Hope
I’m moving. I know I’m moving, but not much else. I try and ask someone—anyone—why I’m moving, but no words form. I hear them. Where are we going? But my lips don’t move, except to smile foolishly. I curl up on whatever I’m lying on—a bed, the floor, a chair, I don’t know—and fight the urge to cry. The urge is almost overwhelming. I can’t think; thinking has become impossible. I can’t even feel. I don’t know where I am. I just want to wake up, but this isn’t a dream. I just want to be me again.
I am numb all over, completely numb, from head to toe. I can’t feel a thing, just numbness. I can’t see. I can barely breathe. My breaths come in quick gasps. I open my eyes, but I see nothing. I listen as hard as I can, as closely as I can, but I hear nothing. I try and smell, but I smell nothing. I am completely disjointed from my body in a way I have never experienced. I start to question if I even have a body.
Then I’m flying. Something has grabbed me and is carrying me through the air. On one level I am aware of this, but on another level I’m convinced I’m flying. I’m not sure how both ideas can exist at once, but they do, and fiercely. I’m flying, soaring through the air, suspended only by whatever this strange thing is which carries me.
Now I’m dropped onto something soft. I roll over and bury my face in it, but somebody—something—turns me over and props something under my head, making me lean up, and then I am being spoken to. Words filter through a blurry abyss. I feel as though I am standing on the shore of a lake and somebody is standing on the opposite shore, shouting at me. The words are loud, but when they reach me they’re quiet.
Finally, I stop trying to hear them and just close my ears, ignore it completely. I stare into nothing—blackness, never-ending blackness—and just float on whatever it is I’m lying on.
Where is Killian? I want to ask, but words are my enemies right now. They won’t work for me. They’ll only try and mess with me. Where is he? But the truth is I don’t even know where I am, so even if somebody told me where it was, it’d make no difference.
Just before unconsciousness takes me, I think: What the hell happened to me?
I don’t have an answer.
When I wake up, my head aches like somebody is sawing straight down the middle.
I groan and lean up, rubbing the pulsing spot on my head. I look around. I’m in my living room, it’s nighttime, and Patrick is sitting on the armchair, watching me. He hands me a glass of water and two aspirin. I take them quickly, and then go back to rubbing my head.
“What the hell . . .”
I turn my legs so that I’m sitting up on the couch. I have no idea how I got here. One second I was with Killian, lying with him on the deck, and now I’m here.
“Patrick, what the hell happened?” I ask him.
He lets out a short, quick laugh. “Come on, Hope. Please don’t play games like this.”
“Games? What kind of games? What are you talking about?”
He ignores me, levels his gaze at me. “Why did you do it? Surely Killian spoke to you about how he felt about drugs? I can’t imagine he didn’t, what with Dawn going through withdrawal. He must’ve mentioned it. Where did you get it? Do you have a dealer? How long have you been doing it? Since you and Killian got together? Before? How long?”
“Wait, wait,” I pant, holding my hands up in an attempt to defend myself against his words. “What are you talking about?”
He slaps the arm of the chair. “Come on!” he pleads.
When I continue to look at him blankly, he sighs. “The drugs,” he says, in the tone of voice you use when talking to a naughty child who knows exactly what they did. “The heroin, or whatever it was you injected into your arm.”
“The heroin? I’ve never touched heroin in my life!” I raise my voice in protest, not caring that it’s the middle of the night.
“Oh, right, so why have I been sitting here for the past six hours to make sure you don’t overdose, then?”
I shake my head, trying to get it straight, trying to remember exactly what happened. “Listen, Patrick,” I say, staring at him, trying to make him see. “I swear to you, I have never touched heroin in my life. Never. Not once. I have never touched any drug. I never would.”
“I want to believe you, but look.” He points at my arm.
I look down. When I see it, I rock back on the couch and gasp. “How—” My words cut short. There’s a track mark right there, on my arm, and higher up on my arm is an outline in my skin where a belt has been tied. “How!”
“He really loved you, you know,” Patrick says quietly. “Killian has a tough time loving anyone. He’s been like that since Dad died. But he really loved you. I could tell. I think he would’ve given everything for you, Hope. Everything he had. You can’t imagine how hurt he is right now.”
“But I didn’t do it—”
“You were on a boat, just the two of you, and there’s a track mark on your arm. Plus, you were high. I know high people and you were high. Do you really expect me to believe you?”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t.” My voice is pleading. I hate it. But I’m telling the truth. I’ve never touched drugs. And I would remember it, wouldn’t I, if I had? I would remember shoving a needle in my arm. I would remember sneaking a needle onto the boat. “I didn’t.”
