Sliding (The Stone Series) (27 page)

“They got into an accident last night. Jeff was gone before help got
there, David is on life support, and they don’t think he’ll wake up. The girls
they were with didn’t make it either. Oh God Brook. My best friends are gone
because of me. I started this whole thing; I never should have gotten them into
all this shit. I should have stopped them from driving last night. I knew how
fucked up they were but I was too fucked up to stop them.”

“I tried, I begged them not to go, not to drive but they didn’t listen.
They just got in the car all happy like they were going to hook up with those
girls and life was good. How can they be gone just like that Tate? How? Oh my
God, Jeff and David, no! This can’t be happening to us. You hear this every
year somewhere a high school kid dies in a car crash but never in your town.
How can we be those kids? What do we do now?”

I continue to ramble on, “I felt like a piece of glass just shattering
into a million pieces when I thought it was you and now, I’m relieved that it
wasn’t. What kind of person does that make me? Two of our best friends are dead
and I’m just glad it wasn’t you.”

I am whaling out of control as our parents come back into the room and
hug each and every one of us through tears, theirs and ours. Tate’s father even
hugs him and Tate allows him to.
 

David is taken off life support two days later and his parents donate his
organs to help make some sense out of his death. The test results revealed that
both Jeff and David had marijuana and cocaine in their systems, they were both
well over the drinking level. None of this is news to any of us but the parents
seem shocked.

 
Jeff and David’s families hold a
memorial service together and they ask Tate and Bobby to say a few words.
Neither one is capable so instead they offer a song, “Hands to Heaven”. We are
all there in body but empty beyond that. We are dressed in black but no one
really experiences the moment, we are unable to comprehend the events. We cry,
we cling to one another, we say things we don’t want left unsaid but what does
it all really mean?

The school year begins and everywhere we look it’s a constant reminder of
what we’ve lost. At our lunch table there are two empty seats, no one dares to
sit there or even look in that direction. In class the teachers are careful
around the four of us. They smile but they never ask how we are, afraid of the
response they might get. The fall comes and goes in a blur.

Tate is having the hardest time now that it’s football season. The team
has all had black bands sewn onto their jerseys with Jeff’s number on it. Jeff
should have been the starting quarterback again this year. He and Tate were
predicted to take the team undefeated to States but Tate is falling apart on
and off the field. He has asked his coaches and his parents to cancel any scout
that was coming to watch him. Tate’s father tries to talk some reason into him,
“If you cancel them they won’t have a chance to come back. You’ll ruin your
chances of playing in college, of a scholarship. Do you think that’s what Jeff
would want?” At the mention of his friend’s name Tate loses it, “Don’t fucking
talk to me about what Jeff would want. He would want to be alive and on that
field but that’s not going to happen and neither is my scouting. You think if
they come and see how I’m playing right now they’ll want me anyway? If they
come I’m ruining my chances of playing in college. I’m trying to save myself
but I…” he can’t finish his thought.

The season goes by with many loses and only two wins. The team is
defeated and Tate is in shreds. By the winter his parents have put him into
grief counseling against his will. He tells me that they try to get him to talk
about what he’s feeling but he just can’t. He claims he doesn’t know what he’s
feeling, he feels nothing.

I feel like I am watching Tate disappear in front of me. He is not the
same person anymore and I don’t know what to do to help him. There are days
when he seems fine and we are like we used to be. On those days Tate and I take
advantage of every minute we have alone to have sex. It’s like he can’t get
enough. He says it’s the only time he can feel anything.

After school when my parents are still at work Tate drives me to my house
and we lock ourselves in my room. I know Katrina and Michael know what’s going
on, it’s not like we’re quiet about it but neither one of them say anything to
me or my parents. I assume my parents suspect what’s going on too but neither of
them addresses it either. Tate makes sure he’s gone before they come home and
they never ask if he’s been over.
 

The pressure of the upcoming basketball season proves too much to take
and Tate finally cracks one day. We are in my room and before Tate even touches
me I can tell he’s struggling badly. He turns the radio on loud to muffle our
sounds from my siblings and “Every Rose has its Thorn” is playing. Tate lays
down on my bed and asks me to dance for him. One thing leads to another and we
end up with our bodies wrapped around each other’s. Everything seems fine until
Tate covered in sweat, his face red and his hair slicked stops and I can tell
by the look on his face something is wrong. He rolls off to the side and lays
next to me. His breathing is labored and he starts crying with his arm over his
eyes.

“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t stand it. I feel nothing but at the
same time everything hurts so badly. I just need it to stop. I’m done Brook, I
can’t anymore.”

I don’t know if he’s talking about sex or our relationship and then I
realize the song playing is “Close My Eyes Forever” and a chill goes through
me. Tate made this tape for us to play, he’s planned this. I move his arm and
force him to look at me. He has this far away look in his red rimmed eyes like
he’s not really with me. I start throwing on my clothes; Tate is now standing
up putting on his.

“I got to slide baby, I’m sorry. I can’t be here anymore. I love you,
I’ve always loved you. You’re going to be fine.”

He kisses me and turns to leave but I jump on his back and somehow take
him to the ground. He outweighs me by at least seventy pounds but my adrenaline
is so high right now I could move a bus. It’s like those mothers you read about
who move a car off of their child to save them. I can’t let Tate leave now or
he’s going to hurt himself.

