First There Was Forever Read online

  “Don’t be silly! Of course I want you to come,” I lied.

  “Okay, good,” Hailey said triumphantly. “’Cause we haven’t hung out enough lately and I miss you. I need a big dose of Lima.”

  chapter

  sixty-one

  “What if I’m not cool enough for them?” Hailey asked during the car ride over to the Hayeses’ a week later.

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. I had my window down, and a hot wind brushed against my face. I kicked my feet up onto Mom’s dashboard.

  “Take your shoes off the dashboard,” Mom said. And then she did a double take. “Lima, those shoes are filthy. I’ll take you shopping for new shoes this weekend.”

  I looked at my red Converses. I liked the way the world had faded the laces and eaten away the white rubber.

  “Sorry,” I said, placing my feet on the floor in front of me.

  “That’s about as much trouble as I’ve ever seen you get into.” Hailey deadpanned from the backseat.

  After Mom dropped us off, I showed Hailey around the twins’ house. Even though she didn’t act impressed, I could tell she was nervous. She lit a cigarette the instant we stepped onto the back deck and as soon as it was done, she lit another. Meredith gave her a drink and she downed it quickly.

  I thought I’d be annoyed with Hailey for trying to be cool around the twins, but instead I felt bad for her, which was way worse. Ever since the whole Nate thing had started, I couldn’t feel love toward Hailey without it being accompanied by an awful, sickening sadness.

  Lily and Henry showed up after the sun had already gone down. I hadn’t seen the two of them together since I had learned about Henry and Meredith, and they looked different to me now. I had always seen them as carefree and glamorous. Now they seemed older, sadder, even less attractive.

  Henry lit up a cigarette, and stood by the edge of the pool barefoot with his toes gripping the concrete lip like claws. Meredith walked up to him, took the cigarette out of his hand, took a drag on it, and handed it back.

  I glanced over at Lily, checking to see if she had also observed this intimate gesture. Her face was expressionless. She turned and walked into the house.

  A splash startled me. Walker had jumped in the pool.

  “I’m going in,” Hailey announced. “Everyone here is too drunk to care about my fat thighs.”

  Hailey cannonballed into the water. I wondered if I should go inside and talk to Lily. But what could I possibly say?

  “Bring me that vodka, Lima,” Walker called.

  I picked up the bottle and leaned over the pool to hand it off.

  Walker reached for it, but just as I was close enough to give it to him he ducked away.

  “I can’t reach it, Lima. Come closer,” he teased.

  I leaned farther, lost my balance, and crashed into the water, all my clothes on, vodka bottle in hand.

  When I came up for air, everyone was laughing, the half-empty vodka bottle floating on the surface of the water a few feet away.

  I dove under and swam to the bottom of the pool. Underwater, the silence throbbed. My clothes tugged at my skin, like heavy wings, as I moved.

  Suddenly someone was grabbing me, gripping at my sides and my arms. I flailed and sprang up to the surface. Hailey had her wet arms tight around my neck.

  “Holy shit, Lima,” she whispered, water and spit spattering on my face. “Nate is here.”

  • • •

  In the bathroom, Hailey rubbed lip gloss into her cheeks while I sat on the porcelain toilet bowl lid and shivered in my wet clothes.

  “This’ll probably make me break out,” she explained as she mushed it into her skin, “but at least I’ll look halfway decent for Nate.”

  “You look fine,” I said. My clothes clung to me, sticky and cold. For a moment, I let myself imagine what would be happening right now if Hailey hadn’t come with me tonight. If she hadn’t, Nate and I would probably be slipping off into some dark room together. We’d be whispering things and doing things to each other. We had so few opportunities to be alone, and Hailey was ruining one of them.

  “This is the best lip gloss color,” Hailey told me, narrating her actions. “Skyler gave it to me. She said it looks good on everyone.”

  I snapped back to the present. Nate and Hailey here at the same time was the worst possible scenario. I started to panic. Did Nate even realize that I still hadn’t told Hailey about us? Would he be mad at me for being such a coward? And how long could I hide our relationship from her? What if I accidentally touched him in a too-familiar way?

  “This house is really fun,” Hailey continued, oblivious to my anxious state of mind. “I see why you hang out here all the time. I mean, this is awesome.”

  I knew she was talking to me, but Hailey was staring at herself in the mirror, angling her head this way and that.

  When we stepped out, Nate was leaning against the wall, sipping a beer.

  “Could you hear us talking in there?” Hailey asked, touching his upper arm.

  “Nope,” he said.

  “I’m really drunk, so I, like, don’t know what I’m saying,” Hailey said, her hand still resting on Nate’s arm.

  He frowned. He looked at Hailey and then at me.

  “You went swimming in your clothes?” he asked.

  “I fell in,” I replied flatly.

  “Can I have a sip of your beer, Nate?” Hailey asked.

  Nate held the bottle up to the light. It was more than half full.

  “You can have it,” he said. “I don’t want this anyway.”

  “Come on,” Hailey continued. “Don’t be a party pooper. You should get drunk, too. We’re all wasted.”

  “Here,” Nate said, handing the beer to Hailey. “Have it.”

