Yellow Endurance

By Saraf Ahmed

He murdered his best friend in a fit of rage.
She is an alcoholic, perennially on the brink of death.

He plans to escape, carrying his deadly secret with him.
She leaves home to avoid confronting her own demons.

Yet when fate drives them together, Connor Zachary and Isa Wright have no choice but to rely on each other to keep their pasts from unraveling, to bury them and successfully escape the consequences. But its not so easy when their pasts are more intertwined than they know.
Not while a dangerous attraction smolders between them, threatening to unearth the secrets they desperately want to leave behind . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467063166

Saraf Ahmed

Saraf Ahmed began writing poems and short stories at age seven and completed a trilogy of novelettes at age twelve. She won MuggleNet’s international “Dear Mr. Potter” essay contest and has received myriad national writing awards, including three Gold Keys and a Silver Key for various creative and journalistic pieces in the prestigious Scholastic Alliance for Young Artists and Writers competition. Saraf has been published in the national poetry anthology Communications, and is currently a regular columnist for the Ruston Daily Leader and the Shreveport Times. She is a senior at Cedar Creek School and lives in Ruston, Louisiana with her parents and younger brother.

Book preview

1.

Connor

There was still time.

I could still reach him, if I really tried.

The sky was pure, dark blue, on the verge of twilight. So intensely blue. Just glancing at it pierced my eyes with a dozen blunt needles, even now when it was well after dusk.

A grim smile curved my lips as I thought of what I felt sure lay ahead. The blue sky could not have chosen to manifest itself—in all its painfully cheerful glory—on a more ironic evening.

Of course, there was always the chance that Emmer had already left for work. There was always that chance. That possibility, should it be a reality, would save both of us a lot of trouble.

Well . . . for now.

I stopped at the little mottled gray-and-black curb, then dashed up the street. The short one-lane, two-way road really needed some paving, but such internal improvements would hardly make a lifestyle difference since most people in the tiny neighborhood couldn’t afford a car anyway. The bare trees lining the dying, unkempt front yards were nearly the same color as the cracked sidewalk I was treading on. Their fragile twigs, clinging limply to the trunks, waved gently in the slight autumn breeze, bizarre skeletons of their former full-bloomed selves.

It had been, and still was, a pretty enough mid-October day. The temperature had cooled to a pleasant seventy degrees, but that didn’t stop the north Louisiana humidity from taking its toll. Despite having lived here all my life, I preferred to drink my water rather than inhale it.

I stopped halfway down the street, pausing to snatch a breath. I ran a hand through my hair, sweeping the little black locks dangling in my eyes out of the way. I found his house easily, with hardly any conscious effort; I had been to it hundreds, if not thousands of times, taking the same route I did now, the same way I did now: running up the street and pausing halfway to catch my breath at the tiny curb. I slowed to a jog and trotted up the driveway, rather amused at my own eagerness.

I knocked on the chipped green door with its old-fashioned brass knocker, the one so heavy that I’d never bothered to use it till now—a physical manifestation of the separation from the circumstances under which I’d always come to this house.

My second home. What used to be my second home.

I lingered on the porch under the awning, hardly breathing, waiting for him to answer. Please be home. Or not. Be home. Don’t be home. Don’t be home . . .

I knocked again. This time, it was barely five seconds before I caught the muffled sound one of the most familiar noises to me in the world.

His footsteps.

The door cracked open. Emmer had to pull with some effort; the door was a lot heavier than it looked, and I was quite sure the added weight of that ostentatious knocker didn’t help much. Emmer grunted, granting the door a powerful kick with his sneaker that sent it flying to the other side of the threshold. It hit the wall with a resounding thud.

He finally looked out the door, a full thirty seconds after he had opened it to admit me. He was already dressed for work, and was holding a plastic purple comb in his hand; I clearly would have missed him if I’d left my house only three minutes later. His green eyes locked on mine, the pale white skin around them crinkling up as he glared—the way it did when he grinned mischievously at me, dropping an unspoken reference to an inside joke. When he used to.

What? he demanded.

