Chapter Ten

Scott’s navy blue sedan made its way into the street. Anyone who knew him would recognize the dent on the side and the rust stain on the grill that perfectly complimented the driving skill of its owner. Rocking back and forth on its wheels, it rolled over a speed bump and screeched to a stop halfway out of the alley. Panting with effort, Scott manoeuvred the sedan into the driveway and parked on a slant on the side of the road. He cursed himself for that right after, making Edward chuckle a little in the passenger seat.

Judge Hardy of the municipal court has recently been arrested for accepting bribes from the Spartans gang, said the gruff voice on the radio. Edward paid attention to what it said for the first time since it had been turned on at the start of their trip. Scott said that it helped him focus on driving, which was a statement of dubious validity. Three payments of nearly eight thousand dollars each have been found transferred to Hardy�"

Scott turned a dial and muted the radio. He shook his head and pushed his glasses up his nose, turning to Edward. “The Spartans are really getting serious.” The two had become friends in Morny since they both studied in the same classes. When they found out that they were both moving to Hillborough after, they jumped at the chance to travel together. There was a lot of demand for a good lawyer in Hillborough. Any glance at a newspaper or quality news channel made that apparent.

“Yeah, they are,” Edward said, not looking back at him. His voice was airy and his eyes were stuck on the house outside the window. It was a hideous thing�"an abnormality�"that he couldn’t stop himself from taking in, as if it wasn’t supposed to be there. “Listen�"do you mind leaving me alone for a bit? Visiting my mother is kind of a private thing for me.”

Scott nodded immediately. “I get it. I’ll be at the library doing work. You just text me when you’re done.”

Edward tried his best to give Scott a smile. He pulled the car door open and stepped out. Right after he closed the door again behind him, Scott drove off down the street, managing relatively well compared to how he drove in.

The sights were all coming back to him. Even the crispness of the air was familiar and suddenly distinct. He wasn’t even sure that his mother still lived there. The lights all seemed to be on in the old house and his mother wasn’t the type of person who enjoyed moving, so she probably was in there somewhere. Even if she did move, she most likely wouldn’t have told him. She didn’t have an email and she had changed phones without telling him. She probably had never even thought about him, but Edward wanted to come back. His father would have wanted him to.

He didn’t have a key anymore. He forgot to take one before he left and thought it’d just complicate things if his mother left the house without him knowing. Edward waited a few seconds standing on the front doormat before ringing the doorbell. He knew that his mother was aging so it’d take a few moments for her to answer. He’d need the moment to prepare himself.

When the door finally opened, his jaw fell, and the gravity suddenly became scores heavier.

“Ed?” Fay breathed. She wasn’t a kid anymore. That was obvious. Her hair only barely touched her shoulders and it was free from any dye. She was wearing a grey sweatshirt and jeans. Her face had widened from a girl’s into a woman’s, but it was still undoubtedly her. Even so, she looked almost skeletally thin. Her cheekbones were protruding from her face and the rings around her eyes could have meant she hadn’t slept in weeks. Spots of red, peeling skin ran across her cheek and up her forehead. Within a second of the door opening, the smell of smoke hit Edward.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He tried again and choked out, “Fay; it’s been a while.”

She shook her head. She wasn’t capable of doing anything else. “Why did you come back?”

“Can I come in?”

Instinctively, her hand went to the door to shut it, but she stopped herself. “I’m kind of busy�"”

“I’m here to see my mother.”

Fay sighed, defeated. “Come in.”

Edward saw that she was barefoot, so he left his shoes at the door when he stepped in. She kept her eyes down too. He was trying his damn best to avoid eye contact with her. The smell of smoke helped. It ran up his nose like fire down a wick and pricked his eyes from behind. It made it hard to find the house’s interior familiar. What Edward could see of the upper floor was a mess. Clothes and snack bags lay strewn around the room. Stains riddled the walls and the carpet. Next to nothing in it was new since he moved out, but a lot of the old furniture he grew up with had been thrown out. He noticed a few pill bottles thrown in the corner but decided not to say anything about it just yet. They both were preoccupied with too much.

“Your mom’s downstairs�"sleeping probably,” Fay said.

Edward nodded. “You live here now?”

“My parents moved out of the city and sold the house. Your mom charges me rent. Let yourself out when you’re done.” Fay turned around and started up the stairs. Edward didn’t know how to respond. He hadn’t prepared himself.

