Drown

12. I'm not leaving you

"What were you thinking, man? What was going through your head? You know, your brain, your cranium, your-"

"I get it, Josh."

"No, it's clear that you don't. Fuck, man. I thought you were done with all that."

"Watch your language."

I hear Josh scoff at this. "Don't try to lecture me on what's right. Caroline called me, you know. Scared out of her mind. Crying. You know how fucked up it is that she was the one to bring you here?"

"I don't remember," says Vince, quiet. He sounds tired and his voice is hoarse. And after Josh's last comment, he sounds defeated and I can hear the self-loathing in his voice.

"You know what happened with her dad. Everyone in this whole town knows. You probably know the best, outside of her and her family. Just imagine her seeing you messed up and collapsing and thinking you were dying-"

"Stop," and now Vince's voice is raised. "Stop. I'm begging you, shut up Josh. It's harder to explain than you think. Okay? I'm trying, I'm trying, I just can't -" he cuts himself off sharply, his voice cracking. Then, very quiet, "Stop. I can't stop. I can't."

I feel wrong for eavesdropping. They both think I left, but when I heard Josh's voice raising I couldn't help myself.

Then Josh says, "Listen, man, I know what happened with your mom and I know you feel like you..."

I start to walk away. I don't want to listen in on something that Vince hasn't told me and maybe doesn't want me to know.

When Vince had woken up and been lucid, he looked absolutely confused as to where he was and how he'd gotten there. Then, I think it registered, and to see me sitting at the side of his bed, he looked horrified. He turned away from me. In shame, maybe. Or maybe he just didn't want to see me. He didn't say a word to me, didn't turn back to look at me. His shoulders shook, thin and frail.

I felt shame, too. For not seeing it sooner. For not saving him. For so many things I had and hadn't done. Always this sense of guilt I carried around. I would do anything to let it go, but it clings to me.

I had called Josh in the hallway and I couldn't help but let tears out when I said, "Vince overdosed." Josh was absolutely heartbroken but unsurprised. So clearly this had been a problem since before I had ever know Vince. That hurt. It hurt, it hurt it hurt-

I went home and collapsed into bed, my grandma watching from my doorway. I hugged a pillow to me. Breathed in and out. He's alive.

But for how much longer if he keeps this up? How much longer?

I breathed out. He's alive.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"Yes."

"Really? Caroline, be honest. You look like you've been put through the wringer." I feel myself collapsing. Oh god. He overdosed. It's happening again. Is it me? Do I do this? Do people drop around me like flies?

The doorbell rings. I cover my face from my grandma.

"Hi." It's Josh. My mom must've opened the door.

"Hello," my mom says suspiciously. "Can I help you?" Just a few weeks ago, she would never have been able to get out of bed to answer the door: I'm thankful for this, this small but huge step she's making.

"Is Caroline here?" asks Josh. "I'm her friend," I can hear in his voice he's smiling at her.

"Caroline!" I hear and then I roll out of bed, swiping at my face for any tears, find that there's none, and I walk past my grandma who sighs, heavy and sad and tired, and I feel guilty for that too.

We sit outside on my front steps. He lifts his arm as though to hug me or put it around me, then drops it at the last second.

"You okay?" he says.

"Everyone's asking me that," I say, half smiling, half grimacing. "Are you? Is Vince?"

He swipes a hand down his face. "I thought he was done. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to be the one to see him like that. I should've... I should've..." Josh looks at me then, and I see him for the fifteen year old he is, scared and young and eyes sad.

"It's going to be okay," I say. I've heard this a lot, from a lot of people, kind of a phrase people use when someone dies, for lack of anything else to say, or blind hope that maybe it'll be true. So I feel wrong when I say it and I kind of hate myself for saying it.

But it's all I had. Because I couldn't say: I'm losing it, Josh. I'm losing my mind, my hope, I'm losing it because Vince is supposed to be steady and he's lying in a hospital bed.

I couldn't say that.

"He wants to see you," Josh says, "He's just embarrassed and ashamed and scared to be honest with you."

"Yeah," I say. "I just don't know what to say. Or what to think." I put my face in my hands.

"It might help just to sit with him. He's withdrawing from the drugs. He's alone in there. He's in bad shape, and maybe you don't have to say anything at all. Maybe just be with him."

"You're too wise," I say. "It worries me."

He smiles at me, braces and teeth, smiles big. "And you're too sad."

I hug him then. For a solid minute, I hold him tight. He hugs back just as tightly. Then I leave for Vince, for the hospital. Because when I was in bad shape, Vince carried me out onto the beach and he held me and he's been steady - and I needed to be steady for him, now. Even with my hands and heart shaking.

* * *

Vince is shivering when a nurse lets me in his room and sweat is dripping down his forehead. His nose is running. He looks pale, miserable.

I sit down in the chair next to his bed.

He says, voice dead, "Please go, Caroline. Please go. I don't want you here." He won't look at me.

"I'm not leaving."

"Please leave. I don't want you here. I don't want you to -" he coughs, shakes, "I don't want you to see me like this, please please," he says.

"I'm not leaving you."

"Go, I said!" His voice is raised now. He looks at me for the first time in nearly twenty four hours. His eyes are red and swollen and he looks beaten down. He looks like he hates himself more than anything. He looks like he hates me. "I said to leave. I don't want you here. Get it?"

I swallow. I stand. I start to unlace my converses.

Then I climb next to him in the bed. His sweat sticks to my skin. His skin is burning hot. I can feel him shaking. I hold him. His forehead presses against my sternum.

"Go," he says weakly. "Leave me alone."

"I'm not leaving you," I say. I brush my fingers through his matted hair. He shakes. I shake with him.

"Leave," he says, as his arms come up around me, holding me back.

"Hey," I say.

"Hey," he says, voice cracking. His eyes find mine. He looks so sad it makes me want to protect him from everything, even himself, especially himself.

"You pulled me out of the water," I say to him. His shaking lessens a little. "You saved me." I feel tears come to my eyes. "You gave me life back." One rolls down. "I'm not going to leave you. I'm not. I hate you for not telling me. I'm so mad at you. I'm so mad that I was worried about what we were to each other and something so much bigger was happening and you didn't tell me. But I'm not leaving you. You pulled me out of the water. Now I'm going to pull you out. You don't have a choice. I'm here. I'm not leaving, okay?"

His hand grabs hold of mine. He doesn't look up at me again. He heaves a breath in and his chest rattles.

"Okay," he says, voice broken and quiet and tired. Then, stronger, more firmly, "Okay."

We cling to each other, like so many other nights. Except this time he's the one being held together. We fall asleep, his body shaking with tremors and chills like a leaf in the wind, my body shaking along with him, with the fear that I'll lose him too.