Saving Quinton

Chapter 4

Nova

“Save Me” by Unwritten Law is playing from my iPod through the stereo speakers and the trunk of the Chevy Nova is packed with all the stuff Lea and I could cram in there, the backseat packed with our instruments. The rest of our stuff we put into a storage unit. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and there’s a long stretch of road before me. It’s the perfect day to be driving, but my heart sits heavy in my chest. I’m not even sure what I’m going to do when I get to Vegas. Just show up on Quinton’s doorstep? Knock and say Hello, I’m here to save you?

God, I sound so preachy.

Thankfully, Lea has an uncle who lives in Vegas. His name is Brandon and he said he’d let us stay in the spare bedroom for a few weeks; otherwise we’d have to get a hotel and we don’t have a lot of cash, since we both quit our jobs for the summer and are living on our savings.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” I turn the stereo down, but crank up the air. It’s hot and the backs of my legs are sticking to the leather seat and my hands are slippery as they hold on to the steering wheel.

Lea raises her head from the stack of papers on her lap, the one she’s been reading pretty much the entire drive, trying to figure out the best way to approach a drug user even though I tried to tell her papers she printed out from a random website won’t necessarily help her understand everything, just some things. “I already told you I was like a thousand times.”

“I know.” I tuck strands of hair behind my ear. “But I feel like this is all my fault.”

She shakes her head and returns her focus to the papers. “What happened between Jaxon and me has been a long time coming.”

“But I love you two together,” I say, pulling my sunglasses over my eyes. “It hurts that you broke up.”

“We were going to break up anyway,” she replies, sifting through the papers. “We’ve been talking about it for weeks. We want two different things…he wants commitment and he kept talking about moving in and getting engaged and me…I don’t even know what I want and until I do, I’m not committing to anything.”

I can’t help but think of the things I wanted from Landon, commitment and a future, and how he would never fully commit to either, which makes me wonder how long he thought about leaving this world.

I stare at the road ahead, which is lined by the desert and cacti. “It still hurts to think about it—you guys seemed like soul mates.”

“I don’t believe in soul mates.” She clears her throat multiple times like she’s fighting back tears. “But it hurts me, too, and I don’t feel like talking about it, otherwise I’ll start crying. Then you’ll start crying and I don’t want to have to pull over so we can have a bawling fest, so can we please drop it for now?”

I continue to drive down the road, trying to focus on getting us to Vegas, instead of thinking about Quinton and Lea and Jaxon, or how upset my mom’s going to be because I’m not coming straight home, but I think about it all. Lea and I don’t speak for a while and when I pull into the gas station just off an exit ramp to gas up, I finally decide to call my mother and tell her what’s going on. I’ve been avoiding the call, knowing she’ll worry, but I don’t want to keep things from her. Plus, she thinks I’m on my way home.

“I’m going to call my mom,” I tell Lea and then hand her my wallet out of my bag. “Can you put the gas in and pay?”

She puts the papers in the backseat. “Of course.” She takes the wallet from me and hops out of the car as I dial my mom’s number and roll down the window because without the engine on there’s no air conditioning and it’s hotter than heck.

My mom picks up after two rings and her voice is elated, like she’s super happy to hear from me. “I was just going to call you,” she says. “To see when you were headed home.”

“Oh.” I grip the steering wheel, nervous, my palms sweating. “Yeah, about that…I’m not coming straight home.”

“What do you mean?” She sounds hurt.

“I mean…” I trail off, clearing my throat. “Look, Mom, don’t flip out, but I need to go to Vegas for a few weeks.”

“Vegas?” she asks, now worried. “Why would you go there?”

“Because…I need to help a friend.”

“What friend?” she asks, but by her disapproving tone, I think she already knows, especially since she knows I’ve been looking for him, not to help him or anything, but to get him to sign the release form for my video project.

I release a breath that’s cramming up my airway. “You remember that guy Quinton that I told you about?”

She’s quiet for quite a while and when she speaks, she’s wary. “Yeah, the one you spent time with last summer, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the one…well, I’m going to see him.” I hold my breath, waiting for her reaction—waiting for her to yell at me not to go.

She pauses again and I can hear her breathing heavily on the other end. “Why?”

“Because he needs my help.” I’m surprised she’s not freaking out more.

“With what?” She’s not connecting the dots.