“Michael, Mike get in here” I scream as Tate is trying to fight to get
up. I know I won’t be able to hold him much longer. My door is locked and
Michael and Katrina can’t get in. Tate breaks free from me and lunges at the
door unlocking it and opening it in one motion. Michael and Katrina have no
idea what they are looking at. Tate and I are both sweating and crying. Our
clothes are half on; his shirt is ripped on the collar where I grabbed onto it when
I jumped on him. My jeans are undone and my shirt is on backwards.
 

“Help me hold him, he can’t leave, he’s going to try to kill himself.
HELP ME!” I scream at them and it takes the three of us at least a half hour to
calm him down. I sit on his chest trying to hold his face and kiss him. It’s
the only thing I know how to do to make him see he can’t leave me.

I finally hear my mother’s car pull up and I can almost feel myself
relax. I never thought I would be happy to hear her car in the driveway when I
was in my room all sweaty and half dressed with my boyfriend in a ripped shirt
and smelling of sex. She instantly heads up the stairs after seeing his car in
the driveway. I’m sure she is ready to find us in the act and in hindsight she
would have probably preferred it to the scene she finds.

“Ma, help!” I scream when I hear her on the stairs and she comes running.
When she sees the position her three children are in with Tate on the floor and
she puts her hand over her mouth and chokes back tears. She bends down and Tate
seems to relax in her presence. He stops fighting from exhaustion and defeat, he
is totally spent. My mother gathers him in her arms and he cries and sobs in a
way I have never heard come out of a human being before.

He admits to us all that day that he was the one who got the drugs and
alcohol that night. He was the one who made Bobby, Jeff and David get drunk and
high. He told them the girls would be easy lays and that they should hook up
with them. He has felt responsible for their deaths and has been keeping it all
bottled up.

“The only time I have felt anything but pain since they died has been
when I am with you, then today when…I couldn’t feel it, I couldn’t feel
anything” my mother looks from him to me and raises her eyebrows at me just
catching on to what must have been happening while she was at work. “I just
didn’t know what to do. I lost it. I don’t want to be numb all the time. I’m
trying to not drink, I haven’t touched a beer or any drugs since that night but
it’s too much, I can’t handle it anymore. I can’t feel like this anymore” Tate
cries.

My mother tells me to go get cleaned up and dressed correctly, “And we’ll
talk about that issue later you and I” she warns. She takes Tate to the kitchen
and gets him some water. She puts a wet washcloth on his neck and when I come
into the kitchen I find his mother there as well, my mother must have called
her. They are all talking and Tate is still quietly sobbing to himself. I walk
over to him and stand in front of him. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me
into him so his head is on my belly. Our mother’s shift, not comfortable with
our contact but not attempting to break us apart either.

Once Tate seems like he is returning to normal his mother suggests that
they get home. I drive Tate in his car and his mother follows us with my mother
following her. Tate holds my hand the whole way.

“You saved my life Brooklynn. I don’t know what I would have done if you
weren’t there” he admits. When a small sob escapes me he asks, “Did I hurt you?
I was too hard with you, I know but I was numb, I wanted to feel something but
I couldn’t, I couldn’t.”

I don’t want to upset him but will lying to him make anything better?

“You scared me more than anything else ever has. I thought you were
breaking up with me at first, until I heard the song. That’s what triggered
this, am I right?” I ask. Tate nods.

“God, baby you know me better than I know myself. It just got me thinking
about how I’ve been feeling. I’ve thought about it a few times since…” he
trails off and looks away from me. I tell him I understand and when we pull up
at his house I get out of the car and hug him tight to my body, feeling his
warmth.

“Sorry about the shirt” I say as I brush his hair out of his face. He leans
down and kisses me softly on the lips conscience of our mother’s stares.

Tate calls me later that night and tells me that his mother has promised
not to tell his father about this as long as he promises to go to counseling
until he’s feeling like himself again.

“Just getting it all out today has made me feel better already. But
another kiss from you would make it even better. Can you help a guy out baby?”

With that I finally feel like the old Tate will make his way back to me.
   
  
     
    

************

I meet again with Drew and this
time our discussion focuses on my alcohol and drug use. I tell him that it all
started in high school as just a way to let loose. I partied with friends and
drank what they did. I was never really out of control. I only smoked pot and
tried coke in high school, never anything harder. I never thought it was a
problem. I knew I was using drugs and alcohol to get through the stress I was
under but I spent my whole life watching my father do it, I never thought there
was anything wrong with it. It wasn’t until I was using it to numb my pain that
it became clear it was an issue. I tell Drew about Jeff and David dying when we
were young and my guilt over them being wasted. We talk about how I hit rock
bottom one day with Brook and that if it wasn’t for her being with me I might
have tried to hurt myself. I tell him about the grief counseling I went to
after that and that it helped for a long time. I started drinking, smoking pot and
doing coke again in college recreationally. It was under control and then after
college I stopped until my dad died and I needed to numb the pain. It was a
vicious cycle for me. I would feel such pain over my dad and guilt that I’d
drink and do lines until it didn’t hurt anymore but then I’d find myself in
more pain and full of more guilt and it would start all over.

Drew and I talk it through and he
helps me to come to the conclusion that I felt bad about myself and what I was
doing to Brook, I felt like I didn’t deserve her. Drew questions if I was
trying to self destruct for some reason.

I hope decorating my house will be a distraction from my concerns over pregnancy.
I know my favorite room in the new house to decorate is going to be the
nursery. The room faces the back of the house and offers a view of our private
beach area and the sand dunes on the bluff as well as a view of the Pacific
Ocean. It is light and airy; I want to paint it a pale sea blue with maybe
green and yellow accents throughout the space. I’m thinking a dark wood crib
with furniture to match and baby toys and stuffed animals everywhere.