{Jon}

"Get up. We're going. I signed you out for the afternoon."

Jon slowly turned his throbbing head to look up at Cary, who was standing in his room. Cary's eyebrows were drawn down low under a livid bruise, and his fists were curled. "I fucked up your dad's job," he said.

"What?" Jon sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, anger giving him enough energy to move. "What did you do now?" His voice was weaker than he would have liked.

"Pete's losing his job. Time to get your shit together. Let's go." Cary walked out of the room and Jon jolted to his feet, following him.

There was a car he didn't recognize parked outside the house. Cary held the passenger door open for him, frowning as he took in Jon's stained sweatpants and slumped walk. He slid into the driver's seat and put the keys in the ignition.

"Where are we going?" Jon asked.

Cary didn't answer.

"What happened to my dad's job?"

Cary stayed silent, changing lanes with quick jerks of the steering wheel and accelerating at the lights so Jon's head and chest pressed back into his seat. He braced his hands against the dashboard, feeling a little sick. "Where did you get this car?"

"It's mine," Cary said.

Jealousy billowed so large and dark that Jon felt it swallow his head. Cary had everything he wanted—he was tall and healthy, he had a bedroom in his parents' home, and his own fucking car even. "You dating too? Kadee said last night you guys had a thing."

Something went over Cary's face, interrupting the hard, focused expression he'd been wearing. Two spots of color appeared in his cheeks. "There's a thing. I don't know what it is."

Jon felt that shove all the air out of his chest. Cary made it look so easy to be normal. He put his eyes straight ahead. "I hate you so much sometimes."

They lurched to a stop at a red light. "Get in line behind everyone else," Cary said, dry and tight.

Jon stuffed his fists under his arms. "Where are we going?"

There was a pause like Cary wasn't sure himself. "Gazebo Park. I need some smokes."

Jon sifted through the handful of things Cary had said to him today. He hadn't thought much beyond his own needs and problems lately, but something about Cary's demeanour was making him afraid. "What happened with my dad?"

Cary was silent, shoulders hunched, staring straight ahead at the road.

Jon slapped his shoulder, stinging his hand. "Cary—you pick me up and now you won't talk. Fucking tell me what the problem is."

Cary swerved across lanes of traffic in a way that made Jon yelp and grab the handle of the door. He pulled into a school parking lot and screeched to a stop, throwing the car into park.

"I've been driving like one week. I can't talk at the same time, okay?" Cary shut his eyes, taking a shaky breath. "I think your dad is fired." His voice was flat. "I fucked up and got in a fight at the church."

Jon's mouth felt dry, and he realized it was hanging open. "Wait—what? What do you mean you got in a fight?"

Cary looked sideways at him, his eyes dark under his eyebrows.

"Don't even think about lying," Jon snapped. "Tell me the whole truth."

Cary lidded his eyes, taking a moment to collect the words. "Went to church with Kadee. Some guys were shooting hoops after."

Jon could picture them in the parking lot—he'd watched from the sidelines enough afternoons.

"They were talking shit about your dad. That he's not a good pastor because his kids...are me—and you." Cary ducked his head aside, and Jon heard the dry click of his swallow.

Jon stopped breathing. A horrible vision came to him suddenly: his dad in front of the congregation, talking about him. His fuck-up addict son. "My dad told the church?"

Cary shot him a look. "No."

His throat was squeezing. "Who was it then?"

"You didn't say nothing to the Klassen kid?"

Jon's breath sucked in, darkness opening painfully wide inside him. "Kurtis was there?" he whispered. Why hadn't it occurred to him that Kurt might tell other kids in the youth group, or someone else in the church? He had felt so safe on the phone with him—it had been such a relief to just be himself for twenty-five minutes.

Cary had his arms wrapped around his body, hunching forward. "Yeah," he said shortly. "He was."

Jon's thoughts scattered everywhere, like the smashed fragments of a dropped light bulb. He needed a phone —he'd left his cell at the recovery house—but he knew the number by heart. He needed to know exactly what had happened...but what if he didn't want to hear Kurt's voice picking up the other line? And what would Kurtis Klassen say to him if he called?

Shakily, Jon tried to gather his thoughts, to keep track of the story. "Then—what? What did you do?"

Cary made a dry noise, turning his face so the bruise was hidden. "I beat the shit out of Todd."

Jon's heart was hammering and his mouth was dry. "Anyone else?"

Cary shook his head. "I didn't want to fight. "

He was bent over and Jon realized for the first time he was holding himself like he was in pain. Cary wasn't invincible—there were a lot of big guys in that group. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

"I'll mend," Cary said. He uncurled and set a hand on the steering wheel again. His left hand cradled his stomach, and Jon registered that his knuckles were whole and unbroken. "I'm leaving."

