One Last Song Part 15

Without a single word, we made our way down the hallway to his minuscule bedroom with its bed so neatly made in a blue plaid comforter. The smell of boy-soft and musky-and lemon fabric softener permeated everything in here, and I realized I was more aroused than I'd ever been before.

I wanted Drew with a hot, breathless kind of desire. I had trouble maintaining a sane thought. I wondered if I'd always relate the smell of lemon with this moment, as we tended to do with our memories, scent and event combining into one thick, indistinguishable sensory rope.

I glanced at Drew, striped shadows on his face from the closed blinds. He looked frozen, unsure of how to make the next move. He had the look of someone who held something precious in his hands, something he was so afraid of breaking. I realized then just how important this was to him, our first time together.

I walked in and sat at the foot of the bed, staring straight ahead. Something within me had s.h.i.+fted. Something had changed.

I felt Drew approach me from the right. "Are you okay?"

I looked up at him, broad shoulders and chiseled torso belying his growing weakness. One big hand was clamped around the head of his cane, messenger bag still slung around his shoulder, full of papers that fought for the right of another sick man to choose how and when he'd die. Drew's eyes shone a brilliant blue-velvet rather than the ice they'd been earlier at the park. His jaw, so strong, so hard, and yet so given to softening with a smile.

I opened my mouth, not sure what I was going to say, but before it came out, I began to cry. I put my face in my hands and, not knowing what to do, sat there on that blue plaid comforter and simply wept.

Guilt coursed through me-guilt for all the lies I'd told, all those lies that had led to Drew kissing me and then led to us coming to be here, in his bedroom together. There was fear, too, for what was to become of my mother, the person I'd so resolutely, so stupidly believed held all of life's answers. Anger at myself because I knew I wasn't going to confront her, because I never did. Anger at myself, too, because I knew I was too much of a coward to tell Drew the truth. The truth about who I was, what I was really doing at that hospital. I was too scared to take off my mask like he seemed to be doing with me.

Maybe the shrinks were right when they said Munchausen went hand in hand with a personality disorder. Maybe my diseased brain couldn't think outside of itself, outside of what caused the endorphin baths it so craved. Maybe I was a loathsome creature for not coming clean to Drew. But I couldn't do it right then, even though I knew I should. Even though I'd been lied to myself by the one person I'd trusted, and I knew how much it sucked. I just couldn't.

Drew pulled me up and against his chest, his cane pressing into my back and shoulder as he rubbed slow circles between my shoulder blades. "Shh," he said. "Shh. It's okay."

I felt myself relax almost instantly, my body softening to contour to his hard planes. I pulled back and wiped my eyes. Putting a hand on either side of his face, I said, "I really like you."

He smiled, kissed me on the mouth. "That's good. Because I really like you, too."

I felt that breathless hunger ignite in me again, and struggled to rein it in. "But... I have secrets, Drew."

He looked into my eyes for a long moment, so it felt like all I could see, the whole world, was blue. "I don't care," he said. "I don't care if you have secrets."

And then we kissed again.

It felt like the whole world went quiet. I stepped back from Drew and unzipped my hoodie. Letting it fall to the floor, I took off my t-s.h.i.+rt and stepped out of my jeans. He watched me as I stood there in my underwear while he was fully clothed; vulnerable, exposed. The expression on his face was inscrutable except for a tick in the muscle in his jaw. I felt his eyes take in the b.l.o.o.d.y bandage on my chest, the faint scars here and there from being poked and prodded needlessly in doctor's offices.

I'd never felt any desire to be supermodel-beautiful. I hadn't ever made myself throw up to be a size two like some girls in high school had. I'd always been much more concerned with how I was going to make myself sick next. If anything, I wanted to belong to the other side-while the average eighteen-year-old might crave perfect skin, I craved the unhealthy pallor of disease, the bright burning of fevered cheeks. But as I stood there in front of Drew, my scars and wounds on display, I was anxious. For the first time, I thought about how an outsider, someone who didn't see the world through Munchausen-colored lenses, might actually see my body. This was worse than the time Allie saw my self-inflicted cuts-so much, much worse. Why had I thought this would be okay?

