That Wasn't in the Script, page 6
The anxious vertigo I was feeling minutes ago suddenly turns into something else entirely. My chest pulses rapidly. The room is still spinning, but instead of making me feel sick, it feels like I’m levitating. I dream of flying off and crashing into the ceiling, making sure to hit the flat screen on my way out so nobody in the restaurant ever has to see my stupid face ever again.
Seconds later, drool slowly leaking out the corners of my mouth, everything goes dark.
CHAPTER 5
JOSIE
“Go toss him in the alley across the street with the other weirdos. Problem solved.” Clearly, Indio doesn’t see the sleeping customer in King Kone as a problem whatsoever.
“I can’t do that!” I panic. “What if he dies?!”
“Then he shouldn’t have been doing drugs!” Indio reacts aggressively. He signs the bottom of the tally sheet for the night and shoves the money inside a small blue banker’s bag to leave in the safe. “Wanna count out the tips?”
“Indio!” My volume increases. Hoodie Boy doesn’t move a muscle. If I hadn’t felt for a pulse and found one, I would be sure he was already dead.
Indio’s shiny eyeliner flickers under the moody, half-switched lights. “What the hell do you want me to do about it? Call 911? Call the homeless shelter?”
“He goes to my school! He told me so!”
“Do you know his parents?”
I hesitate. “This was actually the first time I’d ever met him.”
Indio’s face falls flat. His patience has been worn from thin to nonexistent. “I don’t make thirteen dollars an hour to care about what happens to high school drug addicts, Josie.”
“So, you’re just going to leave him here?”
“Yes.” He zips the blue bag with a smug grin. “Consider it the Indio Byun version of Scared Straight or something.”
I raise my arms and cock my head. My body temperature rises rapidly, along with my concerns. “You want to leave a high school drug addict—your words, not mine—locked in King Kone all night with several hundred dollars lying in the office? Free to steal and use as he wishes, all because you didn’t want to deal with it?”
Indio, in a rare moment of silence, pauses to absorb my theory. “Well shit, when you put it like that...”
“Exactly!” I sass. It’s rare that I get to be the smartass in any given conversation. I allow myself a moment to enjoy it before going right back to freaking out.
Indio groans into the depths of the spit-wad dotted ceiling, doing nothing to rattle the drooling customer in the middle of us.
“Do you have any friends who might know who he is?” Indio asks.
“What friends?” I laugh.
“First of all, thanks for proving my point.” I roll my eyes at his rude remark. “And second? Josie, I have to get home.”
“To do what? Watch more Dawn Heights?”
“To live my life! Maybe you should get one!” Indio turns towards the office before I can muster another insult.
I instantly feel awful, Indio’s ‘proving my point’ comment burying itself underneath my skin. By no means was I a social pariah. I had a handful of people I spoke to at school regularly if a particular assignment required it. Plus, I had Hannah back in Ohio. So what if we’d spoken once in the last three months since she started working on the yearbook committee and dating that guy on the track team? That didn’t make me a friendless outcast.
Did it?
“Josie,” Indio’s faint voice sighs from the kitchen, peering his eyes through the hot plate slit in the window. “Leave him in the alley. He’ll wake up there, freak out, and never do anything like this again. Trust me. Public intoxication isn’t a look.”
I untie the apron around my waist and aggressively toss it into the dirty towel bucket next to the sink. Indio strides past me without a second glance, marching out the door and shooting me a peace sign from outside the window. Before he disappears down the road towards his car, he fogs up the glass, mouthing ‘good luck!’
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one being roped into dragging an unconscious six-foot teenage boy into a makeshift homeless camp across the street.
I look up at the digital clock on the wall overhead. It’s inching closer to nine thirty. If Pru didn’t hear me walk through the door in the next ten minutes, she’d likely break curfew by hopping out of bed and walking across the street in her rainbow pajamas to make sure I was alright. Or worse, she’d call our mother. Mom was already concerned enough about leaving us. I couldn’t rock that boat on the first night.
