Gluttony

Chapter 13

The phone call sobered her up. Harper ran the entire way back to the Camelot, fearing that Beth would lose her nerve and disappear. And as she reached the top of the stairs, she discovered she’d been right to worry: The roof was empty.

Screw it, Harper thought in disgust. She should have known better. For all she knew, Beth had never been here in the first place. Maybe she’d thought it would be fun to send Harper on a wild-goose chase. She was probably downstairs in the room-Harper’s room-right now, enjoying a good night’s sleep. Or worse, she was down there awake, and she wasn’t alone.

Harper refused to consider the possibility. Not because it wasn’t likely, but because she’d done enough vomiting for the night.

She hesitated on the rooftop, trying to plan out her next move, and that’s when she saw it: a hint of blond, just behind the walled edge of the roof.

The Camelot rooftop was shaped like a turret, with a flat, round top surrounded by a thin, waist-high wall of fake brick, assembled in a cutout pattern that looked like jack-o’-lantern teeth. The gaps were wide enough to sit on-and low enough to climb through.

Harper took a few quiet steps across the roof, as the tip of a blond head dipped below the brick and then, a few seconds later, bobbed into sight again. It wasn’t until Harper reached the opposite end that she got a good view of what was happening: Beth had climbed over the wall and found footing on a narrow ledge that ran around the outside of the turret. She was pressing herself flat against the fake brick, one hand clutching an ugly plaster gargoyle, the other balled into a fist.

“You can do it,” she murmured to herself. “Come on. Come on. Do it.”

“Holy shit.” The words popped out of Harper’s mouth before she could stop herself. “Beth, what the hell are you doing?”

Beth twisted her head up to see Harper, who caught her breath, as it looked for a moment that the movement might shift Beth’s balance enough to send her flying. “You weren’t supposed to see this.” She turned away again, and stared down-way down-at the ground. “But I couldn’t-”

“Then what was the plan, genius?” Harper snapped. “I was supposed to come back here and find you all splattered and bloody on the ground?” Beth flinched, and Harper pressed on. “Yes, splattered and bloody-what did you think would happen if you do something stupid like this? You float to the ground on a magical cloud and ride off into the sunset? Are you nuts? Oh wait, what am I saying? Look where we are. Of course you’re freaking nuts.”

Stop, she begged herself. Just shut up. Tell her not to jump. Tell her it will all be okay. Harper knew her role in this script, and the ineffectual clichés she was supposed to utter. She was supposed to play the hero, to save Beth-and the thought enraged her. Where was Beth when Kaia needed saving?

Where was Beth when Harper was lying on the ground in pain, choking on smoke, waiting for sirens, waiting to hear Kaia scream, or move, or breathe?

“I don’t owe you anything,” she cried. “Do you hear me? I owe you nothing!”

Beth didn’t respond. From where she was standing, Harper could see Beth’s arm shaking and her grip on the gargoyle slip, then tighten. She could see the tears running down Beth’s face, and the way the ball of her left foot stuck out over the edge. And, if Harper leaned over, she could see all the way down, to the half-empty parking lot below. She could see the spot where Beth would land.

If.

Harper wondered if it would be possible to survive a drop like that, and wondered how you would land. If you dove forward, would you smash into the pavement gracefully, like a diver hitting an empty pool, arms first, crumpling into the cement, and then head, then body? Or would you twirl through the air in some accidental acrobatics and fall flat, a cement belly flop? An old Looney Tunes image flashed through her head, and for a second, she pictured a deep, Beth-shaped hole in the ground, Beth standing up and brushing herself off, flat as a pancake but otherwise intact.

This is real, Harper had to remind herself. The edge was real. The drop was real. The ground was real. She could climb onto the wall and all it would take was one step, and everything would end. No equipment necessary. This is real.

“Beth. Don’t.” Her voice had none of the sugary sweetness of some touchy-feely suicide hotline. Harper, in fact, couldn’t associate the word “suicide” with this scene-that was a textbook word, a TV word, something ordered and comprehensible that happened to fictional characters and crazy teenagers on some other town’s local news. This was too messy to have a label, especially a label that predicted, required, a certain end. This was just some nameless thing that was happening, and she wanted it to stop. “Come back up here. We’ll talk.”

