Escape In You (26 page)

I can’t handle the thought that she isn’t coming back.

I grab my keys and head out the door. I don’t know where she’ll be tonight, but I should be able to find her friends. Maybe Ellie can tell me what the hell is going on.

After checking the Burrito Barn and two house parties, I still haven’t found Ellie, but I do find Hunter and Everett playing pool at Gino’s, a bar on the outskirts of town.

“Hey, man,” Everett says when he sees me, and my heart constricts. The look on his face is not good.

“Ellie told us,” Hunter says. “I’m sorry, dude. I thought you guys were good together.”

“What’d she tell you?” I ask, hoping my voice sounds normal.

They share a look.

“She says you and Zoe broke up,” Hunter says.

I close my eyes. There it is, then. I didn’t hallucinate the entire thing, and there’s no sense in denial. If she’s telling her friends we broke up, she must have really meant it.

“Hey, you okay?” Everett says, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I open my eyes, seeing concern on his face. I don’t even care how lame I look right now, I just want to know what happened.

“I just don’t get it,” I say. “I thought we were doing good. I have no idea why she would…why she…” I trail off. I can’t bring myself to say the words.

“That really sucks,” Everett says. He pauses, as if not sure he should say more. “To be honest, I’m kinda surprised it lasted as long as it did.”

“Why?”

Hunter answers for him. “She not really the dating type, you know? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her with a guy for half as long as you two were together. She just…” He shrugs. “Zoe doesn't do commitment. She never has. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

I almost want to laugh. Two months ago I would have said the same thing about myself. And Zoe had certainly told me as much about herself.
This is just fun.
She’d even told me that she would never change. And I’d believed the same was true about me.

Funny, somehow I thought we’d both changed. I guess I’d been wrong.

Obviously, there’s only one thing to do. There’s no way I can sit here and repeat all this bullshit in my head. She left me two hours ago and I already feel like I’m going insane. Talking to Hunter and Everett just reminds me of all the times the three of us were together this summer. It’d been nice to have an actual crew, people I could hang out with, trust. In summers past it was just me and Fred and whatever old acquaintance was throwing the best party. With Zoe, I had honest-to-God friends.

Zoe. I can’t think about her right now, can’t picture her face or hear her voice in my head. It hurts too fucking bad.

I leave Hunter and Everett at the pool table and head straight to the bar. I grab a stool and order a shot of whiskey as soon as the bartender glances in my direction. “Keep ‘em coming,” I tell him before downing the shot.

The whiskey burns a familiar fiery trail down my chest. It’s been a while since I’ve felt that searing heat. I think about the promise Zoe and I had made to each other to ease off on this stuff but dismiss it. What the hell does that matter now? Surely she can’t expect me to honor my promise when she doesn’t even want me anymore. The thought sends me right back to the shot glass. I can’t drink fast enough to make it go away this time.

I don’t know how long I sit there, but I do know that by the time Fred finds me I’m feeling pretty damn numb. My chest still hurts like someone stomped on it, but the pain is blurring around the edges, not quite so sharp.

“Hey,” my best friend says, sliding into the seat next to me.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. I try to bring his face into focus.

“Everett called me.” He nods toward the back of the bar.

“Thought I needed a babysitter?” I sneer.

Fred shakes his head. “No. Just company.”

Company. I’m so grateful for him in that moment that I want to cry, an entirely horrifying prospect. Instead, I take another shot.

“She left,” I say after a minute of silence, knowing that he already knows but needing to say it anyhow.

“I’m sorry. That sucks.”

I shake my head, the lump back in my throat. Fuck.

“I don’t know why, man,” I say, my voice low. I picture her face, smiling, lying next to me at the beach. Laughing as she changes the radio station in my car. Putting her feet up on the dash to piss me off. The look on her face when we went down that first hill on the coaster yesterday. Eyes sparkling over the pillow in my bed. Moving in to kiss me. “I just don’t know why.”

“I don’t know either,” he says.

I take another shot, and her face starts to blur, melting into another face, one I try never to think of. Jim had eyes like hers, blue and clear.

