I follow them up the stairs, to the room at the end of the hallway.
It's a girl's bedroom. And I mean a girl. It looks like it belongs to a thirteen-year-old. The sheets and bedspread are pink. The wallpaper is ball gowns and tiaras. The bed is a white four poster thing with sheer lace hanging off the top railing.
It's the perfect place for a princess.
No wonder his sister is this fucked up.
He treats her like a child. Their parents probably do too.
I don't blame him—she's acting like a child, misbehaving for attention—but still.
She needs help. More than this.
He motions to the bed.
She sits. Kicks off her heels. Pulls the covers to her chest.
"What did you take?" I ask.
"Does it matter?" She wraps her fingers around her arm. "Are you going to scold me too?" Her eyes narrow. We both know you don't have the high ground.
"Yeah. It's easy to overdose on certain things." I adopt my best I'm going to be a doctor, well, not that kind of doctor, but trust me, I know this shit voice. I move closer. "What did you take?"
"She's studying to be a shrink," he says.
"It was only one hit," she says. Like that makes it better.
But it does. To her. I know. I've been there.
"You drink anything?" I ask
She shakes her head.
I look to Walker. "She should be okay."
He nods. Motions to the door. "Go to sleep, Bree."
"Walker, I'm sorry. I want to be better. I do. I just…"
"Call me when you're sober." His words are weary. Like he's tired of repeating them.
He moves to the door, flicks the light off, moves back into the hallway.
I follow him downstairs and back to the car.
He rolls the windows down but doesn't turn the key. The breeze blows over my arms. Crickets chirp. The moonlight bounces off the hood.
He brings one hand to the steering wheel. "I don't want to go home."
"Me either."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
He nods. "You need to piss or anything?"
"I'm okay."
He nods, turns the key, puts the car in reverse. "I know this is a mess."
It is.
But it's not the mess he thinks it is.
I squeeze Walker's hand. I think up a million ways to explain this, then a million excuses to keep my lips zipped.
If I tell him, it's over.
But he deserves to know.
He deserves the truth.
I… I don't know what to do here.
Eventually, we find our way onto Pacific Coast Highway.
The deep blue of the ocean bleeds into the sky. We drive far enough into Malibu that the stars start shining.
Walker pulls into a lot on our left. He parks, turns the car off, presses his back against the seat.
"You want to head to the beach?" I don't know what to say. Or how to fix this. I can't. No one can. I know that better than anyone.
He nods yeah.
We get out of the car.
He stays a few paces ahead of me as we move toward the water. I step out of my shoes, carry them with two fingers, press my bare feet into the freezing sand.
He stops at the edge of the surf and stares out at the water. "I guess I should explain."
"You don't have to."
"You don't want to hear it?"
"No. I do. I just… I know what addiction is like."
"It's your focus, right?"
"Yeah." My dissertation is on addiction. "But it's not just research. I…" I'm not hijacking his story. He wants to tell me. He wants to share this. I need to support him here. "Go ahead. Start at the beginning."
He nods. "Bree always liked to party. But I thought it was normal. I did too. Well, once I was old enough to get invites to parties. Sometimes I'd go with her. Dean too. We all used sometimes."
"You used heroin?"
"No." He shakes his head. "I had no idea she did for a while. But I tried a lot of other shit. Never quite developed a taste for anything but whiskey."
I nod.
"I thought it was the same for her. She went to college. She kept partying, yeah, but it seemed normal. It's not like I was a paragon of sobriety."
I move closer.
He rubs my arms with his hands. "You're shivering."
I nod.
He slides his leather jacket off his arms and slings it around my shoulders.
It's warm.
Sweet.
Affectionate.
I swallow hard. "What happened?"
"One day, I got this worried call from a party. Asking if I was Sabrina Williams’s brother. Telling me she was passed out. That an ambulance was on the way."
"She overdosed?"
"Yeah. A mix of prescription painkillers and alcohol."
"That's a dangerous mix. It's easy to OD."
His nod is weary, like he's been aware of this information for long enough for it to become a thorn in his side. "My parents got really serious. She went to rehab. For a while, she was clean. Then, one day, she wasn't. She graduated to heroin because it was easier to get."
"That happens a lot." It's common. Really common, actually.
"They made due on their threats to stop paying her tuition. She dropped out of school. Lived with some loser boyfriend. Then that went up in flames, and Mom and Dad offered to pay for rehab. She went, did okay for a few months, slipped. It's gone on like that forever. It's gonna stay like this. She doesn't want to get better."
"How do you know?"
"Evidence speaks for itself."
"It isn't like that. Addiction rewires your brain. It's not about willpower."
"Iris—"
"Sorry, I—"
"I'm sure you know a lot more than I do." His voice gets soft. "But I don't need a shrink's help right now."
"You need your friend?"
"Yeah." His eyes meet mine. They're vulnerable. Hurting. "She's gonna die with a needle in her arm and there's nothing I can do."
"I'm sorry."
"Thanks." He pulls me closer.
I can feel every ounce of his warmth. His trust. His need.
He's giving me everything.
And I want everything.
I want to tell him, to explain, but I can't.
Not now. Not here.
"You must think I'm an asshole, wanting to cut her out of my life," he says.
"No." I shake my head. "I understand." God, how I understand. "You can't help someone who won't help themselves."
He brushes a stray hair behind my ear.
The wind blows it in front of my eyes.
His laugh is more happy than sad. "I know there's nothing I can do." He pulls me closer. "But it fucking sucks watching her destroy herself."
"Do you really think you can cut her off?"
"I don't know. I haven't yet."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm used to it."
Tears well up in my eyes. He's hurting so much, and it's exactly the kind of pain I inflicted on everyone in my life.