“You don’t want to talk to me,” Beth said dully.

“Yes, of course, I do.”

“You hate me.”

“No,” Harper protested. Lied. “I forgive you. I accept your apology. Just come back up here. We’ll figure it out.”

She wanted to mean it, but she couldn’t, and it showed. “Look, let me call someone,” she suggested. “Reed or-” Even now, she couldn’t say it. “Someone.”

“No!” Beth twisted around in alarm, again almost losing her grip. “Don’t call anyone! And don’t lie to me.”

You’re the liar, Harper wanted to say. The hypocrite, the crusader for truth and justice, the perfect, principled princess, little miss cant be wrong. What a joke-what a fraud she had turned out to be. No one had ever guessed at what lay beneath the blond hair and blue eyes.

But had it always been there? Harper wondered. Or had circumstances created it?

Circumstances. Such a bland, passive, forgiving word. Circumstances, like heartbreak, manipulation, humiliation. Circumstances, as if they were beyond human control. As if, in the end, there was no one to blame.

Circumstances had propelled Beth over the wall, onto the narrow ledge, to the limits of sanity and the cusp of disaster. Circumstances had left only Harper as her would-be savior.

Circumstances, it seemed, were out to get them both.

“What do you want me to say?” Harper asked wearily. “What are you waiting to hear? Can we just cut to it?”

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking how pathetic I am. I can’t even do this right.”

Harper didn’t allow herself to question whether it was true. “You’re not pathetic, Beth.”

“I said don’t lie to me!” she wailed.

“I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say here.”

“Try the truth,” Beth suggested bitterly.

“I can’t.”

“Because you know what you’d have to say. Because you want me to jump.”

The unspoken accusation: You want me to die.

Harper wanted to deny it. She didn’t want to hate anyone that much. Death was too final. She got that now, finally understood that Kaia was never coming back.

But Kaia didn’t have to die, she reminded herself. They could call it an accident all they wanted, but that didn’t make sense. Nothing so huge, and so horrible, could be so random; it didn’t feel right. There had to be a reason-there had to be someone to blame.

And didn’t that mean someone should have to pay?

“Let me in!” Reed shouted, pounding harder on the door. “Come on, wake up! Let me in!” Finally, just as he’d accepted the fact that no one was there, the door swung open, Adam in its wake.

“What?”

Now that he was here, Reed almost didn’t want to ask the question. What she wanted to do was her business. But he had to make sure. “Is Beth here?”

“What’s it look like?” Adam stepped aside and ushered Reed into the empty hotel room. Unless she was hiding in the closet, Beth wasn’t there.

He checked, just to make sure. The closet was empty.

“Where is she?” Reed asked.

“Hell if I know. I thought she was with you.”

“Why? Did she say something?”

Adam stifled a yawn. “When she ran out of here, I figured she was looking for you. Guess not.”

“If you hear from her, can you just tell her to call me?” Reed said, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. “I need to see her.”

“Why? So you can mess with her head some more? Maybe get her high again? That worked great the last time. If I hear from her, I’ll tell her she’s better off without you. Or maybe she’s finally figured that out for herself.”

Reed wasn’t big on physical violence. Especially when it came to all-star athletes who could bench-press cars. But he didn’t even stop to think before grabbing Adam’s shoulders and pushing him up against the wall. “This isn’t a joke. I need to find her.”

Adam took a deep breath, then another. “Look, asshole, you want to take your hands off me,” he said, in a deliberate and measured voice. “Now.”

Reed let his arms drop, and sagged against the door frame. “If you hear from her. Please.”

Adam’s scowl shrunk almost imperceptibly. “I’m not going to hear from her. She’s not answering her phone. But…” He grabbed for his cell. “Let me call again and-shit.”

“What?”

“There’s a message-I must have fallen asleep, missed the call. Hold on.” He dialed into his voice mail, his eyes widening as he listened to the message. He closed the phone, then hurled it against the mattress. “What the hell are you doing, Beth!”

“What did she say?” Reed asked urgently, though he could guess.

“She-it doesn’t matter. It’s personal. But… I need to get out of here. Find her.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Whatever.” Adam grabbed his jacket and his room key, opened the door, then doubled back to slip into his sneakers. Reed waited impatiently in the hallway, but Adam paused, just before stepping through the threshold. “You don’t think she… I mean, she wouldn’t…”

Reed was trying not to think at all. “Let’s just find her,” he suggested, striding down the hallway without waiting to see if Adam would follow. “Soon.”

