“Stop the car,” I say, reaching for the door handle.
“Nova, what the hell!” Lea exclaims as I crack the door open before she can even get the car stopped. She taps on the brakes and I push the door open all the way and swing one of my legs outside. But then I pause when the seat belt locks and jerks me back against the seat.
“Shit,” I curse and press back against the seat to unbuckle it.
“What are you doing?” Lea asks with wide eyes as she holds her foot on the brake, keeping the car halted at a crooked angle.
“I know that guy.” I push the door open the rest of the way as Tristan starts to take notice of us—or the car, anyway. He pauses to admire it as I land just outside the car with an ungraceful stumble but regain my balance quickly.
He grazes his thumb across the cigarette, sprinkling ash on the ground before putting it back between his lips. “Hey, what kind of car is that…?” He trails off as I step forward and the lights from the motel and the street give him just enough of a glow to see my face. “Holy shit, Nova,” he says with a bit of a startled laugh, his lips parting and his cigarette nearly falling out of his mouth. He quickly plucks it from his lips and positions it between his fingers, continuing to gape at me. “Where the hell did you come from?”
I point back at my car. “I drove here,” I say, not ready to tell him the real reason. Tristan, while nice for the most part, is also in as deep as Quinton is, and the last thing I want to do is declare to him why I wanted—needed to come down here.
“I can tell that…” He looks at the car with appreciation. The lights around us fall across his face and I’m even more aware of how different he looks: tougher, rougher, harder, drowning in more darkness, and I wonder what exactly he’s been doing to get to this place. “Is that your car?” he asks.
“Yeah, it’s mine.” I wrap my arms around myself, even though it’s not cold. It’s almost like a defense mechanism as old feelings press up like shards of glass and vivid memories of the time I spent with Tristan swarm through my mind. “It was my dad’s…or used to be, anyway.”
His brows knit. “You didn’t drive that back in Maple Grove, did you?”
I shake my head. “No, I always rode around in Delilah’s truck.”
“Yeah…she actually got rid of that a few months ago,” he says. “Sold it, you know, so she could have some cash.”
I don’t say anything, because I can’t think of anything to say. Things are awkward and uncomfortable because I know him, even kissed him, yet at the same time I don’t know him. I’ve spent time with him, but the person I got to know doesn’t look like he exists anymore. That Tristan is part of my past and I wonder how hard it’s going to be with Quinton, seeing a different side of him.
Can I do this? Was I naïve to believe that I could? Am I even strong enough to do this? You couldn’t save Landon, but did you even try hard enough?
“Nova, are you okay?” The sound of Lea’s voice brings back some of my strength because I remember that I’m not alone.
I glance over my shoulder at her. The engine’s still running, the exhaust puffing out smoke, but she’s gotten out of the car and is looking over the roof at me with concern on her face.
“I’m fine,” I assure her, but it’s only partly true, because I’m fine yet I’m terrified. I wish I could say that I was braver, that I was walking into this with confidence and certainty that I was the right person to be helping Quinton. But I’m not. I want to be, though.
I return my attention to Tristan, who’s glancing back and forth between Lea and me with a quizzical look on his face. He starts to open his mouth, but I casually interrupt him.
“Is Quinton around?” My voice comes out surprisingly evenly and I think maybe, just maybe, I’m going to be okay.
“Yeah, he is, but…” Tristan glances down at the bag of ice in his hand and then slaps his forehead with his hand, the one holding the cigarette, and the cherry falls to the ground. “Shit, I forgot I was supposed to be bringing this to him.” He rushes off toward the apartments, acting as though he didn’t just burn himself.
Just how numb is he? I hurry after him, across the gravel parking lot, even when Lea calls out for me to wait.
“Can I talk to him?” I ask as I catch up with Tristan. “I really need to.”
He blinks and looks at me as we walk past a beat-up car that has four flat tires. “If you can get him to wake up, you can.”
I hear the sound of gravel crunching behind us as Lea rushes up, panting to catch her breath. “Jesus, Nova, thanks for leaving me.”
“Sorry,” I apologize, but I’m distracted by what Tristan said. If I can get him to wake up, I can? My heart shrivels inside my chest, yet it still beats intensely. “Is he…what’s he on?”
