Sell Out (34 page)

“I’ll be waiting. Text me when you know she’s okay.”

I ended the call and immediately tried Lindsay’s new cell. No answer.

Now that I knew Skylar wasn’t upset, I had time to process what this final blow would do to my friend. I thought of how many days she’d skipped the past two weeks. I thought of the sadness in her eyes, the hopelessness that showed when her parents didn’t validate her confession.

I dialed again, panic and fury growing with each ring. The stairs felt too long, the distance to my car too far.

Voicemail.

“Lindsay, pick up your phone. I need to know you’re okay.”

Fumbling with buttons while I unlocked my car, I tried to text.

Me:
Call me. Now.

She didn’t call the entire ten-minute drive to her house. Didn’t answer the door when I pounded.

“Lindsay,” I banged against the wood, trying to peek though the blinds next to the door. The ache in my chest was enough to kill me.

Her car was out front. I knew she was home.

“Lindsay!” I pounded some more, pulled and jerked on the locked front door.

A stinging fear ripped through my heart. And I knew. Somehow, I knew if I didn’t get in there, it would be too late.

Hadn’t I faced this same decision? Hadn’t I even planned it? Found the rope, decided on the date? Wasn’t I just as ready to make all the pain go away?

Ringing filled my head as I continue to scream her name. I knew she was in there. Knew she needed me, but I couldn’t get to her.

“God, please,” I whispered.

Back door
.

The thought hit like a punch to the chest.

My heart pounding, I ran around to the rear of the house, shoving open the gate. The screen door was locked, but I managed to rip out the mesh and flick up the metal latch.

“NO!” I tugged on the knob, desperate. The door was secure, but the lock, flimsy. Like the one at the back of my house, it rattled as I jerked, giving me hope. I pulled out my wallet, dropping it twice before I managed to find my driver’s license.

I jammed the card between the lock and frame and pushed with so much adrenaline the wood gave way. I stumbled on the tile, but found my footing and began to search.

“Lindsay!”

The house was painfully silent, my frantic footsteps the only sound echoing off the walls. I took the stairs two at a time. “Lindsay!”

Room after room I hunted until the last corner revealed my worst nightmare.

I froze in the hall. All I could see was the bottle. The empty bottle.

The room seemed to be floating away. I tried to lift my legs, but they resisted, like feet trudging through wet clay.

She wasn’t moving; she didn’t even flinch when I called her name from the hall. She lay flat on her stomach, one arm draped over the side of the bed. Her blond hair cascaded like a blanket over the white t-shirt she wore. A fallen angel.

My knees hit the ground before I ever realized I’d dropped. The thud cleared my head. The room coming back from its distance in the tunnel. Adrenaline rushed though me like nitro in a drag race.

She can’t be dead. She can’t!

Instantly I was at her side. “Lindsay.” I said her name calmly.

Nothing. Not a groan or a whimper.

I shook her limp body. “Please, Lindsay, answer me.” She moved against my hands, but only from the force I exerted. I willed myself to settle down. To react like a man and not a scared little boy.

Two fingers against her neck brought a flood of hope. A pulse barely detectible, but it was there.

Though only seconds, the time it took to dial 911 felt like decades.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

“My friend, she took pills.” I reached out, gripped the prescription bottle with my free hand. “Z-O-L-P-I-D-E-M. They’re for sleeping. 1520 Mayberry.” The rush in my voice, the ache of each word made speaking almost impossible.

“Sir, I’ve dispatched an ambulance. Can you tell me if she’s breathing?”

I dropped the pills and pressed my fingers to her mouth. A small brush of air tickled the skin. “Yes. But her pulse is weak, and she’s not waking up.”

“Can you tell how many pills she took?”

I dropped to the floor, fumbled around for the bottle. “Um. Ten milligrams each. It says there were thirty pills, but I don’t know how many she actually swallowed.”

The operator clicked on her computer, asked more question about dates and refills. My hand alternated between the bottle and checking Lindsay’s dropping pulse.

“How much longer?” I demanded. The breath that was such a relief had all but vanished. I was losing her.

Sirens filled the air in the distance, promise stirring with each sound. I ran down the stairs and opened the front door just as the medics pulled to the curb.

They rushed past, followed my pointed finger and verbal directions. They had Lindsay out the door in minutes, a bag pushing oxygen into her lungs.

I stood at the entry, watching them rush to load her in the back of the ambulance, and fell to my knees. I prayed the prayer Skylar probably had a million times. I prayed for a miracle. I prayed for God to spare her life, even though she chose to end it.

I
’d spent too
many hours in a hospital like this, watching my father fight cancer the first time. The floor was the same. Cold, sterile, unfeeling.

The difference, though, was the boy sitting alone with his head in his hands. The boy who’d taken on someone else’s pain and now sat drenched in the agony of it. The boy, who because of that very thing, was the person I was falling in love with.

I gripped the metal arm and lowered myself into an empty chair.

Cody didn’t look up, but his hand reached out, took mine and held on as if letting go would end the world.

“What are they saying?” Cody hadn’t given details on the phone. Just told me what and where before hanging up.

“Nothing. They asked me a bunch of questions, then said I couldn’t see her.” There was a catch in his voice, as if he’d swallowed a sea of tears since being here.

“I should have told Principal Rayburn sooner.” He hid his face, but his grip tightened. “I tried to fix it. Tried to be enough and I wasn’t.”

A tear fell on our joined fingers and then another. I scooted closer, laid my head on his shoulder. He was dressed for our date and the stiff dress shirt felt scratchy against my cheek. “What happened to Lindsay isn’t your fault.”

He shook his head. “Matt told me. He knew somehow.”

“Told you what?”

Another drop. “That I couldn’t save her.”

