Saving Quinton

Chapter 1

Quinton

I wake up every morning feeling content that I’m drowning in darkness. Blissfully, mind-numbingly content, without worrying or being haunted by my fucked-up past because I can’t feel a fucking thing. At least after I take my first hit. Once I get the taste of that bitterly sweet, wonderfully toxic, white crystals up my nose, it’ll burn out the back of my throat along with all my emotions. Then I’ll be good to go for days. The guilt that I carry around in me will briefly die and I’ll slowly die right along with it. I’m glad because I want to be dead.

And I’m working on getting there, one numbing line at a time.

I can’t remember the last time I slept, just like I can’t remember the name of the woman lying beside me in my bed, passed out with her top off. I met her last night when she showed up with Dylan and Delilah and somehow we ended up in my room where we had meaningless sex and then she passed out from whatever she’s on. It’s become a routine, a painfully longstanding routine that I’m addicted to. Part of me wishes I wasn’t, but the other part knows that I deserve exactly what I have—nothing.

After struggling all night to shut my eyes, seeking sleep but never getting there, I finally climb off the mattress on the floor. I’ve been going for days, strung out on line after line, my eyes bulging out of my head, my body and mind so tense and worn out from the energy overload, yet still fighting to stay awake. If I don’t get more into my system soon, I’m going to crash.

I grab a pair of jeans from off the chipped linoleum floor and pull them on. My bedroom is about the size of a closet and contains a shitty mattress, a box with stuff that I never look at anymore, a lamp, and a mirror and razor that are always within reach. I pick them both up off the floor and then the empty plastic bag next to it. I must have finished it off last night…although I can barely remember doing it. I can barely remember anything anymore. Days and nights are blurred together in pieces that are quickly fading.

“Shit,” I mutter, wiping my finger along the mirror’s dry surface, and then lick my finger clean, sucking every last drop off it. It doesn’t do anything for the starving beast stirring inside me, ready to wake up and claw at my skin if I don’t feed it. I toss the mirror across the room, watching it shatter against the wall. “Dammit.” I snatch a shirt up off the floor and pull it on as I hurry out into the narrow hall, tripping over a few people passed out on the floor, none of whom I know, but they always seem to be around.

When I reach the door at the end of the hall, the room that belongs to my cousin Tristan, I turn the doorknob but it’s locked, so I hammer my fist against it. “Tristan, open up the fucking door…I need to get in there. Now.”

There’s no response, so I bang on the door harder, slamming my shoulder into the wood. My body starts to shake by the third slam…my mouth salivating by the fifth…by the seventh I feel like I could fucking kill someone if I don’t get my goddamned dose in me.

Finally the door weakens and starts to cave beneath my violent slams, but it won’t give in completely. The need to feed the irrational and unstable monster inside me becomes too much, and I kick the door over and over again as hard as I can. Panic starts to set in as a stream of images of the people I’ve lost flow through my head: Lexi, Ryder, my mom, whom I never met. They all ram me in the chest, sucking the air out of my lungs. Then, at the end of the images, I see Nova’s eyes, which look blue at first unless you look close enough to see the green hidden in them. I don’t know why I see her. It’s not like I lost her. She’s still alive and out there somewhere in the world, hopefully happy. But for some reason I can’t stop thinking about her, even though I barely know her, only spent a couple of months with her last summer during her brief fall into the drug world. Yet I can’t seem to get her out of my head, at least until I get my dose of fake bliss, then all I’ll be thinking about is where to channel the burst of energy. If I could get this fucking door down—

With one last kick, the trimming splinters apart and the door opens. I stumble into the room, sweating and shaking like a rabid dog. Tristan’s passed out on the mattress with a girl lying beside him and her arm draped over his chest. On the floor beside the mattress are a spoon and a needle, but I don’t go for them. It’s not my thing, not what I want. No, what I want is in his top dresser drawer.

