I stood up and pointed down at her. "You," I emphasized. "Have been hanging out with Naomi too much."
We both smiled. What Ellie had just said was tame compared to the sa.s.s we"d heard out of my girlfriend"s mouth.
Our smiles dropped as we remembered why she wasn"t here with us.
"Nonsense," my sister whispered. "Naomi is family."
I froze. It felt truer than any d.a.m.n thing I"d heard in a long time. Smiling, I kissed Ellie on the cheek. "Yeah, she is, Ells. Now let"s just hope she feels the same way about us."
I was standing in front of the law library, gripping my cell phone when Damien"s name flashed across the screen. I hit ignore before trudging down the steps and away from the building.
Thank G.o.d the students at Carillo University were so dedicated, forcing the school to keep the library open twenty-four hours a day, except on certain holidays, otherwise I wouldn"t have had a place to stay last night.
Not that I slept, or did much of anything.
I sat.
And I thought.
And I thought some more.
I had only been productive at the hospital when I was trying to ignore Damien. Before he had come in I was staring blankly at the page. I only began writing once he sat across from me, determined to show him I was fine. If I went back and checked, I was sure half my answers would be wrong.
Now, knowing I was close to crashing because it would be physically impossible for me to stay awake much longer, I slowly made my way to my car. It took all my energy to stay awake and make the drive back to my apartment.
I walked through the front door a couple minutes later to find Alara sitting on the couch, staring absentmindedly at the TV. Her head snapped in my direction before she jumped off the couch.
"Thank G.o.d. Where the h.e.l.l have you been?"
Shrugging, I dropped my book bag on the ground. "I needed a book at the library."
Alara"s brow arched so high I was surprised it was still on her head. "It took you"-she paused to purposefully glance at the wall clock-"sixteen hours to find it?"
"It"s a big library," I mumbled.
"That you should know like the back of your hand by now." She shook her head, dropping her defensive act and stepping closer. "I"m so sorry, Naomi. Please... just tell me what I can do to help."
Her eyes held pain that I knew mine lacked, and I felt a flicker of something inside that I"d promised myself yesterday I wouldn"t feel. Maybe it was her standing there, silently telling me it was okay. Alara was an empathetic person. So empathetic, I would have sworn that watching someone she loved die might just kill her, too. And she didn"t just reflect the pain you showed, but somehow she could feel all the pain you didn"t. She caught onto one thing, one emotion, one teeny tiny feeling, and she ran with it. She knew every emotion that would come after. And she made you feel safe in it. In a world where people told you what you should and shouldn"t feel, she made you feel understood and she told you it was okay to feel the way you did.
But even with all that love and support, I couldn"t say anything other than, "I"m fine." And it fell from my lips with so much ease, I could almost believe it.
"Wow." Alara shook her head as she walked even closer. "So that"s what the whole I"m fine thing feels like?" At my furrowed brows, she explained, "You always got mad when I said I"m fine. I never thought much of it. But you were right, it"s freaking annoying." I almost smiled. But it got stuck, like a rusty machine that fought hard to work but ultimately failed.
"I"m going to take a shower and then get some sleep." Before she could respond I strode down the hall, locking myself in my room and going into the bathroom.
I took a long, hard look in the mirror. The bags under my eyes reaffirmed my lack of sleep. But my eyes themselves looked dead. Defeated. Hardened. My soul felt the same way, despite the pinch of emotion I felt when I talked to my best friend.
But I couldn"t open up to her. I couldn"t tell her.
Because once I felt it, I would drown in it. It would pull me under, and wave upon wave of helplessness and fear would plummet me further into a sea of grief. I"d inhale so much of it, it"d become a part of me. A sadness I"d never rid myself of. A fear that would confirm what I didn"t want to know: we had no control. Control was just an illusion. Life was chaos.
I had just put my key in the lock of my front door when a hand came down on my shoulder.
"AH!" I jumped and whirled around. Placing one hand over my frantically beating heart, I used the other to rip my headphones out of my ears. "Jesus Christ, Derek. You scared the s.h.i.t out of me."
Derek was panting as he leaned down, his hands braced on his knees. "Well I... called out... but..." He waved one hand toward my dangling earbuds. I nodded as he straightened and regained control of his breathing. His eyes were conflicted as he ran his gaze over me, then his brows furrowed when he took in my attire.
"You went running?"
"Yeah. What"s the big deal?" I shrugged, turning around and unlocking the door.
"Uh, maybe because you haven"t voluntarily exercised in... ever?" he asked sarcastically as he shut the door behind him, enclosing us in my still dark apartment. I flipped the switch and made my way to the kitchen for a bottle of water.
"I have s.e.x all the time." I smiled a little as I heard Derek trip over his own feet.
"That"s not funny, and not what I meant." He was shaking his head when I turned around. "Forget it. That"s not what I"m here to talk about."
