Birthday(46)

Every moment we’re on the road I half expect wailing sirens and red, strobing lights to whip by on their way to his trailer park. But it’s insane, right? I drive exactly five miles over the speed limit, and I talk like everything’s normal, and I hope Susan doesn’t notice how white my knuckles are.

I drop off Susan at her house, giving her a kiss and a million apologies, then race toward Morgan’s. I turn into his trailer park like a stunt driver, kicking a spray of gravel into the front office before speeding through its familiar lanes. When I reach his trailer I don’t even park, just roll to a stop with two tires in the grass and jump out.

The lights are on. That’s good. I head for the door, but a sharp crunching sound under my shoes draws my attention. I look down to find a torn gin label and shattered glass strewn across the driveway. I feel planted in place, like in a nightmare where no matter how fast you run or how hard you hit it’s never good enough, but this is real. I walk through the fear like so many spiderwebs and don’t even knock, just test the front door, find it unlocked, and push it open.

“Morgan?” I step inside. Hard to tell if anything’s out of place with how messy their trailer usually is, but there’s an envelope and a letter on the couch.

“Hey, Morgan?”

A groan drifts from the hallway. I run down the hall and skid to a stop when I reach the bathroom door and the acid smell of vomit hits my nose. My heart stops when I turn and see Morgan, my oldest friend, the person I love maybe the most in the world, sprawled on the floor, facedown in blood and puke.

“Morgan!”

I grab a towel, turn him over, and do my best to wipe the filth from his face and neck. It’s matted in his hair, on his jersey. There are pills strewn everywhere. Tylenol, ibuprofen, melatonin of all things, old antibiotics.

His left eyebrow is split wide open and his nose is clearly broken, twin lines of smeared red and brown painting everything from his lips down to his chin, like he hit his face on the bathtub. His eyes flutter, open a fraction of a centimeter, and then close again. I look around, desperately trying to think if any medicine they might have in the trailer can help, or to figure out what’s wrong in the first place, or something, and notice another empty liquor bottle discarded near the tub.

How much did he drink? And with all these pills? Was he trying to…?

Oh. Oh god. He was. One of the last things he said to me bursts up from the darkness: “I can’t be helped.”

I look Morgan over and realize that under the blood and puke he’s tinged blue everywhere, especially his nose and the ends of his fingers. I shake him and scream his name and his eyes don’t open again.

“Come on, Morgan,” I say. My voice shakes like a tin roof in a thunderstorm. “Come on!” A surge of anger rises up my throat. I shake him harder. “You can’t do this to me. Wake up!”

He doesn’t answer. I beat his chest and wipe my eyes, only distantly aware of how dirty I’m getting. My breath comes in gasps.

“Morgan, listen to me. I’m here. I got you.” My breathing is raspy and I choke on my words. “Please. I need you.” Morgan says nothing and I realize what I have to do.

I stand, wipe my hands clean, and call 911.





MORGAN



My brain is a minefield of agony. I turn, tugging covers around myself, and feel a sharp pull at the inside of my elbow. It’s real pain, and I realize with dread that I must be awake.

What happened? I crack my eyes to find a searing blur of white and not much else and force myself to think, clenching my teeth against the pain. I remember losing the game. I remember the fight. The letter. Then things turn into a blur.

A groan rasps from my throat and I open my eyes the rest of the way. A hospital bed resolves into view. Two silhouettes flicker at the foot of the bed. I blink my eyes, focus, and swallow my shame with an aching throat. Eric and Dad are with me, hovering, eyes expectant and dark-ringed.

When they see I’m awake, Eric leans over me. My ribs scream red and my skin is tender, but there’s also relief. Eric is here. Eric is here.

“Eric?” I croak. I sound like a dead, broken thing.

“Yeah,” he says. He squeezes my shoulder and Dad stands, his eyes wide with hope and fear, and together they fill up my whole dim vision. “We’re here.”

“Son,” Dad says. “Oh my god, son, hey.”

This is the second time I’ve seen him cry. He kisses my forehead. Runs his hands through my hair. If I could move much without wanting to puke or scream I might try to pull away, but as it is, I have to deal with it. I close my eyes and realize it actually feels kind of nice.

“I’m gonna go get coffee,” Eric says. “Give you two time to talk.”

I hear him leave the room and open my eyes again. Dad pulls a chair to the side of the bed and sits with a groan. I remember suddenly how I wished for him to go away and feel even sicker.

“Doctor says you’re lucky,” Dad says. He rubs his eyes and smiles at me, though the lines around his eyes and mouth betray a deep fatigue. “As far as he can tell, there’s no long-term effects. They got you here just in time.”

“Lucky you found me,” I say. It doesn’t feel lucky. Right now, in this moment, I don’t want to die quite as much, but I still feel like it would have been better if I had.