I quietly switch off the remaining lights inside King Kone to make what I’m about to attempt look less incriminating than it actually is. The last thing I need is for someone to catch me dragging a lifeless body into an alleyway.
Gently, I poke at Hoodie Boy’s shoulder, trying to stir him one final time.
“Hey!” I poke again. Leave it to me to notice how firm his arm feels underneath the hoodie. I shake my head. Remove the body now. Thirst over it later.
It’s hopeless. This guy isn’t just asleep, he’s likely somewhere projecting into an ancestral plane. In one final attempt to try and contact his relatives, I carefully dig through his jacket pockets to see if I can find a phone or ID. I come up fruitless, unless you count the crumpled stick of gum.
Trying not to overthink it, I gingerly start to prod my way through his pants pockets, remembering to confess this the next time Mom dragged me to one of those awkward Mass services on Christmas. Rather than anything useful, I locate a gigantic wad of cash and a pill bottle. I can’t pronounce the name, it’s something that starts with the letter H, but it has one glaring piece of evidence in the description: sleep aid. Was it even possible to be addicted to sleeping pills? Questions only schoolmarms like me are poised to ask.
Carefully tilting his head, I lower his sunglasses, and shove them into his jacket. I take a good look at him to see if I can place his face from the hallways of Bedford. His cheekbones are hollow and defined, puffing out only slightly as he rattles out heavy snores that reek of raw onions. It’s driving me crazy that I can’t figure` out what his name is. How would I walk by a face like this and not look twice?
“Okay.” I exhale to myself. “You can do this, Josie.”
I pull Hoodie Boy’s body off the bench with a grunt and prop him upright, leaning him over one of my arms. What he lacks in size he more than makes up for in height; if there was ever a time to hate being five foot two, this was it. He flops over me lifelessly as I drag him across the filthy floor I could care less to mop tonight.
Once I finally pull the two of us out the door, I swing my foot out to hold it open, pulling him alongside me. He rests against my arm for half a second before dropping hard against the ground as I fish for the store key Armani leaves tucked behind the mailbox out front.
“Oh god!” I cry loudly. It garners the attention of the homeless gang across the way. I cup a hand over my mouth and crouch down to inspect his head. His Lakers hat had fallen off and rolled into the slimy gutter, but there wasn’t any sign of a concussion. I pull the hood off his head to be sure, revealing a soft, sweaty mop of dark brown hair.
“Everything okay?” One of the homeless guys, balding and toothless, shouts at me. He lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag.
“Yeah, thanks!” I sing way too enthusiastically. I pull him up onto his feet once again and lean him up against my opposite arm.
“A little too much ice cream, ehh?” The homeless man winks devilishly. “We’ll take care of him if you want.”
I try not to throw up at the man’s implications. The longer I stare at the group of people across the street, passing around bags of god-knows-what while sitting on a box-spring exposed mattress and attempting to ignite a fire using the dumpster, the greater my apprehension becomes.
I can’t leave him with them, I tell myself. Nothing good can come of this.
I look across the street to our apartment, the wheels in my head spinning on overdrive as his body grows more challenging to hold. Mom’s rules required Pru be in bed by nine, which meant she was probably already safe and snug in her bedroom, waiting for me to knock on her door to let her know I was home safe. Tomorrow was Saturday, so she wouldn’t be setting an alarm to be out the door by seven for school, and would likely be sleeping in like all of us did on weekends.
If I managed to sneak Hoodie Boy into my room and try to have him awake and out of the apartment before Pru woke up, I could sleep on the couch, and she would never suspect he were there. I’d be able to get his name, make sure he was alright, and send him home safely. It was almost too perfect. At least, some weird and twisted equivalent of perfect.
Hoisting him further up my arm in preparation for the short journey, I quickly begin dragging him along the street, trying not to cry as I lift him over each and every stair leading toward the main door of our building (fourteen, to be exact—this was the first time I’d counted). His high-tops scrape against the stoop as I pull him up and launch the two of us inside, never having been so grateful to live on a bottom floor in my life.
