Erin McCarthy - Believe

But then I stopped and turned around. I locked eyes with Kylie. “I’m sorry.” Not for the car, but for the hurt she was feeling.

She just stared at me in shock, face swollen from crying. After a second, she nodded, and I thought she understood.

Rory drove me to Robin’s. She had said she needed to pack a bag for herself and Kylie and that she personally wanted to check on Robin. She also told me quite clearly that she didn’t think that I was in a frame of mind conducive to driving. And that was exactly how she said it. Conducive.

No, I was not feeling conducive to driving, whatever the hell that meant.

I felt calmer but not totally rational.

I was too damn worried about Robin.

“Riley said no one in the neighborhood will call the cops because it’s not their car. They won’t get involved. So don’t worry about that,” she said.

“I wasn’t.”

Rory looked insanely small driving Riley’s ancient Mustang, her auburn hair back in a ponytail, her dress something that in my mind was more suitable for a little kid at Easter or your grandmother’s couch, but I could see what Tyler saw in her. She was very matter-of-fact and not one for any sort of drama. I’d never once heard her raise her voice.

Robin didn’t shout either. She saved her passion for her art and for our bed.

Knowing it was pointless, I called Robin again. No answer.

“How is Kylie?” I asked.

“She is in shock. I mean, it was a double blow. Well, actually I suppose you could say a triple blow. Not only was it her friend and her boyfriend, but Nathan obviously did not regret it considering how many texts he sent after the fact, and their content.”

I cleared my throat, my jaw clenched, knuckles sore where I had hit him. “I don’t want to hear about the content. Sorry.”

Something about my voice had her glancing over at me nervously. “Sorry, that was thoughtless.”

“Have you heard from Tyler?”

“He has Nathan at the house. He is being belligerent. He wants to come over and talk to Kylie, but Tyler told him she doesn’t want to see him.”

I gave a laugh of disbelief, rubbing my face. “What a freakin’ mess. God, why isn’t Robin answering?”

“She’s upset, ashamed.” Rory pulled into a spot in front of the house. “I wish she had told us.”

“She couldn’t.” I got out of the car, anxiously waiting for Rory to get out of the car. Something was wrong. I knew it. I could feel it. Goose bumps rose on my skin. “Rory, hurry. Please.”

I started running. I don’t know why. I just did, pounding up the stairs to the landing to their apartment. I didn’t wait for Rory or her key. I just hit the door with my shoulder, hard, sending it flying back against the wall, wood splintering as I tore the lock from the hinge.

“Phoenix! What’s wrong?” Rory was behind me, coming up the stairs.

But that’s when I saw her, and I shouted, “Call 911!” I fell to the floor where Robin was, grabbing for her crumpled body. “Oh, God, oh, God, Robin, baby, Robin, wake up.”

Tears came to my eyes as I held her, trying to process what I was seeing. She was waxy white, and there was vomit all down the front of her dress. Her body was limp, unresponsive, legs bent at a weird angle. There was a mostly empty vodka bottle on its side on the floor next to her. All the breath seemed to suck out of my body like a vacuum had been brought to my lips. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t move.

“Turn her on her side!” Rory ordered me in a sharp and commanding voice I didn’t normally associate with her.

“What?” I stared blankly up at her through watery eyes. “I don’t think she’s breathing,” I told Rory, and then a raw, anguished sob ripped out of my chest.

The phone was at Rory’s ear, and she told the operator, “Yes, blood alcohol poisoning. She’s been sober for about three months and now it looks like she drank at least a third of a bottle of vodka in less than ninety minutes.” Rory was breathing hard and talking fast as she shoved past me to push on Robin’s back. “Help me roll her, Phoenix, come on. We have to clear her airway in case she vomits again.”

“Is she alive?” I asked, even when I didn’t want to know the answer.

“Yes. Her breathing is shallow, but she’ll be okay as long as she doesn’t asphyxiate on her vomit.”

“Jesus.” That snapped me out of my stupor. She was alive. Robin was alive, and that was all that mattered. I rolled her onto her side. Her body was so cold, her face so clammy, her eyes not closed completely, but only the whites were visible, the absence of her irises disturbing. I was in agony seeing her like this, and I didn’t understand how this could happen. “Why would she do this?”

“Yes, thank you,” Rory was saying to the operator. “I hear the sirens now. I’m going down to let them in.”

As the pounding of Rory running down the stairs receded, I held Robin’s hand and brushed her hair back off her forehead. Bending over, I tried not to cry, and drew in a shuddering breath. I hadn’t cried since I was six years old. That I had tears in my eyes now shocked me, but God, if Robin was gone . . . I would be gone. Done. The light in my life would go out. My hands were shaking and I kissed her temple.

“Hang in there, you’re going to be fine,” I murmured, my voice hoarse and unsteady. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

Then the paramedics were there, jabbing an IV into her arm and taking her vitals as they loaded her onto a stretcher.

“How much did she drink?”

“Is she on any other recreational drugs? Prescription drugs?”

“Has she been suicidal?”

I couldn’t answer, and I heard Rory’s voice from a distance, like I was caught in the eye of a storm and everyone else was whirling around in the tornado, motion and sound and reality out there in the funnel cloud, while I stood frozen in the center, helpless.

It was like the night my mother had overdosed. The sights, the sounds, my terror.

But I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t eleven years old.

And Robin needed me.

I dragged myself back into the present, muscle by muscle, just the way I did when I needed to control my anger. When they lifted the stretcher, I stood, a firm grip on Robin’s hand. She was cold, limp, her lips a horrifying bluish white.

“What’s her name?” the brawny guy setting a bag of fluid onto her lap asked.

“It’s Robin,” I said.

“You her boyfriend?”

“Yes.” My chest tightened.

“Are you sober? Can you follow us to the hospital?”

“I don’t drink,” I told him, my voice choked and harsh. “I’ve never been anything but sober.”

He studied me and nodded. “Okay, good. She’s going to be okay, man, don’t worry.”

“Yeah. Okay. Thanks.” I had to believe him.

Because if she wasn’t okay I had no idea how I would survive.

None whatsoever.

I was dreaming that my grandmother was sitting at the head of the table, shaking her finger at me and calling me a gringo whore, and I was crying because it wasn’t true . . . was it? Maybe it was. I turned, like someone behind me knew the answer to that question, and I saw Phoenix lying on a tattoo table. He was getting a 3-D tattoo, the letters popping up off of his flesh into the air, a marquis sign that blinked over and over. VODKA.

Why was he getting a vodka tattoo?

He turned to look at me, and the tattoo on his chest started to bleed for real, the blood rolling down his rib cage and onto the floor, and his hand went limp, and his eyes stared straight through me.

“Where am I?” I asked him, my words silent in the empty room, the light from his tattoo blinding.