Vertical Lines (The Vert Series Book 1) (14 page)

“You’re one of the strongest people I know, Nala.”

She nods, wiping a hand under her nose. “So are you, Jordan, you just have to believe it.” She puts her hand on my arm to stop me. My heels accentuate our already-different heights, and I stare down at her, noting how little she is. Small, but fierce. “Don’t think you didn’t stand up, Jordan, and don’t compare us. Your way of reason and manners works for you most of the time.”

“Not always,” I murmur.
Not when it’s my brother attacking me. Not when everything he says is so accurate, so close to the things I fear that it paralyzes me.

“You want to know the real difference between us?” Nala asks.

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re independent and fearless. I’m timid and easily scared off.”

“My my, you’re really going all out for this pity party, aren’t you? I guess you’ve earned it. The real difference,” she continues, turning to begin walking again. “Is that I had someone teach me how to stand up for myself. My entire life, I had a mother who taught me to demand respect, to earn my way, to know my worth. And when she saw that I wasn’t doing any of those things, she didn’t slap me down, she raised me up. How many people have done that for you, Jordan? How many people have held your hand and stood with you, pushed you forward and helped you stand up, instead of pushing you back and telling you to stay down?”

Nala stops when we get to Brooks’s house, turning to face me. “You liberated yourself the first time, Jordan. Now you have to decide if you’re going to stay free, or if you’re going to be the one to lock yourself into expectations this time.”

Chapter 22

Brooks

Jordan has no poker face. One look and I knew something was wrong. That was forty minutes ago.

She and Nala knocked on my front door just as I was getting ready for bed. I had been thinking about her, and seeing her brought back all of the memories of our kiss. But then I really looked at her, and everything faded away except making sure she was okay.

She is… but I’m not sure I am.

We’re sitting in my truck in the parking lot to her dorm. Nala has already gone inside, having said very little on the way home. I understand why. She’s thinking of Ashton, and like me, she’s trying to come to terms with the fact that we have somehow failed her again.

Jordan was going to leave, but I asked her to stay. I’m not sure why, except I feel like she deserves an explanation, especially since Nala thanked Jordan for driving Ashton somewhere safe—or as safe as we can hope for.

“It’s called Body Dysmorphic Disorder,” I hear myself say. I haven’t ever talked about this. There are support groups for this, like there are for all things; I’ve begun to understand. I’ve taken my mom and dropped her off, or I’ve sat and listened as she told me about the online groups she’s become a part of—stories of success and tragedy—but I’ve never joined. I don’t want to be supported, I want Ashton to be better. Different. Happy.

“There isn’t a cure,” I say because I see Jordan open her mouth to ask like everyone else who’s ever been given bad news. “Therapy’s an option, and we’ve tried all different kinds. Hypnosis, immersion, spiritual, group. I’ve done everything I can think of, tried every recommendation her doctor’s given, but the bottom line is, Ashton is never going to see herself as anything other than wrong.”

I hate that. Hate that it isn’t as black and white as alcoholism or drug addiction or anorexia or bulimia. I hate even more that I wish,
actively wish
, that she had cancer or some other unwanted fatal illness instead of this life-altering disease that offers us all no hope.

Cancer has success rates, statistics, doctors, and chemo. Goddamn miracles, even. Cancer has support groups to help people through what happened to their body—but what happens when the disease is in the mind?

What happens when you watch someone you love hate themselves every day? What happens when none of the techniques available are strong enough to change their viewpoint, when you’re not enough to help her see who you see? A beautiful girl with a broken mind, one who never had a chance to really live. All she can see is what she
isn’t
; her mind will only let her recognize things she finds to be flaws—and those imagined flaws have become fatal.

Cancer’s fatal, but it’s also something that seems out of a person’s control, like bad luck. What my sister suffers from taunts me, because it makes me think I should be able to somehow battle it and win. I’ve battled for over nine years, and I’m not winning. I never have.