It had been six months since we had last spoken. At first, my pride hadn’t let me try to get back in touch with him, and being away at college had helped me forget. But once I returned home from college a few days before, loneliness had gotten the better of me. I had tried emailing him, texting him, messaging him through Facebook—but he would never reply, and eventually I realized that he had blocked my number, email and Facebook accounts. It was better, though no easier, to speak to him face to face. This way, he couldn’t escape me.

We need to talk.

No, we don’t.

Uh, we do. So let me in, you son of a bitch. It had been hard to remember in the past half-year why I became so angry at him that I had to leave the house in order to keep myself from harming Emmer. Seeing him again—my best friend, my brother—the one person that had been the source of happiness and comfort for so long until this year, reminded me now why I hated him. Why I didn’t want to hate him, and why I had to set things right. Why I had to try.

You know, you’ll probably kill me if I do, he said flatly. There’s no point. I see it now. You should glue a mirror to your face. You’re no different than you were six months ago, Connor.

I scowled. I’ve been getting help back at NYU. Courtesy of my mother. It was what Emmer had wanted me to do before the rift had separated us so many months ago. Now it had been too long, and pride wouldn’t let me say what kind of help. Even though he would automatically know exactly what I was trying not to say.

We knew each other too well.

Help? Emmer barked, and then he uttered a hysterical laugh, one too unlike what I was used to hearing from him. What the hell’re you talking about?

You know well enough.

Yeah?

To improve the—my . . . yeah, well, you know. Why did I need to explain myself to him? Why was this so hard? So I could talk to you again without killing you, as you so poetically put it.

Anger management, you mean. Therapy.

I hesitated, then relaxed my shoulders. He was the one who had suggested them first, anyway; there was no reason to hide from the truth. I had better things to worry about right now than my inflated ego.

There’s no point in being ashamed of the truth. Connor, what’s true is true, and there’s no turning back. My mother’s words rang in my head from last year, soon after chastising me for refusing to attend my first day of therapy. I’d been much too haughty to admit to myself that I had a problem.

Yeah, I guess. Therapy.

He laughed again, that same frenzied laugh so uncharacteristic of him. It’s too late, Connor. It’s futile, what you’re trying to do. You tried to fix things six months too late.

Perhaps. But it’s helped, you know. Really. I promise you it has. And I wasn’t lying. So far, it had. The past couple months, I had managed to keep my—literally—explosive personality under control.

Mostly.

Emmer, however, wasn’t buying it. He shook his head violently.

I don’t trust you anymore, he said, and underneath the sarcastically calm voice was a brooding storm that would burst forth if I stayed any longer. But I couldn’t live without him, my best friend of nineteen years. How could we have lived as perfect strangers for six months? How had it happened, how had it lasted this long? Even now, standing on Emmer’s doorstep, it was incomprehensible.

And once again, it became hard for me to think. I hadn’t felt this in ages. But then there’d been no catalyst . . .

The fury was so familiar, so strange . . . the voice of a forbidden lover. An old friend I hadn’t seen in years.

Like Emmer.

For ten nearly unbearable seconds, I stood on the threshold, my hands balled up into fists. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the moist autumn air. I closed my eyes, allowing the anger to pulse through my being, letting it conquer every cell in my body, never permitting it to control me. I had my limits. The wrath was a living being of its own, attempting to force me into surrender.

But I wouldn’t let it yet. Not till I accomplished what I’d set out to do first.

We’re discussing this, I growled. Get out of my way, I’m coming in.

Emmer’s eyes narrowed, but he did step aside.

It’s your time wasted.

2.

Isa

I didn’t want to stop.

I didn’t want to stop, but I knew I had to stop, I wanted more than anything else to stop.

But I couldn’t . . .

I woke, feeling drowsy. The deadened throb of a fading headache pulsed incessantly in the back of my head, like someone had performed Chinese water torture on me while I was knocked out.

Where was I? And how long had I been here?

I glanced out the window. It was, judging by the way the light slanted onto the dully gleaming wood floor, sometime in the early afternoon.

And then it whooshed into my brain, a torrential storm of memory. The good-natured irritation, the pathetic excuses my already-wasted self hadn’t been able to do better than. I hadn’t wanted to come clubbing, but Kat had dragged me here anyway. She didn’t know.

