Yes, they still do more drugs than humanly possible, but they’re not the same malicious delinquents they were when I left London years ago.
“Stop by the chemist, and you’ll be good to go.” The doctor gives me a quick nod and leaves me alone in the exam room.
“Fuck.” I tap on the hard surface of the stupid cast. This is such bullshit. Will I be able to drive? To write?
Fuck no, I don’t need to write anything anyway. That shit needs to stop now; it has gone on long enough, and my sober mind keeps fucking with me, slipping thoughts and memories in when I’m too distracted to keep them out.
Karma keeps fucking with me, and true to her bitchy reputation, she continues the mockery as I pull my phone from my pocket to find Landon’s name across the screen. I ignore the call and shove the thing back into my jeans.
What a fucking mess I’ve made.
Chapter twenty-one
TESSA
How long will she be like this?” Landon says to someone somewhere. Everyone is acting like I can’t hear them, like I’m not even present, but I don’t mind. I don’t want to be here, and it feels good to be here but feel invisible at the same time.
“I don’t know. She’s in shock, honey,” Karen’s sweet voice answers her son.
Shock? I’m not in shock.
“I should have gone inside with her!” Landon chokes out through a sob.
If I could look away from the cream-colored wall in the Scotts’ living room, I know that I would see him in his mother’s arms.
“She was up there alone with his body for almost an hour. I thought she was just getting her stuff, and maybe even some closure—but I let her sit up there with his dead body for an hour!”
Landon’s crying so much, and I should comfort him; I know I should, and I would if I could.
“Oh, Landon.” Karen’s crying, too.
Everyone seems to be crying except me. What is wrong with me?
“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known he was there; you couldn’t have known that he left his program.”
At some point during the hushed whispers and sympathetic attempts to get me to move from my spot on the floor, the sun has gone down and the attempts come less often, until finally they stop completely, and I’m left alone in the oversize living room with my knees hugged tightly against my chest and my eyes never, ever leaving the wall.
Through the paramedics’ and police officers’ rushed voices and orders, I learned that my father was in fact dead. I knew it when I saw him, when I touched him, but they confirmed it. They made it official. He died by his own hand, from pushing the needle into his vein. The bags of heroin found in the pocket of his jeans spoke of his intent for the weekend. His face was so pale and whitewashed that the image behind my eyelids looks more like a mask than a human face. He was alone in the apartment when it happened, and he had been dead for hours when I stumbled onto his body. His life bled out as the heroin seeped in through the syringe, further damning that hell disguised as an apartment.
That’s exactly what that place is—as it had been from the moment I entered it. Bookshelves and a brick wall veiled the evil there, hiding the cursed place with pretty details, masking an evil that every demon in my life seems to point back to, that damn apartment. If I had never stepped across that threshold, I would still have everything.
I would have my virtue; I wouldn’t have given it to a man who would never love me enough to stick around.
I would still have my mother; she’s not much, but she’s the only family I have now.
I would still have a place to live, and I would never have reconnected with my father only to find his lifeless body on the bathroom floor two months later.
I’m well aware of the dark place that my thoughts are dragging me into, but I don’t have the strength to fight anymore. I’ve been fighting for something, for what I thought was everything, for too damn long and I can’t do it anymore.
“HAS SHE SLEPT AT ALL?” Ken’s voice is low and cautious.
The sun has come up now, and I can’t find the answer to Ken’s question. Have I slept? I don’t remember falling asleep, or waking up, but it doesn’t seem possible that an entire night has passed while I’ve been staring at this blank wall.
“I don’t know, she hasn’t moved much since last night.” The sadness in my best friend’s voice is deep and painful.
“Her mum called again an hour ago. Have you heard from Hardin?”
That name coming from Ken’s mouth would have just killed me . . . if I weren’t already dead.
“No, he won’t answer my calls, and I called the number you gave me for Trish, but she hasn’t answered either. I think they’re still on their honeymoon. I don’t know what to do, she’s so . . .”
“I know.” Ken sighs. “She just needs time; that had to be traumatizing for her. I’m still looking into what the hell happened and why I wasn’t informed when he left the facility. I gave them strict orders, along with a healthy amount of money, to call me if something happened.”
I want to tell Ken and Landon to stop blaming themselves for my father’s mistakes. If anyone is to blame, it’s me. I should never have gone to London. I should have been there to keep watch over him. Instead, I was across the world dealing with another loss, and Richard Young was fighting and losing the battle with his own demons, all alone.
KAREN’S VOICE WAKES ME, or jars me out of my trance. Or whatever this is.
“Tessa, please have some water. It’s been two days, dear. Your mom’s coming here to get you, sweetheart. I hope that’s okay,” the person I consider closest to being my real mother says softly, trying to get through to me.