Crash into You - Katie McGarry

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My stomach lurches and I clap a hand over my mouth. As I fall back against the wall, Ethan’s eyes widen with concern. My gaze flickers to our brothers and he jumps in front of me, blocking their view.

      “Give me a sec with her,” he calls out. “I promise she won’t run.”

      “Ethan,” I warn, the moment I hear the doors to the ballroom click shut.

      Ethan presses his hand into my back, edges me into the women’s bathroom and locks the door behind him. I drop my shoes and they clatter against the floor of the empty restroom. I stumble and trip over my big, fluffy dress and barely catch the toilet. Water runs in the sink behind me and Ethan approaches when I’m able to breathe for thirty seconds without retching.

      He hands me a cold, wet paper towel. “Was there blood?”

      I wipe my face gingerly. “No. Don’t tell Mom or Dad, okay? Or anyone else.”

      “What the hell? I thought you hadn’t had an episode since freshman year.” I wince from the mixture of anger and reprimand in his tone.

      I hate this illness. I hate it in ways that make my blood run cold and my muscles heavy with rage. I hate the way my family has always looked at me as if I’m breakable. I hate how I’ve been a constant disappointment when each of my brothers has excelled at so many public things like sports or debate teams.

      I’m always off in the shadows and after my disastrous fifteenth birthday, I decided to suck it up and force a happy public front even if I’m dying inside. My facade must be working if Mom and Dad permitted me to make the speech when I offered. They’d never do anything to purposely upset me.

      “Have you been throwing up this entire time?” Ethan persists.

      “Leave it alone.”

      He rubs his eyes. “Mom and Dad want to know when you have a panic attack. I want to know. This isn’t a game.”

      My temples throb. I’m the weakest member of this family. I always have been. “If I tell them, they’ll send me home and Mom will hover. You guys are right. I’m a wuss and I can get through this. Tonight isn’t about me. It’s about Mom and Dad. This is their night to remember Colleen, and I can’t stand in the way of that, okay?”

      Ethan slides down the wall and sits beside me. “I’ll cover you tonight. Get through the speech, then go for a drive. I’ll make sure you aren’t missed.” He sighs. “I’ll do anything to keep you from getting sick again.”

      Chapter 3

      Isaiah

      I ENTER THE OLD TWO-STORY house converted into apartments and I’m greeted by the sound of Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” still carrying through the first-floor apartment’s door. Skipping the third and sixth steps because of dry rot, I climb the stairs and slip into the door on the right.

      I’ve been here since August, even though Courtney believes I live in a foster home. What she doesn’t know doesn’t hurt me. My assigned foster family agreed to let me move out as long as I stay clear of trouble and they keep receiving their checks from the state.

      Plaster flakes from the walls when a train rolls by, the wood smells like old men when it rains and rats the size of rabbits call it home, but this place beats the hell out of foster care.

      Noah walks out of the bedroom with a smug smile and no shirt. “Hey, baby, Isaiah’s back.”

      “Hi, Isaiah!” Echo pops her head around the halfway-open door to the bedroom. Her red curls flow over her shoulder.

      “Hey, Echo,” I say in return as she closes the door. A trail of shoes, Noah’s shirt and Echo’s sweater make a path from the couch to the bedroom. Looks like the two enjoyed my belated Christmas present to them: time alone.

      Noah picks their clothes up off the floor. He knocks on the bedroom door, opens it and mumbles something as he hands her the sweater. Noah has tried to play it off for a couple of weeks, but he’s worried about her. To be honest, so am I. Echo began covering her arms again last week.

      He touches her face as he talks to her. It’s a simple touch, but one she responds to by hugging him. I once thought I had found what Noah and Echo share: love. But I was mistaken, or maybe I was too late. Either way, I fucked up.

      Noah shuts the door, giving Echo privacy, and clears his throat. “Thanks, bro.”

      “No, problem. Is she, ah...okay?”

      He shrugs his shirt on. “Her mom’s been screwing with her, using the excuse of the anniversary of Echo’s brother’s death in order to do it. I don’t understand why Echo gives her the time of day. Her mother is a worthless pile of shit.”

      Noah pauses, waiting for me to agree, but I’m not interested in being a hypocrite. I spent two hours last week stalking my mother in a parking lot. Evidently, Noah is a magnet for people with mom issues. Not that he would know it. The only person I told about my mother’s release from prison was Beth, and I haven’t talked to Beth in over two months.

      “Everything all right?” asks Noah when I say nothing.

      I think about it—telling him that my mom was released from prison over a year ago and has just now requested a visit. Noah and Echo are the closest thing I have to a family and it would be nice not to carry the burden of the secret around by myself. To have someone empathize with what it’s like to have been thrown away as a child.

      I could even tell them why she went to jail and how I was part of it.

      As I start to answer, my eyes rest on Noah’s new stack of college textbooks. Noah wouldn’t get it. Technically, he wasn’t a throwaway. “I’m good.”

      I open the door to the refrigerator and find the same scene as this morning: two beers and nothing else. “Guess we should have hung a stocking in the fridge, man.”

      “Fuck that,” says Noah. “We need to put a stocking in a savings account.”

      He sits on the only piece of furniture in the living room besides the television: the couch we bought for thirty dollars at Goodwill. Noah and I live simply. We have a closet called a bedroom, two mattresses with box springs, one bathroom, and one larger space that contains our living room and a kitchen. Kitchen is a loose term. It consists of one sink, the refrigerator, two cabinets and a microwave.

      Noah holds his hands between his knees and bends his head as if he’s lost in prayer. My best friend isn’t a heavy guy and this load he’s shouldering—it’s weighing down the room.

      “Your student loan didn’t come through, did it?” I ask.

      Noah kneads his eyes. “I need a ‘responsible’ adult to cosign.”

      “That’s bullshit.” It’s like the world wants people like me and Noah to fail.

      “Is what it is.”

      “Did you ask anyone to help?” Noah’s got some nutcase therapist he’s been close to since last spring, and he’s been working things out with his younger brothers’ adoptive parents.

      “Cosigning a loan isn’t asking for gas money.”

      He gives no indication of whether he let pride get in the way or whether he sought help and people said no. Because of that I let the subject drop. Me digging would only be shoving the stake in further.

      “I hate to ask,” says Noah, “but how much can you contribute to bills this month?”

      Not much. Business at the auto shop where I work has been slow and what little work they do have is completed while I’m in school. Plus what money I have scraped up after bills, I’ve given to Echo to pay off a debt I owe her.

      A debt I took on because of Beth. When the familiar ache flashes through my chest, I immediately deflect all thought to the subject at hand. “How much do we need?”

      Noah

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