“Are you okay? You don’t sound good.”
My mind is in chaos, so I can’t be sure I’m reading her right, but she sounds like she genuinely cares to know that I’m okay. Because I can barely breathe, I don’t have it in me to gloss over how I really am, so I give her the God’s honest truth. “No.” It chokes out of me.
“Shit. Okay, where are you? We’re coming to get you.”
We’re?
I don’t bother to ask her any questions; I’m just so damn grateful to have someone, anyone, coming to get me. I tell her where I am, and she lets me know she’ll be here within ten minutes.
The wait feels like ten hours rather than ten minutes. By the time she arrives, I’m clammy and just want to curl into the foetal position and give up on life.
“Oh my God, what’s happened?” she asks when I open the door to her. She’s staring down at me with a shocked expression.
I hardly pay attention to a word she says, and barely register her shock. I also don’t give much attention to the fact Tommy and Puck are with her.
I don’t care about anything but getting the hell out of here.
Stumbling out of the car, my knees give way and I fall. Tommy rushes forward and catches me. “Fuck, Zara, what’s going on?” He sounds concerned, too. My brain struggles to connect the concern I’m feeling from both of them with the people I know them to be. But I ignore all of those thoughts and simply cling to him. In the horror story I’m living, Tommy is my safety, and that’s all that matters to me.
I’m unable to answer either of them. All I’m capable of is wrapping my arms around Tommy and sobbing into his shoulder. I hear them talking about cars and driving and getting me back to someone’s house, but it’s like the voices are distant. It’s like they’re floating all around me but I can’t catch them. Can’t pull them into my consciousness and make sense of them.
Someone lifts me and puts me in the back seat of a car. It must be Tommy because the next thing I know, he’s sitting with me, his arms around me.
Then, the steady rhythm of a car moving filters into my awareness.
I close my eyes and nestle against Tommy’s chest.
I feel tired.
Like I could sleep for days.
I don’t want to do this anymore.
Time passes. Again, it feels like hours.
“We’re here,” Tommy says softly. Why does he sound so kind? He’s never been kind to me.
I lift my head and blink, meeting his gaze. “Where?”
“Marissa’s place.”
He helps me out of the car and inside. We’re heading towards her lounge room when she curls her hand around my arm and says, “Zara and I are just gonna take a minute while you get some drinks ready.”
She whisks me down the long hall to her bedroom. Closing the door behind us, she says, “Babe, you need to use my bathroom and clean up. And tomorrow, we need to buy you some waterproof mascara.”
I want to ask her what she means, because us doing something together tomorrow makes no sense, but mostly I just want to lock myself in her bathroom and try to get my shit together. A few moments later, when I’m safely in the bathroom, I place both hands to the vanity, drop my head, and take some long deep breaths.
My heart hasn’t slowed completely, but at least it’s not racing like a crazed motherfucker anymore. The rest of my body is slowly catching up to the news that the threat has passed. Not that there was a bloody threat.
Lifting my head, I stare at myself in the mirror. Marissa’s right: I do need to buy some new mascara. My face looks like an abstract painting of mascara streaks and tear stains. Usually I’d give a shit; tonight, I don’t. And holy hell if that isn’t liberating. At the same time, though, it makes me wonder how far gone I am.
After I wash my face, take a lot more deep breaths, and gather my shit, I exit the bathroom. Marissa is no longer in her bedroom. So much for her “taking a minute” with me. Same old Marissa. Nothing much changes.
I make the trek down her long hall; Marissa’s parents built the biggest house they could stretch their debt into affording. There’s something like ten bedrooms in this place. Not to mention the pool house. And the tennis court. And the five-car garage. Filled with five cars. The thing is, this house might be filled with all the things, but there’s no soul here. How did I ever think Marissa and her family were the bomb? It turns out money talks, but it doesn’t give a shit about much else.
“You feeling better?” she asks when I find the three of them in the media room. She’s curled up on Puck’s lap. Of course she is.
“Can we talk?” I ask.