“Okay, that’s good. That’s good. It’s okay, honey.”
She’s seventeen years old but she looks decades older with the tears ravaging her makeup. She twists her hands together in grief. “He didn’t even like that stuff,” she whispers. “It was a one-time deal.”
I wait with her until her mom arrives. The tears dry up, but I can see a mask settling into place behind her eyes. I know with this weird foreboding sense of finality that I’m watching someone change for good, seeing someone harden up and leave a little piece of her soul in the past. It makes me shiver.
But eventually, I can’t hang around any longer. I have a job to do. Rachael barely notices when I leave.
When I walk past the EMT room, I get an absurd flashback of Angelo pressing me against the wall. Suddenly, I want to be back in the club with him, in our own self-contained universe, where there’s just champagne and beer and kinky sex and nobody cries, nobody ODs, nobody ever dies.
That, too, I leave behind.
I get outside to the ambulance. Ricky is leaning against it, smoking a cigarette. Flicking it away, he says, “What died and climbed up your ass? Seriously, Dani, you solid?”
“As solid as your fucking skull,” I snap back, a little meaner than I intended. I sigh. “Come on, let’s get to work.”
He nods and, for a change, says nothing. Ricky might be a jerk and a party hound, but he’s a good EMT when he puts his mind to it. He really does care about the job, and if he thinks I can handle the night and whatever problems it’s gonna bring, that’s good enough for him.
He climbs into the driver’s seat and I get in next to him. But I can’t get the sound of Rachael’s tears out of my head. I keep thinking about Wyatt. Those could be my tears. If he doesn’t follow through on his promise to me, they very well might be.
As Ricky blares through the traffic, I grab my cell and call Wyatt.
“Sis?” he warbles when he answers.
Beside me, Ricky is grinning like a jackal as he pulls around a corner. I turn away, not wanting him to see the look on my face.
Because Wyatt is high. I can tell just from that waver in his voice.
“Just thought I’d check in, bro,” I say, trying for chirpy and carefree.
“Oh,” he replies absently. Between Betty’s sirens in my ear and the music thumping in the background on his side, it’s hard to make out his words. I listen closer. “You gonna say sorry for going all CIA on my ass or what, then? Or is it just that I’m not your little leotard anymore?” His voice is harsh but unsteady. He trips on the wrong syllables, taking pauses where they don’t belong.
I cringe hearing Wyatt describe his gymnastics in the same way Ricky does. “No,” I say firmly. “I just wanted to say hi. There was—”
It’s a bad idea, telling Wyatt about the OD. But the thing is, I don’t really have anyone else to talk to about heavy-hitting stuff like this. Zora and Quinny would listen, sure, but unloading the dark thoughts weighing on me isn’t my real goal anyways. No, here’s the rotten truth: I’m trying to guilt him into not doing any drugs tonight. So I tell him.
“Please,” I say to finish my pathetic little spiel. I know before I even wrap it up that I missed the mark by a mile. Wyatt couldn’t care less.
He laughs, but it’s more of a strangled sound. I wince when I get an intrusive memory of his childhood laughter—high-pitched, carefree. That strangled noise and the laughter don’t even belong to the same species. I feel sick.
“Thanks, sis. That’s just what I need to get me in the party mood. Goddamn. Wanna send me some photos from some really messed-up accidents, too? Like, show me some poor old lady with her guts spilling out or something.”
“Wyatt—”
“No!” he interrupts. “What the heck? Like, seriously, what the heck?”
My brother, with his ‘heck.’ Jesus. He sounds about twelve. I wish he was in rehab. I wish I could get him there again. I wish it would stick.
“I’m not in the mood to be lectured. I’ve been working my ass off these past two days, studied ten goddamn hours yesterday—”
“That’s good,” I say, trying to win him back. “I’m proud of you.”
“Yeah, okay, cool, thanks. But I think I’ve earned the right to unwind a little, without the freaking guilt trip.”
“Sure,” I say, backing down as fast as I possibly can. I can’t afford to lose him. “Just be careful, okay, bro?”
“Huh?” Wyatt says to somebody talking to him over the sound of the music. “What, now? Yeah.” He says to me, “Listen, sis, I’ve gotta go. I love you.”
He hangs up before I can get the words out of my mouth, so I say to a dead connection, “I love you, too, baby brother.”
Then I let the phone fall in my lap and rest my forehead against the glass for a second.
I feel Ricky looking at me. It’s back to the wanting-to-know-I’m-solid thing and even if Ricky’s a jerk, he’s got a good point. We’re speeding through traffic, yet here I am like I’m in a tearjerker and I’m just waiting for it to rain.
I sit up and sniffle, nodding briefly to answer his unspoken question.
“Wyatt out on the town tonight, then?” he asks, but softly. Maybe he knows I’d decapitate him if he started jabbering about how he wishes he was out there, too.
“Yep.” A thought occurs to me. “Ricky, could you talk to him? Just tell him to take it easy? Not reprimand him or anything, just like a casual, ‘Hey dude, chill.’”
Ricky’s shaking his head before I’m even done talking. “No way, José.”
“Because they wouldn’t let you party with them anymore?” I’m guessing.
“Nobody likes a guilt trip,” he says, speeding around another corner. The navigation system tells me we’re almost there. “Wyatt’s a big boy, Dani. He can take care of himself.”
“Sure.”
But I’m not sure, not really. Because every time I close my eyes and think of my baby brother, I see just that: a little baby. Or a bright-faced dorky kid with a pencil tucked behind his ear, biting his bottom lip as he erased his calculations for a math problem. In my mind’s eye, I walk into the kitchen and put my hand on his shoulder. He looks up from the counter, work splayed everywhere. “I can do it, sis,” little Wyatt tells me. “Just one more try.”
I feel like I’m either going to cry or smash the window. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m actually glad when we get to the call site.
We jump from Betty, but right away I can tell this is no biggie. Some Mom-mobile crashed into the back of a sleek black car with tinted windows.
The damage looks mostly minimal. They’ve even pulled over to the side of the road, letting the traffic pass by. I’m thinking about how this is going to be a nice easy call—when I spot him berating the owner of the Mom-mobile.
I stop, wondering how this is possible. He mentioned fate before—as a stupid joke—but what if fate really is screwing with me?
At this point, all the evidence seems to be screaming that it is.
Because, standing in front of me with blood dripping down his face like a battle-tested warrior, is Angelo De Maggio.