Lily of the Valley (7 page)

“We have to visit your father this weekend. They won’t even hear his case unless he tries with you.”

“Good.”

“I need you to do this, Jack. You can decide when. I didn’t want to force it tonight, but you have to go. Please don’t make this worse.”

I know she’s been fighting to help him get into this rehabilitation program. It’s been her primary focus since he went in, but it was always an elusive concept, not a reality.

Do I think my father can be rehabilitated? No. I don’t. I don’t think people can be fixed after a certain point. Do I think he’s a risk to the average person? No, I don’t think that, either. But I don’t want him to take the easy way out. He did what he did and he deserves the fallout. Why should I face it alone? Regardless of where he ends up, I don’t get a chance at rehabilitation.

“Why? Why are you pushing this?” I ask.

“Because he’s your father. You need your father.”

“If he cared about that, he would be here, wouldn’t he?”

I leave the room, without cookies, and I don’t know what to do with my emotions. I open my paper bag and start drinking. It’s half gone when Alana arrives and I’m nearly drunk.

“Stupid,” she says and closes my bedroom door.

“Fuck you. Fuck her. Fuck all of it.”

I collapse back on the bed and Alana takes the bottle. She starts cleaning my room, which is so degrading, but I don’t want to do it, so whatever. I don’t realize the lyrics are still on my nightstand until she picks them up and starts reading.

“’In the essence of a moment/in the flicker of a kiss/your eyes brought me to the edge/and there was only you to miss.’ What’s this sappy shit?”

I sit up and grab the notepad from her hand, ripping the lyrics up and tossing the shreds into my wastebasket. “It’s nothing.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Is
what
what I want?” I fall back onto the bed, but only after reaching for the booze. She takes the bottle away from me and sits.

“Do you want to be in love with someone?”

“No. I don’t want to feel anything.”

She lies down by my side and I wrap my arm around her; she rests her head in the crook of my arm. “Tell me what’s going on. Are you okay?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Because you’re not acting okay.”

“I’m acting fine.”

“No,” she sighs. “You’re acting like… well, like…” She doesn’t want to say it and I realize what she thinks.

“I promised you last time it would never happen again.”

“I can’t go through that again, Jack. You know I would’ve followed you.”

This makes me angry and I roll over on my side. “Never. Say. That. Again.”

“Did you even think about what it would have been like for
me
?”

“No, I’m sorry. When I was wrapping a fucking rope around my neck, I did not think about your thoughts on the matter.”

I move away from her and sit on the edge of the bed, my head in my hands. She doesn’t move and her voice is a disembodied condemnation.

“They told me in math class. They came to get me and I thought you were dead.”

“Well, I’m not. Hooray.”

“You don’t understand why I didn’t go away to school?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Because I wanted to be able to drop it all if you needed me,” she says. “Because I couldn’t be in another state if you tried to kill yourself again.”

I turn around and look at her lying on my bed. She’s crying, but she looks so much more alive than I’ve ever seen her. The sobs shake her body and I consider hugging her, but then I remember that I’m still mad. Although I forget
why
I’m mad.

“I’m not worth that,” I tell her.

“No, you’ve always been worth that. You’ve always been worth everything. You just don’t care about my opinion. You always wanted everyone to like you, to please them all. For all your venom, for all your anger at them, you wanted their approval. You had me and you had Dave, but we were never enough. I could give up my entire future for you, but it didn’t matter if some stranger in your dorm looked at you the wrong way. And now, I’m going to end up stuck here, because I planned my future around you and it’s not good enough. Not if your ‘princess’ doesn’t acknowledge you.”

“That’s not-”

“Just shut the fuck up,” she interrupts. “I needed to say it and you needed to hear it. Now let’s just forget about it and get drunk.”

“I lost my buzz,” I tell her.

“Good thing I brought more.”

She takes out a bottle of vodka and a bottle of tequila. We drink until we both pass out in my bed. It’s almost like sleeping, like disappearing. Except I can’t stop seeing that girl.

