Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 129881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 649(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 649(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
But he’s breathing. He’s still breathing.
I look around for help, and there’s no one. There’s no one.
“Somebody help me!” I scream.
Then Jake makes a choking sound and more foam bubbles up on his tongue and lips, and I roll him to his side and jam my fingers inside his mouth and down his throat, because I need him to throw up whatever he took.
I make him gag, and I’m crying so hard now, I can’t breathe.
“Come on, Jake!”
He keeps gagging, and then vomit coats my hand and drips onto the pavement in slimy, brown chunks. He vomits again, more this time.
“Okay,” I whimper, cleaning out his mouth as best as I can. “Okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“JAKE!”
I turn my head when I hear CJ’s scream, and he crosses the parking lot so fast, he flies, and then he’s kneeling over Jake and crying and pulling him into his lap.
“Keep him on his side,” I say, fighting CJ’s hold as best as I can. “He might choke! Keep him up!”
“Jake,” CJ whimpers, wiping off his face and cradling his head. “He’s breathing! Keep breathing, okay? Stay with me, Jake!”
“You need to call 9-1-1. I don’t have my phone.”
“I did. They’re coming.” CJ looks straight at me, and he’s terrified. Oh god. “What did he take? Do you know?”
I quickly shake my head, muttering, “N-No. There’s vodka. Somewhere. And he had brown stuff on his nose. I don’t know—”
CJ cries, burying his face in his brother’s matted hair and starts whimpering things I don’t understand.
“You hit that target first, remember that? I was so jealous… I wanted to show off and you were better than me, and I thought you were so cool. I wanted to be just like you. My little brother. And remember that time you pretended to drown so I could save you and get that chick’s number? Remember that, Jake?”
I wipe the wetness from my cheeks and grip on to Jake’s lifeless arm, and I keep looking around for anyone to help us.
“I’m here, okay?” CJ says. “I’ll save you again, Jake. I promise.”
I blink, sending more tears down my face, and then movement catches my eye when someone slinks out from around the side of the church and I’m so grateful to see them, I feel euphoric, and I call out, “Help! Help us!”
And they see what’s happening and I know they hear me, but they don’t move.
We lock eyes, and theirs widen, and I recognize something in them.
Because I want what they have, don’t I?
My breath catches.
“CJ,” I say, gripping his shoulder and shaking him. “CJ!”
And when he finally lifts his head, he follows my panicked gaze and I don’t need to say who we’re both staring at because CJ knows, he must know, because he’s flying again across the parking lot, just like before.
I hold Jake’s head in my lap, and I weep.
It’s all I can do to not follow.
CJ’s chasing and catching, knocking them onto the ground and yanking them up by their coat that’s probably filled, and every time their head is knocked back with the hardest punch I’ve ever seen, CJ pulls them up again to meet his fist.
I hear sirens and I pray they’re coming for Jake and not for me (auto theft will give me how many years?) and I’m so fucking scared for us as CJ roars into the dealer’s face.
“What did you give him! Fucking tell me!”
I touch Jake’s face and lips and I barely feel his breath now.
He’s pale like me. Oh fuck I’m losing him. And I think about that brown dust and I know what it is, oh god, I know what it is, and I scream when his body goes rigid and begins to jerk and seize against the pavement.
“Jake, please!”
I scoop him up and hold on to as much of him as I can and rock him in my lap. I don’t know what else to do, and I’m crying over him, “I love you! Please! I love you!” My tears drip onto his colorless cheeks.
He’s paler than I am. NoNoNoNo.
I grab on to his hand. I bring it to my mouth to kiss, and he’s holding something.
Three whitish pink pills.
Jake continues to seize as the ambulance drives into the lot, and there are two police cars behind it. Their tires screech.
The cops rush out and rush CJ, and the paramedics surround me.
I hold the pills in my hand.
“I don’t think about you not beating this, because if you don’t, then I won’t.”
We’ll be okay now. We promised.
HERE’S ROCK BOTTOM. NOW GET UP.
JAKE
RAINDROPS TINK AGAINST a window in a steady pour, and somewhere close to my ear, a monitor bleeps. Bleeps. Bleeps.
I know this sound.
Heart rate.
Pulse.
Vitals.
Holy shit, I’m alive.
I whimper because I’m so fucking happy. And I can’t believe it.
I’m alive.
My eyelids are heavy and slow to open, and everything is too blurry to see, so I pinch my eyes shut and try again.