How could she know?

That was where all recollection stopped; all that was left was a blank stretch of nothing. I pushed against every limit of my memory, screwing up my face as if it was physically exhausting my limited reserves of strength.

Now here I was, waking up in the middle of the afternoon, the lone customer in a shitty little bar in the back streets of town. Ignoring the headache, I jumped up off the barstool and searched wearily for Kat and Victoria. My two best friends, I thought glumly.

Victoria was leaning towards me on a nearby stool, bleary-eyed but alert.

You okay?

"Do I look like I’m okay?"

I had to ask. I let Kat leave, she added, sensing the unspoken question bubbling behind my lips. I’m really sorry ’bout all this. I would’ve taken you home, but you’re so heavy . . .

Is that a fat joke? I asked humorlessly. When she didn’t reply, I added, Don’t worry about it. It’s cool.

She nodded, concern furrowing her brow. Listen, I have a job interview back in Monroe in forty minutes. I—

Go ahead and go. Both Victoria and Kat lived in Monroe, approximately a half-hour drive down I-20 from here. Why they’d driven to Ruston—tiny, insignificant little Ruston—for a night’s entertainment, when they could have spent the night partying at a much larger club in Monroe, was beyond me.

Are you sure you’ll be alright? she asked, already halfway out the door.

It’s totally fine. I can walk home. I don’t want you to be late ’cause of me.

She threw me a grateful glance. "Thank you! I’ll text you later, ’kay? And you text me when you get back home so I’ll know you got there safely."

Mmkay. She was gone before I could say another word. I stumbled quickly towards the grimy door.

Come again soon, dear, the bartender drawled behind the counter. I threw him a disgusted glance and gave the little bar one last, sweeping look to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything important behind. Satisfied that nothing was missing, I hurried out the door.

It was an achingly beautiful day; the sun was bright and golden as the lost city of El Dorado I’d spent weeks reading about as a nine-year-old infatuated with the myth. The sky was bluer than the sapphire on my mother’s wedding ring, and the grass growing in sporadic patches on the sides of the pavement almost glittered, greener than emeralds. This was odd—it had been pouring buckets when I’d arrived, if I remembered correctly.

I mentally calculated the money I had spent. I hadn’t brought my purse with me, so all my money had been in my raincoat, cash yanked out of my hidden pouch and stuffed carelessly into my pockets on the way out. I’d had roughly fifty-odd dollars to begin with. And now . . . my internal gasp choked out as my fingers grasped at the empty pocket of my now-useless coat. I’d spent a lot, I knew, but surely not that much?! Nothing was left, not when I scoured every inch of cloth on my body to make sure my fingers hadn’t somehow skimmed over the warm lining of a greenback. Thank God I’d left my wallet at home.

I had only been there an hour before I’d passed out, and what had happened?

I could feel the lump in my throat, sharp and unyielding as a buried knife. The tears welled behind my eyes for the hundredth time. Every time, I promised myself it would be different. Every time, it was no different from before.

The dingy apartment building was only half a mile away, and with my years of cross-country training, I easily scaled the distance. I entered the lobby, keeping the hood of my coat over my head and my eyes downcast. The spine-chilling sneers of the lone, toothless man in the corner—he didn’t live here, yet where did he come from? To this day I still don’t know—followed me like an echo to the elevator. I pressed the button for the second floor six times; the doors didn’t shut fast enough. They never did when he was there. I wasn’t inebriated enough to not feel the blood run cold in my body until, finally, I was alone.

I reached my two-bedroom apartment in due time. It wasn’t a bad place for such a shabby building; from what the landlord had told me, this particular apartment had only been occupied three times before me in the building’s thirty-four-year history. It definitely was not the most cheerful abode, but it sufficed.

I sank onto my bed, spreading my body out as if I was about to make a snow angel. How ironic. I was anything but an angel.

It was that very essence of immorality that had robbed me of what I’d had. Everything that I should have been thankful for.

