A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [53]
I left my Room and I left the Unit and I went outside and I walked around the Buildings and the Units a couple of times. The Buildings and the Units were dark and quiet except for the Medical Unit. It was light and there were screams coming from within it. I stood and listened to the screams and I screamed back at them. I screamed as loud as I could scream. Nobody heard me and nobody responded. I screamed as loud as I could, but nobody heard me.
I found the bench and I sat on it and I have been sitting on it and the wet wood has been soaking into the backs of my legs. I am staring at the Lake. The surface is dark and smooth and there are long, thin, fragile sheets of ice floating among dead leaves and broken sticks. It is the deepest part of night, just before the dawn, and the storm has broken and the wind and the rain and the sleet are gone. I am staring into the Lake and I’m sweating and my teeth are chattering and my heart is speeding up and slowing down and it hurts and there are fucking bugs everywhere. There is nothing I can do that will make them go away.
I am thinking about her. I am thinking about her even though I don’t want to think about her. I am thinking about her because I can’t forget her, because I continue to look back at her. She is the only one. I can’t let go of what once was and what will never be again. I can’t face the fact that she is gone gone gone, I can’t face that it was me who drove her away. I was with her. I loved her. I drove her away. I am thinking about her even though I don’t want to think about her.
Two days after my first trip to her room, I went back. Before I arrived, I drank a bottle of wine and I smoked a pack of cigarettes and I rehearsed what I would say when she opened the door. When I got to the door I stood and I stared at it. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking and I felt dizzy.
I knocked and a voice that wasn’t her voice said just a minute and I stood and I waited nervous scared nervous scared and the door opened and a tall Girl with thick red lips and a big smile and brown hair and brown eyes stood before me. It was not her.
I was hoping you’d come back.
Who are you?
Lucinda. Ed’s friend. You want to come in?
Yeah.
I stepped into a typical Dorm Room with two desks and two windows and two used couches and stacks of papers and books and a couple of pizza boxes and some empty beer cans and tapestries on the walls and a stereo in the corner with a pile of CDs and a loft with two beds looming over everything. As I looked around the Room I saw that she was reading a book in one of the beds. Light streamed through one of the windows and across her face and I had never seen anything or anyone so beautiful in my life. If my heart had stopped at that moment I would have fallen happy and fallen full and I would have seen in life all that I had wanted to see and all that I needed to see. Fall. Let me fall.
Lucinda opened a small fridge and she pulled out a couple of beers.
Want one?
No.
Mind if I have one?
I don’t care.
Lucinda cracked one of the beers and she of the eyes set her book down and they both watched me as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a quarter bag of dope. It was good dope, the best I could get, and better than anything that was floating around the School. Green, hairy and pungent, the odor was strong enough that it drifted through the clear plastic of the baggie. I tossed it to Lucinda.
Where’d you get this?
She opened the bag.
A friend.
Took a deep breath.
How much?
Closed the