Under the Cornerstone (27 page)

After that talk, I was angry at the world. I got into trouble at school. I fought with my dad. I started running the streets at night. Dad tried to get me straight. He tried tough love and easy love. He even talked about sending me to a shrink.

My reply was, “Is she going to make my mother be a mom instead of a whore?”

He didn’t broach the subject again.

In sixth grade, I met Noely King. Janet Benini was putting glue in Noely’s long hair without her being aware. It pissed me off that she was picking on a new kid. Plus, I swore Noely was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. She definitely had the prettiest long blonde hair I’d ever laid eyes on. I unscrewed the top of my big, white bottle of glue and threw it at Janet’s head. She was covered in glue by the time the incident was said and done. No one could ever say they actually saw me throw the bottle of glue, and just like that I got off scot-free.

During lunch, I pulled Noely into the boy’s bathroom and told her Janet had put glue in her hair. Her eyes filled with tears as she pulled the hair over her shoulder and saw the lines of glue in her hair. Her tears were my undoing. She looked so sweet and gentle. I hated so many girls like Janet who were complete bitches.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll fix it.”

“My hair will be wet all day,” she said and for the first time in my life I saw her lip quiver.

I’d come to find out that quivering lip was my kryptonite.

“No. I’ll use the paper towels. I’ll only wet them enough to get the glue out, and then we’ll dry it under the hand dryer,” I told her.

She nodded at me with tears still brimming in her eyes. I locked the boy’s bathroom door so no one would find us. Truthfully, I just wanted to fix it for her so she’d feel better. I didn’t want anybody in here with us.

It didn’t take long for me to get the glue out, and then I helped her dry it under the hand dryer. By the time we were done, the bell rang, signaling lunch was over.

“I’m Noely,” she introduced herself. “Thank you for helping me.”

“I’m Johnny, and you’re welcome. Let me know if Janet fucks with you again,” I tell her and her eyes grow big at my use of profanity.

She doesn’t address it, but nods and says, “Thank you.”

Within a few months, she’d become the best friend I ever had. Also within those same months, we met two twin brothers, Rich and Ryan, who we also became best friends with. Later that year, Jimmy transferred into our school and joined our league of misfits. They loved Noely just as quickly as I had.

In January, Noely didn’t return to school after Christmas break. That was the day I had my first panic attack. I begged the teacher to call home and check on her, but she told me to sit down as if it wasn’t a big deal that Noe wasn’t in school. It was a big fucking deal. I finally came up with the idea to ask to see the school counselor, who listened to my concerns. She made a phone call to Noely’s mom, and she seemed really sad when she hung up the phone. She didn’t say anything to me as she called my dad and suggested that he come pick me up.

When my dad arrived, he checked me out of school. We sat in his truck as he stared straight ahead with his hands on the steering wheel.

“Johnny, I don’t know how to say this. I’m just gonna say it. Noely’s mom died right before Christmas. That’s why she wasn’t at school today.”

I was instantly consumed with grief for her. I felt her absence all the way to my bones. I’d been right to worry about her and that stupid bitch teacher had just written me and Noe’s absence off. I found it hard to breathe. I couldn’t breathe.

“Johnny, what’s wrong?” my dad asked and placed his hand on my back.

My hands started to tingle as I gasped for air. My vision was going blurry. All I could think was, Noely is going to leave me too, just like my mom did. I can’t lose Noe. I can’t lose her.

“Son, breathe,” my dad encouraged me.

I finally made it through my first panic attack.

“What brought that on?” he asked with worry creasing his brow.

I looked out of the passenger window as the tears streaked my face, “She’s going to leave me too.”

“Why would you think that?”

“She’ll have to live with someone else and go to another school or move away,” I explained. “I don’t want her to leave me too.”

My dad knew the truth about my mother had fucked me up.

“I think you need to go see Noely. She needs a friend right now, yeah?”

I nodded my head in response.