I was half reaching for my clothes when Drew stepped toward me, tossing his cane aside. Slipping my bra straps off with just the tips of his fingers, as if he was afraid any more than that would hurt me, he kissed the ridge of my collar bone. "You are so beautiful," he whispered. He paused by my bandages, looked up, a question in his eyes. A question I didn't want to answer.

I unhooked my bra, let it fall to the floor. Then I lay back on the king-sized bed and looked at him. Every scar on my body, every old wound, every fresh one, was on display. I'd never done this for anyone before. It was the most frightening, most exhilarating experience I could remember in the past two decades that were my life in its entirety.

He traced one finger, scorchingly slow, from the hollow of my throat down to the elastic of my thong. His eyes followed, taking in my skin, the b.u.mps and discolorations and ugly marks, with an intensity that made my breath catch. I tugged on his sweater; he peeled it off without hesitation.

He was gorgeous. Every muscle stood out in stark relief, his skin beautiful and pale and perfectly unmarred. He pressed himself on top of me, his heat wrapping me in a blanket as he held me close, hands tangling in my hair. I listened to his rapid breathing in my ear, felt his heart pound against my chest, his arousal insistent and delicious against my hip. He wanted me. He wanted me just as much as I wanted him, just as much as I wanted this. He was waiting for me to make the next move, to let him peek behind the mask.

I arched my back, pressing harder against him, aching for him to take it further. And so he did.

There is nothing more, I thought as we tumbled into infinity. There is nothing more in life than this, than us, right here, right now in this moment. We are life; we are fate.

Afterward, I lay curled in Drew's arms, with him fitted snugly against my back. There was a trail of clothes from the bench to one side of the bed. It was funny how you could read them like a book.

He nibbled the spot right under my earlobe, making goose b.u.mps sprout on my arm. "What are you thinking?" His hand traced lazy circles on my thigh, then stilled.

"Mm. Just looking at our clothes, like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs."

He chuckled. "Hansel and Gretel were brother and sister. Let's not make that comparison."

I turned so I was facing him and smiled. "You're right. I didn't think about that."

He kissed me, and then his eyes fell on my bandage. His expression sobered. "You're sure that's nothing serious?"

I blushed and turned again so I was facing away from him. I found I couldn't repeat the lie otherwise. "Yep. That's what the doctor said."

"Dr. Daniels. The one Carson uses."

"Mm hmm."

He breathed deeply, his chest pus.h.i.+ng against my upper back. "If you trust him. Carson says he's okay, not the most competent doctor. But his parents like him."

"Mine do, too," I said.

There was a brief silence as I tried to swallow away the bitter aftertaste of my lie.

"Hey," Drew said, nuzzling the back of my neck through my curls. "I'm sorry I brought it up. I can tell you're self-conscious about it."

"It's okay." He didn't realize the truth-that I was self-conscious not of my bandaged wound, but of the reason that I even had it.

"I've had so much c.r.a.p happen to me after I got diagnosed with FA that I don't even think about the self-conscious aspect of it anymore, I guess. TIDD group hazard."

I picked up his hand from where it lay on my waist and examined it. "You know, I can't tell that there's anything wrong with your hands. They look so graceful." I kissed his fingertips one by one.

"It's getting harder to do the simplest things," he said. "I won't even really be thinking about it and then bam, I can't text some word I used to text before. Or I can't brush my teeth for the full two minutes like I used to be able to. Stupid s.h.i.+t like that. I think when my coordination really goes, it'll be the small stuff I miss."

I thought about my mum, the water bottles of vodka I never noticed. The cups of tea always at her elbow, which were probably more than just tea. "Yeah. It's the smallest things that really make a life what it is."

I got home and let myself in right around dinnertime. The living room was quiet, and so was the den, the TV turned off and silent. I'd never noticed before that our house smelled weird.

Every house had a smell. Ours had an anti-smell: the absolute absence of any kind of scent that would give a clue about the people who lived there. There wasn't a trace of the food we ate, the perfume we wore, or the scent of our clothing.