“With…with getting better,” I explain evasively.

“Nova, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she says quickly as it clicks in her head what I’m implying—what Quinton needs help with. I told her enough about last summer that she knows about him, but what she doesn’t know is about the car accident. So I tell her the details of the crash quickly as Lea heads in to pay for the gas. I make sure to tell her everything important, what he went through, how I feel about helping him—how important this is to me. When I finish, my mom’s silent and I’m anxious about how she’s going to react.

“So Lea’s with you?” she finally asks. My mom likes Lea a lot. I brought her home for Christmas last year and my mom spent a lot of time talking with her and hasn’t been able to stop beaming about her since.

I stare at the gas station window, where I can see Lea at the counter paying. “She is.”

“How long are you going to be down there?” she asks and I’m surprised she’s even made it this far without fighting it more.

“I’m not sure yet…it all sort of depends.”

“On what?”

“On how bad he is,” I say, wiping my sweaty palms on the sides of my shorts.

“Nova…I don’t think it’s such a good idea…” She searches for the right words, panic seeping in, afraid she’s going to lose her daughter again. “I mean, you barely got over this kind of stuff yourself and I’m worried that it’ll be too easy for you to fall back into that stuff.”

“Mom, I’m a lot stronger than I used to be,” I assure her. “And I have Lea here to keep an eye on me and you know how good she is at that stuff.”

She sighs heavy-heartedly. “I’m still worried and I don’t think I can just let you go.”

“I’m worried, too, but about Quinton,” I tell her. “Mom, he doesn’t have anyone else to help him, at least from what I know. And if you get really worried, you can come down and check up on me. It’s only like an eight-hour drive, but I promise I’ll be okay.”

“You’d let me check up on you?” she asks, astounded.

“Yeah, because I know there’s going to be nothing to check up on,” I say. “I’m going to be okay. I can do this—I want to help him. And I need to, not just for him…but for me…this is just something I have to do, whether you like it or not.” I hate adding the last part, but it needs to be done to get my point across that she can’t talk me out of this.

She’s silent again and it’s driving me crazy. Although I’ll still go no matter what she says, I want her to support me and I wish she would relax. But I do understand where she’s coming from, considering what I’ve put her through in the past.

My mom’s still not saying anything when Lea gets into the car. She drops a large bag of Cheetos in between us, along with a bottle of water and a bottle of Dr Pepper, then shuts the door. She gives me a weird look as I start the engine and crank the air conditioning. She starts to say something, but I hold up my finger.

“Mom, are you there?” I ask, rolling up the window.

“Yeah, I’m here.” She exhales loudly. “All right, I’ll let you do this, but I’m not happy about it at all. And I want you to call me three times a day at least and if things get bad, I need Lea to tell me. Not you.”

I’m a little wounded by her last remark, but at the same time I can’t blame her. All that time I spent telling her I was okay, when I was dying inside—she knows how easily I can be silent when things get hard.

“Okay,” I tell her, knowing she can’t really force me to do anything, since I’m an adult. Calling her is just me trying to be a good daughter and let her know my plans. “I can do that for you.”

“Now put Lea on the phone,” she says in a stern tone.

“What? Why?”

“Because I want to talk to her.”

“Okay…hold on.” I hand Lea the phone.

Lea takes it, her face contorting with confusion. “What’s up?” she asks me, staring down at the screen.

“She wants to talk to you,” I explain, putting the car into drive. “But I don’t know about what.”

Lea places the phone up to her ear and says hello as I drive back onto the freeway. They chat for a while, Lea keeping her answers pretty simple. Eventually Lea hangs up and puts my phone down on the seat between us. She doesn’t say anything, opening up the bag of Cheetos as she relaxes back in the seat, and aiming the vent at her face.

“So are you going to tell me what she said?” I ask.

Lea shrugs as she pops a Cheeto into her mouth. “Nothing much. She just told me to keep an eye on you, which I was already planning on doing.” She puts her feet up on the dash. “She really cares about you, you know.”

“I know,” I say, taking a handful of Cheetos. “I hate that she’s worried.”

“You should be glad that she does worry. It means she loves you.” She says it sadly, probably thinking about her own mom and their strained relationship since her father took his own life and her mother left Lea and her sister to live with their grandmother, because she couldn’t handle being a mother alone. I think she’s been trying to get back into Lea’s life, but Lea’s struggling with it.

