Page 121 of Damnation
“Finally,” she says, with her hand on her hip, before pushing past me and walking inside. “Oh my God.” She holds her nose with a disgusted grimace on her face. “Honey, it smells horrible in here.”
She puts her bag down on the table, shrugs off her coat, and immediately heads for the window, pulling up the blinds. Then she repeats the same operation with all the other windows in the suite.
“Now you’ve let the light in,” I whimper, covering my eyes with my forearm.
“That’s the plan, darling. We’re going to bring you back to the land of the living.”
“The land of the living sucks,” I grumble, rolling over in my bed and pulling the comforter over my head.
“The land of the dead sucks even more, sweetness. The afterlife’s got Hitler, Stalin, Josef Mengele…” She grabs the edge of the comforter and yanks it off of me, peering down at me from above. “Makes the living world look pretty good in comparison,” she concludes with oneof her cunning little smiles. She sits down on the mattress next to me and strokes my hair, the way a mother might with her daughter. Then, with a hesitant little sigh, she says, “If he’s the reason you’re not coming to class anymore, you should know that he dropped all the courses you two shared.”
I am seized by a stabbing pain in my chest so strong that I almost stop breathing, but I pretend I don’t feel a thing. I pretend that this news doesn’t devastate me at all.
“Well,” I swallow hard, lowering my gaze. “At least he did one thing right.”
Determined not to keep talking about this subject, I get out of bed and pretend I need to go to the bathroom, leaving Tiffany alone. After I lock myself in, I lower the toilet seat lid and sit down on it. I let out all the air in my lungs and cradle my head in my hands. My heart is beating rapidly, and my stomach is clenched like a vise. He dropped all the classes we had in common. The same classes he had once chosen specifically to be with me. As much as I want to pretend it’s not hurting me the way it is, I have an uncontrollable urge to weep. I have to splash my face with cold water several times to keep that from happening. I lean my palms on the rim of the sink, bowing my head and closing my eyes.
Nothing matters anymore.
Nothing matters anymore.
Nothing matters anymore.
I walk out of the bathroom repeating this mantra to myself and find Tiffany intent on changing my sheets. I notice that she’s already gotten rid of the crumpled pile of tissues I left on my bedside table. My heart squeezes at the sight of her caring for me like this when I’ve done nothing but push her away.
“You don’t have to do that, Tiff.”
“You’ve locked yourself inside this room for a week, you have a rat’s nest on your head, and I don’t dare ask when you last took a shower. But you are still my best friend, and picking up a few tissues soaked in snot and misery is hardly the end of the world. Provided you tell me everything that happened, right now.”
“It’s over. Now you know,” I answer apathetically, moving into the kitchen to make coffee.
She follows me. “I know things have been bad since his father died, but how did you two go from that to…this?” she asks, looking meaningfully at my unkempt appearance.
“How…?” I echo feebly. “I don’t know how any better than you do. It was a lot of things all at the same time…” I sigh, passing a hand over my face. “One night, shortly after we got back from Portland, Thomas found out from my mother that he was the reason I got kicked out of the house. All hell broke loose. But the worst part was when, like an idiot, I tried to reassure him. I told him I loved him.”
“You what?” Tiffany exclaims, her eyes bugging out slightly.
I grab two mugs from the cabinet. “You can’t imagine the way he looked at me. He was disturbed, or maybe disgusted. He started saying all these horrible things. Really horrible.” My voice falters at the memory.
“I can’t believe it… What is wrong with that boy?” Tiff blurts out, furious on my behalf.
I shake my head and add sugar to Tiffany’s cup. “Whatever it is, it’s no longer my concern. He stopped being my problem when I found him in bed with Shana.”
“What?” she says in a menacing growl. “No way, that is not possible.”
I stare at her, more serious than ever. “It is though. I saw them with my own two eyes.”
She stands there just staring at me with her mouth open. “You caught them?”
I nod. “The morning after we fought, I got a text from Thomas. He asked me to come to the frat house because he needed to see me. He said it was urgent, and I got scared and ran over there like a dummy.”
“Hold on a sec,” Tiffany interrupts. “He asked you to come see him? That feels like a setup.”
“Exactly. I was too shocked at the time to really think about it, but now that it’s been a few days and my head is clearer, I’ve come to theconclusion that Shana had to be the one who sent the message from Thomas’s phone.” I pour every last drop of coffee into the two mugs. Then I take a sip and continue: “When I got there, he was still asleep. And when he woke up and saw me, he was truly surprised. He didn’t seem to have any clue why I was there. She, on the other hand, was awake and had the triumphant look of someone who has finally won.”
“It was that bitch! She ambushed you!”
I stare down at the mug in my hands. “I should have known those texts weren’t from Thomas. But either way, hewasthere with her. I can’t absolve him of that. And then there’s the other thing: He’s started using hard drugs again.”