I rush over to it, kicking his clothes out of the way, the memories of everyone I lost swarming around me, surrounding me, pounding at my skull and making me feel like I’m going to hurl. Lexi dying on the side of the road, soaked in her own blood, and me beside her with her blood on my hands. The life I never had with my mother, the heartbreaking look in Tristan’s eyes whenever he mentions his sister, Ryder. Nova in that goddamned pond, where I ultimately left her to cry her eyes out alone because she was going to hand her virginity to a piece of shit like me. Then I see her face at the concert when she saw me dealing and then when she got in her car at the trailer park, ready to drive away and leave me forever—the last time I saw her.

That’s how it should be. She should be away from me and this shitty mess that’s supposed to be a life, because I’m too much of a pussy to fully give up, die, finally just take that last step and end my life, instead of slowly doing it. Finally dose my body up with so many drugs that my heart will stop beating and for good this time, in the dark, where no one can save me.

I jerk open the dresser drawer and snatch hold of the plastic bag, my hands trembling as I open it. I don’t even bother looking for a mirror. I need it now. I dump a thin line out on top of the dresser, grab Tristan’s driver’s license, and chop up the clumps of crystal with the edge of it. My heart is thrashing deafeningly in my chest and I wish it would shut the hell up, because I don’t want it making any noise at all. I want it to be quiet. Silent. Nonexistent.

Dead.

Grabbing a pen and taking it apart, I lean down, put my nose to the tip of the line and suck in, allowing the white powder to fill up my nose and flood the back of my throat. My heart speeds up, but somehow it becomes quieter—everything around me does. As it spills through my veins, body, heart, mind, and soul, it instantly kills all thoughts of Lexi, Ryder, my mom. Nova.

It kills everything.

I walk back to my room, finally able to breathe again, my body and mind reaching this weird place of harmony where nothing matters, the past, the future, the present. I sit down on my mattress, pushing the woman aside toward the wall, needing space. Then I pick up my sketchbook and open it to the drawing I’ve been working on for weeks. It’s a picture of Nova, which should make me feel guilty, but it doesn’t. It’s just lines and shadings, soft movements of my hand pouring out thoughts that I’m not even aware of. It’s just art and it means nothing, like everything else inside me. And when I’m finished looking at it, I set it aside and quickly forget it, just like I’ve done with everything else. Then I lie down on my side, wrap my arms around myself, and let my mind go to wherever it wants to…

“Can you hear me?” Lexi whispers softly in my ear. “Quinton, open your eyes.”

I shake my head, smiling to myself, as I keep my eyes shut. “No way. You’re going to have to wake me up if you want me to open my eyes.”

“You are awake, you goofball,” she says, and then I feel her fingers touch my side. “Come on, we’re going to be late for the party.”

“That’s okay with me,” I tell her, still keeping my eyes closed. “I didn’t want to go anyway.”

“Only because you’re a party pooper,” she says, and then I feel her shift as she swings her leg over me and straddles me on my bed. “Come on, old man. Let’s go out and have fun tonight.”

My hands find her hips and I hold on to her. She makes me feel so much better simply by being here. My house seems less empty and it’s easier to deal with the two to three words my dad says to me every day because Lexi’s here and she loves me.

She breathes on my cheek purposefully, trying to get me to open my eyes, and finally I give in to her, lifting my eyelids and smiling when I see her. She’s leaning over me, her hair hanging down to the sides, creating a veil around our faces. Her lips are only inches away from mine, her eyes are shining brightly, and she smells like perfume mixed with cigarette smoke, a scent that annoyed me at first but now I love it because it belongs to her.

“Can’t we just stay in?” I ask her, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.

She pouts out her lip. “We only have a few more weeks left of high school and I want to have some fun tonight. Let loose.” She pushes away and I feel a little colder inside. “Plus, I told Ryder we’d go out tonight.”

I sigh. “That just means that I’m going to spend the night watching the two of you get drunk while I stay sober and be the dd.”

Her lips curve upward into a pleased smile. “That’s because you’re the only one responsible enough to be the dd.”

I frown. “Well, what if I don’t want to be tonight? What if I just want to have fun?