“Why does everyone leave?” I whisper. I’m so tired now, so sick of watching the people I love walk away. I think about going home, back to that house, alone. Jim should be there, in his room, listening to his shitty CDs and talking to Sarah on the phone. And Zoe should be in my apartment, waiting for me in my bed. But they’re gone, both of them. Gone forever.

I put my head in my hands, scared I really am going to cry. My friend puts his hand on my shoulder, but I barely feel it. “They always leave.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Zoe

I can’t get his face out of my mind.

It’s not like there aren’t other things for me worry about right now—big, scary, terrible things. But still, it’s Taylor’s face that I see every time I let my mind wander, every time I close my eyes.

I hurt him. Badly. That was clear when he all but begged me to stay. I wanted to, wanted to let my walls come down and fall into his arms, tell him everything, ask him to take it all away.

But he can’t do that. No one could take this away, not this time. My life is a nightmare, with no end in sight. I can’t justify leaving my mom alone again, not even for a minute. No more sleepovers with my boyfriend, no more dinner dates or trips to amusement parks. I owe her more than that, owe her to at least try to look out for her. At the very least I owe her my presence as she tries to pick up the pieces.

I’m stuck here for the long haul. Trapped. Rhode Island is as far out of reach as a foreign country. He said he wasn’t going to go, seemed to think that he is trapped, too. But that’s bullshit. His mother doesn’t need him, his father has all but abandoned him. What’s holding him here? I’ll be damned if it’s going to be me.

So I walked out of his apartment, knowing it was for the best. He can’t save me, and I’m not going to be responsible for keeping him here. One way or another, we would let each other down, eventually. It’s a given, just the way this fucked up world works. It’s smarter to cut our losses now, before it goes any further.

But that doesn’t make it any easier to stop thinking about him.

Ellie pulls up to the entrance of the hospital. We haven’t really talked since she picked me up outside his apartment. She knows that something’s up, knows I’m on the verge of completely losing it. But she doesn’t push me. This is Ellie, after all.

“You want me to come in with you?”

I shake my head. “No, thanks. My uncle will be here soon.”

She’s quiet again, watching me. “You dumped him, didn’t you?”

I nod, once. It would be too hard to explain, would hurt too much. I can tell she wants to know what happened, that she’s dying to ask. But she doesn’t. “Are you going to be okay, Zoe?”

I laugh, the sound bitter and more than a little crazy. “I don’t even know what that means anymore.”

“Will you call me later?”

“Sure.”

I move to open the door, but she reaches out her hand to stop me, and then lets it rest on my arm. I can’t meet her eyes. “I’m here, Zoe. You’re not alone in this.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s wrong. She has no idea how alone I am.

She sighs, knowing I’m not going to let her any closer. “Call anytime. I’ll be here with a burrito in ten minutes flat.”

That gets a slight grin out of me. “Thanks, Ells.”

I head up to the waiting room on my mom’s floor, and check in with the nurses’ station. The girl there wasn’t on shift this morning. She gives me a friendly smile and tells me that my mom is sleeping and seems more comfortable. Slightly relieved, I find a chair to wait for my uncle.

He walks in ten minutes later, almost exactly two hours from when we’d hung up. I recognize him immediately, even though I haven’t seen him in nearly a decade. He looks older, much more tired and frail than I remember, with a healthy dose of gray in his mousey brown hair. My mom’s hair.

“Zoe.” I stand, not sure how to greet him after all this time. Part of me wants to hug him. I have a strange urge to be swept up in his arms, to have him swing me onto his shoulders and run around the way he used to when I was little. I had loved Uncle Peter in those days, idolized him. His leaving had been the worst kind of betrayal.

“Hi,” I say, my voice tight. He just stares at me for a long moment, studying my face. He makes a motion as if he’s going to reach for me, but I step out of the way. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course.” He’s still watching my face. Finally, he squares his shoulders, and looks at the nurses’ station on the other side of the glass doors. “I guess we should go and talk to the doctor.”

We’re back in the same office I’d been in that morning with the same doctor. I catch her name this time when she introduces herself to Uncle Peter—Dr. Romana. She takes my uncle through the events of the day.