I pulled away my hand and wrapped my arms around him. He fell into me, gripping my back and smashing me next to his chest. His head buried in the curve of my neck, he mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

Caressing his hair, I whispered, “It’s going to be okay.”

He released me slowly, keeping his head down until he’d wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. “Let’s go. I can’t be here any more.”

T
he hospital exit
felt further away with every step. I gripped Skylar’s hand, let her strength pour into me. Her father had died only weeks ago, and yet she was here. I’d never deserve her.

The mechanical doors slid closed behind us, and I immediately spotted Lindsay’s parents off to the side. Their whispered accusations bounced off the brick walls and concrete sidewalk.

“They were your pills,” her father said. His suit coat was unbuttoned, his tie loose and crooked. He looked tired, weary and ticked off.

“I didn’t stuff them down her throat.” Her mother’s tone was as stiff as her posture.

“You should have listened. She tried to talk to you. To tell you she was hurting.” Worry marred her father’s face. He touched his temples, pressed and circled.

“I don’t recall you jumping in to save her either.” The bite in her tone was intended to sting.

His arm lifted in exasperation. “Because you accuse me of babying her every time I do!”

I cleared my throat. They owed Lindsay more than this. They should be at her side, not fighting with each other.

Her mom spun around and suddenly the tough, hostile exterior crumbled. “Hi, Cody. Are you leaving?”

We’d met earlier and I’d given the same report to her that I had to the doctor.

“Yeah.” My throat ached to pour out my own string of accusations.
Why didn’t you believe her? Why didn’t you support her?

She pulled me toward her like my dad had once when he’d lost me at the mall. “Thank you for finding her.” She was little, like her daughter, but her grip threatened the circulation in my arms.

Skylar’s hand disappeared.

“How is she?” I eyed her father, who immediately stalked back inside.

That’s right, you jerk. Walk away, just like you did before.

My heart hammered against my chest. I couldn’t move, and the hypocrisy of being mauled by Lindsay’s neglectful mom only fueled my fury.

She finally let go and wiped away black smudges under her eyes. “She’s pretty out of it right now but, don’t worry, they say she’s going to be just fine.” With a final squeeze, she left in the same direction as her husband, never once acknowledging that she practically pushed the bottle into Lindsay’s hand.

I rested my forehead on the cool brick and the heat from Skylar’s hand singed my back.

“I need to get out of here,” I said. “I’m too angry. Angry at her. At Blake. At her parents.”

“Okay. We’ll go back to my house.”

I was trembling. Nauseous. Flushed. “No. I have to go…somewhere else.” I backed away. “I’ll walk you to your car. Follow you home. I just….” The air was choking me. I paced. I had to move. Had to fight, do something. The pain overwhelmed my senses. My vision blurred until two hands held my cheeks.

“Cody, my car is right over there. I can get home just fine.”

I sucked in two deep breaths. “You’re sure? Absolutely sure? I will not leave you here if you’re not.”

Her voice was the only sound holding me together. “I’m sure. Go.”

I flew through the parking lot, stumbling more than stepping, whipping around cars, pushing myself faster and harder. Hoping the rush would stop the fury that had an iron-tight grip on my insides.

I never had a sibling, but what Lindsay and I shared created a bond as tight as family. I wouldn’t let this go unpunished. No matter what I had to do.

A sharp sting assaulted my chest. It wasn’t from the running, but the screams of Fatty James that couldn’t be silenced this time. The injustice of seeing yet another victim of cruelty and abuse.

Like me, Lindsay would never be the same. Today was the final break. I could see it in the vastness of her surrender.

I put my truck in drive and beat on the steering wheel. I needed the contact. Needed to find Blake and end him. But I couldn’t do it like this.

On instinct, I whipped a U-turn at a stoplight, the sound of rubber against asphalt matching my urgency.

The Storm. Apocalypse. A release.

Then I’d find Blake and rip him apart until his body looked as broken as Lindsay’s.

*

The Storm was
scarier at night, even with dusk only an hour behind us. The pothole-ridden lot jarred my truck as I sped toward the building. Matt’s bike was still there along with an old Camry whose hood didn’t match the rest of the car.

My eyes narrowed at the sedan. I wondered if the engine was as jacked as the paint job, or, if like all of us, the outside was only a sad reflection of what fell below the surface. It didn’t matter. People saw what they saw. Did what they did. To hell with the collateral damage like Lindsay and me.

I pushed through the glass doors with such force that the handle banged the wall. Matt was in street clothes. No doubt finished for the night and heading home to be with his wife. I didn’t care.

“I need Apocalypse. Now.” My voice trembled more than my hands.

Matt glanced at the blond guy behind the counter.

“It’s open,” the kid said, looking between the two of us like Matt would somehow calm the hurricane in my eyes.

I didn’t wait for an okay. Just headed straight down the hallway, past the two guys pounding each other in the ring and pushed open the door.

Seconds later, I was the one pounding. My shirt gone, music blaring, I sent fist after fist into the bag. I kept waiting for the violence to make me feel better, for it to take away the pain in my chest and the memories that flooded my mind.

Fatty James. We know you’re in here.

I hit harder, faster.

Wow, Fatty, you’re a whole lot of man, aren’t you?

There wasn’t enough volume to drown out the noise in my head. Wasn’t enough strength behind my fists to stop the gut-punch I felt with each word. I wasn’t fatigued enough to block the hopelessness I swore I’d never feel again.

I faltered, my arms dropping to my sides. The tape across my hands was torn and red from the splotches of blood. I tried to lift them again, ignoring the protest of my bruised and cracked knuckles. Five more punches, five more attempts to forget, and then I swayed.

Reaching out, I gripped the bag for stability, my heart now a dull thud in my chest.