I take a moment to pause and dry heave, my sides aching from the workout. “Enjoying your ride?” I look at his incapacitated face and chuckle to myself, secretly groaning.
Refusing to drop him a second time, I press him up against the wallpaper with my left palm, pressing in the four-digit code to our keypad and pushing it open with a low squeak. Success!
The living room is dark and motionless. Usually, Mom would still be awake when I’d come home from work, toiling away on a canvas in the corner as I told her about my night. She’d end our conversations by offering to make me a late-night grilled cheese that was borderline inedible. Not having her here made the house feel twice as empty.
You’re carrying the lifeless body of a classmate who overdosed on sleeping pills. I roll my eyes. I’m sure your mom would love to hear that story. I didn’t want to know what might happen if Mom knew what I was up to. If my plan worked, he’d be out of here before anyone could ever find out.
Pru’s bedroom is at the end of the hallway across from our mom’s. Hopefully, she wouldn’t hear me as I quietly grunt my way through the apartment en route to the first door on the left. I can’t get to my bedroom fast enough. I open the door and click on my desk lamp with a loud twist.
Once I’m able to see beyond the soft moonlight streaming in through the windows, I carefully set Hoodie Boy onto the edge of my twin bed and give him a good, hard shove onto his side. He wheezes with a soft, dreamlike chuckle as I step back and admire, mostly in horror, what I’ve just accomplished.
There is a boy sleeping in my bed. And I have no clue who he is.
I rub my eyes with a low whine, exhausted and energized all at once. Reaching beneath my bed, I pull out a lavender plush blanket my dad had bought on a business trip to Scranton years ago. There was no significance to it other than I was seven and going through my purple-everything phase. He picked it up at a local farmer’s market and said it reminded him of me. It was far too small for me to use now, let alone anyone else. Considering every other extra blanket we owned was still sitting somewhere in a box, it was the only hospitality I could come up with at a moment’s notice.
I reach into the top drawer of my dresser and grab a pair of grey sweatpants and a black tank top to serve as pajamas, taking one last look at him before slowly backing away towards the door. Despite how weird the situation is, and by god, it’s weird, there’s something curiously peaceful about him. It’s almost like watching someone sleep for the very first time. Way to creepily romanticize the moment, Josie.
After brushing my teeth and throwing on my pajamas, I give Pru’s door a single knock and hear her shout “Goodnight!”
I tiptoe back to my bedroom, clicking off the lamp and shutting my door with a slow, quiet turn of the knob, trying to keep things sounding as normal as possible. With Hoodie Boy safely tucked away, my footfalls return to normal. A swell of confidence bursts up inside me as I fall back onto our old tan sofa and grab one of the flattened throw pillows, stuffing it under my mess of hair with a fluff.
I helped that boy, I think to myself, stifling a giddy squeal face down into the pillow. Part of me wondered if this is how my dad felt after rescuing my mom from the subway platform of doom. My eyes grow heavy as I blissfully daydream about my part as his personal King Kone savior.
Out of nowhere, a faint buzzing noise begins rattling from the burgundy desk near the front door, the one that sat there collecting dust and junk mail. I sit up with a yawn and notice my cell phone lying on a stack of envelopes. I shake my head and ignore it as I flop back down onto the couch. It was probably just Mom telling Pru and me that she was getting ready for bed and wishing us sweet dreams.
A few more moments go by, and the buzzing starts again, shaking a pile of coupons off the table. By then, I’m already in a blissful sleep of my own.
CHAPTER 6
ROWAN
The room was illuminated by a sea of tinted lights. Dark red velvet curtains lined the walls and swayed back and forth as loud bass thumped on the dance floor. The air was thick with fazer smoke and smelled of expensive perfume and alcohol. Unfamiliar faces whizzed past in a daze, most of them briefly stopping to wave and say hi despite me not knowing who any of them were.