I should concentrate on what’s she saying, but I’m so tired. The stress of the day and the pain of walking away from Taylor has my head spinning. Phrases—scary, incomprehensible phrases—like “schizoaffective disorder,” “hypersomnia,” “hallucination,” and “suicidal episode” crowd my mind, overwhelming me.

Peter swears softly under his breath. “What kind of treatment has she been getting the last few years, Zoe?”

I realize that they’re both looking at me, and I shift in my seat. “I’m not sure. Jerry took her to her appointments…maybe once a month?”

“I have her medical files here,” Dr. Romana says, and there’s derision in her voice. “She’s been mistreated and misdiagnosed for several years now.”

I sit up straighter. “What do you mean?”

“She hasn’t even been in the care of a psychiatrist,” she explains. “Not in some time.”

I sputter. “But…but, she had medicine! I made sure she took it every day!”

“It seems that she was seeing a general practitioner who prescribed a low dose of benzodiazepine.”

Peter swears again.

I look between him and the doctor. “I don’t understand.”

“She was on Valium, Zoe,” Dr. Romana says. “Typically used to deal with depression and anxiety.”

“So?”

“So your mother’s condition is much more serious than that. She requires, at a minimum, antipsychotic drugs. She hasn’t been on them.”

“That man,” Peter mutters. “I could kill him.”

I feel like the room is spinning. I had no idea, this whole time…

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and tears come to my eyes. “I never…I didn’t know.”

“It’s not your fault,” Peter says, his voice fierce. “You’re only twenty-two, for God’s sake. This should never have been your responsibility.”

I know that doesn’t excuse me though. I never asked about her doctor, about her medication. I didn’t even know what her diagnosis was. I’d been living in a little bubble of denial, thinking I could only handle picking up the pieces, minimizing the damage. I never wanted to know more, to take a greater responsibility, and it had almost killed my mother.

The doctor and Peter continue talking for a few minutes, but I block them out, overwhelmed by the enormity of my mistakes. I’d sacrificed so much to make sure she was okay, tried so hard to help her and be there for her. And never, in all that time, had I actually done a single thing that could really help her. I couldn’t believe how stupid, how irresponsible I’d been.

“Zoe?”

I jump a little, then realize that they’re both watching me again. “Sorry.” What else is there to say?

“I asked if you were hungry,” Peter says. “We’re done here.”

I’m too horrified to be hungry, but I follow him down to the cafeteria anyhow. He probably hasn’t eaten in hours—I’d called right around dinnertime.

He buys us each a sandwich, and we find a table near the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s very dark outside, no moon in the sky. We’re both quiet for several minutes as he eats and I pick at my sandwich.

“I’m sorry, Zoe,” he finally says, setting down his food. “I should have checked on her more.”

I stare at him. Check on her more? When had he
ever
checked on her? I’m about to ask when he continues.

“She made it hard, you know? She wanted nothing to do with me, wouldn’t even take my calls.”

Wait. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t the way I remembered it, not at all.

He’s watching my face again. “Zoe…” He trails off. “What do you remember about me from the last few years?”

“The last few years? I haven’t seen you since I was thirteen.”

I push back from the table a little bit, and rub my hands on my shorts. He’s confusing me, upsetting me, and I’m way too tired and overwhelmed to deal with this.

“And what do you remember from when you were thirteen? What do you think happened?”

“I know what happened,” I snap. “You took off. Said you’d had enough of both of us, that we were too needy and demanding and you were done. And then I never heard from you again.”

There’s a lump in my throat. I’m angry at him, and I miss him all at the same time. His leaving had been one of the worst things I’d ever gone through—at least until my seventeenth birthday.

Across the table, Peter is shaking his head sadly. “No, Zoe. That’s not true. Is that what she told you?”

I stare at him. What the hell is he talking about?

“Zoe, this is not the first time something like this has happened with your mom.”

“I know that. When I was seventeen…”

He’s shaking his head again. “No, Zoe. Before that. Long before that. She’s been sick since she was a teenager.”

“What?”