Lifeline by Abbey Lee Nash

Author:Abbey Lee Nash [Nash, Abbey Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tiny Fox Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Dinner is roast beef and potatoes with carrots, gravy so creamy, you could eat it with a spoon. It tastes like food somebody’s grandma would make, not the ex-coke head with five years sober who works the kitchen. But the food sits like stones in my stomach. I pick at a piece of meat, move it around my plate with my fork, and let my thoughts take over.

It’s as if my admission in Richard Fisher’s office carved something out of me, and while everybody else around here seems to have something or someone to help put them back together, I know I have to do it on my own. It’s like on the lax field—I got myself into this mess. Now I have to get myself out.

I hardly notice Red and Will plunk down their trays.

“Ping-Pong later?” Red’s fingers drum the table in between bites. “Or are you gonna sit in your room and cry about your breakup again?”

I scowl at him. “I don’t cry.” In public, anyway, and that is between me and the concrete walls of my shower. “And yeah, I’m down for Ping-Pong.”

Across from me, Will groans. “Not me. I’ve got a week of Self-Reflection during free time.”

Red grins. “Apparently, gambling is ‘frowned upon’ at LakeShore.”

Will tosses his fork onto his plate and drops his head in his hands. “I had a whole pool set up and everything.”

Red slaps an invisible cymbal with his fork (bum, bum, CHING!). Then Libby’s voice cuts through our laughter, like the husky bedroom melody of an indie acoustic. “You three losers have plans tonight?”

She’s leaning over the end of the table, her palms flat on the laminate. Her two-toned hair hangs in a loose braid over one shoulder, and her wrists are covered in jingling silver bracelets.

Will gives her a half-cocked smile that looks more like a sneer. Libby hasn’t exactly been his favorite person since the gym incident. “What, is there a party somewhere we don’t know about?”

Libby rolls her eyes. “Howard’s taking a van off-campus to an NA meeting in town. He asked me to let people know.”

Red clears his throat, casts his eyes my way.

“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”

Libby shrugs. “Consider yourself invited.” She flicks her braid off her shoulder and walks away.

Will shoves a piece of gravy-soaked roll in his mouth. “Do I smell a rebound?”

“What? No way, dude.” I toss my balled-up napkin at him. It bounces off his shoulder and hits the floor. “She was just doing what Howard told her to. I mean, look, she’s probably inviting those people over there, too.”

I point across the dining hall, where Libby’s chatting with a girl by the coffee bar.

Red grins, punches me lightly on the shoulder. “You could do worse, you know.”

“I’d sleep with one eye open, though,” Will adds. “That chick’s a praying mantis.”

“She’s not a rebound! I’m not even looking . . .” My words get all tangled up, and I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. Savannah and I just broke up, and if I have anything to say about it, we’re not going to stay that way.

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