You'd Be Home Now (63)

I can’t believe it’s happening again: my brother in the backseat of a car, fucked up. And that again, I had a role in disaster. If I hadn’t had beers at the party, I could have driven us home. If I hadn’t asked Gage to dance, Joey wouldn’t have tried to attack him.

And I can’t stop the tiny voice in my brain, either, whispering: But nobody makes your brother get high, do they? He keeps doing that all by himself.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asks.

“No!” I yell. “No, I’m not. Nothing is okay. Nothing is ever going to be okay. I just keep messing everything up!”

Daniel touches my arm. I shrug him off. I need to concentrate on the road, catch my breath, think. Think. Because my parents, my mother, are going to be ballistic.

We all heard the snap. Heard Gage scream, watched him writhe on the ground. There’s no way this isn’t bad.

Roly Martin ran to him first, pushing Joey away. Priscilla and the other girls ran to get help. One boy called 911. “Should I?” he kept asking, holding his phone up. “I’m not sure? Yes? No? Somebody help me!”

    Daniel yelled, “Call!”

We stood on the field, watching as the crowd grew bigger: the teacher-chaperones, including Simon Stanley, running from the gym, panic in their eyes, kids taking pictures, filming, because it never really happens if you don’t post it somewhere, right?

The more kids who came, the farther back we receded, until we were on the very edge of the crowd. Joey’s shoulders were hunched, his eyes sloppy.

“Oh, god, what did I do?” he mumbled.

“Nothing,” Daniel said. His voice was firm. “He slipped, is all, when you yelled. He might’ve slipped without you yelling. The grass is very sketchy right now. It’s dark. He couldn’t see to get his footing properly.” He tried to mimic Gage in his windup and release and just looked awkward and uncomfortable.

“Joey,” I whispered. “Why did you get high?”

How many days did he have that are gone now? I can’t understand why he would do this. I don’t care about Gage, I just care about Joey right now. And this is bad.

“You’re mad at me. I know you should be mad at me. It’s okay.”

Okayokayokayokay, just like he used to say.

“I’m not mad at you.” I grabbed his arm, but he shook me off. “Just tell me what happened.”

“Lucy Kerr happened. I was having a cool time with Amber. Thought we might dance and then Lucy came up and was all, ‘Just thought you should know your new friend is a loser and a druggie and oh, let me tell you about my friend Candy. You don’t want to get in a car with this guy.’?”

    “Oh, god,” I said. “Joey, no.”

Daniel winced.

Joey said, “So I left. Found Noah out by the trailers in back, you know, where they do overflow history and stuff. It just…I just needed my feelings to stop. I feel sick. I gotta get out of here…”

He started stumbling toward the parking lot and the car. I caught up to him, Daniel behind me, and I stuck my hand in Joey’s back jean pocket, dug the keys out.

Joey didn’t even bother protesting.



* * *



—

Daniel lives in a small brick house not far from Polish Town, where our nana’s house is. The housing stock is good here, my father said, because the houses were built by immigrants and they were frugal with money and needed the home to last forever, so they built carefully and solidly, no fancy flourishes. My dad grew up in Polish Town, with four brothers and a sister, Dory. She’s the only one who lives near us. Everyone else moved far away.

I stop the car too quickly and we all lurch forward. I can hardly breathe. I have to get Joey home, hide him from our parents somehow until his high wears off.

Before they find out what happened to Gage.

“Well,” I say to Daniel, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “That alternate universe is looking better by the minute. How soon can we get there and what should we bring?”

“I have an excellent supply of stylish trench coats, so I’m fully prepared. Listen, it’s going to suck, and then it won’t, okay? Then it will just be after, and you can deal with that.”

“I can’t.”

    “You can.”

He gets out of the car.

I lean my forehead against the steering wheel.

“I’m sorry,” Joey mumbles from the backseat.

There’s a rap on the passenger-side window and I look up.

Daniel is back. I press the button. The window rolls down.

“Emory,” he says.

“What?” I’m impatient to go. I need to figure this out.

“Gage Galt is a blip in the cosmos. There are tons of guys who would die to dance with you.” He looks like he’s about to say more, but my phone flashes and I have to look away from him.

“Oh, god. It’s my mom,” I say, my heart sinking. “I have to answer her.”

He gives me a rueful smile and turns back up the walk.


Where are you?



On way home, I type.


Come home quickly.



She knows. Our mother knows.

“Mom knows,” I say. “She says get home quick.”