“Marnye,” he says, his voice cautious and fractured, like the memories are almost as hard for him as they are for me. No, maybe harder. He made the choice to treat me the way he did, and for no other reason than Lizzie picked me. And she picked me because of a stepdad that encouraged Jennifer to leave me at a rest stop because I cried too much.
I should really have a sit-down conversation with her.
“It's okay. Come on.” I turn toward the girls' bathroom, surprised to find the door unlocked. When I step inside, I see the splintered door frame and realize that somebody broke in here recently. Not surprising.
I pause at the entrance, my right hand on the door, my eyes locked on the large stall at the end, the one where I sat and swallowed all those pills.
“We don't have to do this,” Zack says, stopping behind me. “I'm sorry I even suggested we come over here. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking.”
“You were thinking we needed to face this together,” I tell him, moving into the room and walking over to that stall, the place I almost lost my life. I push the door in and stare at the floor. It smells like bleach, and there's no debris on the old tiles. The janitor must've been in here recently.
I sit down on the ground next to the toilet and curl my arms around my legs.
Zack joins me, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor.
For a while, we wait there in total silence.
“How did you know where to find me?” I ask finally, because we haven't really talked about the things that happened here. We've touched on them, but I want to confront them and move on.
“I didn't. I just saw that you weren't in class. You were always in class, so …” He pauses and exhales, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I don't know why I went looking really. I …” Zack stops talking and runs his fingers through his chocolate-brown hair. “I thought maybe you'd be in here crying or something. Then I saw your legs under the stall door.”
I watch him, and I can see that he's hurting, but I … I'm not. I try to decide if I'm just numb on the inside, but that's not it. No, I'm just in a different place in my life. I've gotten stronger. “I saved you, and then I told Lizzie about it.”
“Wait.” I look up and narrow my eyes. “You saved me and then told Lizzie about it? I was under the impression she'd already rescinded her end of the bet?”
“No, it was after …” Zack looks up at me. “Why?”
“I … never mind.” I turn my arms over and look for the marks on my wrists. There are faint scars, so faded that I can barely see them anymore. After my failed attempt with the pills, I rested at home for three days, and then I tried to cut my wrists in the shower.
Dad had just gotten these new kitchen knives with a magnetic board, and beautiful galaxy prints on the blades. They had brightly colored handles, and they were sharp as hell. It hadn't hurt nearly as much as I'd thought, but there was so much blood, just ribbons and ribbons of red, swirling down the drain.
I panicked then and ran to get Charlie.
It was the dizziness that really scared me, the weakness that swept over my body. It was that realization that I'd never be anything or anyone in this life, that I’d let Dad down, that I was giving up the most important thing in the world: a chance. I had a chance to turn things around, and I was saying no to that. It’s just not in my nature to give up, I guess. The feelings of loneliness and helplessness though, they were so strong. I wish someone had noticed beforehand how much I was hurting.
After that, I spent some time recovering in the hospital, and once they decided I was no longer a danger to myself, they sent me home. Zack and I started dating, and then we shared our first kiss. He broke up with me, and that was that. I didn't see him anymore.
Not until he stepped out of that limo outside Burberry Prep.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks me, and I look up, remembering him pulling my body against his, his fingers opening my mouth, making me throw up. I sobbed and sobbed as he rocked me, my fingers clinging to his shirt. He brought me that low. For a bet. For a game. For the fucking Infinity Club.
“How did you feel when you found me in here like that? What was going through your head?”
Zack curls his arms around his legs and rests his chin on his knees. His gaze is so far away, I can tell he’s not here in the moment with the current me, but rather in the past with the girl he tried so hard to destroy.
