Life of the Party (69 page)

“I guess I
should be going.” Riley decided suddenly, ripping his eyes from
mine and looking up at the clock, breaking the spell.

I cleared my
throat. What the hell was that? “Well … I think we were fairly
successful today.” I offered casually.

“Oh yeah?” He
chuckled. “Are you cured?”

“Uh … not yet
….” For an instant, the picture of a needle flashed into my mind,
and with it, the intense craving for heroin knotted my stomach with
need. I breathed through it, trying to shake the image from my
head. “I mean, this visit didn’t end in a fight. That’s a pretty
big deal, don’t you think? For us?”

Riley stared at
me a moment, his lips curled in amusement. “Yeah, I guess it
is.”

“So you’ll come
back tomorrow, right?”

“I’ll be here
every day.” He promised.

The days and
weeks passed, as they often do. I had bad days and good days—mostly
bad, with a few good sprinkled in. The fact that I could have any
good days at all was amazing to me. But they came. I don’t know
what brought them about, but I’d wake up in the morning after a
fitful, tenuous sleep, and I’d feel some hope. Some strength. Like
I could get through it all. Like I was going to make it.

And then came
the bad days.

Those days I
didn’t even want to get out of bed. Those days my heart ached as if
it were on fire, my thoughts knew no peace, my mind no rest. Those
days I missed Grey abominably. Overwhelmed with guilt and sorrow
and loss I’d plod on through the day, sullen, arms crossed
defensively, snapping at those around me. Snapping at Riley. Poor
Riley always suffered the brunt of my emotion, especially during my
bad days. But it didn’t seem to faze him. He apparently had a
never-ending supply of patience at his disposal, for all he put up
with—my moroseness, my bitter gloom, my cruel remarks. He seemed to
understand that it wasn’t about him, but of course, he wasn’t shy
about telling me when to shut up, either.

Riley continued
to talk to me about God, and for some reason every time he did, it
made me want to cry. I tried fitfully to read the Bible he had
given me. The first few chapters were enjoyable, the whole Adam and
Eve story and Noah and all that. Of course I had heard those
stories before, but it was kind of neat to read them in their
original context. I found it hard to believe they really
happened—like nursery rhymes or fairy tales—and I asked Riley a
trillion questions, most he couldn’t answer. Like, did Noah take
mosquitoes with him on the ark? If he did, why? He could have saved
us a whole bunch of trouble, not to mention a bunch of diseases, if
he’d just left those pests behind. And Adam and Eve. If they were
the first two people on earth, who did their sons marry? Their
sisters?

I couldn’t help
myself. It was easier to make light of the situation, to keep
things casual, shallow. I didn’t want to tell Riley about it, but
whenever he got into the real stuff, the heart stuff … it made me
teary. Teary and uncomfortable. I just couldn’t explain it, like
there was this … voice inside of me, one I was trying fervently to
deny. One I didn’t want to have. One I didn’t want to need.

But still I
struggled through. Until I reached Deuteronomy, that is.

“There’s an
awful lot of begotting in that book.” I admitted sourly to Riley
one particularly ugly day.

He laughed
outright at me, more heartily than I had heard him laugh for a
long, long time. I waited, seething, until he was finished. I
didn’t see what was so funny about it.

“I’m sorry.” He
managed between chuckles. “I’ve just never heard it put that way
before.”

“Well,” I
defended stiffly, “maybe I just won’t read any more, if what I
think is so amusing to you.”

“Wow. Touchy.”
He smiled at me, his dark eyes warming. “No. Don’t stop reading it.
I’m glad you are. Just … maybe try something, a little closer to
the middle. Like the Psalms, or the New Testament. I think you’ll
like that.”

“I don’t know,
Riley.” I shook my head in frustration. “I just don’t think I get
it. You know? It’s just … words. I don’t get any … it’s all kind of
… meaningless, to me. I don’t understand any of it.”

“Try asking God
to show you,” he suggested, “he’d love to speak to you, you know.
He wants to speak to you.”

Tears pricked
my eyes. I couldn’t explain them, I blinked them away.

“Yeah.”
Whatever.

“You’re going
to get through this,” Riley grasped my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Just take it one day at a time. Ask him for help.”