“I am glad.” I switch lanes, then wipe my Cheeto fingers on the side of my shorts. “But I hate worrying her.”

And I do. I’ve put my mom through enough already, but going to Vegas—to Quinton—is something I have to do. If I don’t, I’ll always look back and regret it, and like Lea’s tattoo says, I don’t want to live my life with regrets. I have a lot of them in my life and I don’t want any more.

Lea and I eat Cheetos and talk about what we’re going to do for the next few weeks until the city comes into view. Then Lea sits up, lowering her feet to the floor, and leans forward to look at the city sinfully glinting in the distance. “God, it’s small, yet it’s not.”

I nod in agreement as I take in the uniquely shaped towers and buildings stretching toward the sky, and the massive billboards on the sides of the road trying to convince us of how much fun we’re going to have.

“You know, I came here a few times when I was younger,” Lea says. “But I never went directly into the city onto the Strip…but now I’m sort of curious.”

“It looks intense,” I remark, checking the GPS on the dash for directions. “This thing says we don’t even go into the city to get to your uncle’s house.”

Lea slumps back in the seat and turns the air conditioning up a notch. “Well, we’ll have to go do something fun.”

“Don’t you have to be twenty-one to do things in Vegas?” I ask as the voice on the GPS tells me to make a turn in 1.5 miles.

She shakes her head. “No. I mean, you have to be twenty-one to gamble and shit, but there’s a ton of other stuff we could do, like go see bands play or do karaoke. It could be a lot of fun.”

I remove my hand from the shifter and extend it to her, not really wanting to go out while I’m here, but she seems sad and maybe going out could cheer her up. “Okay, it’s a deal. We’ll go out and have some fun while we’re here.”

She smiles as we shake on it. “Deal.”

We let go of each other’s hands and I put mine back on the shifter, tapping the brakes as I follow the GPS’s instructions and make a right off the nearest off-ramp. As we pass by average-looking houses, I wonder what kind of place Quinton’s living in. I have an idea, since I saw the place he lived in a year ago: a trailer in a very run-down trailer park that had a lot of druggies living in it.

My thoughts remain focused on Quinton’s living situation until I pull into a neighborhood where all the houses look identical and so do the yards. There are sprinklers watering the grass and people outside checking their mailboxes, working on their cars, walking their dogs. This neighborhood has sort of a homey feel to it, which I wasn’t expecting in a place nicknamed Sin City.

“Which one is it?” I ask as the GPS announces I’ve arrived at my destination.

Lea points at the house at the end of the cul-de-sac, a decent single-story stucco home with a garage, and a lawn in front of it. The driveway is empty and there’s a fence around the backyard, but it’s short and I can easily see over it.

I park in the driveway in front of the shut garage door. “Is he home?”

Lea takes off her seat belt and cracks her door. “No, I told you he was out of town for a few days on some business trip or something, but he said there’s a key under a flowerpot in the back and we could just let ourselves in.”

We get out and meet at the front of the car. The first thing I notice is the heat, like I’ve just stepped into a sauna, only there’s no moisture and it’s like it’s feeding on mine.

“Holy hell, it’s hot.” I fan my hand in front of my face.

“Yeah, desert heat,” she says, walking toward the side of the house. “You got to love it.”

I follow her as she wanders to the fence line and peeks into the backyard. There are a few neighbors outside in their yards and driveways, and one of them, a heavier guy with a visor on his head, watches us like we’re about to rob the place.

“What if someone calls the cops on us?” I ask as she swings her leg over the fence.

She shrugs as she grabs the top of the chain link fence and hoists herself over it onto the grass. “Then they call my uncle and he can tell them that they’re crazy,” she says as she lands on the other side and wipes the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.

I glance back at the neighbor guy still eyeing us and then put my leg over the fence and climb to the other side, brushing the dirt off on the back of my shorts. The backyard has a Jacuzzi in it, along with a flower garden and a gazebo that has a bunch of wind chimes hanging on it.

“Is your cousin married?” I ask as we round the corner of the house. “Or single?”

“He’s single, thirty-four, and from what I remember he takes up all these weird hobbies, like collecting wind chimes.” She nods at the collection of them singing against the gentle, hot breeze.

“What’s he do for a living?”

“He works at a bank.”

