passed out on our front porch. He wasn't breathing, but the paramedics revived him. They kept him at the hospital for a week to detox.

“Anyway,” I said quickly, wanting to rush through the rest of it, “he's clean now. Or getting there. He's still detoxing, but it isn't as bad as it was.”

Lucas nodded. I couldn't read his expression.

“So, no more Oxys from Cyrus.”

“Yeah. He—he said to say he was sorry for leaving you guys dry on such short notice.”

Lucas shrugged. “It is what it is. Oxys are fun, but they're expensive as shit. That's what I keep telling Jason. If he wants a supply, he needs to go right to the source.”

“The source?”
Wasn't I the source?

“Go right to a doctor and get a prescription.”

“Oh. But you need to have something wrong with you, like an injury or whatever. That's how Cyrus got them in the first place.”

“Nah.” Lucas shook his head as we pushed our cart toward the front of the store. “It's easy enough to fake it. Change the name on an X-ray, cry in the office, that kind of thing.”

I didn't ask him how he knew all that. At the self-service registers, I started scanning items as he handed them to me. This is how I used to help my mom grocery shop, handing her items from the cart to place on the conveyer belt. This felt eerily similar, with the role reversal throwing me off-kilter.

“So, Cyrus gave you a cut, right?” Lucas asked.

I frowned, looking back at him as he handed me the bananas. “Cut?”

“Of the money.”

“Oh, right.” I nodded. “Yeah, he did.”

A 100 percent cut, in fact.

“I was just thinking that you might miss that money, you know?”

I was quiet as I scanned the orange juice and winced at the price. I should have gotten Sunny D.

“I guess,” I said finally. Lucas bagged the last of the groceries and I paid with Dad's debit card. I held my breath, waiting for the transaction to go through. You never knew with Dad. The receipt shot out of its slot and I exhaled.

When we were back in the car, Lucas switched off the radio and turned to face me. His hand reached up to cup my chin, and I felt small—not insignificant, but special. Precious.

“So, what if
you
went straight to the source?”

I looked at him. Lucas was staring up at the ceiling, as
though calculating an equation. Then he looked back at me.

“Cyrus saw that Bethany guy, right? The one in Williamsport?” he asked.

Apparently Dr. Frank was as notorious as I'd been told. I nodded, still unsure of where this conversation was headed.

“What if you went to see him yourself?”

I blinked. “Why?”

He looked at me as though I'd missed the answer to an easy question. “To get Oxys.”

Which is when my brain started gushing something like water in and around all my thoughts. I couldn't process the suggestion because even my own ideas were drowning.

“No—no, I could just get a part-time job for the money,” I managed to say.

“Babe.” Lucas tipped his chin down and regarded me. “We both know a part-time job isn't going to make nearly as much money as this would.”

I swallowed something like bile or blood or both, then stared out the windshield, knowing Lucas was watching me. The cars around me felt like enemies and I wanted to run and hide. Maybe the enemy was in my car with me.

But I couldn't let myself believe that.

So instead I said, “Let me think about it.”

In the end, it wasn't Lucas who convinced me to go see Dr. Frank. It was my father. Or, more specifically, the farm.

I came home from the grocery store with orange juice and a pounding headache. Cyrus was asleep on the couch, but
my dad was in the kitchen. I set the bags just inside the door. I didn't need conversation. I didn't know what I needed, aside from two Advil and a time machine.

In an effort to clear my head, I walked back out onto the porch and breathed deep. The air was damp and felt thick in my lungs. I wished for winter. I wished for snow. Something to clear up the scenery, to give my life a blank canvas. Something crisp and nothing like the world around me.

“Honey? You all right?”

Dad poked his head out the door, a spatula still in one hand. I willed a smile to my lips.

“Yeah, Dad. I'm fine. I've just got a headache.”

“Maybe you should eat something.”

“Maybe.”

I followed him in, the creak of the stairs like a knife to my temple. Headaches like this would drive me to Dr. Frank on their own.

“You want some double H?”

I leaned against the kitchen door jamb and watched Dad stir his version of Hamburger Helper—a combination of macaroni, chopped-up burger patties, and tons of chili powder. Lately his cooking had taken a cue from Jane's spicy tendencies. I think he was trying to make up for the meals she hadn't made recently.

“Sure, I'll have some,” I said. “Want me to set the table?”

“That'd be great.”

We fell into an old pattern like it wasn't old at all—the way he used to cook when Mom was too sick to stand in
front of the stove. The way I'd set the table when she was still well enough to come sit for meals. I felt a familiar tug somewhere in my chest. It was like being a part of a family. I could barely recognize it anymore.

“So, CeCe, listen,” Dad said, dishing out our dinner onto paper plates, “I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things. I know it's been kind of crazy around here lately, what with your brother and the hospital and all. But you've done a great job helping out. I really appreciate it.”

“Sure.” I shrugged, as though it weren't a big deal. In reality, I wasn't doing much more for Cyrus than normal. This just involved less driving.

Dad ran a hand over his face. He looked more tired than usual and the smile he was so good at faking was missing. In fact, I hadn't seen it at all today. Which is why I shouldn't have been shocked by the next thing he said.

“Jane left.”

His eyes held a kind of sorrow that was far too much like what he felt when Mom died, and I wanted to bristle with indignation on her behalf. But I managed to stave off my bristling. Instead, I asked the obligatory questions:

“Why?”

“What happened?”

“Are you getting a divorce?”

According to Dad, Jane couldn't handle the responsibilities of a full-time farm, a full-time job, and a full-time marriage to a man with grown kids. I figured that probably was close to the truth, except that I would have banked
anything on the fact that she was banging either a) her boss or b) someone very much like her boss. Or both.

“There's something else.”

Now he'd tell me she's banging her boss.