She sits up, still smiling, knowing she’s gotten her way even though I’m still arguing. “You know as well as I do that you couldn’t get drunk even if you wanted to.”

“Only because I worry about you,” I say. “You always get so crazy when you’re drunk.”

“Not crazy, just fun,” she argues. “Now will you please get up and get changed so we can go? Ryder’s waiting for us in the living room.”

I hesitate and then sigh. “Fine, but I’m only going to keep an eye on you.”

She grins, then places a soft kiss on my lips. “Thank you. You take such good care of me.”

“That’s because I love you,” I tell her as she hops off my lap and I sit up, stretching my arms above my head.

Still grinning, she picks up a pair of my jeans and throws them at me. “If you love me, then hurry up and get dressed.” Then she walks out of my room, without saying I love you back.

But I know she loves me just as much as I love her, which is why I get up and get dressed, like she asked. Then I head out, not because I want to but because I love her, more than anything.

She means the world to me. Always will. Until the day I die.

May 10, six days before summer break

Nova

I remember when I was younger and everything felt so simple. Life seemed full of smiles and dancing, candy and costumes, so full of happiness and light. Dark things weren’t clear to me yet, not until I was twelve and realized that not everything was sunshine. The memory is as clear to me as the sunny sky.

“I bet you can’t beat me to the bottom of the hill,” my dad says, laughing as he pedals his bike down the hill.

I smile, pedaling my bike faster. It’s brand-new, with purple and silver paint, and has stripes on the pedals that reflect the sunlight. My tires crunch against the dirt as they spin and spin and I grip the handlebars as I speed down the hill, trying to win. Really I don’t care, though. No matter who wins, I’m still having fun riding bikes with my dad.

He stays a ways ahead of me as we wind down the hill, trees around us, a blue sky above us, and the air smells like dirt and leaves. I honestly won’t be surprised if he slows down right before we reach the bottom and lets me win. He usually does stuff like that, pretending that something happened so that it seems completely accidental.

So when he disappears around the corner and then I hear the sound of his tires slowing down I think: Aha! I pedal faster, hitting bumps, steering my bike around rocks, slowing down slightly when I reach the corner. I’m grinning, filled with the excitement of the race, but when I make it all the way around, my happiness all burns out.

My dad’s bike is on its side in the middle of the path, tires still spinning, and he’s lying on the ground on his back. For a split second I think he’s playing a joke, taking letting me win a little too far. But then I notice that he’s clutching at his heart, groaning.

Pressing on the brakes, I slow down, worried he’s fallen off his bike and hurt himself. When I reach him, I hop off my bike and drop it to the ground as I rush over to him, then kneel down in the dirt beside him. The first thing I notice is how white his skin is, like the cotton falling off the trees. Then I see the fear in his eyes. Sheer terror that something bad is about to happen.

“Nova…get help…” His voice shakes.

Tears sting at my eyes. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

“Just go get someone…” He groans again, clutching at his arm.

The look in his eyes makes me run back to my bike. I get on it and pedal back up the hill. It’s a very steep slope and it usually takes forever, but somehow I make my legs stronger than they normally are and move faster then I ever have. When I reach the top, I search the parking lot for someone. There’s a family at one of the picnic tables and I run over to them, leaving my bike near the trail.

“My dad,” I pant, leaning over, grasping my knees. “He fell back there and he’s hurt.”

The father of the family gets up from the table, telling his wife to go call an ambulance. Then he tells me to take him back to my dad and we go on foot, running down the hill. I really think he’s going to be okay. I really think because I got help, did everything right, that everything will be okay, but when we reach him, he’s not moving. Breathing. The guy checks his pulse and he doesn’t have one.

I don’t know what to do. I want to cry, but the guy keeps looking at me with pity, like he feels sorry for me, and it makes me not want to cry just to prove to him that he’s wrong, that everything will be okay.

I’ve been remembering my dad’s death a lot over the last twenty-four hours, ever since I found out about Quinton and his past. I think part of it’s because Lea keeps looking at me like that guy did after he realized my dad didn’t have a pulse. Like she pities me, because I want to find Quinton, because I don’t know where he’s living and I want to help him. She doesn’t think that I can help him, but she’s wrong—she has to be.