I'd once been to the Hood Museum of Art on a school field trip. The entire place had felt like a mausoleum, and I'd been sure it was haunted by the spirits of the ancient cultures whose works were on display. There was no smell, no warmth, no feeling of life. Even the curators seemed to me to be fake. Our house felt exactly the same way.

Crossing into the kitchen, I found Mum seated at the table, eating a salad and drinking tea. "Been learning anything useful in drunk-driving cla.s.s?" I didn't even try to disguise the venom in my voice.

She barely glanced up from her food. "h.e.l.lo, Saylor."

"What's the matter?" I pulled out a chair and sat next to her, putting my chin in my hands. "Don't you want to tell me all about your fun curriculum?"

The corners of her mouth pulled in, as if she tasted something sour. "Sarcasm doesn't become you, dear." She took a sip of tea.

"No, a mother who's a f.u.c.king drunk liar doesn't become me." I waited for her to startle, to tell me to watch my language, but she calmly pierced a spinach leaf, put it into her mouth, and began to chew, her eyes steadfastly on her plate.

"I found your f.u.c.king bottles of 'water,' " I said. "Except when I went to take a drink, it wasn't water at all."

She finally looked up at me, the only hint that what I'd said had gotten to her was the slight twitch of her eyebrow. "You had no b.l.o.o.d.y business taking my car. I told you not to."

I laughed. "Oh, right. This is my fault. Tell me one thing. Did you always drink and drive while I was in the car with you?"

She turned back to her salad. I pushed my chair back, stood up, and grabbed her cup of tea. She fumbled for it, but I was faster. I took a sip. Coughed.

It was plain vodka with a splash of tea, the alcohol almost odorless.

I set the cup back down on the table, and we stared at each other for a long moment.

"Is your whole life a lie?" I whispered, my throat closing around the words.

She kept staring at me, but didn't answer. She didn't apologize, didn't refute what I'd said. I saw the accusation there; what I'd suspected was true. It was because of me. She was a drunk because of me.

I went upstairs to my room and sat on my vanity bench, staring at myself in the mirror. If her life had always been a lie, had mine, too, by a.s.sociation? I was her child. My life had been molded around hers, like all mothers' and children's lives are. When had she started drinking? And why? Was it to forget, to numb the pain, to simply cease to feel? Was life with me so bad that she had to be drunk to go through it?

I opened my closet and pulled out the duffel bag I'd gotten from college. From inside a textbook I'd hollowed out to stash some of my supplies, I got a small baggie of Tylenol. Emptying out all fifty of them into my palm, I tossed them into my mouth, five at a time, and dry-swallowed them. Then I sat back down on my vanity bench, stared into the brown hollow of my eyes, and waited.

Chapter Thirty-One.

Just to be clear: I wasn't trying to kill myself. We Munchausen freaks are big on getting sick, but not so big on dying. We leave that to the depressives. I knew when I took the Tylenol, due to extensive research, of course, that I wouldn't die. I might just send my liver into a state of panic and cause some nasty stomach pain and vomiting. After I'd waited about twenty minutes, which I figured was just enough time to let the pills begin to metabolize in my system, I went downstairs to Mum. I wanted her to know what I'd done; I wanted her to see how her actions had caused me to take myself right to the brink. I wanted her, I suppose, to suffer as much as I was suffering. And guilt was as good a form of punishment as any.

The rest of the process was vaguely familiar. I drove myself to the hospital because she couldn't drive me, which was different from before. But then they checked me in the instant I told them what I'd done. Their computers showed, of course, that I had Munchausen, so they didn't do a psychiatric hold on me for attempted suicide. The nurses still treated me with respect, because acetaminophen is not something you want to f.u.c.k around with. In tiny amounts it did great things for your body like take away aches and pains and reduce fever. In large doses, well, it could kill you.

After they gave me some activated charcoal and NAC mixed with juice, I was set up in a bed to be monitored. Mum went outside the room to talk with the doctor. It was some tall guy with silver hair I'd never seen before. I settled against the pillows, reached for the remote, and turned the TV on to a reality show. My fingers traced the nurses' call b.u.t.ton.