“Nothing at the moment, really.” He waves at the group of hookers/women as we approach them and one of them whistles back at him.
Another one, with really long legs and bright blue hair, struts forward with a grin on her face. “Hey, can I get a taste?” she asks Tristan, tracing her neon-pink fingernails up his arm.
“Maybe later.” Tristan flashes her a smile as he keeps walking, seeming preoccupied as he clutches the bag of ice and mutters something under his breath. When we reach the bottom of the stairway, he unexpectedly stops and so do I, causing Lea to run straight into my back.
“Look, Nova.” He glances up at the balcony above us. “I’m not sure you want to go inside there…it’s not really your thing.”
“I’ll be fine.” I grip the railing as my own voice echoes in my head. You won’t be fine. What if what you see is bad? More than you can handle? “I just want to talk to Quinton.”
“And that’s great, but like I said he’s not awake right now.” He shifts his weight, his blond hair falling into his eyes, which are blue, but look black because they’re so dilated.
“Well, can I wake him up?” I ask. “I really, really need to talk to him.”
As he assesses me, for the briefest of seconds I see the guy I used to know: the one who was a decent guy, who wouldn’t hurt anyone, who talked to me, hung out with me. But the look quickly vanishes as he glances coldly at Lea. “Who’s that?”
“A friend of mine.” I slant to the side to block Lea from his death stare.
His eyes fasten on me. “Is she cool?”
I understand his code meaning: Does she care that there are drugs around? “Yeah, she’s fine.”
Lea steps forward and rolls her eyes as she gestures at herself. “Do I look like someone who’s going to nark on your little drug nest? Seriously, paranoid much?” She sounds calm, but I can feel the tenseness flowing off her.
Tristan scans her eyes framed with kohl liner, her black tank top and red-and-black shorts, the tattoos on her arms and the piercings in her ears. “I don’t know…are you?”
She crosses her arms and elevates her chin, radiating confidence. “No, I’m not.”
Tristan scratches his head, looking torn. I notice small dots on his arms, some ringed by tiny bruises. I know what they are and so does Lea and when Tristan glances up at the top floor again, Lea aims a pressing look at me.
I’m sorry, I mouth and give her hand a squeeze. The dampness of her skin gives off just how nervous she is and it makes me feel even worse. I look over at the Chevy Nova parked crookedly at the back of the parking lot, about to tell her to go back and wait in it—or go back home—but Tristan interrupts my thoughts.
“Yeah, you can go in and see if you can get him to wake up,” he says, looking back at me and lowering his arm to the side. “But I’m warning you, it’s pretty bad.”
“What’s pretty bad?” I wonder as I follow him up the stairs. I quickly whisper over my shoulder to Lea, “You can go back in and wait in the car.”
“Hell no,” she hisses, glancing over her shoulder at two loud guys who have appeared at the bottom of the stairway. “I feel less safe in there. Just go…I want to get this over with anyway.”
“I owe you big-time,” I whisper.
“Yeah, you do,” she agrees quietly.
Tristan pauses at the top of the steps and moves aside so we can step by him. “He got his ass beat a couple of hours ago and he’s been passed out ever since.”
“Quinton got beat up?” I’m stunned as fear pulsates through me.
Tristan nods. “Yeah, it happens sometimes.”
He says it so casually, like it doesn’t matter, but it does. Quinton matters. And suddenly nothing else matters but getting to Quinton. I rush up the last few steps, urging Tristan to get a move on with a motion of my hand. “I need to see him.” I know it’s sort of a demanding thing to do, but I don’t really care. He’s just walking around with a damn bag of ice in his hand while Quinton could be seriously hurt and he doesn’t even seem coherent enough to fully grasp how absurd it is. And the fact that he doesn’t seem coherent makes me worry even more, because what if Quinton’s dying or something—I doubt Tristan would even be able to tell.
“All right,” Tristan says, as calm as can be, and then signals for me to follow him as he heads to the left. “I’ll lead the way.”
Shaking my head, I follow him across the balcony and past the apartment doors. The entire place reeks like cigarette smoke mixed with weed and it throws me back to a place I don’t necessarily want to forget, but that I don’t like to remember either.