“A bank.” I sidestep a large flowerpot. “That sounds…”

“Boring,” Lea says, grinning over her shoulder at me. “Yeah, Brandon is pretty boring, which is why it’s good we’re staying with him. He’ll keep us out of trouble.”

I smile as she strolls up to the sliding glass door. “You are the best friend ever.”

“You know we’re going to have to get friendship bracelets or something and then push them together every time you say it,” she jokes as she cups her hands around her eyes and peers through the glass.

“Sounds like a plan,” I joke back, walking up to a flowerpot beside the door. I lift it up but there’s no key under it. “Okay, no key.”

“Hold on.” Lea comes over and crouches down beside me. Then she rubs her hand across the bottom of the flowerpot, pulling at something. When she pulls back she has a key in her hand.

“Ta-da,” she announces, holding the key up as she picks some tape off it and straightens her legs.

“Bravo.” I clap my hands.

She grins, pleased with herself, as she presses her hand against her chest. “What can I say, I’m a genius.”

I glance at the sliding glass door, which obviously doesn’t take a key. “All right, genius, now figure out where the key goes.”

She pauses, looking around the back of the house as she taps her lip. “Huh, that’s interesting.”

“Is there a garage door?” I ask, stepping to the corner of the house.

“I’m not sure.” She follows me. “He just moved into the house like six months ago so I’ve never been here.”

I backtrack to the fence and find the door to the garage. Lea nudges me out of the way with her elbow so she can put the key in the lock. It fits and the door opens up.

“Hell yeah.” She raises her hand in the air as she grins proudly.

We high-five and then step inside the garage, which doesn’t have a car in it, just shelves and boxes and a couple of four-wheelers. I can’t help but think about my garage back home filled with boxes of my old stuff, a lot of it connected to Landon. I was planning on going through my things when I got there this summer, because I can now. I was going to make an album with the photos and some of Landon’s sketches. I have to make sure I do it, after I’m done taking care of stuff here. It’s important.

After we go into the house and unlock the front door, Lea and I unload the trunk of the car and put all our stuff in the guest room at the back of the house beside the den. It’s a nice place, clean carpet, tile floors, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The furniture is plain, but not trashy, and there are a few photos hanging on the wall in the living room, one of which Lea tells me is of her dad and her uncle.

“Your dad kind of looks like you,” I tell her and then take a drink from a glass of water, parched and sweaty after being out in the heat. In the photo are two guys, one short and one tall, but their facial features are the same, one’s just a lot younger—Lea’s uncle. It looks like they’ve just gone fishing and Lea’s dad is holding up a fish, looking proud of it. He actually seems really happy, all smiles and pride, and I want to ask her when the picture was taken, how long before he decided to end his life, but I’m not going to because it’ll bring up painful emotions for her. I know, because whenever someone mentions Landon’s name I still feel a sting in my heart.

“Thank you,” she says, then turns away from the photo and plops down on the brown leather couch. She kicks her feet up on the coffee table, picks up the remote from the armrest of the sofa, and aims it at the flat-screen mounted on the wall. “How about we watch a little Ridiculousness?”

I set my glass of water down on an end table, then cross my arms over my chest and walk to the sofa but don’t sit down. “I don’t want to seem crazy or anything, but I really want to go see Quinton before I do anything.”

The television screen clicks on and she glances outside at the sun setting, the sky a palette of colors and the city nearly glowing in the distance. “Nova, it’s getting late…maybe we should wait until morning. I mean, you haven’t even called your mom and told her we got here and you know she’s going to worry.”

“I know.” I sit down on the back of the sofa. “I was actually going to wait to do that until I talked to Quinton first…see how long I’m going to be down here, so I can give her a better idea.”

She sets the remote down on the sofa cushion and turns around to face me. “And how exactly are you going to determine that?”

“I have no idea.” I run my fingers through my dry, limp hair. “I honestly have no idea what the hell I’m doing. All I know is that I have to do…something.”

She presses her lips together, contemplating. “From the papers I printed from the Internet, it sounds like meth addicts can be super moody.”

“I think that’s the case with all drugs, not just meth.”

“Yeah, but meth addicts are worse.”

“I sort of guessed so.” Actually, I didn’t. Actually, I have no idea what I’m doing. Shit, what am I going to say to him when I first see him? Why haven’t I planned this out more? Jesus, Nova.

