Harvey let out a melodramatic moan beneath the table and I realized he’d been waiting patiently for a scrap. I tossed him a piece of burnt cheese just before the front door opened.
It was 12:01 AM, officially the start of my second day living with the Calloways, and I was finally getting my first glimpse of Lilah. She stumbled inside, closed the door behind her, and then leaned against it as if she couldn’t hold up the weight of her own body. With bated breath, I waited for her next move. Before she could meet my gaze, Harvey’s excitement bubbled over. I reached down and held his collar so he couldn’t run and lunge at her. I shook my head as his bright pleading eyes met mine.
He wanted to run and greet her as much as I did. Lilah was back. She was back, and yet she was so different. Black hair and short shorts and a drug-induced haze. But she was also the same girl I’d always known—pale, small, freckled, and lost. I scraped my chair back and stood to announce my presence, but she was already gone. Her eyes popped open and she ran for the stairs, clutching her stomach with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. She was too sick to notice me standing in the kitchen.
I put Harvey outside and then took the stairs two at a time. We were sharing a bathroom, her and I. She would have noticed my shaving cream beside hers, but her head was over the toilet and she was throwing up, making deep loud heaves that sounded as if her body was rejecting everything inside of her.
I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door carefully so her dad wouldn’t hear over the game footage. She reached for toilet paper, wiped her mouth, and whirled around to stare at me.
Her eyes hit me all at once, bright green and vulnerable until she registered who I was.
“Are you okay?” I asked, taking another tentative step closer.
She narrowed her eyes and pointed at the door. “GET OUT.”
“Lilah—”
She spun back around and threw up again, her protests about my presence losing to her body’s need to purge itself of the night’s indiscretions.
“Did you drink?” I asked.
She nodded, quick and almost imperceptible.
“Did you take something too?”
She didn’t respond, so I repeated the question. “Lilah, did you take anything?”
“Molly,” she said, resting her head on her arm along the edge of the toilet.
I reached around her to flush and caught a whiff of her. She smelled like she’d bathed in cigarette smoke and throw up. I bent low to check if she was all right. Her eyes were closed, her lips cracked and raw. I watched her chest, trying to make out the rise and fall beneath her tank top.
I could feel the heat rolling off of her and after I confirmed she was still breathing, I crept back down the stairs for a glass of water, and then thought better of it and got two.
When I returned, she was awake and sitting with her back against the bathtub. Her knees were pulled to her chest and her hands were wrapped around them, keeping her body in a tight ball.
“Here, drink these,” I said, dropping the glasses near her feet and looking away before she could shoot me another death stare.
I rifled through the medicine cabinet above the toilet. Everything in it was old or empty. The only bottle of Advil had expired the year before but I still grabbed it. She’d need something to curb the headache in the morning.
“The prodigal daughter returns,” she slurred with a dark tone. “And who runs to meet her?”
I turned from the medicine cabinet to catch her staring up at me with the same fury as before.
“None other than Chase Matthews, the golden boy himself.” She smirked and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “Is this how you expected to find me? Just like her?”
Chapter Nine
November 1996
Blackwater, Texas
The old house sat silent in the night except for the two teenage girls trying in vain to keep quiet in the bathroom. Hannah propped Elaine up over the toilet and held her long blonde hair away from her face.
“Shhhh. My parents are going to be back any second and I don’t want them to hear us,” Hannah warned. “They’ll know we’re drunk.”
Elaine giggled. “I’m not drunk. Are you drunk?”
Hannah rolled her eyes and leaned forward to ensure Elaine’s head was positioned over the toilet. They’d already made a mess in her room, something she’d have to deal with as soon as she got Elaine to sleep.
“Chris was so cute tonight. Did you see him?”
“Elaine. I was with you when you were talking to him.”
Elaine erupted into another fit of giggles that eventually gave way to dry heaves. Hannah rubbed her friend’s back, trying to contain her own urge to throw up. They’d both had too many beers, but there had been a real cause to celebrate. Hannah had received a letter from the University of Texas in the mail earlier that morning. She’d been granted early acceptance into their nursing program. It was her first choice school and her first choice city. She was thrilled, her parents were thrilled, and most importantly, Elaine was thrilled.
As soon as they graduated, they’d leave Blackwater together and never look back.
Chapter Ten
Lilah