“Fay, are you mad at me?” If he wanted to, he couldn’t have held his mouth shut. He just didn’t have time to think.

Fay froze and turned halfway around. She still wasn’t looking him in the eye. “No. I just don’t think we should be in each other’s lives anymore.”

She kept up the stairs until she couldn’t see Edward anymore. Soft thumping sounds signaled Edward going down the set of stairs to the lower floor. The first place that Fay wanted to go was the kitchen. It took her a long time to forget Edward’s face the first time. If there had to be a second time around, she wanted to get rid of the memory as quickly as she could and shred it.

She thought that she had left him behind, but his face brought back so much. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she was curious about where he had been. He mentioned law training before he left�"undoubtedly doing well in it. Then again, he was second-guessing it when he left, so perhaps he had dropped out. He looked well. His skin had gotten tanner, and he had gotten more muscular. He was almost the opposite of her. She opened one of her cigarette bottles and held the roll of paper between her two fingers. She tried her best to pretend that it was magic and would wipe her memory with each breath that tore its way down her throat. It didn’t work. He was still downstairs.

The minute turned into half an hour, and there wasn’t a sound from the lower floor. If they were talking, they must have been whispering. Then again, it could have been the drugs. The first time she had taken one, it took a friend’s attention to keep her from going into cardiac arrest. Now it took two to make her feel a trace of anything. Her vision and hearing blurred, and she tasted metal in her mouth, but the main reason for taking them was that they rendered her completely unable to focus on any one thought. A million different ideas raced into her head at once. It was trying to read a novel as a flipbook.

“These are illegal,” Edward said. Fay spun around so quickly that it hurt her head. He was standing just behind her, holding up a small, yellow bottle that had her name and the drug scrawled on it in blue marker. On the back, there was a rough drawing of a skull wearing a gladiator helmet in blue chalk that had been mostly wiped off. A few pipes of the drug rolled back and forth inside it as he weighed it in his hand. He had picked it up off the floor. “Where did you get this from?”

“Give that to me.” Fay said, accidentally just a few decibels beneath a yell.

“Is this because I left?”

“Did you expect everything to be the same once you got back? You think you can keep walking in and out and everything’s just going to wait for you?” Fay lunged at him trying to grab the bottle. Her nails scratched down his arm, but he kept it out of her reach.

“I’m sorry if I did this to you,” he said.

She exhaled and shut her eyes. He thought she was angry, but she wasn’t. “It wasn’t just you. Life got hard. Please, just give me the bottle.”

Edward shook his head. His throat got tighter and it was only Fay’s heaving that reminded him to breathe. “What happened?”

“Ed, I’m begging you. Give me the bottle.”

“These are illegal, and they’re killing you. How much have you had?”

“Just that bottle,” she said, silently praying that he couldn’t see the others thrown around the room and on the table. There must have been at least ten bottles in the house, and at least three of them were full. Of course he didn’t believe her.

Edward bit his lip. Even if he wanted to stop staring at her, he couldn’t. Her entire body was trembling and her eyes were flushed with red. Her voice was so slurred that she was afraid that Edward wouldn’t understand. It could have been the drugs, but just seeing him could have done it too. He wanted to hug her like he used to, but she’d just push him away. “Fay, you need help.”

Tears had started falling. She was barely standing up. “I’ll do anything you want, but please don’t tell anyone. I’m begging. Please give me the bottle.”

She couldn’t stop herself from speaking. Over and over again, the words trickled out of her, please�"give me the bottle. Her voice soon became unintelligible.

The words turned into staccato whimpers, and soon she was about to fall backwards. Edward grabbed her arm and put a hand on her back, just to keep her standing up. As soon as her knees stopped shaking, she stepped backwards and threw his hands off of herself. It felt like there wasn’t any sound within miles. Suddenly, nothing was familiar anymore. Neither of them could recall anything of each other. Nothing of each other existed except for what stood in that living room.

Edward held his hand to her with the pill bottle in his palm. She grabbed it, grazing his skin with hers but pulling away like it was burning metal. Her eyes shut, forcing out the last few tears she had in her.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now please don’t tell anyone.”

Edward shook his head and opened his mouth to respond, but he had suddenly forgotten every word he knew. Fay just stared at him, desperate for him to say anything, and it hurt him. Looking into her eyes, it looked like she was clinging to life.

“Okay,” he said. “Goodbye, Fay.”

He turned around and started to head for the door. She didn’t see him out.