The Fire Between High & Lo
Page 25

“No. I feel like I’ve been hit by a semi-truck.”
“Or maybe like you hit a freaking building,” someone else murmured. I turned to my left to see Erika. Her arms were crossed, and her stare harsh. Beside her was a man in a bowtie holding a notepad, and Jacob was in the far corner, sitting on the countertop.
What happened? Why was Jacob with Kellan?
“You don’t remember?” Kellan asked, sounding somewhat short with me.
“Remember what?”
“Driving into a freaking building!” Erika exclaimed, her voice shaky. The man beside her put a comforting hand on her shoulder. I closed my eyes, trying to remember what happened, but everything seemed a blur.
“Logan.” Kellan pinched the bridge of his nose. “We found you passed out on a front porch. Then we were trying to bring you to the hospital to get you checked out, you panicked and took control of the wheel, making us hit a building.”
“What?” My throat was dry. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, but Erika disagreed. “Show him your side, Kellan.”
“Stop, Erika.”
“No. He needs to see this. He needs to see what he’s done.”
Kellan lowered his head, staring at his shoes. “Drop it, Erika.”
“Show me,” I ordered. He rubbed the back of his neck as he pulled up his hoodie, showing his whole left side which was black, blue, and shades of purple from top to bottom. “Holy shit. I did that?”
“It’s fine,” Kellan said.
“It’s not,” Erika snapped.
She’s right, it’s not.
“Kel, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
“That’s not even the worst of it! You almost killed my sister!” she shouted.
My heart dropped to my gut.
Alyssa.
High.
My greatest high.
“What happened to Alyssa? Where is she?” I barked, trying to sit up, but failing from the pain that shot through my back.
“Logan, relax. The doctors are helping Alyssa. But right now is about you. We brought someone here to help you,” Kellan said.
“Help me what? I don’t need anyone’s help. What happened to Alyssa?” I felt the walls in the room closing in. What was I doing here? Why was everyone looking at me as if I were damaged goods? Why won’t they tell me about Alyssa?
“We’re all here because we love you,” Kellan tried to explain. Then it clicked in my head. I realized why the bowtie man was standing in the room. I read one of the packets in Kellan’s hands, and I closed my eyes tight. They’re having an intervention for me. In a hospital room.
“Love?” I hissed, my voice filled with bitterness as I slowly realized what was going on. “Bullshit.”
“Come on, Logan. That’s not fair,” Kellan said. I turned to meet Kellan’s heavy eyes as he looked at me with fear, worry.
“Don’t ‘come on, Logan,’ me, Kellan. So what?” I looked up from my fidgeting hands. “This is an intervention? You all think I’m so fucked up that you had to gather into a hospital room and embarrass the living shit out of me because you think I’m dangerous? You have to bring in people that don’t give two shits about me? I made one mistake last night.” I gestured toward Jacob. “It’s pretty hypocritical to have the asshole who got high with me last week here, don’t you think? Jacob, I’m almost positive you’re fucked up right now.”
Jacob frowned. “Come on, Logan…”
“No. And Erika, I don’t even know why the hell you’re even here. You can’t stand me,” I said.
“I don’t hate you, Logan.” She swallowed hard. “Come on, that’s harsh.”
“I really fucking wish you guys would stop saying ‘come on’ as if you’re better than me. You’re not better than me.” I laughed sarcastically, trying to sit up a bit. I was growing defensive, because deep inside of me, I knew they were right. “It’s comical, actually. Because here we are talking about me being screwed up in the head when we are sitting in a room filled with people who are just as fucked up, if not more, than I am. Kellan here can’t even stand up to his dick of a father to let him know that he wants to be a musician instead of a lawyer. Jacob has an addiction to weird damn porn that involves forks and shit. Erika breaks one plate and buys fifty to replace them, just in fucking case the new one shatters too. Does no one else find her break and buy lifestyle insane?”
“I think we all just want you to get better, Logan,” Kellan said. I wondered if Kellan’s heartbeats were as frantic as mine currently were. “I can only imagine what you’ve been through with staying with Ma. I doubt she makes it easy to stay clean.”
“You must be feeling pretty good,” I said, brushing my finger beneath my nose. “Because you’re Kellan, the golden child. The one with the rich father. The one with a future. The one with a full ride to a top college to become a top lawyer. And I’m just the fucked-up brother with a crackhead mother and a drug dealing father. Well, congratulations, Kellan. You’re the winner. You are mom’s better son who made something of himself, and I’m just a pathetic piece of shit kid who will probably be dead by twenty-five.”
Kellan took in a pained breath. “Why would you ever even say that kind of shit?” His nose flared as he paced the hospital room. “What’s wrong with you, Logan? Wake up. Wake up. We’re all trying to help you and you’re yelling at us as if we are the enemy, when in reality the enemy is your own mind. You’re killing yourself. You’re fucking killing yourself and you don’t care,” he shouted. Kellan never raised his voice—never.
I went to say something, but Kellan’s stare stopped me. He narrowed his eyes at me, and I swore for a second I saw a glimpse of hatred.
His hands rubbed against his face over and over again as he tried to calm himself. When he spoke, he sniffled to hold back his own emotion. He tossed the pamphlets toward me, and when they landed in my lap, I read the words over and over again.
St. Michaels Health and Rehabilitation Clinic.
Waterloo, Iowa.
“Rehab?” I said. “You think I need rehab? You all think I need rehab? I’m fine.”
“You drove a car into a building,” Erika recited again for the hundredth time.