At least that’s what I keep telling my camera while I make my recording. “I’ve been telling myself over and over again there’s still hope, that Quinton’s still alive, therefore hope still exists,” I say to my camera phone screen as the red recording light blinks. “That hope can only be gone when someone’s heart stops beating, when they take their last and final breath, when they don’t come back.” I’m lying on the sofa in my apartment’s living room, with my feet propped up on the back and my head over the edge, so my hair’s hanging down toward the ground. My phone is angled at my face and it looks like I’m falling. I’m not sure how long I’ve been in this position, but I can feel the blood pooling in my head.

I started making recordings of myself partly because I was interested in film and partly because it was the only way I could get my thoughts out. There was also a teeny part of me that did it because it made me feel connected to my deceased boyfriend, Landon, because he made a video, minutes before he committed suicide.

Because I let him fall from my life, just like I did Quinton.

I blink at the camera, telling myself not to let my mind go there and to keep positive. “Hope is what keeps me searching for Quinton—what makes me determined to find him and help him. Even when I know that what awaits me in the future is going to be hard, that it’ll more than likely bring up painful memories of the things I did in my past. But I know it’s something I have to do. Looking back, I realize that Quinton entered my life for a reason. It may not have made sense when I first met him nearly a year ago, but it does now. And all that stuff I went through, the summer of bad choices, can be used for something good because it gives me insight into what he’s going through. I’ve seen the darkness that’s probably around Quinton right now and I know what it feels like to feel like you’re drowning in it…” I trail off as the memories start to build up inside me, weighted and unwelcome, but I take a deep breath and free the tension.

“Although I’m sure there’s way more to it than what I know. Not just because he’s gone deeper into the drug world than I ever did—into crystal meth…from what I’ve read on the Internet it’s far more addicting than anything I ever did, but then again there are so many things that could be classified as addiction…” I trail off and shut my eyes. “Addiction is the fucking devil—I swear to God it is. Whether it’s drugs or obsessive counting, something I still suffer from occasionally. It can be so comforting, peaceful, serene. It can make you feel so in control, but it’s just a mask, plain and simple, and what’s behind the mask—what we’re trying to hide—is still growing, feeding off the addiction—”

“Nova, get in here,” Lea, my best friend and roommate for the last year, calls out from my room, interrupting my video making. “I think I found something.”

I open my eyes and stare at my image on the screen, so different from how I appeared last summer when I was addicted to several things, including denial. “I’ll pick up on this later,” I say to my camera phone, then click it off and flip upright, getting to my feet.

Blood rushes down from my head and vertigo sets in, sending the nearly empty room around me spinning. I brace my hand against the wall and make my way to the bedroom.

“What’d you find?” I ask Lea as I stumble through the doorway.

She’s sitting on the floor in the midst of our packing boxes with the computer on her lap, her back against the wall and her legs stretched out in front of her. “An old newspaper article on the Internet that mentions a Quinton Carter involved in a fatal car accident in Seattle.”

I briefly stop breathing. “What’s it say?” I whisper, fearing the truth. She skims the article on the screen. “It says that he was one of the drivers and that two people in the car he was driving were dead on arrival.” She pauses, sucking in a slow breath. “And it says that he died, too, but that the paramedics revived him.”

I swallow hard as denial begins to evaporate and I’m forced to admit the truth. All that time I spent with Quinton and I didn’t know the dark secrets eating away at him. “Are you sure that’s what it says?” I ask her, denial trying to grasp hold one last time. I’m trying to hold on to the idea that Quinton just does drugs because he’s bored. Things would be easier if that were the case. Well, not easy, but then I’d just be helping him with addiction instead of what’s hidden beneath the addiction. And things are never easy—life never is. Mine isn’t. Landon’s wasn’t. Quinton’s isn’t. Lea’s isn’t. So many heartbreaking stories and I wish I could document them all.

