The Marbury Lens Read Online Free PDF Page B

belonged there.
    Like I deserved it.
    I sat there until it was too dark for me to see the sick, undressed, and dirty kid in my goddamned mirror.
    It was the first time in my life I wanted to kill myself.
     

    “What the fuck, kid? What the fuck?” Conner’s voice came in an urgent whisper as he squeezed through my door and pressed it shut behind him with his back.
    I was still sitting there, and his voice was like a rope that pulled me up from the bottom of an empty well.
    “Jack.” Conner flipped the light switch. The movie in the mirror began again.
    “Oh. Fuck. Conner. Sorry.” I shook my head, put my hand over my eyes.
    “Get this shit off.” Conner began pulling at the knotted line around my ankle. My foot had turned purple, and I was bleeding again. “Dude. You need help. You gotta cut this shit out.”
    I lay back on my bed as Conner unwound the stained cord from around my leg. He threw it down and went to the door.
    “I’m going to get something to wrap that with.”
    I put my arm across my eyes.
    “You better cut this shit out, Jack, or I’m going to have to tell someone. I should get Stella.”
    “No!”
    He went out into the hallway.
    I didn’t realize how much time had gone by. Maybe I was still drugged, but I forgot all about going out with Conner that night.
    He came back from the bathroom with a first aid kit in his hands.
    Conner kneeled at the foot of the bed. He squeezed antibiotic goo over the cuts, spreading it carefully with his fingertips, like it burned him to touch me; or maybe I was toxic. Then he wrapped gauze around my ankle and taped the end, smoothing it down tight beneath his thumbs. I didn’t say anything to him while he worked.
    “You want to go get some help, Jack? I’ll go with you. I think you should.”
    “No. I just…I don’t know.” I sat up and looked at him. I know my eyes must have looked messed up. “I think those drugs he gave me are making me crazy. And I haven’t eaten anything for two days. I’ll be okay, Con. Thanks.”
    “Come on. Get up and get dressed. Let’s go get some food.”
    He pulled me up so I could stand.
    I kept my eyes away from the mirror.

Eleven
    Stella called about my credit card. She gave me cash—she always had cash for me—and Conner and I had dinner at a brew pub that served pizza and burgers. I started to feel better, I guess, but couldn’t stop myself feeling empty. Like something had been taken out of me and now there was nothing there.
    The center of the universe.
    While we sat there in the pub, I found myself staring off, past Conner, and images of what had happened to me replayed, so unreal. And Conner caught it happening and said, “Snap out of it, Jack. You sure you don’t want to tell anyone about it?”
    We hung out at the mall until it closed, at ten; and I bought some more clothes and shoes, but they didn’t really make up for what Freddie Horvath had taken from me. I kept telling myself to stop thinking about it. I kept telling myself, but I couldn’t do it.
    And as Conner was taking me back home, we drove past Java and Jazz. I saw Freddie’s convertible Mercedes parked in an alleyway on the side, between the coffee place and the high chain-link fence around the basketball courts in Steckel Park.
    I had a feeling there was some reason for Conner coming this way; he kept looking over at me as he got us closer to the park. And when we finally drove by Java and Jazz, I said, “The guy who did that to me’s here. That’s his Mercedes right there.”
    Conner stopped his pickup right there in the middle of the street and looked where I was pointing. The car behind us nearly ran into us. I heard a squeal of brakes, and as the car swerved around us, middle fingers flared out the windows on both sides.
    “Fuck you, too!” Conner said.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Dude, let’s fuck with him.”
    “No.”
    But Conner wasn’t listening. I could tell by the look on his face. We’d been best friends since before