I nodded and
stared silently at the floor. Sometimes it felt like my sorrow was
engulfing me—that it was all I had left, that I had lost every part
of me to it. I missed Grey so much. I blamed myself for his death.
I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror, to face what I had
become—everything I had done. I was wasted. Broken. Lost.

Miserable.

“I know you’re
hurting right now, Mackenzie.” Riley’s voice reached my ears, low,
serious, as if he’d been reading my mind. “But you need to hurt.
You need to hurt if ever you’re going to change.”

“But you
changed.” I realized glumly. “You totally changed, and you didn’t
feel any hurt. Not like this.”

Riley
hesitated, his dark eyes scanning the drab interior of the room as
he thought out his reply. He took a sip of coffee. “Maybe I didn’t
hurt like you do now. But I hurt, Mac. More than you know.”

“How?”

“It … it hurt
to know what a … what a piece of shit I had become. Even when I
look back now, when I think about the way I acted, the way I was.
So selfish, you know? So … destructive. It hurt to think about what
I was doing to my mom. I’m all she has in the whole world. And what
I was doing to all those kids, kids younger than me, giving them
drugs, taking their money ….” He paused thoughtfully, hesitating as
he met my eyes across the table. “… It … it hurt for me to think
about what I’d done to you, too. I mean, if it weren’t for me … we
probably never would’ve gotten high that first time. I felt guilty
… responsible … just … wretched. I hurt. But it helped me. It made
me see that I had to change.”

I listened to
him, wide-eyed, totally able to empathise. I knew what he meant
about the guilt, the misery … the hopelessness that came with
realizing how terrible I actually was, in every single way. How
nearly every one of my actions for the last few years had been
entirely selfish, entirely wrong.

I didn’t
deserve happiness. Not after what I’d done.

“So … you
changed … and now, everything is good?” I wondered.

“… Yes … and
no.” Riley shrugged. “Just because I’ve got … God now, doesn’t mean
my life is just a total cake walk. I mean, sure, I’m not doing
those bad things anymore, but truthfully, I’m still a piece of
shit. Everyone is, Mac. Compared to God’s goodness, every single
person you meet, no matter how ‘good’ they may seem … they’re
disgusting. We’re all disgusting. None of us deserve him, it
doesn’t matter what we do.”

“That seems
pretty grim,” I realized despondently. “So what’s the point
then?”

“The point is …
He doesn’t see us that way. We are precious to him. He knows how
brutally terrible we all are, but he loves us anyway. And he
forgives us. All we have to do is ask, and he’ll forgive us, for
everything. See? We need him in such a desperate way.”

I bit my lip
doubtfully. “But how does it …?”

Riley sat up,
leaning forward towards me. “Okay. You know the Christmas story,
right? How Jesus was born in a manger and everything?”

“Yeah.” I
nodded. More fairy tales.

“Jesus is God’s
son, right? He walked this earth, like physically walked the earth.
He went through every trial and experience that we could ever face,
but he did it perfectly. Without sin. His entire life, he didn’t
sin once. Not even once.” Riley scoffed. “I can’t even go five
minutes without some kind of sin.”

“Go on.” I
insisted impatiently.

“So, though
he’s God’s son, though he’s utterly blameless, he ends up getting
arrested. And in the end, he gets put to death. They beat him, and
whipped him, and completely shredded his body. They tortured him,
Mac. They made him carry his own cross, and then they nailed his
hands and his feet to it, and hung him there until he died.”

I hadn’t
realized I was holding my breath until Riley paused. I let it out,
hanging on his words. “And …?”

“He died for
us, Mac. The only person alive who’s ever lived without sinning.
But it was all a part of God’s plan; it was the only way he could
save us from
our
sin. He became sin. He became what is
killing us. And then he died, so that we could be free of it. And
then he rose again, so that we could live with him. Truly live Mac,
free. Totally free. Jesus is alive today, Mac, he’s alive in you.
And you are his desire.”

I raised my
eyebrows at the story. “I’m sorry … Ry, I still don’t really … get
it. I mean … its great and all … but doesn’t it seem kind of …
fictitious?”