Lea glances up from the screen with a look of sympathy on her face. “I’m sorry, Nova.”

I take several deep breaths, fighting the urge to count the cracks in the ceiling as I sink down on the mattress, wondering what I’m supposed to do. The plan was to move out of the apartment and head back home for summer break. Spend three months in my hometown, Maple Grove, until I return to Idaho to start my junior year of college. And I’m one for following plans, otherwise the undetermined future unsettles me. It’s one of the things I learned to do to help alleviate my anxiety.

I had plans this summer, to spend time with my mom, play music with Lea when she visits for a few weeks, and work on a documentary, maybe even get some better camera equipment. But as I take in what I’ve just learned about Quinton, I’m starting to wonder if I should be following a different plan, one that I should have followed nine months ago, only I wasn’t in the right state of mind to.

“It also says that he was driving too fast.” Lea adjusts the laptop, angling the screen so the light doesn’t glare against it. “At least that’s what it says in this article.”

“Does it say that it was all his fault?” My voice is uneven as I drape my arm across my forehead, catching sight of the leather band on my wrist and the scar and tattoo just below it. I got the tattoo a few months ago when Lea suggested we each get one to mark something important in our lives. I loved the idea and decided to get the words “never forget” to always remind me of my downward spiral. I got them just below the scar on my wrist, the one I put there myself, because I never want to forget just how dark things can get and how I pulled myself out of them.

She leans closer to the screen again, her long black hair falling into her eyes. “No…it says that it was both drivers’ fault…that Quinton was driving too fast, but that the car in the other lane was, too and the other car took the corner way too wide and swerved into the wrong lane…it was a head-on crash and some of them weren’t wearing seat belts.”

“Does it say anything about the other two people in the car being Quinton’s girlfriend or his cousin?” Sadness shoves its way into my heart.

She pauses, reading something over. “It says something about a Lexi Davis and a Ryder Morganson, but not how they knew Quinton.”

“Morganson.” The painful reality seeps into my skin and I prop myself up on my elbows. “That’s Tristan’s last name…oh my God…Ryder has to be Tristan’s sister.” The pieces start to connect, but it’s like the outside of the puzzle is put together and the middle pieces are still missing, so it’s still incomplete and doesn’t make sense. “I don’t get it…why would Tristan let Quinton live with him after that?”

“Maybe because he’s a forgiving guy,” Lea suggests with a shrug, and when I give her a doubtful look, she adds, “Hey, some people are like that. Some people can forgive and forget easily and when you’re high all the time…well, I’m guessing it’s really easy to forget, although I have no way to know if this is true or not. I’m just guessing.”

“It is,” I admit, remembering the few months I spent wandering around in trailer parks and fields, tasting but never fully indulging in the land of drugs and misdirection. “And now that I think about it, there was tension between the two of them…God, I can’t believe I didn’t know about this…I spent all that time with him and never knew.”

She twirls a strand of her black hair around her finger. “Nova, I think you and I both know that you could spend a hundred years with a person and still not know them if they don’t want you to know them.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” I knew Landon for years and even though I knew he was sad, I didn’t understand why. When he died, I was even more confused—still am. Lea knew her dad for twelve years, and then he took his own life. She told me that he always seemed content, not ecstatic about life or anything, but still she’d never thought he’d do that. A lot of people don’t think someone they love will end their life.

Lea reads the screen for a few minutes longer, while I mess around with my long brown hair, braiding it to the side, trying not to think about the many places Quinton could be, how much harm he has to be doing to his body and mind, but it’s all I can think about. I can feel myself drifting to that place where I don’t have control, just like I didn’t with my dad and Landon. Everything is just happening and I’m lying here, unable to know how to stop it.

“Please tell me why you’re so sad,” I whisper as I watch Landon flip through the pages of his sketchbook, desperately searching for a specific drawing.

He shakes his head as he tilts it to the side, observing a sketch. “I’m not sad, Nova, so stop asking.”

I pull my knees to my chest and lean back against the wall. “You look sad, though.”