“Relax,” Lea says, noting my anxiety. “The papers said there’s also support groups and counseling and I’m sure there’s probably something in Vegas…I’ll look into it.”

“Thank you,” I tell her, then grow silent again, staring outside at the city glittering in the distance, wondering where he is. If he’s walking around or at home. Or is he someplace worse? What if the address he gave me isn’t even real and he’s really homeless?

“Oh, for the love of God, Nova.” She gets to her feet, snatching her keys up from the end table. “Let’s go.”

I quickly stand up from the back of the couch. “Right now?”

She rolls her eyes and opens the front door. “If we don’t then you’re going to sit there and space off on me all night.”

She’s probably right, but nerves knot in my stomach. “I feel sick.” I wrap my arm across my belly.

“That’s your nerves.” She moves away from the door and grabs my hand, giving me a gentle tug. “Now come on. I’ll drive so you can space off and over-think stuff.”

“You know me too well,” I say, then glance down at my tank top and shorts, which have a small stain on the hem. “Maybe I should change.”

“You look great.” She pulls me over the threshold and outside. “You always do.” She releases my hand, reaches back inside, turns the lock, and flips on the porch light before shutting the door. Then she tucks the house key into the pocket of her shorts and heads down the cement path toward the car. “Besides, I really doubt he’s going to be focusing on your looks.”

“I know,” I say, rounding the front of the car to the passenger side. “You’re right. I’m just nervous.” Really nervous, to the point where I’m going to throw up. But I force the taste of vomit back down my throat and get in the car, opening up the glove box where I put the piece of paper I wrote Quinton’s address on. Lea gets in and starts the engine, flipping the headlights on while I type the address into the GPS.

I examine the map on the screen. “It says it’s only five miles away.”

“Five miles in Vegas can take quite a while.” She buckles her seat belt and so do I. “And I’m a little worried about the place we’re going to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that there are some areas that are super sketchy.”

“And you’re guessing he’s living in one of these areas?”

“I don’t want to make assumptions. I mean, I’m sure there are plenty of drug addicts who live in nice houses and who you would never think are drug addicts, but…” She trails off, adjusting the rearview mirror.

“But he doesn’t even have a phone or a job,” I say, slumping back in the seat. “So I’m guessing the place he’s living in isn’t fancy, if he even lives in a place…I’ve already thought of this but I still want to go—I need to know, Lea, I need to know what happened to the guy that made me feel things again…”

She offers me a sympathetic smile as she pushes the car into reverse. Lea isn’t the best driver and when she presses the gas she ends up giving it too much and the car jerks backward. My hand shoots out toward the dashboard and I hold on.

Hold on for dear life, knowing I’m going to have to.

Quinton

I feel like I’m dying, coming in and out of consciousness, every bone in my body bruised. I can hear voices, telling me to snap out of it, but I can’t seem to get my eyes to open. I can feel memories returning to me, ones I don’t want to remember and one in particular I’ve made myself forget, yet I can’t seem to stop myself from fading into it.

I’m going to die. I can feel it, through the lack of pain, the numbness in my chest, the coldness in the air. But I’m also warm, from the blood that’s soaked my chest, my clothes, soaked its way from inside me to the outside. It’s the feel of death all over me and I embrace it, knowing that if I do survive, there won’t be anything left for me but anguish and solitude.

I stare up at the sky as I lie beside Lexi, choking on my own tears as I hold her cold, lifeless hand. I focus on the stars, wanting to touch them until they begin to fade, one by one, my heartbeat fading with them. The sky gets darker, along with everything around me, until I can’t see a thing. I can feel my breath leaving me, my chest becoming heavier, but my thoughts becoming lighter. Free.

The ground below me softens, the sky dimming until I can only see blackness. It feels like I’m moving…sinking…or maybe I’m flying…I can’t tell. I don’t care. I just want to keep feeling this way, because it’s taking the pain of Lexi’s death with it. The agony…it’s gone…my guilt…it doesn’t exist. The fact that I ruined our future doesn’t matter, because we’re leaving this world together…

“Quinton…wake up, man…”

Go away…

“Quinton…” Somebody shakes my shoulder. “Seriously, wake up, man…you’re freaking the shit out of me.”

Leave me alone.

“Wake up!” someone shouts.

Just let me die…please…

I just want to die.

God, please just let me die.