My slight smile dropped. I knew what he was here to talk about and I really wasn"t in the mood. By some miracle, I"d managed to avoid everyone yesterday and this morning. "Don"t, Derek. Just... don"t," I said in a clipped voice.
"We have to talk about this, Naomi."
I shook my head. "We really don"t."
"Clearly you"re not okay. Alara, Gabe, Sherry, Sam, even Damien... no one has heard from you."
"So? I"ve been busy."
"Working out?" he asked with a snort. I glared and opened my mouth to retort but he beat me to it. "She didn"t use, Naomi."
I didn"t play dumb. "Why are you defending her? How can you defend? We caught her with the drugs." My head felt close to exploding, but I made my voice stay calm.
"Because I won"t punish her for a single moment of weakness. How does it make sense to punish her for the five-minute mistake and not commend her for the twenty-minute attempt to fix it?" His eyes flickered between mine, genuinely believing our mother to be some kind of hero for her actions.
I let out an unimpressed snort. "Getting drunk and having her stomach pumped isn"t exactly a brilliant or logical idea-alcohol and drugs commonly go hand-in-hand when relapse occur. It"s actually less smart-"
Derek"s laugh was bitter. "Well we can"t all be as smart as you. But since you are the genius, tell me something..."
My mouth flattened into a harsh line and every part of me burned. My lungs, my eyes, my cheeks, my heart... I knew this was headed to a place that would wreck me. That would finally break me.
"What"s one of the most common causes of relapse?" he asked. I tried to ignore him, desperately clinging to the small pieces of control I had left. He gripped my arm, gentle but with enough force to make a point, making sure I could see the grief and anger in his eyes. At my prolonged silence, he prodded, "What, you don"t have an answer?"
"Stress," I bit out. And it didn"t take a genius to see where this was heading.
"And tell me, what"s the one thing that"s changed recently? The one thing that would add stress to her life when everything was going so well?"
I didn"t hesitate. "Me." My voice quivered the tiniest bit, but it was enough that Derek heard it. A flash of guilt raced across my brother"s face.
"She could"ve died," he continued with a softer tone, no trace of anger, just a need to make me understand. "She drank an entire bottle of gin just to make sure she wouldn"t touch those drugs. To keep her promise." He paused. "No, it wasn"t a brilliant idea. But-"
I cut him off. "It doesn"t take a genius to know-"
"It was something," he shouted. Derek"s fists clenched and I could sense him wanting to shake me, to throttle me until I was no longer this cold, heartless b.i.t.c.h in front of him. "She didn"t drink that much to put herself in the hospital. She was just doing something, anything to stop herself. Addiction doesn"t make sense. You know this. Deep down, I know you know this. Mark was at work, I didn"t answer"-he paused, like it pained him to have failed her-"and you being you, she probably figured you would judge her for her cravings and abandon her all over again."
I stumbled back, my hip digging into the counter, feeling his words like a slap to the face. The sting only slightly lessened by the fact that Derek seemed to share my pain, his face flinching even before he had finished the sentence.
"I"m sorry, Naomi," he whispered, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. My brother looked defeated and sad, so very f.u.c.king sad. "I love you. I didn"t mean that and I know she-"
And that was all it took. I"m sorry and I love you. Words he shouldn"t of had to say, because I knew I was the one who was wrong. His words were harsh, sure, but they were necessary. He must have known he"d need something like this in order to shake me out of my numbness.
I"d been unforgiving. I"d yelled at our mother, even as she was trying to get better. I"d ignored her, even as she tried to reach out. I"d alienated Derek, even when he had tried to be understanding. I"d pushed Damien away, even though all he wanted was to be there for me. To love me.
All faults of mine, and he was apologizing and telling me he loved me anyway. Why hadn"t I done the same for her? Why hadn"t I loved her anyway? Why hadn"t I forgiven her anyway?
Everyone else had done it. Why hadn"t I?
"Forget it," I said quickly, cutting him off. I didn"t know how much more I could take.
"Naomi." He reached for me but I was already pulling away and skirting around him. The final tethers of my control had snapped with his words and I knew I was seconds away from completely unraveling.
"I"m sorry," I mumbled, eyes on the ground by his feet as the first drops threatened to fall. Before he could say another word, I was sprinting away from him, out the door and finally, out of control.
A loud knocking echoed through the apartment, almost rivaling the rare Arizona storm raging outside. I knew it couldn"t be from Naomi"s tiny fists, but I still tried to be optimistic. My hopeful expression flattened when I saw that there was indeed a Donahue on my doormat. Unfortunately, it was the wrong one.
"Derek." I nodded and crossed my arms over my chest as I waited for an explanation.
"Hey." He looked over my shoulder before rubbing the back of his neck. His shirt was plastered to his chest and his hair hung in a wet mop over his forehead. "Is Naomi here by chance? Or have you heard from her?"