“You want the truth? Fine. Truth.”

Beth dug her fingers into the pitted stone of the gargoyle and tried not to shut her eyes against the stinging wind. She wanted to see everything, even if it hurt.

“The truth is, I hate you,” Harper shouted down.

Big surprise there.

“I’ve always hated you. You’re weak, you’re bland, you’re spineless, you act like you’re this model of virtue who always does the right thing, as if you get to look down on the rest of us because you never make any mistakes. Everything about you is a lie.”

“Is this supposed to be helping?” Beth could feel the loose gravel between her left foot and wondered how big a gust of wind would be required to push her off balance. At least that way she wouldn’t have to do it herself.

This was humiliating. She’d lowered herself down here, she’d made peace with her decision, and then-she’d frozen. Unwilling to go back up, unable to let herself go down, she’d stood in this gusty limbo for what felt like hours-until Harper arrived, apparently determined to ship her straight to hell.

“Why should I help you, after what you did to me? And to her?”

“You shouldn’t!” Beth cried, her voice carried away on the wind, so that she didn’t know whether or not she would even be heard. “No one should. That’s the point.”

“That’s my point!” Harper shouted back. “Can’t you come up with anything better than that? Can’t you even defend yourself?”

“What am I supposed to say? I did it.” After keeping it trapped inside all this time, it almost felt good to say it-to shout it-to know that when she did fall, it would be without secrets.

“You could say Kaia was a bitch who slept with your boyfriend. You could say I’m a bitch who tried to ruin your life and drive you crazy-that I did drive you crazy, and you were just trying to get back at me. You could say you weren’t the one who was driving the car.”

Her perch was precarious, and she didn’t dare look up again to see Harper’s face. And Beth’s imagination wasn’t rich enough to come up with something that matched the odd mixture of rage, hysteria, and regret in her voice.

“I can’t blame anyone else,” Beth insisted. “I did it. I killed her. And this is the only way to make things right… even.”

“Maybe you don’t get to just blame yourself!” Harper yelled. “Maybe you don’t get to decide who’s guilty.”

“So I’m supposed to blame you? For almost getting yourself killed? You want to join me down here?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Because that would make everything neat and even again, right? Because you can’t stand a fucking mess.”

“I can’t stand-”

“You can’t stand to face it. To deal with it. You think you’re doing the right thing? You’re just doing what you always do, taking the easy way out. Look, you did something horrible. And maybe I…”

Now Beth did look up, just enough to see Harper leaning over the wall, her hair flying across her face, close enough to touch.

“I did something horrible too,” Harper concluded. “But that doesn’t mean, that can’t mean-this. Kaia’s dead. But we’re not, and-”

“And that’s not fair!” Beth screamed.

“Oh, grow up! Life isn’t fair, you’re not perfect, everything sucks-get the hell over it.”

Beth wanted to believe her. She wanted to relieve her burden, hand out the blame like a pile of Christmas presents, climb back up onto the roof, go inside the hotel, and go on with the rest of her life as if nothing had ever happened. But…

“Harper, I don’t know if I can.”

The hallways were choked with clumps of drunken Haven seniors, talking, smoking, drinking, and grabbing at Adam as he pushed past. Everyone wanted something from him, and he just wanted to get away. He threaded his way through the crowd, tuning out the chatter and ignoring the gossip until one line finally penetrated:

“Dude, did you hear? There’s some crazy chick up on the roof and it looks like she might jump!”

It felt like a pair of iron hands had wrapped around his throat and started to squeeze.

Nothing to do with me, he assured himself. No one I know. But as a flood of people crowded toward the elevators, he shoved them all out of the way, hurtling down the hall in the opposite direction, searching for Reed, knowing that he shouldn’t waste the time but not wanting to go up there and face whatever there was to face alone.

And Reed deserved to know.

Adam found him, and without explanation-and maybe no explanation was needed, because maybe they had already known-they bypassed the clogged elevators and raced up the stairs, flight after flight, panting but never flagging, Adam several lengths ahead but pausing when he reached the top. They passed through the door together. A crowd of witnesses clustered in front of the door, hushed but disengaged, like they were watching it all unfold on reality TV. Adam knew he should push his way through the crowd, but he couldn’t help it. He hesitated.