I remained where I was, waiting for sleep to take over. This dismal apartment I lived in was all I had been able to scrape together after my old roommate, Annabelle, had kicked me out. Mama and Daddy didn’t know about the chucking-out part. All they knew was that I’d moved out due to personality incompatibilities with my roommate—and that I had found my new roommate, Mari, through an ad in the paper. Between work and school, we didn’t see much of each other except for a few minutes at dinner, a nice balance that left me with ample privacy. The past seven months, I was forcing myself through college, but the grades I was getting lately—well, to put it simply, there was no way my parents would take me back if they saw the state I was in now.

And then my iPhone’s obnoxious ringtone burst through the forefront of my consciousness, irritation swelling in time with the remnants of my headache. I didn’t even bother to check the caller ID before pressing the green Answer button.

What? I demanded.

Isa? The deep male voice was strangely familiar.

Hmm? In my stupor, I could not identify the voice.

I . . . An awkward pause. Do you know who this is? The man sounded incredulous.

Well, he knew my name. That, at least, meant something. But I still couldn’t identify the voice.

No, I don’t.

This is Don. Do you remember me?

Don. The name rang a bell. I knew two Dons, though.

Don . . .

Don? Tristan? I half-squealed, my palms clamming with dread. Don Tristan, my old boyfriend who I literally hadn’t heard from in two and a half years except for the occasional email or IM, now as just friends. He was the only boy my mother—bless her heart, she still didn’t know anything—had ever approved of, and she wanted me to get back with him. Besides picking the right college, that was all she had ever talked about, blatantly disregarding that I had broken up with him. Mama just couldn’t see that I didn’t want him anymore . . . How—how did—

How’d I get your number? I called your house and got it from your mom.

Figured. But why?

I wanted to talk to you again. I miss you, Izzy.

I frowned. This didn’t seem right—for two years, the only interaction we’d had had been through the internet, and now for him to just randomly call? This was awkward, to put it mildly. My sluggish brain cleared almost instantly.

Um . . . to be honest, I’m not sure I can say the same.

Don laughed. Of course. I understand that. His voice was so indescribably perfect, just as it had been the last time I’d physically spoken to him two years ago. It annoyed the hell out of me. I just graduated, you know. Yesterday. I don’t think I mentioned that last time we . . . spoke.

Nine months ago? No, you didn’t. AP credit? Summer school?

A little of both. I’m going on to law school at USC this spring—I’m starting early as possible, so I’ll be done quickly, you know.

That’s great. It was. My ex-boyfriend had graduated from college early, heading to law school at one of the most prestigious schools in the country, and I was just some schmuck . . . I’m glad to know you’re doing so well. But the truth is, I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.

Am I bothering you?

Not technically. I was in the middle of something, but nothing I could tell him about. I was too far from glad that Don had called. The last thing I needed in my life was a grandiose reentrance from him.

Oh. Well in that case—

I’ll call you back sometime. Right when a snowdrift buries Satan alive.

Sounds good. He started to say something else, but I hung up before I could hear what else my well-meaning mother had foolishly told him to say.

3.

Connor

I lowered myself gingerly onto the couch in the living room, furtively glancing around, careful not to touch a thing except the sofa with the seat of my pants. It was the same couch I had slept on so many times, whether I was simply sleeping over as a kid on Friday nights or crashing after a party during my high school years. Emmer shook his head at me and waved me into the kitchen towards the island counter, the very same place I had spent hours pigging out with him, laughing over our problems with girls and grades. It was a familiar place, as comforting as my own bed. And yet, there was an aura of aloofness about the whole place now, as if the household was now suddenly hostile towards my presence.

Emmer shook his head at me when he saw where I’d chosen to sit. In the kitchen, he said curtly.

I followed him in obediently. Again, nothing had changed, everything was the same as ever: the shining island, the organized-chaos of ancient pots and pans littering the sink, the white paint chipping off the upper cabinets, the knives slid neatly into their respective grooves in the plastic blue holder. I settled into one of the chairs surrounding the island, burying my hands between my knees; I was still wary of touching anything, as though one fingerprint might set off a nuclear explosion.

Emmer sat in the wooden chair across from me, on the other side of the table, eyeing me distrustfully.

Well? he demanded.

I took a deep breath.