“It manifests as an obsession at first. Something the person recognizes as a flaw they compulsively try and fix. It can be a body part, hair, skin, anything. Ashton’s is size. For a long time we thought she was anorexic. We put her into therapy and counseling when she turned eleven, because we realized after a physical she wasn’t naturally bony, and she hadn’t gotten her period; her body wasn’t developing like it should because she wasn’t healthy.”

Jordan doesn’t say anything, and I’m grateful. I don’t speak about Ashton a lot—just to the boys and Nala and they’ve all learned—like me—that useless words don’t offer comfort in this situation. Nothing does.

I look down at my hands and wonder if I can go on, if I even should. And then I feel her slip her finger into my belt loop. She doesn’t hold onto me, doesn’t crowd me or ask me a million questions. She just hooks one small finger into my belt loop and sits there with me. This has me opening my mouth again to share.

I feel like I unburden my soul on her; for the first time since I was a little kid and realized that my mom was never going to be able to raise Ashton alone, I feel like someone else is taking some of the responsibility. I don’t know what to do, except for say it all and try to let her in.

“My mom’s not a strong woman. She’s not an addict, not abusive; she’s just not strong. When my dad died, Ashton was barely two and my mom stopped being able to comfort her when she would cry, because my mom was having a hard time not crying all day herself. She was a wife, a mom, a lover. She’d never been independent, and she had no idea how to do everything that needed to be done to run a house and raise children. She had no idea how to make money or pay bills, how to grocery shop, cook food, and clean the house. So I started doing some of those things, taking them on so she didn’t feel so overwhelmed. Ashton became mine.”

Which makes it worse, somehow. She became mine, and now she’s dying because something inside of her refuses to allow her to eat, to grow,
to
exist
.

Her existence is an imperfection, and she can’t physically live with that.

“Is this disease hereditary or is it triggered by something? Is there even a reason, or is it just bad luck and unfortunate chemical makeups?”

I glance over at Jordan. I’m used to her curiosity and her questions—but I’m always amazed when I realize just how intelligent she is. I know she filters herself a lot, a trained habit from years of being told not to speak her mind, but right now, her mind is working. It’s a relief not to have to lead her to the destination she’s already arrived at on her own.

“No one knows. It could be hereditary, but it’s like any other mental illness. Some of them are linked to genes, and therefore, are considered hereditary, like dementia and Alzheimer’s. But this is a relatively-unknown disease. It’s not a simple diagnosis or treatment. And it has levels of intensity that vary with each patient.”

“Is Ashton still in counseling?”

I nod. “Yeah—at least, she was. I don’t know anymore.” One more thing that slices at me. “My mom said she’s still trying to make her go to group and then to a nutritionist and a regular therapist. The problem is that it’s not food that’s the enemy—it’s size, and the size that she’s trying to minimize is her bones. She’s just over five-nine. She weighs ninety-five pounds on a good day. According to the doctors, when she looks at herself, she sees someone who weighs closer to two hundred pounds. She hunches her back and pulls in her stomach, wraps her arms around her middle a lot, because she wants to physically eliminate pieces of herself.”

“And the drugs?”

My stomach clenches. Of all the things, the drugs scare me almost as much as the not-eating. “Pills, I’m guessing. They numb her, squash her appetite, make things hurt less. In middle and high school it was a steady dosage of Dayquil to keep her energy up and her appetite down. Since then, she’s progressed to different things.” Harder things, but I don’t say that. This tale is gruesome enough.

“And now… Mason.”

I nod, hands clenching into fists. “And now Mason.”

She glances at me, and then looks down. “I didn’t know—but I would understand if you didn’t want to see me again.”

I let her speak, mostly because I can sympathize with the shame and confusion running through her for something she has no control over. When she’s done, I reach out and lay my hand on her knee, waiting until she looks at me.

“I can’t promise that I won’t knock your brother out if I get the chance. And I can’t promise that I won’t blame him if something happens.” She nods, reaching for the door handle but I stop her, leaning forward so our mouths are lined up and inches from touching. “But I can promise I’ll never, ever blame you for something he does. Whatever happens between us is
between us
—no matter what else is going on.”