I straightened and dropped my arms, alarmed. "No, why? What happened? Is she okay?" It had taken everything in me to stay away today. When Alara called me last night and told me that Naomi had been there since that morning, I practically sprinted out of my apartment. I"d already started the car when she begged me to give Naomi time, saying she"d come out of her numbness, but she needed to work her own way through it. Well, based on the look on Derek"s face, whatever the f.u.c.k had happened was bad. So I was done listening to anyone but myself. And my body, heart, mind, and soul screamed that I had to find her.
"Yeah, calm down, she"s fine. But..." He trailed off and grimaced.
"That doesn"t sound like she"s f.u.c.king fine," I growled.
He hung his head. "We got in a fight this afternoon and when she left, she was pretty upset."
I didn"t even bother asking what the fight was about. It would be pointless. The only question I asked was, "What the h.e.l.l did you say to her?"
Derek"s face radiated guilt, sadness, and defeat. "Look, I said some s.h.i.t I shouldn"t have, okay? I"m aware of that. I don"t need to repeat it all and have you make me feel worse. But I don"t know where she is," he said, his voice turning to panic near the end. "I just know she"s finally cracking, and I think you"re probably the only one who can find her and help her." It took a lot for him to admit that, I could see it in the stubborn lines in his forehead and the frown on his lips.
My jaw ticked as I turned around, grabbing my wallet and car keys off the side table by the door, before shoving Derek back and slamming the door shut.
"Where are you going?" he hollered as I took the steps down two at a time. Between my speed and the slickness of the steps, I was seriously f.u.c.king lucky I hadn"t just broken my neck.
When I got to the bottom, I turned around and glared. I knew he was hurting just as much as I was, but I couldn"t focus on that. I could only focus on Naomi, and the way he hurt her even more. "I"m going to help the girl I love, the girl I"m sure you just destroyed."
I ran toward my car, and never looked back.
She was at the hospital.
I never understood how Ellie claimed to know she was having a boy. I never believed she had this inherent sense of knowledge just because she loved her child, but I got it now. Because for no reason whatsoever, I knew Naomi was at the hospital.
Walking through the front doors, I bypa.s.sed the front desk and walked down the hallway toward the garden built out back. I stopped short for just a moment when I saw Mark standing at the window, looking distraught as he stared outside. He stepped back when he heard me coming and began walking my way until we met in the middle.
"She"s outside." He pointed toward the set of doors he had just been standing in front of. "There"s a small picnic area out there. She"s lying next to it."
I didn"t hesitate, I said nothing as I immediately walked by him and started for the doors. My water-logged shoes made a strange noise against the floor as my deliberate strides carried me closer. I could already hear the slap of the rain against the concrete and feel the sting of the wind when I stopped at the doors. But when I looked through the small window, the chill that spread through me had nothing to do with the cold rainwater already soaking my clothes.
My heart dropped at the sight of Naomi lying in the center of what was supposed to be a "tranquil" area. Nothing about it felt tranquil right now.
I gently opened the door and felt the immediate smack of rain against my face once more. Naomi was quiet, but as the wind howled and the sky cried, I swore it was her anguish I was hearing.
And that was when I realized that strong things had a breaking point, too.
Strong girls got hurt, too.
They cried.
They yelled.
They broke.
I was lying on the cold, wet cement as the rain beat down on and around me. Slowly I extended my arms on both sides until they were stretched as far as possible. My shirt and running shorts were soaked and small puddles of water were pooling in the heels of my shoes as I accepted the punishment from the sky. The four-leaf clover necklace I"d put on at the library two nights ago laid heavy against my chest.
A crack of thunder hit just as a shadow came into view.
"This is pretty dramatic, even for you," Damien yelled over the thunder. I might have jumped if I hadn"t felt so cold. I closed my eyes briefly before looking up to see his dirty blond hair darker than usual as it stuck to his forehead. His eyes radiated sadness and concern as he looked down at me. I watched a single drop travel down his forehead and the bridge of his nose to land on his downturned lips, before disappearing into the rest until I couldn"t distinguish it from the others.
"Go away," I mumbled as I shifted my gaze to the wallowing sky.
"Naomi." His voice broke as he said my name and I closed my eyes once more to avoid the look on his face. I stayed silent, even as I felt his presence over me, even as he lifted me up and held me close. My arms stayed by my side. My body stayed taut and my heart stayed mine.
"I"m sorry," he whispered in my ear. I didn"t think it was possible, but my body tensed up even more. My fists clenched tighter until my nails were biting into the skin of my palm. My jaw repeatedly ticked as it tried to hold everything back.
"Let me take care of you," Damien murmured. The soft words should have been rea.s.suring, and his warm breath ghosting over my frozen ear should have been comforting. But they did the opposite, they set off the anger inside of me, until I felt like there was so much sadness and anger inside me that I ceased to exist. I started to feel like I was on earth for the sole purpose of teaching the world what those emotions meant.
Control them.
Control them.
Control.
Control.
Control.