Look, man, I think we both know now that I’m sorry about the way things turned out. I really am, buddy. I didn’t even know your cousin what’s-her-face—

—Lena—

—Lena hit Rachael with her car until three days after it happened. Mama couldn’t get a hold of me. I know it wasn’t your fault, and you had nothing to do with it. I overreacted—

—that’s an effing understatement—

"—and I’m sorry. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, dude. I know I started it. But when I came back and tried to apologize, you slammed the door in my face and kept it closed for half a year. Half a year, Emmer! Think about that."

The anger was ebbing with the words as I watched Emmer. His face remained impassive as he watched me. It was odd; I had never thought all those simple little things they taught us in anger management classes would work. Releasing all the pent-up resentment really did help. Maybe there was a reason that women tended to have lower blood pressure than men.

When he spoke, however, it was clear that he wasn’t convinced. In fact, he sounded just as angry as he had been when he’d first opened the door.

You know, you’re right about one thing.

What’s that? It took all my effort to keep my voice composed.

You did start it.

Irritation flared, prickly as the saguaro needles I’d scattered in my aunt’s hi-tops when I was ten. I raised my eyes to the ceiling, chest heaving. I know. And I’m apologizing.

You didn’t speak to me for two months. I paid that back to you—plus interest.

Four months is two hundred percent interest. That’s quite a bit. Before I could stop myself, I added, You never were a math genius either, come to think of it.

His eyes flashed with anger. Words and wit had never been Emmer’s strong point. Quit being a smartass.

Stop being a dumbass.

You’re right about one other thing, too.

Yeah?

I don’t know how we lived.

I know. I took a deep breath. The fury was coming back. Not at his words, but at the way he was saying them. I could see where this was going. The words were innocent enough, but I knew Emmer well. The littlest things could veer down the wrong path. This sounds ridiculous coming out of my mouth, but think of all the good times we used to have! We were raised together. We’re as close as blood brothers. How can you just let it all go like that, glue-face?

Don’t call me that.

I disregarded that, though it stung. It had been my nickname for him since second grade. His brushing off the moniker I’d bestowed him felt like he’d just brushed nineteen years off his jacket. I wound a string unraveling itself from my shirt around my finger, cutting into my flesh until beads of blood squeezed themselves around it. "You really want to put all that behind you? The Saw marathon nights, crashing on my couch, cramming for the SAT’s until dawn and then scoring twenty-one hundreds? Don’t you remember that?"

I do, he snapped. The blank, self-possessed mask was rapidly slipping off his face. But if you could make me live without those days for six months, then I’m sure I can get through the rest of life without you.

A gnawing sensation started chewing on my insides, worse than the rage. Annoyance. Frustration.

Emmer—

Get out.

Seriously. Get the hell OUT! The last word reverberated through the house, clanging endlessly through my ears in a volley of echoes.

Right, look who’s overreacting now!

Emmer jumped up, knocking his chair back with a piercing clatter. He suddenly looked so ferocious, his green eyes wild and vicious. He’d always been bigger than me, and I wasn’t sure I could win a real fight against him. I grabbed the nearest object on the table to defend myself.

A small but sharp lettuce knife.

Those months spent in anger management classes—they no longer meant anything. If the past nineteen years meant nothing to Emmer now, then I would compel them to mean nothing to me.

And for the first time in six months, I let the wrath take over.

4.

Isa

Isa?

My head remained where it was, resting on my right arm, which lay on the small coffee table. A muffled grunt escaped my lips.

Are you feeling okay?

I grunted again.

I’ve had it with the troll-esque answers. What happened to you?

Sometimes, it was so easy to forget that Mari didn’t know about my condition, so to speak.

Nothing. I went clubbing last night.

I thought you hated going clubbing?

So despite our absence in each other’s lives, she still picked up on that one little detail I’d let slip weeks ago.

Yeah, I . . . I paused, not sure how to continue. I decided that honesty was the best policy, at this point. As long as I told the truth, but not the whole truth, I wouldn’t have to lie.

I went to keep my friend company.

Which one?

Kat. Well, Victoria came along too. Damn them.

Mari nodded, her shoulder-length blonde hair bouncing and vibrant as ever. I see, she said brusquely. Got drunk, huh?