“Of course it
does.” Riley smiled, like he knew some great secret. After a moment
he sat up again, leaning forward conspiratorially. His voice
dropped lowly. “‘Cause you know what really saves you, Mac?”

“What?”

“Faith. Faith
in the impossible. Faith that Jesus did die for you, as crazy as it
may seem. Believing in God, believing that he exists, believing
that Jesus is as alive today as he was back then. Faith. Like that
of a child. Ignoring all the voices that tell you none of it could
be real, that none of it could actually happen. Just … believing.
Believe everything. Believe him.”

“Believe
it?”

“Yes.” Riley
stared at me a moment. “Believe that Jesus willingly died for you,
to save you. He knew how sinful you’d be, he knew how terrible all
of us would be. We’re sinful from birth, it’s in our very nature,
but still, he loved us enough to die for us. He chose to sacrifice
himself to give us life.”

“He did?”

“Think about
it, Mackenzie. He’s the son of God. He preformed countless miracles
here on earth, he turned water into wine, he fed five thousand
people with a few loaves of bread. He healed the sick; he
raised
people from the dead! Do you think a few measly nails
could’ve held him to that cross?”

“No?”

“No. Of course
not.” Riley smiled at me. “Only his love for you could do
that.”

Riley had given
me a lot to think about. I still didn’t know how I felt about God …
it all seemed so … crazy. All of it. Something I’d never really
needed before, and wasn’t sure I needed now. I sat pensively, quiet
at the cafeteria table while the girls around me laughed and joked
with each other. They had given up trying to extricate me from my
shell. For the most part, I was invisible to them, but I didn’t
really mind. Idly, I brought my fork to my mouth and chewed a bite
full of lukewarm, sticky macaroni. Another month and a half and I’d
be going home.

I wondered
fleetingly what Charlie was doing. What Alex and Zack were up to.
My mind scanned quickly over my parents and my sister, trying to
picture them going through the daily routine of life, trying to
imagine where they were. Mom would be at work at the hospital, Dad
would be on a plane somewhere. Marcy was probably studying.

Hopefully, Greg
was smoking a pipe somewhere with his bedroom slippers on. I smiled
to myself at the image. It was so strange to think that outside of
rehab, normal life was continuing just like it had before. To me it
seemed like everyone’s life should be on hold, just as mine
was.

I wondered if
they worried about me at all, my family, or if they had shipped me
off without a thought, chalking me up as a “goner,” hopeless that
I’d ever get better. I wouldn’t have blamed them. But secretly, I
hoped they were rooting for me. I hoped they wanted me to take part
in their lives again—soberly, a new version of the old Mackenzie
before the drugs had taken her away. I wondered what the new
Mackenzie would be like. I wondered who she was.

I put my fork
down and sighed, taking a sip from my Coke. As gross as the
cafeteria food might’ve been, it was doing its job. My pants fit
again—they weren’t straining by any means, but they weren’t sagging
off my protruding hipbones anymore either. And the few times I
allowed myself to glance into a mirror, I noticed the new fullness
of my face. Slowly I was losing the sallow, gaunt cheekbones; the
more weight I gained the softer my appearance became. A slight
blush of color was returning to my skin, so I looked less and less
like death and more and more alive with every passing day. I was
looking healthy again. On the outside, anyway.

After supper
was finished, we headed down the bland old hallway towards the TV
room. I trailed behind the other girls, my fingers dragging
absently down the wall. There was something kind of off about how I
was feeling. Introspective, definitely—but with that came …
anxiety. A new kind of anxiety, distantly related to how I felt
when the lights went off at night. But more … panicky. Like,
stressful. And I didn’t know what was causing it.

Maybe it was
Allison. I bit my lip and looked up at the back of my roommate as
she led the way towards the TV room. Her blonde hair was in messy
spikes around her head, her ripped jeans tucked loosely into large
black boots. She’d been distant with me lately; I think she was
resentful of all the “special” visits I was getting from Riley.
What’s more, she hated the fact that I was actually trying. Well,
trying to try. Paying attention in group therapy now, journaling,
opening up a little more with my ancient one-on-one
therapist—though that was extremely hard to want to do. I knew that
all the resentment would stop if I told her about Grey and the
overdose, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Deep down, I
think it was more than that.