Chapter 7

During work the next day, I find a quiet moment and ask Sandee for advice about my dad. We’re out back during break, the door propped open with a box of hot sauce, and we lean against a stack of pallets, smoking. She passes me a bottle of something. I don’t even look to see what it is. I take a swig and the burn feels so fucking good.

“Can I ask you something?” I ask.

She slips the alcohol back into her apron pocket and lights another cigarette. “Ask away.”

“My grandmother insists I see my father before I go back Monday night. I can’t stand seeing him. I hate him so much.”

She nods.

I continue. “Like, fine, okay, maybe it would be better to have him in some program, but it seems really lame, you know? Like, oh, go ahead, fucking kill your wife, but now things will be a-okay because you said sorry. That’s bullshit. No one stepped in to help her. No one tried to help me.”

“You don’t want anyone’s help,” she points out.

“Still.”

I look up at the sky. It’s a funny shade of pink, which inevitably makes me think of the same thing that’s been on my mind for weeks now.

“Motherfucking strawberries.”

“What?” Sandee asks. I didn’t even realize I said it aloud.

“Nothing.”

“What do you want, Jack? With your dad?”

“I want nothing. I want him to disappear. But I don’t want to make my grandmother suffer.”

“Can you handle him being out at some point?”

The rehabilitation program will speed up his parole, so rather than the thirty years he got, he’d be out in less than five more. Sure, it would still be a decade in prison and then endless “rehabilitation,” but my mom was worth more than a decade. One condition of him even getting that far, of course, is an ongoing effort to repair his relationship with me. Maybe if I’m long gone, they won’t be able to make me come back for him.

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“Can you handle just making your grandmother happy and doing the visit?”

I shrug. “I guess. It’s just always someone else, you know? Always what makes someone else happy. I don’t know why it bugs me, since I’m fucking miserable regardless, but just once, I would love to be the reason someone smiles. And not because I did something they wanted. Just because.”

Sandee stabs out her cigarette and squeezes my arm. Most people don’t touch me at all and no one but Alana and my grandmother hugs me, but it’s a small act of comfort and I appreciate the gesture. I know she’s only ten years older than me, and she is certainly not my mom, but I cling to her like she is.

“Maybe you’re just desperate for the smile to come from the wrong people,” she says. “If he isn’t gonna change, it doesn’t mean you can’t be strong enough to go, if only to make it easier on your grandmother.”

I finish my own cigarette. “Got more of whatever that was?”

I take another swig of the dark alcohol and sigh.

“You’re the second person to say that in the last two days,” I say. “That I seek the approval of the wrong people.”

“I didn’t say approval. I just think you feel like you need to prove yourself to people who doubt you, rather than loving the ones who already believe. You’ll never make everyone happy, Jack. Even if you had the life you wish you had, someone would always be ready to tell you you’re not good enough.”

“People fucking suck, Sandee.”

She nods and moves to the door. “That they do. I’m heading back in, but take your time. It’s dead anyway.”

I climb up the side of the pallets and sit on top, staring up at the sky. The pink has faded with the day, giving way to darkness. There’s a weird cloud cover overhead, a strange greenish gray mass that blots out the moon and makes the entire back lot look eerie. I’m feeling guilty about Alana, about hurting her, about being such a letdown to her. It makes me feel worse about saying no to my grandma, even though what she’s asking is the hardest thing for me to do.

I think back to when it all happened, about how she faced everything bravely. She sat through the trial and never shed a tear, never showed how much it tore her apart. I
have
to be able to do this.

I take out my phone and text Alana. I want to see her after work. She tells me she’ll meet me in the lot when I get out and I decide I’ll make things up to her. I don’t know how, but I’ll fix everything. I have to hope there’s something in my life that isn’t beyond repair.

****

When I get out of work, I find Alana passed out drunk in the backseat of my grandma’s car. I take the bottle from her hand and sit her up, trying to stir her.

“Wake the fuck up,” I say.

She mumbles and tries to slink back down along the seat. I push her against the door to keep her upright.

“Alana, wake the fuck up.”

