We went out to the car and moved our bags inside, including the camera with all our footage. Dex and I were taking over my old bedroom while Rebecca was sleeping on the pull-out couch in my father’s den. While dinner was getting ready—my mom feeling more chipper despite the wine incident—we set up a makeshift studio in my room and invited Ada in to watch. We went through all the footage together and even though it was hard to watch sometimes, reliving the fear that was stalking us just yesterday, it also felt good. Without any editing yet or music or anything to enhance it, we could tell we had made the best Experiment in Terror episode ever.
Ada leaned into me as we sat together on the bed, while Rebecca and Dex sat on the edge of it, staring up at the computer monitor on my desk. “Having second thoughts now?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Nope. I’m sad that it’s over but I know we’re doing the right thing. Going out with a bang.”
She brushed her blonde bangs out of her eyes and put her head on my shoulder. “I’m glad I don’t have to worry about you anymore.”
“I just hope I don’t have to worry about you,” I said.
She tensed up for a moment, and I waited for her to say something but she never did. I’d have to come back to that later. Finally she stuck out her long leg and tapped Dex on the back with her foot. “Hey, bro.”
Dex eyed her over his shoulder. “Hey watch it, Little Fifteen.”
“Well you’re my big brother now, aren’t you?”
“I will be,” he said. “And when I am, you can expect fifteen years worth of wedgies and atomic wedgies and noogies until I’m all caught up.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I turn sixteen next month.”
“It gets even worse for you then,” he said with a grin. “Too bad there is no song called Little Sixteen.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” I told him dryly.
I settled back into the pillows, and with my sister at my side and my fiancé and best friend in the same room with me, I was struck by how damn lucky I was. Maybe I was jobless, and maybe my parents would never understand me, but I had these people in my life who did.
I stared down at my ring.
I was the luckiest bitch in the world.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After dinner, where my parents perfected the art of small talk and Dex and Ada argued over some film remake, we all went our separate ways to digest the food, have some more wine, and talk. My parents told us they were going out to a friend’s house. I’m thinking that was code for grab a drink somewhere and bitch about me and my poor life choices. The rest of us hunkered down in the TV room, hoping something good would come on HBO.
After my fifth glass of celebratory wine that evening though, I wasn’t feeling the best. I pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and told everyone I was heading up to bed.
“I’ll join you in a minute,” Dex said.
I nodded, slugging back the liquid, and made my way upstairs to my parents’ bedroom to fish out some of the Excedrin my mom often had lying around.
I went into their washroom and opened the medicine cabinet, going through their bottles of medication, but coming up empty for something that would stifle the headache that I knew was coming on. It was my fault for drinking so much red wine after a week of drinking Jack Daniels and beer, but once we started toasting to our engagement, I got carried away.
I gave up, shutting the cabinet door, and was about to leave the room when I decided to check my mother’s bedside table. I opened up the drawer and saw the bottle of Excedrin in there. I snatched it up and saw a few prescription pill bottles underneath. I didn’t think my mother was on any meds these days, and a naughty part of me was wondering if it was something fun and stronger, like the Vicodin I used to use as a teenager.
I picked up a few of the bottles, wondering why there were so many, and held them up to the light that was streaming in through the hall.
They were all prescribed from Dr. Freedman—my doctor, my old damn shrink—and had medical names I recognized. Though I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, I was fairly certain they were the same meds that Dex had been taking back in the day, the ones that kept him from seeing ghosts, the ones I hid on him in order to uncover the truth.
And now, it looked like my mother was taking the same medication.
With shaking hands, I stuck two of the bottles back in the drawer, along with the Excedrin, and sat down on the edge of their bed, rolling the other two bottles between my hands. I stayed like that for a few minutes, trying to make sense of it, trying to figure out what to do. When I heard the door to my bedroom close further down the hall, I got up and left the room, pills in my hands.
I couldn’t believe I was doing this again.
I went to my bedroom and gently closed the door behind me. Dex was sitting up in bed, reading a copy of The Gunslinger which he must have pulled off my old bookshelf, looking totally immersed in it. I subtly put the pills into my purse, hiding them for now, then stripped and slipped on my sleep shirt.
“Baby?” I asked as I got under the covers.
“Mmmmm?” he said without looking up. He thumbed a page over.
“What was the name of the medication you used to be on, you know the ones that made you stop seeing the ghosts?”
“Clozaril, Zyprexa, to name a few,” he said. He slowly put the book down and gave me a hard look. “Why? You’re not thinking about going on them are you?”
I shook my head absently, totally focused on what he said. The same fucking pills that Dex had been taking to keep the ghosts at bay were the exact same ones my mother was taking. How was that possible? Why was my mother taking pills for people who hallucinated?
“Hello?” Dex asked, waving his hand in my face. I stared at him blankly. He shook his head. “Nevermind. It’s like talking to a wall.” His eyes rested on my chest. “With boobs.”
“What were you saying?” I asked.