If you say so.
My parents arrived soon after. Sabrina came in with them, and I deduced from their initial questions that Sabrina hadn’t told them much, if anything, about that night or the sequence of events leading up to it. I was thankful for that. I glanced toward the door, looking for someone else to appear, and Sabrina only shook her head slightly.
“What the hell happened to you?” my dad said almost immediately. He never swore, so for him to say “hell” meant that he was rattled. He stood over me, a tall, tall tower, the kind where you get banished to live out your life forever in isolation.
“I’m not sure.” My gaze veered over to Sabrina. I was asking her for the official story. I didn’t want my lies to contradict what they’d already been told or would soon find out from the doctors.
“We found you in the back of Mitchell’s car,” she said carefully. She grabbed my hand. “I looked like you’d snorted some…something.” She paused, glancing over at my parents. “The doctors said they’d be doing blood work.”
So, there would be no getting around the fact I’d snorted heroin. Or something. I didn’t think to ask James for the specifics of what I’d purchased.
“Did I overdose?” I asked Sabrina. My mother swallowed. My father pressed his lips together in a blade-thin line.
“We thought maybe you’d just passed out, but you weren’t breathing right. And you wouldn’t wake up. We figured it was better to call 9-1-1.”
“Who’s we?” I asked Sabrina.
“Me and Mitchell.” She glanced away. “And Seth.”
“How long has this been going on?” my father demanded.
I acted confused and disoriented, which wasn’t a stretch given my current condition. “That was my first time. There was a guy at the party selling it. I just wanted to try it.”
Sabrina looked down at her hands, but she didn’t contradict me.
“Why weren’t you at work?” my mom asked me.
I swallowed. My mouth was dry, and my saliva felt like rocks going down my throat.
“I took off. The band was having a release party. I lied. I’m sorry.”
“We told them you wouldn’t be coming in any more,” my dad said sternly.
I waited for them to expose my deception to me, but they didn’t. Seth’s contacts must have held firm.
“We’re putting you into a program,” my dad continued. I breathed a sigh of relief, not about the idea of rehab, but that I could still get out of this without my house of cards tumbling down.
“Hiroku, why would you do this to yourself?” my mother asked in her gentle, thoughtful way. “Why would you take such a risk?”
Tears filled my eyes. I could justify lying to my dad, but I hated lying to her. “I was stupid,” I admitted. “So, so stupid.”
A while later, my parents left to go to the cafeteria because morning was approaching, and it was just Sabrina and me alone in the hospital room. I had a single, so there was no risk of being overheard.
“Thanks for covering for me,” I said. Sabrina shook her head and wouldn’t look at me.
“Thanks for not fucking dying on me,” she said tersely.
“You’re welcome.” I wasn’t trying to be a smartass. I didn’t know what else to say.
“I swear to God, Hiro, if you don’t get clean in rehab and stay the hell away from Seth, I am going to tell your parents every goddamned stupid thing you’ve ever done. In detail with footnotes.”
She stared at me with that fire in her eyes, smithed from the iron core of her being. Sabrina was around Seth even more intensely than me at times, and she’d never succumbed to the drugs or his manipulations.
“That’s fair,” I told her.
“And just so you know, Seth was too afraid for his own selfish ass to call the ambulance. If it were up to him, you’d probably be dead right now.”
I let out a high, giddy laugh, not because it was funny, but because it was so fucking typical.