She doesn’t, though, and I’m pissed. I know she wouldn’t be stupid enough to drive here drunk, but she must have crawled into my car and finished the bottle fast.
This is what you get for the shit you do
, my mind tells me. Yeah? Fuck you, mind.

I buckle Alana into a seatbelt and crack the window a bit, hoping the air will stir her.

“You’re pissing me off,” I tell her.

I drive around for a while, waiting for her to wake up. I try everything – slamming on the brakes, opening the window more, blasting the a/c, blasting the radio. Finally, she wakes up when I make a sharp turn around a corner.

“Where am I?”

“You passed out in the back of my grandmother’s car.”

“I need to get laid,” she whines.

“You need to get showered.”

“Fine. Showered, then laid.”

“I can’t bring you home like this,” I tell her.

“Here.” She reaches forward and shoves a wad of money at me. It falls onto the passenger seat and a couple bills blow out the damn window before I shut it. I don’t know what the money’s for or where it’s from, but its existence makes me angry.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” I ask.

“Get a motel room. I’ll shower there and then you can fuck me.”

“I don’t want to fuck you. You’re a fucking mess right now.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, of course.”

I keep driving, but she leans forward again and smacks the back of my head.

“Get a fucking room,” she demands. “I can take a shower and we can go to the bar. Someone will want to fuck me.”

She’s right. Someone will
definitely
want to fuck her, but it’s stupid. Still, I listen and find a cheap motel nearby so she can shower. I don’t even go in. I’m so pissed at her right now. I don’t know why I don’t just bring her home. I guess I figure the shit she’ll deal with from her mom if I do isn’t worth avoiding what I have to deal with right now.

She doesn’t take long to shower and she’s more alert, although still pretty drunk, when she comes back outside.

“Bar. Now.”

She’s going to get a lot of attention tonight, dressed like she is. Her black pants are skintight and her silvery pink tank top shows off her bare belly and clings to her tits. She doesn’t even have a jacket and her tattooed arms make her look both tough and sexy. She’ll have no problem finding what she’s after, especially at the shitty bar nearby.

They always serve us, even though they have to know we’re underage. We started coming here when I was a freshman, because I’d heard they would serve anyone. I guess it was true and although the thrill apparently wore off for most of my peers, it never stops me from coming here. Some nights, it’s busier than others. Tonight is one of those nights.

Alana walks in and strolls right up to the bar, putting herself between two guys who must be at least 35. They both check out her ass and I walk forward, annoyed that I’m the one who has to do something if they go further than she’d like. She orders shots for herself and the two guys and leans against the one on the left, a guy who looks like he’s spent a lot of time here. He wraps an arm around her and I tense, but when she goes for his crotch, I guess there’s no point in fighting. I sit at one of the tables by the wall and watch her get these two guys horny over her.

It’s got to be less than thirty minutes before she takes the guy whose crotch she was massaging over to where I’m sitting.

She smiles. “This is Aaron. We want to go back to the motel.”

“You’re being an idiot,” I say.

“Hey, buddy-” Aaron starts, but he’s out for one thing, which Alana is happy to give. The problem is, he won’t be the one dealing with the fallout in the morning.

“Alana, you don’t want to do this.”

She rubs herself against Aaron and grins, sliding a hand up under his shirt. “Yes, I do. Bring us to the motel, Jackie.”

“You’re not proving anything.”

“I don’t want to prove anything. I want to get laid and Aaron had kindly offered to fuck me.”

“You know what? Fine. Whatever.”

I drive them back to the motel, which is thankfully not far, because she’s all over him in the backseat. If it was any farther away, she’d probably have already slept with him before we made it. When we get there, I wait for them to get out, but Alana runs her hand through my hair from the back.

“Don’t you wanna watch?”

“No.”

She’s angry now and she turns the anger on me. “Fuck you, Jack. Fucking watch. If I can play your little princess, you can fucking watch.”

I hate her when she’s like this. I hate
myself
when she’s like this, because I don’t say no. I just follow her like a fucking idiot into the motel room and sit in the shitty rotting chair while she gets naked with some random dude she met at a dive bar.