Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
“Lev…” I choke. “Come? Here? To Newyeeeek?” I slur.
“Yeah,” he says without missing a beat. “I’m on my way. You just keep waiting, all right?”
Foam coats the back of my throat, the tears making it impossible for me to see. I clutch my bracelet. A black tattered string with a silver turtle dove. Lev has a matching one he never takes off.
No wonder your name means heart in Hebrew, I want to tell him. You captured mine between your teeth and swallowed it whole.
“How’s the sky looking, Dove?” I hear his car door slamming shut.
The last words I’m able to produce before I log off are “Cloudy…with a chance of rain.”
CHAPTER 2
Bailey
Three days later
My cheek is pressed against the cool window of Dad’s Range Rover. I watch as the Californian spring bursts forth in greens, yellows, and blues. The flight from JFK to Lindbergh Field was so quiet, the three of us could’ve easily passed as strangers. The few words that were exchanged were emptier than my stomach.
Mom: Would you like some lunch, hon?
Me: No, thank you.
Mom: You haven’t eaten properly in days.
Me: I’m not hungry.
Dad: Sure about that, Bails? Mom bought you sushi from the airport. We know you hate airplane food.
Me: It’s not the food, it’s the environment. The humidity and pressure in the cabin at thirty thousand feet changes our sense of taste and smell.
Dad: Roger that, Einstein.
Me: Pasterski.
Dad: What?
Me: “Roger that, Pasterski.” After Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski. A genius female physicist. How do you expect us to break the walls of patriarchy if every notable figure in cultural reference is a man?
Dad: Oh. Kay. At least you’re back to sounding like Old Bailey.
Mom: How’s the pain now, Bailey?
Me: Better, thank you.
I don’t think the pain from the fractures and back injury is actually better. It’s just numbed by everything else that went down these past three days. Since my call to Lev, a few things happened. Someone busted down my dorm door and shoved Narcan up my nostril. I came to, then started vomiting everywhere—floor, walls, carpets, you name it. They hoisted me onto a gurney and took me to Mount Sinai Hospital. The student hall was crammed wall-to-wall with curious bystanders. They hooked me to machines. Stabbed my veins with needles. Ran a ton of tests. Pumped my stomach clean.
Mom and Dad got there in the middle of the night, ghostlike in texture. The first few hours, I pretended to sleep just so I wouldn’t have to face them. Mortification didn’t begin to cover it. OD’ing is the kind of messed-up even Daria didn’t bring to their doorstep. A drug problem is something that happens to other people’s children. Children who don’t grow up in one-and-a-half-acre Spanish colonials with two swimming pools, a timeshare in the Hamptons, and monthly shopping sessions in Geneva.
By the time the morning rolled in, I reluctantly opened my eyes.
When they bombarded me with questions, I lied. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d lied in my entire life—honesty is a no-brainer when you never do anything you’re ashamed of. But, I realized, this was no longer the case. Now I did have a secret—I craved downers and painkillers all the time. Depended on them to push through my daily anxiety and injuries. Thus, my affair with dishonesty began. In truth, affair was an understatement.
Bailey Followhill and Dishonesty are now in a steady, all-consuming relationship.
I told my parents it was a one-off. The first time I bought painkillers.
“I thought I was buying heavy duty Motrin, not Vicodin laced with fentanyl!” I explained earnestly, trying to look as scandalized as they were. “You know I’d never do something stupid, Mom.”
She gave me a you’re better than that look. But honestly, right now? I’m not so sure that I am.
Now here we are, three days later. Back in my hometown of Todos Santos. My second semester was cut short, and Mom told me the board was going to reevaluate my enrollment and give us an answer by the end of the academic year. See if I’m good to retake my physical test.
A million thoughts hysterically run inside my head, arms flailing, bumping into one another. What if they don’t take me back? What about my failed grade? And all the classes I’ll be missing? How am I supposed to face the people who have seen me ushered out on a gurney, trails of my ramen and stomach acid dripping down my chin? Does Daria know? Does Uncle Dean? And what about Knight? Vicious, Millie, and Vaughn?
One thing is for sure—Katia knows and turned out to be a fair-weather friend, judging by the messages she left on my phone.
Katia: I can’t believe you did this in our ROOM.
Katia: You vomited all over my clothes, FYI. Like, I need to borrow leggings from Petra to go to the laundromat.