Beside him, Reed hadn’t moved either.

All they had now were their fears-and a little hope. But when they saw what was really going on, there would be no more space for either. There would only be reality. And Adam wasn’t ready to face it. Not yet.

“Beth, listen to me,” Harper insisted with a new urgency, realizing somehow that this conversation-though it seemed too civilized a term for whatever was going on between them-was nearing its end, one way or another. “Maybe I started this, maybe you did, it doesn’t matter-the point is, this can’t be how this is supposed to end.”

This. If she were stronger, maybe she could be clearer. This never-ending nightmare of hatred and revenge and misery and death.

And if she were bolder, maybe she could be more accurate. I started it. You can’t be the one to finish it.

“You hate me,” Beth whined. “I don’t know why you even want… why you even care-”

“You hate me too,” Harper pointed out. “You hated Kaia. But it didn’t mean you wanted her-”

“No. No! I didn’t want that. I never meant for it to happen. I swear. I promise. It just…”

“Happened. I know.” And she wasn’t just saying it. She could still hate Beth, blame Beth; she could still blame herself. She did. But-

That was the thing. There were no buts. No excuses. No explanations. No apologies that could ever be enough. No way to make things right again, no way to make things even. And trying to do that, trying to go backward, reliving the moment over and over again, trying to justify and understand and escape the guilt-it didn’t work. It left you on a ledge, twenty stories up, staring down at an empty parking lot, working up the courage to die.

There was no going backward, only forward. There could be no forgiveness, only acceptance. This had happened. And that wasn’t going to change. So it was either live with the consequences, bear the guilt, and keep going-or the ledge. The parking lot. The other choice.

“This won’t fix anything, Beth. This won’t make anything even. You’re not making up for what you did-you’re just running away.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Stay. Fight. Feel guilty. Feel miserable. Hate me. Hate yourself. Live.” Harper hesitated. She had never told anyone what it was like, how bad it got at night, when she felt trapped inside her own body, when she wanted to punish herself, tear her own skin away or just crawl into a dark corner in the back of her mind, disappear into oblivion. But maybe Beth already knew. “It’s impossible. Painful. And sometimes you… I just want it to fucking end. But I…”

“You what?”

“I keep going. I make it through a day, and then I make it through the next one. I don’t give up. I try.”

“What if I can’t?” Beth’s voice was almost too quiet to hear. Maybe it was the wind. “What if I’m not as… strong as you? What if I just can’t?”

Harper paused, but it was too late for lies; there’d been too much truth. “Then I guess you give up,” she said bitterly. “I guess you quit. You jump. But don’t pretend that’s some twisted kind of justice. Don’t tell yourself that you’re doing the right thing. Just… please. Don’t.”

He had expected to recognize the figure on the edge, he had expected the terror and the shock and the nausea. But he hadn’t expected this.

“Harper?”

The night folded in on itself and, as if the last several nightmarish hours had never happened, he imagined for a moment that he was on a different roof, alone, and Harper was still waiting for him.

I never gave up on you, he told her silently. On us.

He had been so certain of his decision, so eager to find her, hold her, start all over again with a perfect kiss that would heal all their wounds. And then-circumstances had gotten in the way.

Apparently she wasn’t waiting for him anymore. Apparently, she’d given up.

Before he could move, Harper had swung herself half over the wall. He opened his mouth to scream, but only a hoarse moan dribbled out, like he was in a dream. And it felt like a dream, everything moving so slowly, yet inexorably, toward a point he could see so vividly, it felt like it had already happened, and there was nothing he could do.

“No,” he begged, but only in a whisper.

And then he saw a hand clasping Harper’s, and a blond head emerging over the wall. From this distance he couldn’t see her face, but he could picture the limpid blue eyes, and he could imagine the tears. Harper clutched her hand, pulled her over the wall, and back to safety. They stood there frozen for a moment, silhouetted against the neon skyline, holding hands like two paper dolls, in peril of blowing away. And then their hands dropped. Beth took a step forward, then another, and collapsed to the ground, shaking, her sobs echoing across the night.