“Calm down, Michael!” I point a finger to his face and feel his hot breath run up the sleeve of my blazer. “You’re drunk!”
“You calm down, shithead!” He fires back. “Stop defending that bitch!”
It happened so quickly. I lunged forward, and without even thinking twice about it, my fist was crunching loudly against the bones in Michael Brewer’s face.
Instantly, everything in the room turns to white light. I sit upright in a cold sweat, gasping for air as I press my head towards my chest and fold my shaking hands around my knees. I’d been having nightmares about the fight ever since it happened. It was part of the reason I hadn’t been sleeping.
A bead of sweat rolls from my eyebrow directly into my eyeball, stinging like lemon juice in an open wound. I feverishly rub my eyes and toss my head back to look up at the ceiling. Bare white with detailed crown molding that hadn’t been dusted since the day it was finished.
My knees make a satisfying clicking noise as I lower them beneath a soft purple blanket the size of a baby quilt. The sheets are a pale shade of blue with small gray heart patterns. I may not have spent enough time in my hotel room to notice every little detail, but this was definitely not my bed at The Four Seasons. A fresh batch of sweat begins to pool up underneath my arms and soak through my shirt.
Where the hell am I?
The walls are an unforgivable shade of pink. One might call it salmon if they were sophisticated, but Pepto Bismol is more like it. Paper-thin lace curtains explain the blinding sunlight shining in through the window. There’s nothing personal about the space to provide any evidence of where I could possibly be. No posters, no artwork, not even a single picture, just some worn furniture and a loaded bookshelf. If it weren’t for the neatly organized erasable wall calendar hanging above the desk, you’d think the room was abandoned.
I toss the hilariously small blanket off my legs and swing them off the side of the bed. The floorboard underneath me sounds like it’s about to cave in underneath my weight. I approach the bookshelf and run my fingers across a horizontal row of colorful spiral notebooks. The edges of the paper inside are stained and torn from wear. Next to it are a series of old English textbooks that scream I was stolen from a library!
Stacks of DVDs fill the rest of the shelf, their plastic spines tightly packed. I recognize several of the titles from my grandmother’s old movie library. An American in Paris, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, It Happened One Night, and A Streetcar Named Desire. Whoever lived here had the overall taste of a ninety-year-old.
Who is it? I think to myself. Whose house was this, and why was I here? The details fuzzily ran together. I was in the hotel, I left, and then... shit.
I’d been gone all night. I’d been out of the hotel room, cell phone-less, for an entire night. The air in the room abruptly feels twenty degrees colder, my feet turn into frigid ice pops encased in disgusting sneakers.
In my head, I replay everything that happened right up until I blacked out. I’d taken two of Lexi’s sleeping pills, thinking they were my anxiety medication. I planned to get up and ask someone at the food place for directions on how to get back to lower Manhattan. After that, it all goes blank. It’s as if my brain is an old VCR, and someone is hitting rewind and record over the tape at the same time.
The door slowly cracks open with a low creak, a small voice following in a whispered tone.
“Hey Jo, sorry if you’re still asleep, do you have any sciss—”
I’m not sure which one of us freezes harder. Me, as I casually snoop through the bookcase or the gangly little girl standing in front of the open door looking for scissors. At least, I think that’s what she’s about to say before she drops the handful of colorful strings she is holding. They all go floating onto the floor like strands of freshly cut unicorn hair.
Neither one of us says anything for at least half a minute. Both of our faces turn green and gape in disbelief. Long, auburn curls run past the length of the young girl’s arms, a pair of square glasses sits on her nose and magnifies her amber eyes. There’s an unfamiliar familiarity about her I can’t quite place, mostly because I’m internally bracing for her to start screaming for the police at any second.
She clicks her tongue to the roof of her mouth, ending the silence. “Do you know who you are?”
Unfortunately, I muse. “Do you know who I am?”
The girl nods, her fuzzy white slippers making a tapping noise as she takes two giant steps forward. “Rowan Adler?”