I nodded, still too exhausted to feel truly ashamed. One of the things I liked about my new roommate—even though I’d only been living with her for two weeks—was that she wasn’t condescending. No matter what she thought of me inside, she didn’t show anything but nonjudgmental kindness towards me.

Isa, I’ve gotta tell you something.

Yeah?

It’s something . . . you probably won’t like hearing this.

What is it? Nothing could surprise me now.

Your . . . she hesitated, not knowing how to continue.

Spit it out, Mari.

She sighed. Your parents are coming to visit.

My head flew off my arm as if of its own accord. No lie? When?

Tomorrow night. They called half an hour ago when you were still asleep.

Why didn’t you wake me up? I asked.

They just told me to take a message; they didn’t want to bother you. Said to tell you they’d be dropping by for the night. Just wanted to see how you’re doing in your new place. Most likely to get an assessment of me. Mari chuckled. I’ve got to admit, they won’t be too impressed with what they see.

I smiled wanly. If she only knew what there really was to hide, I thought, she’d know just how much she paled in comparison.

When do you think they’ll be here?

They said to expect ’em around seven tomorrow. Mari glanced at her watch; there were no clocks in the house except for the one on the microwave. You’ve got about . . . mmm . . . twenty-one hours to clean up.

I nodded. You working tonight?

Yeah. Mari worked part time at the local Applebee’s three nights a week, Thursday nights from ten-thirty to midnight. You going to bed? No offense, but you look awful.

In an hour or so. Maybe after I study some. Major exam in a few. Not that it would help much, at the moment.

Alright. Mari vacillated for a moment, and then reached out to pat me on the shoulder. Feel better.

No promises.

5.

Connor

I couldn’t believe what I had done.

It should never have come to this. There was no possible way I had been that incensed. I had never been a saint, exactly; but then, who was? I couldn’t bring myself to realize that I’d just—I couldn’t even make myself think it.

I still felt the sickening warmth of his black blood seeping through my clothes. It had felt good at the time, a hot bath after months of desolate cold. I could still hear his screams echoing in my brain, the resonance of a mountain-climber’s victory cry. At the time, it had sounded like the agonized shouts of a fallen mortal enemy.

Pure music.

I’ve gotta get home. I need sleep, and then I’ll think about it. The thought gave me some relief, gave my brain an incentive not to shut down on the spot. I’ll wake up and think about it in the morning.

I rounded the corner of Romania Drive and broke into a sprint. I knew the way home. Once I reached Romania Drive, I could spin around ten times and run backwards while doing a handstand all the way to the front door of my house. I had even attempted it once, four years ago at age fifteen, to impress my first girlfriend. The end result was me falling over backwards and receiving a concussion after I banged my head on the metal garbage can at the end of our short driveway, the harsh clang of the can bouncing inside my head for what seemed like an eternity.

Just as his screams could not, would not, ever leave me, for the rest of eternity.

I opened my eyes just as my body instinctively turned towards the driveway. I ran up the path and wrenched the front door open, slamming it behind me as if a wild animal was hunting me.

A wild animal, pursuing me. Me, who had just committed the oldest and most atrocious crime man was capable of. The dark humor of the thought made me chuckle, a gravelly, inhuman sound that sounded appalling even to my own ears.

It was blacker than pitch inside; Mama wasn’t home yet. That was good. I blindly stumbled through the tiny, cramped den, not bothering to turn on the lights. It was better that way.

Connor!

I reached my bedroom. The door was open, the lamplight on my bedside table glowing with a musty yellow glimmer. I fell across the threshold. I picked myself up and somehow commanded my feet to walk the last three steps to my bed.

Fuck, man! What the hell—a rattling gasp for breath—are you doing . . . ?

I collapsed upon the covers. I was suddenly exhausted, when just twenty minutes before I had been exhilarated, a thrill coursing through me as I caught sight of the silver, star-like gleam of the knifepoint.

Connor . . . I’m sorry . . .

I inhaled, a cacophony of vultures crashing in my chest, the sound of death. The darkness enveloped me, pressing down on me until I could feel nothing but the heavy, crushing blackness. My eyelids fluttered shut, and I knew no more.

6.

