“Yeah, you did,” he snaps hotly, matching my move and stealing the space right back. “You don’t care about me even though you’ve known me for longer than Quinton, even though you hardly know anything about him.”
“That’s not true,” I say, refusing to cower back. “I do care about you.” I can only handle so much, though, and this is too much. All of this is becoming too much. “I just…” Shit, I’m starting to get worked up, ready to crack, break apart. “I can only handle so much and Quinton seems to really need my help.”
It strikes a nerve and I can see in his eyes that it does. For a fleeting instant his shield crumbles and his hurt is visible, but it swiftly builds back up and he’s annoyed with me again.
He throws his hands in the air exasperatedly. “Whatever, Nova. You show up here with your judgmental eyes and think that everything you say matters, like you can save Quinton just by talking and calling up his dad. You think you can fix everything, like helping us with our drug dealers. Like you have a f**king clue how any of that works.” He points his finger at me and starts for the hallway, walking backward, his dazed blue eyes fastened on me. “I don’t have to deal with this shit.” Then he vanishes down the hall, leaving me in a room that smells worse than dog shit.
I press my fingers to my temples and let my head fall forward. I swear to God, it feels like I’ve walked into a minefield and one wrong step and I’ll set off a bomb. Only the steps are words and the bombs are moody, strung-out people, either high or craving to get high.
It doesn’t help that I’m cranky, too. I seriously consider going out through the front door and back to my car, driving off into the sunset, not stopping until I reach it, forgetting about all of this, like it would be that easy, when it wouldn’t. Besides, I couldn’t even reach the sunset if I tried, since it doesn’t really exist. It’s just an illusion that paints the world with its pretty colors just before night comes and covers it all up with darkness. It reminds me that walking away, pretending Quinton doesn’t need my help, isn’t going to get me anywhere, other than maybe to another video, recorded moments before he dies.
So I end up going down the hall toward Quinton’s room. As I pass by the shut door of the room Quinton locked himself in the first time I came here, I hear people arguing behind it. Their voices are muffled so I can’t tell what they’re saying, but it sounds like things are heated. It makes me a little nervous and that feeling only grows when I reach the end of the hall. Quinton’s door is cracked and the one to my right is wide open. What I see inside makes me seriously wish I had picked the delusional sunset.
Tristan is sitting on the floor just inside the room with a rubber band around his bony arm and he’s flicking his vein with his finger as he opens and closes his fist. It reminds me of when I slit my wrist open, only he’s preparing to sink the syringe that’s beside his foot into his skin.
As if he senses me watching him, he glances up and our eyes lock. It frightens me how cold and empty his are. Before I can say a word, he moves his foot and kicks the door shut in my face and suddenly I understand his erratic behavior a little bit more. It hurts, more than I thought it would, and opens my eyes a little to a much bigger problem. If I save Quinton, help him, there are still so many others slowly killing themselves like Tristan. It feels like such a lost cause. One I can’t change, but desperately want to.
I squeeze my eyes shut, telling myself to stay calm. Shut it out. Focus on one thing at a time. Breathe.
But the yelling in the room gets louder and I hear something crash against the door and shatter. My eyes shoot open and I turn around as the sound of crying flows through the door, and then it opens up. Dylan strolls out wearing a white tank top and a pair of jeans held up with a frayed belt. He glances at me frigidly as he shuts the door, giving me no time to see what’s going on inside.
“You looking for something?” he asks, relaxing causally against the door like nothing’s going on at all.
I shake my head, my nerves bubbling inside. “I’m just here to see Quinton.”
He points at something over my shoulder. “His room is that way, not over here.”
I hesitate to turn around and only do when the crying stops. I feel Dylan stand there behind me for a while until finally he goes back into the room.
I free a trapped breath, my muscles unraveling. “What is wrong with that guy?”
“Delilah and him fight all the time.” Quinton appears in the doorway of his room, wearing only his boxers. I can see every scar, every sunken-in area, the weight he’s lost, the sheer lack of health. His eyes have dark rings under them and they’re filled with the same unwelcome look that was in Tristan’s eyes. “I feel bad for her and tried to help her once, but she won’t leave him…” He shrugs. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Maybe I should go in there and talk to her,” I say. “See if I can, I don’t know, do something.”
“Always trying to save everyone.”
“Everyone I care for,” I say, meeting his gaze.
He gives me an indecisive look and then sighs, submitting. “What are you doing here? I thought we ended stuff the other day on the roof.” He says it like he seriously believes that he thought our fight on the roof was the end of things.
It takes a tremendous amount of energy to shrug off his as**ole comment. “We didn’t end things,” I say. “We just had a fight and now I’m here to apologize.”
“Apologize for what?”
“For making you mad. That is why you’ve been avoiding me, isn’t it?”
He cocks his head to the side, looking at me like I’m a foreign creature. “No, you didn’t make me mad. You just made me realize that I don’t want you hanging around…that it’s not good for me to be around you.”
“But I want to be around you and you told me you would let me visit you before I go home, which is soon.” The last part is a lie because I honestly have no clue when I’ll head back—when I’ll be able to accept that things may never change. Give up hope.
He studies me even more closely, seeming conflicted and a little irate, and all I want to do is step to the side and let the wall block me from his unrelenting gaze. “You can stay and hang if you want to,” he says as he reaches for a pair of jeans on the floor. “But I…I have to do a few things first.”
“Like what?”
He doesn’t respond, but he does take out a tiny plastic bag filled with white clumpy powder. He holds it up and raises his eyebrows inquiringly, like he’s testing me, daring me to give him a reason to send me away, back out to the other side of that cracked door.