My father spoke to her stepfather when we arrived at their apartment. He smelled like beer and corn chips. When Noely came to the door, her face was so sad. It ripped me in two.

“Do you mind if I wait while these two catch up? My son has been worried about his best friend,” my dad asked her stepfather.

Her stepfather simply shrugged his shoulders and opened the door for us to come inside. My dad waved me back to Noely’s room while he scoped out the place.

Once I was in her room, I pulled her into my arms and she immediately started crying. I held her for an hour while she cried. She finally told me about her mom and how she had been sick for a few years. She told me how she found her dead a few mornings after Christmas break began. My dad and I stayed there until midnight. Her stepfather had long passed out in his room.

I remember my dad scooping her small body into a hug and giving her a piece of paper with his number on it, “Noely, if you ever need anything you call me. I’ll take care of it.”

When we left her apartment, my dad told me that he’d asked her stepfather if she could spend the day with us tomorrow since she was so sad. The man said he’d allow us to take her for the day. So we spent the next day at my apartment, skipping school, and watching movies.

She returned to school the day after, and things slowly began to get back to normal, until her stepfather snuck into her room three months later and tried to rape her. She survived on the streets of Brooklyn for a week until my dad found her. The first day she didn’t show up at school, I found myself in the boy’s bathroom having another panic attack, fighting to breathe. I had one every day after that, sometimes multiple attacks a day, until my dad brought her home.

The thought of her leaving me has always been too much to handle.

Sometimes mere nightmares of her leaving me would throw me into an anxiety attack. Once she moved in with us, she was the one who calmed me down.

I remember one night when I was sixteen, I’d woken her with my harsh breathing. I was sitting on the edge of my bed with my head between my legs trying to breathe. I’d had another nightmare that she left me and moved away with another family. Her small hand tugged my hands away from my body and she held them in hers. Eventually she got me to slide off the bed and sit on the floor against it. She threw her legs over mine, and pulled my head down to her shoulder. She hummed to sweetest tune to me and ran her hands through my hair.

She’s here. I’m okay. She’s still here. She didn’t leave me. I’m okay.

Within minutes I was okay. She’d cover me up once I got back in bed, and return to her own bed.

Chapter Thirty-One

I wake startled and look around.

Where am I?

I look down and see Noely’s blonde hair all around me.

What the fuck did I do?

I slide out of the bed, careful not to wake her and sit in a chair in the corner of her room. I look at her beautiful sleeping form.

What did I do, Noe?

I swallow the guilt down. It gets hard to breathe. It’s coming. I’m going to lose her and the darkness is coming.

I focus on my breathing while I get dressed. I need to get out of here before I wake her with a panic attack. She’s in no place to take care of me.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I slip out of her door and hit the stairwell in time to collapse to my knees. I struggle to breathe as my vision grows blurry and then dark.

I’m going to fucking lose her. God, I can’t lose her. What did I do? I held it together for fifteen years. Why couldn’t I do it for one more night?

My hands begin to tingle, but I’m able to pull my cell out.

I call Rich and luckily he answers, “Yeah?”

I hear a party going on in the background.

I struggle to speak, “Please.”

“Johnny?”

“I need help,” I get out.

He knows I’m having a panic attack. He’s seen it before.

“Noely’s. Stairwell,” I answer.

“I’ll be there in ten,” he says, but doesn’t hang up. “Breathe, Johnny.”

I continue to struggle with it.

“What did I do?” I ask with choppy words.

“We’ll figure it out. We always do. Focus on me. Tell me about the tour,” he says.

It only makes it worse. Noely won’t be there. She’ll be here without me. I’m leaving her behind and I won’t be here to fix what I did.

“Easy,” Rich’s calming voice comes through the phone. “Not a good subject. I get it. Let’s talk about how Jimmy nailed Rebecca Everly tonight.”

I attempt a laugh.

“Then he nailed her older sister Amanda Everly three hours later,” he laughs.

My laugh comes out more even this time.