Isa

Approximately one hour later I was nestled comfortably in my room, attempting to focus on the glaringly bright LCD screen of my MacBook Air. In spite of being wasted to an almost ludicrous extent nearly every day in class, I still took good notes. It was one of my talents, and owning a fairly new laptop certainly helped.

However, my lab report in our introductory quantum physics course was due in a week. On top of that, I had a major exam in my advanced Chaucer appreciation class. Despite my aptitude for competent note-taking, I was not gifted enough to analyze notes in the middle of a hangover. I had no idea what I was going to write.

I was getting nowhere.

I saved the document and leaned back against my pillows, kicking the Macbook backwards. It fell to the stained gray carpet with a dull thump.

I turned over and scowled at the wobbly chair across from my bed, where the last remnants inside a glass beer bottle from the morning before rested, carelessly sloshing. A part of me—the more animalistic, wilder part—wanted my body to get up, twist open the lid and pour the remaining contents in my mouth. The saner part of me knew that I needed rest.

I sighed and shut my eyes, ignoring the purple and orange spots that flashed against my eyelids from the ridiculously intense glow of the light on the fan.

Within several minutes, the polka dots dancing in the brilliant black background of my covered vision began to fade. My limbs transformed into lead, and my mind began to wander, with the most random thoughts gliding listlessly one after another. Then those haphazard daydreams muddled themselves together; my was body succumbing . . .

And then I was gone.

The dull blue light of dawn shone through the blinds on my window when the alarm on my radio buzzed. I squinted at the eerily luminescent digits on the clock; it read 6:45 AM. The early morning DJ, Elijah, was conversing excitedly with an even more hyperactive young woman on the phone who had just won some sort of homecoming weekend beauty package.

And why don’t you give a shoutout to your favorite radio station? Elijah demanded.

ONE-OH-TWO POINT SEVEN DIGITAAAAAAL! the woman screamed, her voice crackling with static. The first thrumming chords of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep slid onto the woman’s last exaggerated syllable, drowning out her voice.

I reached up and pulled my bangs through my fingers, pulling them towards the clippie they had fallen out of in the middle of the night. I examined the ends of my hair.

Really need a trim, I thought. I made a face at my split ends and rolled over on my back.

The first thing I noticed about myself—really noticed—was the burning ache in my throat, the signs of my everlasting thirst that had gone unquenched for hours. My eyes glanced automatically towards the little pink chair next to my bed, where the half-liter glass bottle swayed listlessly, an inch of yellow liquid still rippling inside it.

My stomach convulsed as my eyes blearily rested on the bottle, but at the same time it almost growled, as with hunger, but with a less physical implosion. I looked over at my calendar. The date read October 21. My head spun with craving, sleepy stupor and shock as it hit me that it had already been seven months since the party. The party that had finally, utterly, irreparably destroyed me.

I rolled out of bed, dragging the sheets with me as I reached up on the chair for the bottle. I twisted the lid off and pressed the sharp glass edge to my parched lips.

And so began my two hundred and fourteenth day as an alcoholic.

7.

Connor

I had been furious. Beyond furious. There was no other reason for me to kill Emmer, right? Unless I was going insane.

Then again, I was nothing short of it.

I was not going to try and justify myself to myself—I wasn’t that stupid. But I knew that I would no longer be able to stay here, not where the memory would haunt me, not where I would always, always feel Emmer’s cold breath slowing, losing rhythm under my hand. I would have to run. Within days, if not hours, the body would be discovered, and then the autopsies would begin. It wouldn’t take long for them to discern who had done it, and then I would be done for.

But a part of me did not want to run. I deserved to be caught, sentenced to jail for life or even capital punishment. It would be selfish to leave, and I had already done the most selfish thing a person could do. I wasn’t sure my conscience would allow it.

Even though one might argue that a person with a conscience wasn’t a person that could kill.

I rolled over on my bed and sighed. I couldn’t imagine what would happen to me now. I didn’t want to think about it, and yet, it was as if a steel wall had formed around my brain, shutting out all thought except for what I most wanted in the world to not think about.

Would they consider it a crime of passion? Manslaughter? Something I couldn’t be held entirely responsible for?

Not likely. Not with my luck.