  Meredith turned up the music and Hailey shrieked.

  “Madonna!” Hailey screamed. “I love this song! I’m gonna dance!”

  I felt hounded as I walked upstairs alone to change my clothes. I just felt like going into a dark, quiet closet and listening to silence. I was sick of everyone and everything. Sick of Hailey. Sick of the twins. Sick of lying about Nate. But more than anything, I was sick of myself and the voice in my own stupid head.

  The lights in Meredith’s room were off, and I stumbled and tripped over something in the dark.

  When I flicked the lights on, I realized the thing I had tripped over was Lily. She was lying on the floor, on her stomach. She hadn’t even reacted to me practically falling on top of her. There was an empty bottle of vodka lying next to her right hand. I immediately dropped to my knees, forgetting about my wet clothes.

  “Lily?”

  She didn’t answer. I put my hand on her back and she felt eerily cold. I was suddenly filled with fear, shrill and loud as an alarm.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. I had never seen somebody pass out like that, just in the middle of the floor. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to know the difference between someone being really drunk and too drunk?

  Back downstairs in the living room, Henry and Meredith were dancing close. Their bodies moved together sweetly, knocking into each other and then pulling apart again.

  I tapped Meredith on the shoulder. “I think Lily drank too much. She’s totally passed out.”

  Meredith’s expression was simple. “I’m sure she passed out,” she said. “That’s fine.”

  “Yeah,” Henry said, his drunken eyes refusing to focus on mine. “We were drinking before we got here. Like, all afternoon.”

  “You should really see her,” I said. “She’s, like, not waking up.”

  Meredith looked at Walker, and they exchanged a wordless twin conversation.

  “Okay,” Walker said, hoisting himself grudgingly off the couch, “I’ll check it out.”

  Lily was exactly where I had left her. A crumpled p
ile of person.

  “Hey, Lily,” Walker said, jiggling her with his foot.

  She didn’t respond. I searched Walker’s face, scanning it to see if he was worried. He was drunk, too, and I wondered if he was really a better judge of Lily’s condition than I could be. I was getting this terrible unsafe feeling, like a nightmare where you find yourself in the backseat of a moving car that no one is driving.

  “Lily, I know you’re wasted,” he said. “Just say something so we know you’re okay.”

  She was silent.

  “Help me sit her up,” he told me.

  It was weird to move Lily’s body. It’s like, with her exerting no force at all, she was ten times stiffer and heavier than I would have imagined. Dread thickened inside me.

  “Lily—you okay?” Walker asked, trying to look into her eyes. By then Meredith had appeared in the doorway.

  “She’s okay, right?” Meredith asked, sounding impatient.

  “She’s fine,” Walker said. “Let’s just get her some water.”

  We all looked back at Lily. Underneath her foundation, there were dark circles under her eyes. “I think we should call nine-one-one.”

  “No.” Meredith said, as if it was a silly thought. “That’s going too far.”

  “But she’s sick,” I said. “She could die.”

  Meredith looked puzzled for a second, and then she started laughing. Laughing so hard she had to cover her mouth with her hand.

  “What’s going on?” Nate said. He and Ryan and Hailey had all gathered in the doorway.

  “I think Lily is really sick and we should take her to the hospital,” I announced.

  Nate raised his eyebrows in surprise, and then pushed his way past Meredith and knelt down next to Lily. He touched her face with the back of his hand, like a parent checking for a fever.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked her. “Are you too drunk?”

  She didn’t respond.

  Nate ran his hand over his face.

  “She’s pretty fucked up,” he said. “Maybe we should call someone. Or take her to the ER.”

  “What the fuck,” Walker said, like it wasn’t a question. “Don’t call anyone.”

  Nate turned slowly and looked at Walker, and I almost got the feeling that Nate was going to punch him.

  “Everyone is being so dramatic,” Meredith sighed, flopping her head forward into her hands. “She’s. Just. Drunk.”

  For a moment no one said anything, and I felt my concern start turning to panic.

  “We’re driving her to the hospital,” Nate finally said.

  • • •

  Meredith and I stood side by side on her porch while the others helped Lily into the car. My clothes were beginning to dry. They felt as rigid as papier-mâché against my skin, and I shivered.

  “This is really bad,” Meredith said quietly, not looking at me.

  “She’s going to be fine,” I reassured her.

  Meredith scoffed. “No, not that. I know Lily’s going to be fine. Taking her to the hospital is what’s bad. Getting everyone involved. That’s bad.”

  I turned to Meredith. The bright light of the house behind made her profile a flat, black silhouette.

  “Lima, seriously, listen to me,” Meredith said. “Let’s just take Lily inside, make her drink lots of Gatorade and feed her greasy food. She’ll be fine, I promise.”

  I wanted to believe Meredith. It would be easier to stay here than go to the hospital. But then I thought about the damp, cool feel of Lily’s skin under my fingers and frowned. Lily was too sick to eat. Something was happening to her body that I wasn’t sure we could reverse with food and Gatorade.

  “I don’t think that’s good enough,” I replied.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” Meredith snapped. “You have no idea what Lily’s mom is like. And my father—”

  This didn’t sound like Meredith. “Your dad must know you guys drink when he’s away. You’re here by yourselves all the time. He has to know.”

