The Long and Winding Road (The Seafare Chronicles 4)

“Why are you doing this?” the Kid asked, glancing between the two of us, eyes hard.

“Because we love you—”

“Right,” he said. “Right. Love. Intervention style. That’s what this is, isn’t it? You think you found something that’s not mine, and now you’re staging an intervention. Jesus. Do you know how ridiculous this is? How stupid it is? There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m fine. You guys are really reaching here. Okay? It’s not what it looks like.”

“Then what is it?” Otter asked. “Explain it to us. And remember what I said about one more chance. Because I was serious about that.”

He opened his mouth once. Then closed it. Opened. Closed. He made a noise in the back of his throat and glanced toward the front door, like he was gauging the distance to see if he could make a break for it.

In the end, he didn’t.

In the end, he didn’t do anything at all.

He just… sat there, arms across his chest, refusing to look at either of us. And it was easy to see it then. The bags under his eyes. His sallow skin. He was skinnier than he’d been before. He was wearing layers, but I could still see it. And it struck me just how much angrier I was at myself rather than him. I should have seen it. I should have seen all of it. It never should have gotten this far. There had been a point in our lives when it wouldn’t have, because every single thing he did, I watched over, not wanting to let him out of my sight for fear that he’d just be… gone, like everyone else in our life had been.

And it was hard to understand that, to reconcile this person in front of me with the Kid I’d known. We’d been scarily dependent on each other, not knowing how else to be. And maybe it hadn’t been the healthiest thing, but goddammit, it’d worked for us. At least for a while. I’d protected him from as much as I could, and in return, he’d done the same for me. Maybe I shouldn’t have leaned on him as much as I had, and maybe I should have forced him out more on his own rather than tightening the leash, but we’d survived, hadn’t we? We’d gotten this far.

Granted, right now wasn’t exactly the end result I’d hoped for.

I had to remind myself of that. That this person wasn’t the Kid I’d known. Zombie Tyson wasn’t real. He wasn’t the Kid that wrote bad poems about Santa who was really Satan. He wasn’t the Kid who used to crawl up my legs until I held him in my arms, his hands in my hair as he babbled in my ear. This wasn’t the Kid who had grinned at me through a mouthful of soy ice cream, who laughed with his whole body, head rocked back, hands clutching his stomach. Who once asked Otter and me what the back room at a gay bar was for. Who announced to his graduating class that he was gay and proud of it, impl

ying that he would never take shit from anyone. Who had once called me on the phone, words choked and wet, saying—

we were talking and then she said her face felt funny and then her eyes started to droop she started talking like she was drunk and then she fell down she fell down and her head hit the carpet and it made a weird noise i called 911 and the ambulance came but she wouldn’t wake up i yelled at her and i screamed at her but she wouldn’t get up

—things that no kid his age should ever have to say.

This wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. After all the things we’d been through, it couldn’t have come to this.

“When did it start?” I asked him, and he must have heard something in my voice, something different, because he looked at me like he was actually seeing me.

He struggled with what he was going to say, mouth opening and closing again, frowning and shaking his head slightly. “I don’t….”

We waited.

He looked at the evidence spread out before him for a long time. I wondered what that felt like, seeing it all there, all those empty bottles. I thought maybe he had wanted to get caught, that he’d wanted to be found out. Why else wouldn’t he have just thrown all of them away? If he had, we’d be sitting here with nothing to go on but Corey’s word, a stranger who could have just been making all this up for some unknown reason.

“Shit,” he muttered, and he buried his face in his hands.

We didn’t speak.

“It’s not as bad as you think it is,” he said, voice muffled.

“Pretty sure that’s not true,” Otter said quietly. “Especially from where we’re sitting.”

He dropped his hands. I watched as he picked at the frayed knees of his jeans, something that was supposed to be stylish but that I never understood. What was the point of buying pants that already had holes in them? The Kid had laughed at me when I’d told him as much, that little smile on his face that he got when he thought I was being a grumpy old Bear, as he called it.

“Do you know how dangerous this is?” I asked him. “What you could have done to yourself? What you have done to yourself? Mixing these drugs. Tyson. That’s not—that’s not healthy. For you. For your body. Christ. What if you’d…?” I shook my head, refusing to follow that train of thought.

“I’m not stupid,” he said, a little anger returning.

“This suggests otherwise,” I said, nodding toward the table. “In fact, this suggests you’re the stupidest you’ve ever been.”

“All right,” Otter said, over the Kid’s squawk of outrage. “Let’s not get off track. Kid. When did this start?”

“The pills? Oh, I don’t know, Otter. Maybe it was the time you guys forced me into therapy. You remember that? I told you I was fine, that I didn’t need anyone after Eddie, and especially not here, but you guys made me go, and then you jumped wholeheartedly on the drug train at her first suggestion. Remember? Yeah, I’m pretty sure you do. She said pills, and the both of you just sat there with these relieved little expressions on your faces. Oh look, here’s a solution, here’s a fix so we don’t have to deal with Tyson and all his problems. They’ll be muted and soft and just glazed over, right? Isn’t that how it went? Yeah. So, Otter, it started when you guys agreed to medicate me.”

“And yet, you didn’t say no,” Otter pointed out, refusing to take the bait. “In fact, you didn’t argue at all. You agreed.”