He glances up at me and the anguish in his eyes makes it hard to breathe. “Nova, seriously. I’m okay. I just need to figure out a few things about…with this project I’m working on.” He roughly flips another page and then another.

I sigh, then get up from the floor and walk over to him, sitting down on the bed beside him. I can smell the pungent scent of weed and his eyes are a little red. “You know, you can always talk to me about stuff, if you’re like having a bad day or something.” I want to reach out and touch him, but I’m afraid. Afraid he’ll get mad at me. Afraid he’ll ask me to go. Afraid he’ll break down and cry, tell me what’s wrong, and it might be something really bad.

He keeps sifting through his pages and tugging his fingers through his inky black hair. When he finally looks up at me again, his honey-brown eyes are not full of anguish, but irritation. “Would you mind giving me some time alone for a little while?”

“You want me to go?” I ask, hurt.

He nods and I catch him glancing at the glass bong on his desk. “Just for a little while…I’ll call you when I’m ready for you to come back.”

I don’t want to leave at all, yet I don’t want to argue with him either, so I get up and go home, feeling like I’ve done everything wrong.

Feeling like I shouldn’t have walked out on him.

“You know what?” Lea shuts the laptop, then gets to her feet, interrupting my thoughts. She’s wearing a torn black T-shirt and cutoffs and when she rubs her fingers under her eyes to eliminate any smudged eyeliner, I can see the tattoo on her wrist: Live life with no regrets. It’s the one she got with me and it’s pretty much her life motto, at least from what she tells me. “I think you need to go turn in your final project for film class.”

I secure my braid with an elastic band I had around my wrist and then sit up on the bed. “Lea, I need to find out where he is…I need to talk to him and see if he’s okay.” I stand up, tugging on the bottoms of my shorts. “Besides, I don’t have a final project to turn in.”

She puts her hands on her hips and gives me a firm look. “That’s not true. You have a nice project put together, just not with Quinton’s clip in it.”

I dither, unsure I want to turn in the video without Quinton’s recording on it, the one from last summer when he told me a coded, brief part of his life. It’s so raw and emotional, which is what my final project is supposed to be, and the project feels incomplete without it, but my professor won’t let me include it without Quinton’s signing a permission form. “But…it’s…”

“But nothing.” She strides up to me and shoos me toward the door. “Go turn what you have in so you don’t fail, then get some coffee because I know you didn’t sleep last night and you look really tired.”

“But what about Quinton?” It’s been over nine months since I’ve seen him and I know it seems absurd to be panicking about waiting a few more hours to find him, but after I found out from Delilah about the accident and that he’s been doing crystal meth, it seems really urgent to find him.

“I’ll see what else I can find out and see if I can track him down,” she says, continuing to usher me out of the room. “And leave that Delilah chick’s number. I’ll try calling her and see if I can get her to fess up where they’re all living. ”

“Fine.” I trudge out of the room and into the small living room that’s attached to the moderate-size kitchen and small dining area. I collect my laptop and bag from the sofa, feeling frustration along with a thousand other emotions: sadness, guilt, pain, hopelessness. Yet I also feel a little hopeful thanks to Lea, so I turn around and give her a hug. “Thank you for being such a good friend.”

“No problem,” she says and hugs me back.

We exchange this awkward yet simply real silent moment, before we step away from each other and part ways. Tears sting my eyes as I head out the door and into the bright sunlight. I know that Lea will go back to her computer and look for more stuff that will hopefully lead me to Quinton, but it still hurts my heart not knowing where he is.

It’s a strange feeling and I’ve only felt this sort of ache over one person before. Landon. But I’m not comparing Quinton to him. I refuse to do that again. Landon was Landon, the beautiful artist who bore the weight of the world on his shoulders, who suffered in ways I couldn’t understand, but wish I could, but probably never will. And Quinton is Quinton, the beautiful artist, who carries guilt on his shoulders, who, even in his darkest times made me smile when no one else could, who showed me a dark world that made me want to see the light again.

And I want to make him see the light, too. I just need to find him.