I feel myself curl into a ball inside but outside I stay tall. “Do you have to?”
He nods with need in his eyes and I force the lump down in my throat and don’t say a word when he starts to open the bag and then shuts the door. At least he does me the courtesy of not doing it in front of me this time.
I stare at the cracks in the wall as I wait, tracking them with my gaze, not counting them even though I desperately want to. Then the bedroom door swings open, the one Dylan went in. But he’s not the person that steps out.
Delilah is.
She’s wearing a see-through shirt and her shorts look more like boy-cut panties. Her auburn hair is matted and her cheek is a little swollen. But she seems more alert than the last time I saw her.
She starts to head in the opposite direction from me, ashing her cigarette on the floor, but then pauses when she sees me. “So the rumors are true,” she says, sniffling, her nose red, and I’m unsure if it’s because she’s been crying or because she just snorted something.
“What rumors?” I lean against the wall and she stands across from me, relaxing against the door.
She shrugs, taking another drag of her cigarette. “That you’re here in Vegas.”
“Yeah, I got here a little over a week ago,” I tell her. “And you saw me the other day.”
“Really?” She stares at the ceiling as she tries to recollect. “I don’t remember that.”
“That’s because you were out of it,” I reply, folding my arms.
She sizes me up and I can see the hatred in her. “Why did you come here?”
“To see Quinton.” I ignore her rude attitude.
Smoke circles her face as she exhales. “Why?”
“Because I want to try and help him,” I explain to her.
“With what?”
I glance up and down the hallway, at the garbage on the floor, the used syringes, the empty alcohol bottle. There’s no carpet on the floor. The ceiling is cracked. The entire place looks like it’s about to collapse. “With getting out of this place.”
She laughs snidely. “Yeah, good luck with that.” She puts the cigarette between her lips again and breathes deep. “No one around here wants to be saved, Nova. You should remember that, since you were once in this place.”
“But I got out.”
“Because you wanted to.” She grazes her thumb across the bottom of the cigarette, scattering ash across the floor. “We’re all here because we choose to be here.”
I elevate my eyebrows. “Even you?”
She frowns. “Yes, even me.”
“Then why were you crying a few minutes ago?” I don’t really think that has anything to do with drugs, but I’m trying to get her to talk about it. Despite the fact that she can be a bitch most of the time, she was my friend once.
“I was upset about something,” she says, dropping her cigarette to the floor. “I’m allowed to be upset.”
“I know that.” I move toward her. “Why’s your cheek all swollen?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “I walked into a wall.”
I don’t believe her at all. “How the heck does that happen?”
She shrugs, pressing the tip of her shoe to the cigarette, putting it out. “I was tripping out. Thought I could walk through walls.”
“Are you…are you sure it had nothing to do with the yelling?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” she snaps, shuffling forward and grabbing hold of my arm. “Don’t you dare speculate that Dylan hit me. Because he didn’t.”
I flinch as her fingers dig into my skin. “I never said he did.”
She huffs, releasing her hold on me, and flips me off. “Fuck you. You don’t know me. Not anymore.” Then she stomps off down the hallway, throwing her arms in the air.
“Delilah, wait.” I call out as I hurry after her. “I wasn’t trying to make you mad.”
She spins on her heels, her face red with anger. “Then what were you doing?”
“I just.” I squirm uneasily against her heated gaze. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” she says through clenched teeth.
“If you ever need anything, you can call me,” I say in a pathetic attempt to help her.
Her mouth is set in a thin line. “I don’t…won’t ever need anything.”
The helpless feeling inside me magnifies and nearly drowns me as she turns and walks away, leaving me standing at the end of the hallway. I feel like banging my head on the wall, surrounded by a ton of people who need help, but don’t want it. And I’m not strong enough to help all of them at once. What am I supposed to do? Keep trying until I break? Walk away and always regret not staying? Because I know that’s where this will go. I’m already becoming obsessed with the what-ifs again, just like I did after Landon died. And maybe I’ll eventually get over it, heal. But at the same time I want this to turn out good. I want just for once not to have to lose someone because I couldn’t do things right—ride my bike fast enough or wake up a few minutes earlier and convince the person I love that life is worth living.
“What are you doing?” The sound of Quinton’s voice startles me and my heart speeds up.
I spin around. He’s standing in the doorway again with jeans on, sniffing profusely as he puts a shirt on. His eyes are much warmer and more coherent, like he’s killed the monster that was emerging in him, or just put it to sleep.
“I was talking to Delilah.” I walk back down the hall to him.
“And how did that go?” he questions, stuffing the plastic bag into his pocket.
“Not very well,” I admit. “I’m worried about her, not just because of the…well, you know…” I seek the right words, but I’m not sure there are such things. “Not just because she’s on drugs, but because she’s with Dylan.”
“But you can’t help her if she doesn’t want help.” There’s an underlying meaning in his tone.
“But I can try,” I reply, straining a small smile. “What kind of person would I be to give up on people?”
“The normal kind,” he says with honesty.
“Well, I’ve always known I wasn’t normal.”
“No, you’re not.” There’s a mystified look on his face. “But it’s a good thing, I think.” He continues to stare at me for a moment, looking more and more lost, until finally he crouches down to grab a handful of change off the floor. “So where are we going tonight?” He stands back up with a ghost smile on his face. So hot and cold. So up and down. So much like Landon.
“Where do you want to go?” I ask as he stuffs the coins into his pocket.
He presses his lips together, scanning his room, the floor covered in coins and on his mattress a blanket and his sketchbook. “You just want to hang out around here?”