I sat up, letting my feet sweep the floor. I held my breath, listening.

Oh yes, there it was. The sound of my mother’s breathing, slow and steady. The sound that, even in the grief that had pervaded when my father had died, had always been so comforting to me. She had come home—where was it she had been again? One of her girlfriends’ houses for poker night—several hours ago, presumably.

I was suddenly aware of a warm, soft weight on my body, one that I knew hadn’t been there when I . . . had I fallen asleep or fainted? I wondered vaguely about that as I twisted around and found a yellow plaid blanket resting on my stomach. It was my favorite, the first of only three blankets Mama had ever knitted. One red, one blue, one yellow.

She had come here in the middle of the night and put her blanket on me.

My decision was made.

I couldn’t stay here, not now. Not at this point. I would have to leave. I would not allow my mother, who had been my only true rock since Emmer had disappeared from my life, who had done so much for me, to suffer the pain of seeing her only son, her only child, become a murderer—or rather, learn about the murderer that child had become.

I kicked the blanket angrily off me. Mama didn’t deserve to have anything she loved stained by my bloody touch.

I took a deep breath, now that I knew what I was going to do. I exhaled sharply, letting the flood of memories smother me. Memories of the night before mingled with the reminiscences of our life together. The sight of his face, angry—angry at me, for the first time in nineteen years. The sight of his face before the past year, through all the ups and downs of childhood and adolescence.

And yet, somehow, by some twisted decay in my mind, my conscience did not bite me.

Guilt, which usually drowned me with self-hatred when I didn’t pay a stranger back his dollar, had receded when I had slaughtered my best friend.

All I felt was guilt that I didn’t feel guilty.

I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. Three-thirty. Three-thirty, and it was still dark outside.

I’ll leave at five, I decided. I didn’t know why, but that was what I would do.

Some inner knot in my body between my stomach and heart loosened lifting a dead weight off my shoulders that I hadn’t realized existed. A large part of my mind relaxed, now that I had finally come to a solution. I let my eyes drift shut and my mind wander, knowing that I would somehow wake myself up when the time came to leave.

8.

Isa

I set the bottle down back in the chair after I had drained the last drops from it, turning around to face the mess that was my bed. As I attempted to straighten it up to a minimum level of decency, Mari walked into my room. This shocked me; except for the first night I’d moved in with her and she had shown me around, Mari had never come into my room. Her eyes swept over the bare but dingy place. She shook her head ever so slightly.

What’s up? I greeted her, halfway poised over my bed.

I couldn’t stand not knowing what your room looks like after the past couple weeks. Of course. Mari was the ultimate control freak—one hair out of place and she would notice. Not that there’s anything wrong with you, but you know . . .

I get it. I smiled at her. And with my parents coming, I guess I should straighten up a bit around here anyway.

Good idea. She stepped further into the room, and then her eyes rested on the empty glass bottle behind me. What have you been drinking in here?

I turned back around and began fixing my bed in what I hoped was a natural manner. Just some . . . you know, fruit drinks. One of those apple-cinnamon tea things. That was the best way to account for the odd yellowish color of the few remaining unattainable drops of beer in there.

You tear off labels?

Yeah. Can’t stand them. That was no lie—I liked my bottles naked.

Yeah, I know what you mean . . . Her voice trailed off as she walked towards the chair and picked the bottle up. D’you want me to throw this away for you? Or wash it out or something?

Just throw it away.

Alright. She looked down at the shiny bronze lid. I’ll save the top, it’s one of those breast cancer fundraising things.

You do that. She left the room, and I fixed the remainder of the bed. I slumped down against the side and yawned.

Mari jogged back in.

Um, Isa. She didn’t say my name in an inquiry.

Yes?

Um, I opened the bottle and was gonna throw it away, but then I . . . caught a whiff. Of what’s inside, I mean. Or what was inside.

And so? I sounded almost rude.

It smells just like—beer.

An awkward pause followed. I felt compelled to break the silence.

Well . . . I began.

"Isa, were you drinking?" Mari’s tone was incredulous, uncolored with the harsh accusation I expected.

I closed my eyes. So the truth had finally caught up with me. How long had I