“Rebecca caught him fucking Amanda from behind. Apparently, she’d come back for another round, but was highly upset when she found him porking her sister instead.”

The Everly sisters were stuck up bitches in high school. Their family had money and they always thought they were better than us. Jimmy was fucking them to show them they weren’t better.

“He’s an idiot,” I say much calmer.

“He will die by the hand of a woman. I’ve always said that,” Rich laughs.

“No doubt.”

“I’m a block away,” he announces.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Whatever it is, it’ll be okay.”

“Talk about Jimmy,” I beg as I feel the panic trying to claw its way back into my chest.

“Well, when Rebecca arrived at our apartment, she walked into Ryan’s room where Jimmy was tapping it doggy-style. She started screaming like a banshee and throwing Ryan’s shit at both of them. She threatened to cut Jim’s cock off. Half the party ran in to watch the showdown. Jimmy just stood there naked as fuck, with his ridiculous cock still hard, and his hands on his hips. He was clearly upset that he didn’t bust a nut. I’m sure the big red welt on his forehead from Rebecca throwing shit at him didn’t help his mood much. Amanda looked like a nun who’d just been caught fucking Satan himself. She was trying to cover up as quickly as possible, but I was able to get a clear view of her tits. Nice tits. Store bought though,” Rich says.

I laugh easily at the images running through my head. Moments later Rich opens the door to the stairwell from Noe’s floor. He takes a seat beside me and looks me over.

“Want to talk about it?” he asks.

I know if I say it, I’ll end up in another panic attack. But, at the same time I feel like I have to tell somebody. Rich is the only one who won’t freak out on me about it.

“I slept with her.”

He chokes on his own spit and rubs his chin.

I start struggling to breathe again. He puts his hand on my back.

“Why’d you leave?” he asks.

“I knew a panic attack was coming,” I answer.

“You didn’t want her to know you were freaking out?” he asks. “Easy, man. Easy.”

I take a second to calm down, “She’s… she’s not in a good place right now. I can’t say more than that. I took advantage of the situation. I didn’t do it… maliciously.”

“I know better than anybody you’d never hurt her intentionally,” he says, which actually makes me feel better.

“Well, there’s two places we can take this conversation. We can talk about why you are out here having panic attacks or you can tell me if the fifteen-year wait was worth it.”

I chuckle, “Option two, and yes. Fuck, yes.”

“So where does she fit on the list?”

“She’s on a list all by herself, man. Nobody else will ever come close to what happened in there,” I say and motion my thumb towards her apartment.

He nods in understanding, “It’s different when they’re not nameless, faceless, women who serve as a means to an end.”

“I’m getting that. Is that why you stopped fucking around when you met Katie in college?” I ask.

“Yeah. It was different. I could really let go in so many ways with her. It didn’t work out, but when you have a connection with someone it makes sex an entirely different ballgame.”

“I think I get what you’re saying.”

“Why don’t we get you out of here for an hour or so? You can get your head together and come back so you’re here when she wakes,” Rich suggests.

“You think she’ll hate me?” I ask.

“No.”

“Just no?” I look at him confused.

“I think you’re just as blind as she is.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It’s not my story to tell, Johnny. Get your head together. I can’t fix this for you when she wakes up, but I can help you figure out how to fix it when she does. But honestly, I’m not sure if anything needs to be fixed in the first place.”

I think about that as I walk with him back to him and Ryan’s apartment. He pours me a few shots of tequila to take the edge off. There’s a party still going strong into the wee hours of the morning. The people are milling around. Some ask to take pictures with me, but I just ignore them. The flashes go off anyway.

Hysteria threatens to creep up on me, so I wash it down with another shot of tequila until everything is hazy. I hold onto the memories of her. What we did hours ago flashes through my mind like a movie on repeat. My mind presses freeze several times, and then rewinds some of the scenes that I’ll never forget as long as I live.

I drink until it’s time to face Noely. I drink until I hope she takes pity on me. I drink until I’ve convinced myself she won’t leave me and there’s no reason to panic.