There’s a ton of beer bottles and buckets of cigarette butts around the fronts of the doors, old shoes, shirts, plates of rotting food, and one door is surrounded by a lot of trash bags that smell awful. There’s even a plastic chair and table in front of one of the doors with a guy slumped over it, passed out with what looks like a joint still burning in his hand.
“Is that guy going to be okay?” I nod at the guy as the smoke burns at the back of my throat and nose.
I remember.
God, I do.
It smells and tastes just the same.
Feels the same.
The numbness…the way it momentarily takes everything away.
Stop remembering.
Forget.
Remember who you are now.
As much as I fight it, I remember everything. The feelings of being lost, drifting, numb, yet content at the same time. Detached, floating, flying, running away from my problems. I was sinking, in mud, in drugs, in life. And Quinton was there, sinking right beside me, holding my hand as we went down together, but he told me I was too good for it—that I was better than the things I was doing. He did what he could to get me to stop sinking, even though he wanted to sink himself. That day he left me in the pond, he showed me that aside from the drugs, he was a good guy. He didn’t take advantage of my drifting, my confusion, my mourning.
Tristan pauses near the table and follows my gaze to the guy with the joint. “Oh, that’s Bernie, and yeah, he’ll be fine. He does that sometimes.” He plucks the joint out of Bernie’s hands and I think he’s going to smoke it, but instead he puts it out in the ashtray. When he catches me staring at him funny, he shrugs. “What? It’s not my thing anymore.” He starts down the balcony again, glancing over his shoulder at me. “Not really, anyway.”
It takes a lot not to stare at the track marks on his arms and keep my eyes focused ahead. Lea mutters something under her breath, staying just behind me with her arms wrapped around herself. Tristan starts humming some song as he strolls past door after door and I don’t recognize it, but I wish I did for no other reason than that it would be a distraction. I could sing the lyrics in my head, find solitude in music, like I’ve done many times.
When I check on Lea, she has her eyes fixed on pretty much everything, taking in a world she’s never been in. Hell, I’ve never even been in it, not like this, anyway. This is so different from the trailer park—much more dangerous-looking. Its own dark place hidden from the world and the light and I’m not sure what it’ll take to get Quinton out of here, but I need to find that out.
I take slow breath after slow breath, forcing myself not to count them or my heartbeats or how many steps it’s taking me to get to the door. How many stars are in the sky or how many lights there are on a casino just across the street.
Finally Tristan stops in front of one of the doors and looks back at the parking lot, like he’s checking on something. I’m proud of myself for not running to numbers to calm me down, but when he opens the door my pride crashes and shatters like the pile of glass on the floor just inside the door.
“Welcome to our palace,” Tristan jokes as he shoves the door open and the doorknob bangs against the wall behind it, causing the really bony guy slumped on the couch to let out a grunt as he turns over. I think I recognize the intricate tattoos on his arms, most in black, but some in crimson and indigo, but I’m having a hard time placing him.
As I enter, stepping over the threshold and out of the light of the porch, the first thing I notice is the smell. It stinks. Not just like weed or cigarette smoke, but like garbage, rotting food, dirt, grime, sweaty people, and there’s this really musty smell, like a humidifier is on nearby, yet I can’t see one anywhere. It’s all mixed together and it stings at my nostrils. I wonder if this is how the trailer smelled or if I was just oblivious to it—if I was oblivious to a lot of things.
On the floor are three 1970s lamps with beads hanging off the shades, one of which is tipped over but still on. There’s a large blanket with a tiger on it hanging over the window and the ceiling fan is on, but it’s missing one of the blades and it makes this thumping sound as it moves. There’s no carpet on the floor, and there are holes in the walls, water stains on the ceiling, and crack pipes on the floor. It reminds me so much of the trailer they used to live in, only much shittier (and that’s putting it nicely). I’m both repulsed by it and drawn to what’s hidden beneath the surface, the crevices, the pipes on the floor. My senses are heightened because I know that just one or two hits and I’d probably feel twenty times more subdued at the moment, instead of so anxious I feel like I’m going to combust. At least if it were weed, but Delilah told me on the phone that they were into meth now.