She has a soft smile and wide blue eyes, and her light brown hair is pulled back into a low ponytail. Her slender wrists look so dainty in comparison to mine as she works her cold fingers across my arms and hands. “How’s your throat?” She asks, barely looking up.
“Sore. It hurts.” The tube and what I was later told were September’s fingers have left it hard to swallow without a constant reminder of that night’s decision.
Angela nods and steps away from my bed to add more notes on my chart. “The doctor will be in shortly to talk about the transfer. You’re doing well, Audrey.” There’s a knowing look in her eyes like she’s seen my kind before, and I’m not a false alarm. When she clears the doorway, I can hear her speaking to another nurse right outside in the hallway, and she says just loud enough for me to make out, “Had she taken the other ones, she wouldn’t be here. It’s a good thing she reached for the bottle she did. That’s a ridiculous cocktail to have a girl on at her age. But what do I know? I’m not a doctor, right?”
Chills erupt all over my body in the silence that hangs after her words. Had I shoved a handful of another prescription down my throat, I wouldn’t be here to know the truth about my mom. About my dad.
About my entire life.
It took two weeks to change my whole life. So it came as no surprise that it should take two weeks to even start to put it back together again. After the hospital stay in Mississippi, there was a flight home by my dad’s side. Settling back into my old bedroom in the basement of my childhood home was bittersweet in so many ways. Each time I looked out the window into the backyard, I was reminded of a memory with Cline.
Each time I looked out the front window, I could see his house, and all I could remember was the night I stood on the lawn and asked Elliot to come to that party at the lake house.
We went back up there one weekend, Patrick and I. He claimed it was for a little rest and relaxation, but I’m smart enough to know that when your therapist adjusts your medication and says it may take a little while to get into your system—and she’s worried, so you should be watched closely—a trip to the lake is the easiest way for a parent to keep you within fifty feet of them at all times.
We swam and fished, though I couldn’t bear the thought of keeping anything I caught. Patrick would just smile and look wistful. “Your mom was the exact same way,” he said while unhooking a fish and setting it free. The words didn’t sting in the least. We were nothing but a work in progress, one day at a time.
My contact with Cline was minimal, but it was there. After all I’d done to try and set things right, I couldn't allow myself to let him go again. We mostly text, and they are brief, just check-ins to make sure everything is okay. He’s the dose of reality that I need, and I am a little more grounded each time I get a chance to talk to him.
I talk to Elliot even less, because the guilt that eats its way through my insides every time I think of him is too overwhelming for me. I don’t know how deeply he was affected by my actions, because we’ve never addressed it. There’s no easy way to bring it up, either. It doesn’t seem like something you’d text a person: Hey, about that night you took my virginity… I didn’t try to take my life because of it. You were a good first time.
He may not even know that he was my first, though I wasn’t very convincing in my lie to September, so she could have very well told him about the conversation regarding the sheets. Either way, less than twenty-four hours after sleeping together, he was helping to save my life. I’ve probably screwed him up for all of eternity. There are no gift baskets or Hallmark cards for that kind of thing.
Three weeks after my return home, my dad went up to Brixton with a truck to pack up my belongings. It was the first time he’d left me alone, but I had a sneaking suspicion he’d given instructions for poor Cline’s mom to be on the lookout for anything weird happening in his absence. This was confirmed when I finally called my old childhood friend and asked outright if his mom was spying on me from across the street.
“Look, your dad told my mom that you were home alone for the first time since, you know … the thing.” He’s breathing heavily into the phone, and I can hear the strain in his voice.
“Do I want to know what you’re doing right now? Quick: Does it involve a toilet, September, or both?” I ask, pressing my face to the glass window pane by my front door to stare across the street while his mom is peeking through her blinds.
Cline grunts and something lands with a thud on the other end of the line. “For your information, I’m helping your dad load up your room, because I’m a fine fucking southern gentleman, thank you very much. But this bookcase you have crammed into your closet is heavy as shit.”