She watches me, exhaling slowly. I don’t let her finish before I lay my lips on hers, taking them in a way I’ve dreamt of doing since I saw her last night.

Anger still lingers inside of me, along with the resigned sadness I’ve come to recognize, but when my tongue sweeps through Jordan’s mouth and tangles with hers, I can only think of the sound she makes, and how she tastes. Her hands go to the front of my shirt, gripping fistfuls to steady herself.

I like her a little off-balance, so I yank her closer, forcing her to wrap her arms around my neck. When I can’t breathe anymore, I break our kiss, resting my face at the curve of her throat, breathing her in.

My heart is speeding, but it’s not because I’m angry. No, it’s speeding because of her.

+      +      +

Two mornings later, Ashton is on the other side of my front door when I open it. My eyes widen in surprise, but I step back to let her in immediately, noting her crossed arms, rounded shoulders, and dark eyes.

Even when she was little, Ashton always pulled in her tummy and rounded her shoulders, trying to minimize the height she was given. She’s always been tall. Unfortunately for her, people always used the word “big.”
What a big girl you are…You have to be the biggest in your age-range…You’re getting so big.

I never noticed it—or never thought anything of it, if I did. I’m a man, and
I am
big. But Ashton, she’s a woman, one who has spent the majority of her life associating her size with big, disgusting, abnormal.

She passes by me and I close the door, turning to watch when she steps just inside of the main space. Her hair and complexion are dark like mine, but rather than the bronze hue held by my skin, hers is washed-out, offset by the thick layer of makeup which has also been a part of her daily routine since she was young. She’s beautiful—her bone structure hasn’t changed, but for anyone who has known her for more than a few years, she’s changed until she’s almost unrecognizable.

Her hair is stringy and thin, shorter than even a month ago. It’s teased and pulled into a low ponytail, and I wonder if that’s to cover the bare spots that have come over the years. The dark brown obviously touched up from artificial coloring. It sits harshly against her jaundice skin. Her cheeks are hollow, bringing her cheekbones to a knife-edged point. Her frame is all angles and sharp points, legs so lean they look painful to stand on.

Ashton doesn’t speak; I know better than to speak first, understanding that she’s here for a specific reason and if I jump to any conclusions, she may run off. Even with how much it hurts to see her like she is, the pain is less than when I’m left only wondering.

If she’s here, she’s alive. There have been days, weeks, even months when I haven’t always been sure that was the case.

“I know Nala talked to you. Mason told me she saw me at the party the other night.”

I want to cross my arms like her, but I don’t. Remembering what the family counselor at her last facility said about body language, I keep my arms at my side and step farther into the room with her. “She did.”

No lying. That was another rule—one I follow without the hope that she or my mother do. Lying only exacerbates the situation. However brutal, however hurtful the truth, it has to be said so we can move on.

Ashton scoffs and shakes her head, those arms tightening over her chest, her shoulders hunching even more. “She just can’t keep from throwing it in my face that you’re closer to her than I am.”

“That’s not what Nala wants.”

“Please. Why does she always run to you, then? Why does she always help you instead of me? Why does she always look at me like she’s better than me?”

I want to step forward and grab Ashton by the shoulders—to haul her onto her toes and look her square in the eye while I tell her to pull her head out of her ass and see no one but her thinks less of her. Three years ago—hell, one year ago—I might have done that. But I know better now—Ashton isn’t selfish, she’s sick. Narcissism, obsession, the skewed view of reality…they aren’t her placing blame. They are the way she sees the world—always looking down on her.

“I worry about you, Ashton. So does Nala. Yes, she told me she saw you. She also told me you were high.” I wait a second before going on. “The doctor told you that drug use—any kind of drug use—could potentially kill you. It weakens your immune system and puts your already-damaged heart at further risk.”

Her fingers dig into her arms, and her eyes flick between me and the space around me. She’s transitioning fast from outraged to depressed. I try to stall that spiral, even recognizing it can’t be done.

I take a small step forward, staring straight into her eyes. “We love you Ash, so much. But we can’t stop trying to help you. And we can’t stop wishing that you loved yourself.”