Saving Quinton

I grip the phone in my hand tightly. I want to scream. Throw my phone against the wall. Cry. But none of these things would get me anywhere. I need to do something. I check my phone screen, hoping that there’s a callback number. There’s not. The caller comes up as “Unknown,” but even if there had been a number, I doubt he would have answered. He cut the connection with me and only he can give it back.

But there is one other choice.

I rise from my chair. “I’m going to Vegas,” I announce to my mom, rushing for my bedroom before she can argue.

She cuts me off, stepping in front of me before I can make it to the doorway. “Nova, we’re not doing this again.”

“Mom, you don’t have any say in this.” I try to step by her, but she sidesteps and blocks me.

“Nova Reed, I won’t let you go down that path again,” she says in a choked-up voice that makes me feel guilty. “You tried saving this boy once before and you broke down.”

“I have to go,” I tell her. “I know where he is.”

She grabs my arm, making me stay put. “We’ll call his father and have him go down there.”

“He doesn’t know where to go and I do,” I say, pulling my arm away. “And Quinton needs to talk to Tristan and his dad—he needs an intervention from the people who care about him, which includes me.”

“Nova, he needs to go to rehab,” she says. “And his father can do that.”

“I know that, but he’s not going to go to rehab until we give him a reason to go. He needs a reason to keep on living, just like Landon needed, but I couldn’t give it to him! But if I—we all talk to Quinton and tell him how much we care for him and how much he’s hurting us then maybe he’ll consider it! Consider choosing life!” I’m shouting by the end but the kitchen has gotten really quiet.

Daniel is staring at me from over by the table and my mom looks like she’s on the verge of tears. I’m messing this up, because I don’t want to upset anyone.

“Is that what you think?” she asks quietly. “That Landon…that he took his own life because you didn’t give him a good enough reason to live?”

I shake my head, but it’s not quite the truth. “No, I just said that because I was upset.”

“Nova.” My mom’s tone is full of warning, telling me I better tell her the truth.

“Fine.” I give in, throwing my hands in the air exasperatedly. “Sometimes I think that, but not as much as I used to.”

She gives me a sympathetic look. “Honey, what happened to him isn’t your fault.”

“I know that,” I say, because she’ll never understand what it’s like to watch someone sink into depression, sink further away from you until they’re gone. Just like she’ll never understand what it was like to run away to get my father help only to find him already gone by the time I came back. “Just like I know that what’s going on with Quinton isn’t my fault.” I turn for the doorway. “But it doesn’t mean I’m not going to go help him—I need to. Not just for him, but for myself.”

Her fingers enfold my arm before I make it out of the room, then she holds me in place for a moment with my back turned to her and I wonder how much of a fight I’m going to have to put up to get her to let me go.

“Fine, you can go,” she says so quietly I’m not sure I heard her right. “But I’m going with you and I’m going to call his father and get him down there as soon as possible.”

I glance over my shoulder at her. “You would do that for me?”

She nods. “Nova, I’d do anything for you to help you get over all the stuff…all the bad stuff that’s happened to you.”

I swallow hard, then turn around and give her a tight hug. “Thank you, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you, too, and you’re welcome,” she says, hugging me back, tears falling from her eyes and dripping onto my shirt. “But you will come back before school starts. You’re not going to mess up your life. I won’t let you.”

“Thanks,” I say again. “And I’m not going to mess up my life. I promise.” We’ve started to pull away when I add, “Wait, what about your camping trip?”

“We can do it later on,” Daniel says from near the counter when my mom looks at him. “You should go with Nova.”

“Thank you,” she says, and I nod, then turn back to my room, hoping that Tristan’s still in the same place he was three weeks ago—still ready to forgive. I feel weird for even asking him, but I have to. After I tell him what happened, he sits quietly for the longest time, swiveling in my computer chair.

“So that’s where he’s living?” he asks with wide eyes as I stuff some clothes in a backpack. “On the roof of that shitty motel?”

“Yeah, he took me up there once,” I tell him, heading over to my dresser and getting a brush. “And when he just called, he told me that’s where he was staying—he even described it to me like he was standing right there.”

He makes a disgusted face. “That place is worse than the apartment.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I say, throwing the brush into the bag. “Because I’m sure he’s still doing the same thing up there as he was at the apartment.”

He sighs. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

I zip up my bag and slip my arms through the straps. “So do you think you can come and talk to him? Tell him how you feel about when you…OD’d?”

“You want me to go to Vegas?” he asks, and I nod eagerly. “I’m not sure…my parents would freak out…and…I’m worried myself.”

“Because you’d be too close to drugs and you think you’ll relapse?”

He shakes his head. “No, I’m just as close to them right now as I would be down there,” he tells me. “I can think of three places right now where I could easily get a hit or two of whatever I wanted. Plus, your mom would be with us and after hanging around here and hearing all the stuff she says to you, I’d know she’d be watching us like a hawk.” He glances up at me. “I’m just worried about talking to him about this. I don’t want to push him further in and make things worse. Everything has to go right, otherwise we’re going to fail and he’s going to run.”

I sink down on the bed, thinking about the few episodes of Intervention I watched where people didn’t get help and bailed out. “I get what you’re saying, but how can we help him if we don’t try?” My mood starts to sink as I think about how much I’ve tried and tried and how I just want it to work this time. I think he can see the hopeless feeling on my face, because he gets up from the chair and walks over to me. He sits down beside me and puts an arm around my shoulder.

“We’ll try,” he says. “Just don’t put all your hope into it, okay? You know things don’t always go how we plan.”