  “Yeah, but he trusts us. He trusts us enough to do whatever. To let us travel alone,” she explained. “If he thinks we aren’t responsible enough he might not let us go at all. I mean, he can’t like, physically stop us, but he could make it really hard.”

  “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?” I asked. I was stunned.

  Meredith’s gaze hardened. “Lima, this trip is everything. It’s what we’ve been waiting for our whole lives.”

  Nate was climbing into the car. It was time to go.

  “I’m leaving,” I said.

  I tried to give Meredith a quick hug, but she was completely stiff, unresponsive. I backed way. When I looked at her, I saw that her eyes had turned to knives.

  “This is such a joke,” she spat.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “This whole thing. Don’t hug me. You think I don’t know you just come over here to see your boyfriend behind your friend’s back?” she hissed, nodding in the direction of the car.

  I froze.

  “You’re a user, Lima,” Meredith continued, holding my gaze with an eerie, unflinching calmness. “Just like everybody else.”

  Her words slammed into my chest like a hammer.

  chapter

  sixty-two

  The road down the mountain was bumpy. We had placed Lily in the backseat between me and Hailey and her body sagged like a bag of rocks. I leaned my face close enough to hers to be sure she was breathing.

  “All right, guys, can’t we just lighten up now?” Hailey said. “We’re taking the sick girl to the hospital like good Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Lily is gonna be fine. You can stop being all sober and concerned now. It’s over.”

  Nate craned his head around and looked at Hailey for a second, really kind of contemplating her, and then he made a scoffing noise and turned back to the road.

  I used my sleeve to dab a little bit of drool off Lily’s chin. When I finished, Hailey was staring at me.

  “You’re so sweet and good all the time, Lima,” Hailey said. And something about the way she said the word good made my skin crawl. “Don’t you ever just want to stop being so good?”

  Hailey was too drunk to know what she was saying, but still, her words bothered me. I was so not sweet and good. I was the opposite. I was the worst person ever.

  “I’m not really that good,” I said.

  I glanced at Nate to see if he was paying attention. He was staring straight ahead, pretending that he couldn’t hear.

  • • •

  The light in the Emergency Room was bright and dark at the same time, like an artificial twilight.

  “Our friend is in the car, and I think she has alcohol poisoning,” I told the receptionist. Nate and I had gone in to get help while Hailey and Ryan waited with Lily.

  The receptionist shifted papers around her desk, unhurriedly. Then she handed me a clipboard and said, “Fill this out.”

  Nate and I sat down in the cracked plastic chairs of the waiting room. There were stacks of outdated magazines on the coffee table and local news flickered across a wall mounted TV.

  “I don’t know any of this stuff,” I said, glancing at the questionnaire on the clipboard.

  Just then, the double doors that led to the emergency room swung open and three doctors ran out to the parking lot.

  “They’re probably going to get Lily,” Nate said, thinking aloud. “That’s good.”

  He slumped down low in his chair, looking exhausted and antsy at the same time. I thought about the first time he had sat across from me in the library and I tried to remember what that felt like. Before I knew him. Before we’d ever really talked. Before we’d kissed. Slept in a bed together. Had sex. I could almost feel the sensation of time passing, of people changing, like a river rushing under my feet.
/>   After a while, a doctor came out to talk to us. I had no idea how long we had been sitting there. It could have been five minutes or an hour. Something about waiting rooms made time disappear. Minutes slipped away like sand through your fingers.

  “Your friend is going to be fine,” the doctor said after introducing herself as Dr. Goel. She looked too young to be a real doctor. She was my height, and the scrunchie in her ponytail was the same bright pink as her sneakers.

  “Really?” I gasped. “Can we see her?”

  “She’s sleeping now,” Dr. Goel said. “Her mother has been called and she’s on her way. You did the right thing by bringing Lily in.”

  Nate let out a huge, ragged sigh like the air going out of a balloon. Relief washed over me. Lily was going to be fine.

  • • •

  Nate and Ryan dropped me and Hailey at her apartment after the hospital. Hailey passed out right away, but I couldn’t sleep. I stood on her balcony and tried to clear my head. The air was foggy and thick, claustrophobic as my own thoughts. Even though I knew now that Lily would be okay, so many things weren’t ever going to be okay. Meredith, for one thing, had been horrible. What she had said to me—that I was user—rang in my ears over and over.

  And had Lily been trying to hurt herself? Was it because of Meredith and Henry that she had drunk too much, or was it an accident? There were so many things I didn’t understand about their world, and I felt suddenly stupid for ever thinking any of them were my friends. I didn’t know any of them at all.

  chapter

  sixty-three

  “So explain to me how it is that I dropped you off at Meredith’s last night and now I’m supposed to come pick you up at Hailey’s?” Mom asked.

  I was sitting on Hailey’s bed the next morning. Yellow light flooded the room, but the air felt stale.

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “This guy Ryan drove us.”

  “You know you’re not allowed to get in the car with drivers I don’t know,” Mom said.

  “I know,” I said. “But we had to leave. It was really important.”