That was what life should've been: someone waiting to hear from you, someone willing to come to your aid because they knew you were in need. Attention shouldn't have been such an expensive commodity. Imagine if people knew all they needed to get help was a simple push of a b.u.t.ton. No explanations, no money changing hands, no skeptical looks. Just a sweet person in scrubs, smoothing back your hair, asking what she could do for you.

On the TV, the laugh track screamed.

Mum came back in, her face closed off, distant. "They want to keep you overnight, to make sure you're going to be all right."

I nodded. "Are they going to have me speak with the psych team?"

"No. I was able to convince the doctor not to. I gave him Dr. Stone's number so they can work that out between the two of them." She looked out the window at the snow and then back at me. "I'm going to ask you something, and I'm only going to ask you once. I want you to be honest with me."

I stared at her, the distance between my hospital bed and her visitor's chair yawning wider. Honesty? She was demanding honesty now, after so long? I didn't know if I could give it to her. But curiosity won out. "Okay."

She took a deep breath, her thin chest filling with air and then slowly deflating as she spoke. "Have you..." She looked down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap, as if she couldn't hold my eyes while she said the words. "Do you hurt yourself because of some kind of childhood trauma?"

I stared at her, confused, but she still wasn't looking at me. "Trauma?"

She met my eyes, reluctantly. "Yes. s.e.xual trauma, for instance. Recently, one of Dr. Daniels's former patients filed a lawsuit against him. Her lawyer says there might be others who come forward. It made me think of you."

I laughed and her eyes hardened. "You think the only reason someone could be as messed up as I am is because some old dude screwed them when they were little?"

She pursed her lips in a flat, hard line. "There's no need to be vulgar."

"Yeah, well. I'm sorry to disappoint. I must just have been born this way." Tears threatened behind my eyes as disappointment twisted deep inside me. In spite of myself, I wanted to give Mum that easy out she was obviously so desperately seeking. I wanted to say, You're right. That's why I'm so f.u.c.ked up-it's all Dr. Daniels's fault. But that wasn't it; I was messed up long before he showed an interest in me. There was nothing to explain my crazy. I had no excuse.

I waited for her to leave, but she didn't. Finally, I looked back to see her watching me, expressions all across the spectrum warring on her face. "Saylor... sometimes people do things because it's all they know. Their actions may be dictated by what they've faced in their lives. Sometimes people are more than what you think they are."

I held my breath. The question came out a whisper. "What do you mean?"

But her face cleared. The expressions cleared; here was the perfectly blank Sarita mask, back on. Whatever she'd wanted to say, whatever she'd been hinting at was gone. Mum stood. "I should go. It's supposed to get worse, the snow."

Our house was only a couple of blocks away. "You could stay here." I tried to say it casually, like I didn't care. I really wished I didn't care.

But Mum sighed. "No. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight, Saylor, unlike you."

"You mean you want to drink until you pa.s.s out," I said, glaring at her.

"I'm leaving. I have to walk, and I don't want to walk in a bad snowfall."

She could've called a taxi; having to walk was just an excuse so she could leave. So she could undo the almost-conversation we'd been having. I turned on my side so I wouldn't have to watch her go.

Chapter Thirty-Two.

My first thought as I woke up the next morning: f.u.c.king sun. Someone had opened the blinds in my room and it blasted merrily, full force into my room. When I blinked and opened my eyes, I saw Drew sitting in a chair, watching me. He smiled.

My palms were sweating. What did he know? How did he know I'd been admitted? Had they told him what was wrong with me? But surely if he knew, he wouldn't be smiling at me like that.

"What are you doing here?" I rubbed my eyes, sat up.

"It sounds like you don't want to see me, but I know better than that." His smile morphed into a mischievous grin which I found hard to enjoy while my heart battered against my chest.

"Seriously." I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, but I couldn't be sure that I'd succeeded. "How'd you get in? Don't you have to be family for them to admit you?"