Adam gave himself a moment to let the relief sink in, a moment of joy. And then he began to run.

It had all happened too fast, over before Reed even understood what was at stake, and what he’d almost lost. He’d seen her hair, her pale skin almost gleaming, and just like that, she’d been back on solid ground. And she needed him.

I loved you, he thought.

I hate you.

She’d taken Kaia away from him. She’d taken everything away, not just Kaia, but herself. She had been too good for him, too much for him, but she had loved him, and it had made the world glow-and it had all been a lie.

And yet.

She was still here. He had almost lost her, as he’d lost Kaia. But she was still here. Alive. Needing him. Maybe she wasn’t the person he’d thought she was. But maybe-and he hated himself for thinking it, because it was a betrayal, it was treason-maybe it didn’t matter.

She was still Beth, and she was still alive.

Maybe it’s not too late.

And then it was.

By the time he took a step forward, Adam was already halfway across the roof. By the time he took another, Adam had scooped her up in his arms. Adam had pressed her head against his shoulder. Adam had saved the day.

Reed knew she could see him, and he waited for her to push Adam aside. To walk across the roof and apologize one more time, to give him a chance to forgive-and maybe this time he could. But she held Adam tight, and buried her face in his shoulder.

I loved you, Reed thought as he backed away through the crowd, through the doorway, inside, away. I could have loved you. I love you.

He didn’t know which it was.

He didn’t know where he was going.

He didn’t care.

She had stupidly thought he was coming for her.

Harper had stood against the wall, eyes shut, breaths coming in deep, erratic gasps as the tension leaked out of her. Her hand had tightened, as if she still held Beth, knowing what would happen if she let go, and how easy it would be. Knowing she never would. She had, after a moment, taken in the crowd hovering fearfully by the stairwell, and tried to collect her energy to decide what to tell them.

It was Beth’s story-Beth’s show-but Harper knew she would have to direct it herself. She would dole out the details. She would handle the spin. She would make sure no one ever knew the truth. Because she could-because she was still standing, and Beth was crumpled on the ground, waiting for rescue.

Harper had done enough.

And then she saw Adam, and knew he had finally come for her. It was the wrong roof, the wrong time, but he was here, and she was ready. She’d meant what she’d told Beth, about forgiveness, about moving forward-now that he was here, she was ready to start again.

He had run toward her, and it seemed to take forever, his movements in slow motion, like the hero’s run through a meadow in a cheesy movie, except that it didn’t seem cheesy to Harper, it just seemed romantic. Perfect.

And then she realized she was in the wrong movie. She wasn’t the heroine, and this wasn’t her happy ending.

She was a cameo role, a plot device.

He swept Beth into his arms and she hung limp against him, her body curled up in his embrace.

Harper remembered telling Beth to get a spine, and realized it would be a useless purchase: She already had everything she needed to hold herself up. Adam hugged her, and rubbed her back, and from where she was standing, Harper could see her trembling, could hear her sobs.

Harper, on the other hand, held herself perfectly still. She forced herself to breathe evenly. She forced her eyes not to tear-she’d had plenty of practice.

And by the time Adam thought to look over at her, Beth’s slim body draped across his chest, her hair spilling down his arm, Harper knew she had attained just the right look. The look that said, with ferocious determination, I don’t care.

It all fell away as soon as she met his eyes. They looked haunted. She felt the tears spring into her own, and she was glad for the wall behind her, holding her upright. He gave her a half smile, one she recognized from years of friendship, the one he’d pulled out when he broke her Barbie doll or mashed a snowball into her face and given her a bloody nose. It said, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I wish it had happened another way.

He opened his mouth, as if to speak. But they had known each other for so long, they didn’t need words.

She could, if she allowed herself, read the truth in his face. Whatever it was.

She needs me now, but I need you. Just wait.

Or maybe:

I choose her. Again.

Harper, he mouthed silently. Please.

She could know everything, if she wanted to. Just from watching his face, looking in his eyes. But whatever he had to say to her, it wouldn’t change the fact that his arms were still wrapped around Beth. That Harper stood off to the side, watching, alone.

She might need to wait a lifetime, or maybe just a day.

But she was Harper Grace, and she was tired of waiting. He’d made his choice. Now it was her turn.

And she turned away.