Patrick stands up and rubs his hands together, as though washing his hands clean of me. “I’ve done my part,” he says. “He’s angry, betrayed, but he wouldn’t want you to overdose. You’re okay now, so I’m leaving.”
“I didn’t do it!” I scream at him, waving my arms frantically.
I know I’m not making myself look particularly stable, but he just won’t listen.
Patrick picks up his jacket from the back of the chair and walks away from me, toward the apartment door.
“He loved you,” he says, and then leaves the apartment.
I’m left staring down at the track mark, wondering how something like this happened.
It’s the middle of the night—or early morning, depending on how you look at it—and I know Dawn’s probably asleep. I also know it’s cruel of me to wake her, after everything she’s been through. But I can’t stop myself. I have to talk to somebody, I have to let this out, I have to have somebody believe me.
I open Dawn’s door, turn on the light, and creep in. She’s on her back, snoring softly. I pull a stool close to her bed and tap her on the shoulder. She opens her eyes, smiling when she sees me. I can’t help but smile back. Dawn always has that effect on me. Despite everything, I smile back.
“Is something wrong?” she asks sleepily, propping up on her pillows.
I quickly tell her, starting with the boat ride and ending with my conversation with Patrick.
“How could this have happened, Dawn?” I ask her. “Seriously, what the hell? There’s a track mark in my arm, and I don’t remember the last few hours. But I don’t remember injecting myself, either. Surely I would remember that? When you take drugs—sorry to put this on you, but please—when you take drugs, do you ever get so out of it that you don’t even remember taking them? Is that possible? But surely you remember taking them, at least? Surely you remember that?”
I realize I’m bombarding her with questions and stop myself.
“I don’t know,” Dawn says, looking at me uncertainly.
“What? What don’t you know?”
“You really don’t remember taking them?”
“No!” I cry. “That proves I didn’t, right?”
Dawn shakes her head slowly. “No, it doesn’t prove anything, not really. It’s like when you get really drunk. Sometimes you get so drunk you can’t even remember your first drink. It’s the same. Sometimes you get so high you don’t even remember what you took, or how much . . .” She trails off, still looking at me uncertainly, head slightly tilted, eyes narrowed, as if she is trying to unravel some mystery.
“What is it?” I demand. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
Dawn holds her hands up, her small, delicate hands. Or, at least, that’s how I see them, as her child’s hands. In reality the nails are chipped and the fingernails are scarred and tough from burns and fights, from her drug days.
“First, let me say that everything is going to be okay. Whatever happened, you and Killian will be together again. I know that. You two are perfect for each other. I saw you at the meal, how you talked like nobody else was there, the way you looked at each other. I know you’ll be able to sort this out.”
“There’s a but coming, isn’t there, Dawn?” Even my own sister doesn’t believe me . . . Wait, you don’t know what she’s going to say—
“But, I’m not sure . . . how did you get high if, like you say, you were on a boat, all alone, just the two of you? Look, sissy, you can tell me anything, you know that? Our family has a history of drug use. You’ve stood by me more times than I can count. What sort of sister would I be if I didn’t stand by you now? Hey! Where’re you going?”
I walk from the room and close the door behind me, standing in the living room with my fists clenched, bouncing against my thighs, bruising them.
I need to talk to Killian.
I rush to the couch and grab my cell, sunk in the cushions.
“Come on, come on.”
I’m sitting on the edge of the toilet seat, in total darkness save a sliver of starlight which darts through the narrow window and the light of the cellphone, staring down at Killian’s name. I’ve called him three times already and each time it’s gone to voicemail.
“Come on!” I snap, when it goes to voicemail for the fourth time.
I jump to my feet and walk back and forth, the tiles cold on the soles of my feet, pressing the call button again and again, and each time it rings for half a minute and goes to voicemail. I imagine Killian sitting on his bike, staring down at his phone, seeing my name and ignoring it.
The image makes me want to cry, but I blink away tears and press the call button over and over and over and over . . .
Voicemail, voicemail, voicemail.
As I pace, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. On impulse I turn on the light and stand there, staring at my reflection. Black rings border my eyes, my eyes are bloodshot, my skin is tired, saggy-looking. What the hell happened to me?
“Please, Killian, please,” I murmur, dialing him again.
And again, he doesn’t answer.