Seven Days in June(39)

This was a girl who understood desperation.

Shane led her through the Mexican-tiled kitchen, to a servant’s stairwell, and up to a suite on the third floor. Once a fancy teenage girl’s bedroom, today it doubled as attic storage. Photo albums, dolls, ancient magazines, snow globes, and flutes were stacked in neat piles. There were two massive French doors leading out to a terrace overlooking a rolling green backyard with a kidney-shaped pool. Holding Genevieve’s hand, Shane led her slowly to a canopied four-poster bed, plush with pale-pink bedding.

Then he reached under the bed and pulled out a tray with gallon-sized baggies holding endless amounts of weed, pills, syringes, powders. They were labeled by feeling: COMA (Valium), CHILL (weed), PARTY (cocaine), LSATS (Adderall), WHORE (ecstasy), NUMB (Percocet), and so on.

The Georgetown girl was a whimsical drug addict. And he was her dealer.

Shane peeled off his tee and collapsed on top of the covers next to Genevieve. They smoked a roach till it was gone. At some point, they curled into each other, Genevieve’s face nestled into Shane’s neck, his fingers tangling themselves in her curls. It was a hazy, blissful thing, holding her so close in this innocent way.

He slept harder than he had in his life.

*



Around 10:00 p.m., Annabelle Park strode into her parents’ home. She was wearing a baby-pink Juicy Couture minidress and diamond studs. Nestled inside her Louis Vuitton dog carrier was her Chihuahua, Nicole Richie.

Annabelle knew Shane was there. He’d called. Of course, he and his beautiful dick were always welcome. Plus, he was fabulous company, because he never spoke. She’d gossip to him about DC elites, and he’d lie there, looking deceptively attentive. Grinning, she trotted up both flights of stairs.

Annabelle flung open her old bedroom door. Instantly, she was assaulted by the decadent scent of expensive weed—and the sight of Shane, in her bed, all cuddled up with some chick. That messy motherfucker! Her first instinct was to kick him out, but…well, she wasn’t a monster. Where would he go?

In ten months, she’d learned only three things about Shane. The first was that he lived in some Miss Hannigan–ass “children’s shelter.” The internet said it was an asylum where minors were sent after failing more than twenty trial runs with foster families. The “good” kids took brain-dulling antipsychotic meds with no argument, while “bad” ones were put in solitary, tied to radiators, twisted Victorian shit. She couldn’t send him back there.

(By the way, yes, Annabelle was feeling mildly jealous. But it would pass. After all, she was in the middle of planning a $125,000 fall wedding to Dr. Jonathon Kim at the Four Seasons in Georgetown.)

Whenever it was vacant, Annabelle’s parents’ house was a crash pad for her assorted strung-out friends and their strung-out friends. There were few things she respected less than her parents’ house. Shane and the waif with the tragic hair could stay. The staff would be back next Monday to clean up, anyway.

Annabelle crept in to get a closer look. Shane and the girl sported matching black eyes. She was clasping Shane’s arm as if she were adrift in a biblical-level seastorm and he were her only anchor.

Annabelle felt sad for her. Shane couldn’t be anyone’s anchor. He’d never love anything more than getting obliterated.

The second thing she knew about Shane was that despite being chased by some powerful demons, he always survived unscathed. But Annabelle suspected that the girl who fell for him wouldn’t have the same luck. When it was over, she’d stagger away, scarred for life.

Annabelle tiptoed downstairs to the servants’ kitchen. She grabbed two bags of frozen peas and a chilled bottle of Polugar vodka. Back upstairs, she carefully laid the frozen bags on their faces (for the bruises). Then she placed the vodka on the nightstand. Shane couldn’t wake up without it. That was the third thing she knew about him.

With a smug hair flip, she picked up Nicole Richie, spun on her Choos, and left. Annabelle’s haters thought she was a mean coke whore with fake cheekbones—and yes, she did have fake cheekbones, but she also had a very real heart.

Annabelle Park, soon to be Annabelle Kim, was twenty-two and was grateful to be an adult. Grown women knew better than to attach themselves to time bombs. Teenage girls couldn’t wait to be ruined.

*



When Shane woke up, he didn’t know what time it was, what day it was, or where he was. All he knew was that he awoke gently. Floating. Peaceful.

And as he did, Shane gradually came to the awareness that he was caressing the preternaturally soft, sweet skin of a girl. And that he was big-spooning this girl, and it was Genevieve. And then he remembered everything. School, the hospital, the frantic dash to the house, and then smoking and smoking before drifting off together.

Hazy flashes from the night came rushing back. He remembered jolting awake from a dream, realizing she was too far away, and pulling her against him, with an unthinking neediness he’d never allowed himself to feel before. At one point, during a brief glimmer of consciousness, he’d realized they were clinging to each other ferociously, smothering each other so that it was almost too hard to breathe, but it felt so good that before drifting off again, he thought, Fuck it, dying like this would be worth it.

Shane opened his eyes. Genevieve’s head was lying on his good arm (which was 100 percent numb), and his casted one was resting on her hip. He took in the spacious, girly room with the canopy over the king-sized bed shading them from the sun streaming through the glass terrace doors. The clock on the wall read 2:00 p.m. They’d slept for thirteen hours.