“I know that.” But honestly I am putting a lot of hope into this. Hope that forgiveness is what Quinton needs. Hope that he’ll stay in the same place. Hope that nothing will happen to him before we get there.

August 22, day seventy-six of summer break

Quinton

I think I can remember doing something stupid, but I’m not 100 percent sure. I swear to God I talked to Nova in the middle of the meltdown I’ve been having for the last few hours, but my memories are too hazy to be certain. Nancy bailed out on me a while ago. She’s been gone for hours, maybe days. I haven’t had a hit in a while and I think the smack is cleaning its way out of my system. It feels like my skin is melting away like candle wax and my mind feels like it’s going to explode into pieces. I have no money and only two choices: try to steal some drugs off someone or just end it. Throw myself off the roof and say good-bye to all this. I’m sitting on the edge right now, rocking back and forth, silently telling myself to just give in. Fall. Just go. It’s time. I’m alone. I have nothing. I’ve become nothing. I’m losing my mind. I’m no one. The person no one wants. The person who shouldn’t be here.

No one.

“Quinton.” The sound of her voice makes me wonder if I’ve fallen off the roof and haven’t realized it yet, if I’m dreaming, dead, and this is what I want to see and hear. Still, I turn around, pulling my legs to my chest, blinking several times, and realize that yes, I must be dead. I finally went through with it.

But no matter how many times I blink, Nova continues to walk across the roof toward me, taking cautious steps, like she’s afraid of me. My eyes are locked on hers and all I want to do is reach out and touch her, but I can’t. She’s untouchable. Unreal. Not really here.

“Nova, be careful. The roof feels like it’s going to collapse.” Tristan walks out from the doorway and he doesn’t look real either. He looks healthy and stronger than the last time I saw him. He looks better.

“It’s fine,” Nova insists, her eyes still fixed on mine. She puts her hand out as she stops just short of me and I’m not sure what she wants me to do. Take her hand? “We’re here to help you,” she says, reaching out to me. I catch her assessing my body and she swallows hard and her fingers start to shake. I figure she’s afraid of me but when she looks at me, her eyes are full of warmth, just like I remember them. “Quinton, come with me…we’re going to get you help.”

And then, as if things weren’t bad enough, I see someone I haven’t seen in a very long time step out onto the roof. A man who has the same brown eyes and hair as me, but who’s older and less burdened with death.

My dad looks really out of place up here, glancing around at the large signs around the rooftop, and then his eyes widen when they land on me. “Son,” he says in an unsteady voice. “We’re to help you.”

That snaps me out of my trance and wakes me right back up. “Shut up! All of you! You can’t help me.” I get down off the ledge, hurrying toward the other side of the roof, putting distance back between us. But even when I get as far as I can, it’s still not far enough, Nova’s heat and words and kindness smothering me from all the way over here.

Her arm falls to the side as her gaze sweeps around the roof, then she turns to Tristan and he looks at her with his brows furrowed. Nova whispers something to him and my dad says something to him as well. Then Tristan warily nods before he cautiously steps up beside Nova and they both start inching toward me. Together. I hate that they’re together.

“What the hell’s going on?” I ask, backing toward the edge, wishing they’d stop taking away my space. “Why the hell are you all here?”

Nova stops before Tristan does and my dad barely takes a few steps, and then stops beside a smaller sign, looking like he’s struggling to breathe at the sight of me. They’ve all stopped moving toward me, though, and I start to breathe freely again, but then Tristan starts walking toward me again, step by step, inch by inch. It’s driving me crazy, him being here, healthy, looking at me like he wants to f**king help me, too, when he was in my place once.

“Why the hell are you here?” I shout again with my hands balled at my sides. I don’t know what to do. Knock him down. Knock Nova down. Knock them all down and flee to the door or just back away and jump off the roof.

Tristan flinches at the loudness of my voice but keeps on walking until he stops right in front of me. “I came here to tell you something.” His voice shakes like he’s nervous, which I don’t understand. He’s never nervous around me. I’m the one that is because of what I did to him—what I took from him. He raises his hand in front of him and for a second I think he’s going to shove me off the roof. But instead he rubs his arm across his forehead and wipes some sweat from his brow. “I came here to say thank you for saving my life that day. For not letting me OD on the side of the road. For giving me CPR and calling the ambulance. For trying to help me with that whole Trace mess, when I caused it in the first place.”

His words are like a strike to the chest, hot, painful, sharp, like my scar is torn open and I don’t have anything to numb the pain. “I didn’t f**king do anything…and you were only there because of me! Because I killed your sister!”

“That’s not why I was there, man,” he says, taking a cautious step toward me. “Nothing about my life is your fault, just like Ryder’s death isn’t your fault. Or Lexi’s.”

I stumble back. “Stop saying that, you f**king asshole.”

“Why? It’s true,” he says. “What happened…the accident…it was just that—an accident.”

“Yes it was.” My voice is sharp. I know he doesn’t mean it. He can’t. It’s impossible. No one can ever forgive me. “It was my fault and you know it, just like your parents know it.”

“My parents are messed up and need to blame someone,” he says, stepping toward me, his voice and steps growing steadier. “But the truth is, if they really looked at it, they know that accidents happen. That you were all just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Stop saying that…it is my fault. Everything is my fault!” I step back and my foot clips the edge of the roof. My weak legs wobble a little and Nova must think I’m going to fall because she starts to rush toward me, but Tristan sticks out his arm, stopping her.

“No, it wasn’t. None of this was your fault. Not Ryder. Not what happened to me. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead,” he says, and this time his voice is firm, full of meaning, full of the truth.