Jon stared at him, mute.

"Maybe Pete can keep his job with me out. I'm going so I don't fuck things up more 'n I did already."

"What more could you possibly do?" Jon's voice came out loud in the car, and Cary winced, his hand pressing his stomach. "I mean—why do you have to go now? Don't my parents get money for you to stay? Don't you have a job that can help? If my dad is fired, maybe they need you."

Cary bowed his head. "They need you, Jon." The quiet that followed pressed on Jon's ears, those words growing large in his head. Cary lifted his eyes and looked into his face, and Jon felt like a broken bug pinned on the side of the car. He couldn't make a sound with the pin through his chest, caught there with all his smashed parts spread out in the open.

"Your dad misses you," Cary said softly. "They want you back. Your family—wants you." His face flinched and he took a short breath like something had hurt him unexpectedly. He pushed on. "Not me. Not like they want you. You're their son."

Jon shut his eyes. Every word jostled his broken parts, and he couldn't gather them in order to be the Jon his parents wanted. "Take me back to the addictions place."

"I'm shit at words," Cary growled. "But I need you to hear. You always heard me before when no one else did. You need to go home, Jon. You need your family, and you need to get better."

It felt like Cary had found Jon's heart and squeezed. "Shut up, you asshole." Jon's voice shook. "I don't belong there. They don't want me there. God, like you know anything about family, Ciaran fucking Douglas."

The words bounced around the silent car. He couldn't even hear Cary breathing. "Is that your plan?" Cary asked after a moment. "Make everyone around you feel as shitty as you do and push them away?"

"It's working for you," Jon snapped. He opened his eyes to glare at him and found Cary with his shoulders curled, rubbing his hands over his face.

"There's a short list," Cary said finally. "Of people I'll keep taking punches from. And it's you—and my father." He dropped his hands, looking at Jon with his mouth set. "I got nine years' experience getting back up. You just keep swinging if it makes you feel better."

Jon kicked up the embers of his anger until its billowing heat ate every other feeling but rage. "I bet this was easy for you too—I bet you just fought through getting clean like you do everything else. You're such a hero for going through everything and sitting there with your shit together now. Everyone's not strong like you, Cary. Everybody can't take a punch and get back up. Sometimes they get broken—did you think of that? Sometimes they just give up and lie there. You have no fucking idea what it feels like to have had everything and then chuck it all in the shit hole. Worthless fucking faggot skin bag, dragging my dad's name down with me—like I don't know better after everything my parents did for me." The filthy string of names he heard in his head came out without him meaning them to, and he covered his face with his arms to try to breathe.

Something touched the skin of his upper arm where the cuts curved under his shirtsleeve and he jerked away, clapping his hand over them. Pain burst in his head and he got a breath in, slumping back in the seat.

"God, Cary. I want another pill so bad I could die." Jon stared dully at the brown playing field and cracked asphalt yard, feeling like his body had worn away to a handful of sticks and rags. His headache pounded and the inside of his mouth was tacky and sour.  "I don't have what you have. Whatever it is that makes you get back up again. Everything's broken and I just—can't."

Cary was still, looking out at the field, one hand loose on the bottom of the steering wheel. "You talking to anybody at the house about that?" he finally asked, quietly. "They have a counsellor you talk to?"

Jon barked a sharp laugh. "No. Yeah, they do, but I don't. What am I going to say? 'So I have great parents and a perfect childhood, and I'm just such a useless fuck-up—here I am?'"

Cary flicked him a look, showing some alarm. "No one knows you're cutting?"

Jon's fingers twitched, and he looked back at him, flat and angry. "That's your freaky secret—not mine." He was still a hell of a liar—that hadn't changed.

Cary's hands tightened and he looked away, the tips of his ears blazing red. "After all the things you said to me and I stopped—"

"Ciaran." Jon's voice was harsh. "Fuck you. Seriously." He set his face forward, almost beyond caring whether Cary believed him or not.

Cary jerkily put the key in the ignition and then sat there like he was stuck. "I'm taking you to the hospital to check you in to mental health—or I'm taking you home to tell your parents."

Jon frowned at him. "You can't do that. You have to take me back to Hope House. They expect me back for supper."

Cary's eyes pleaded with him. "You're not okay, Jon. You have to stop hiding. You have to tell someone."

"Tell them what?" Jon pushed out.

"You're cutting." Cary swallowed. "You sound like...you're thinking about killing yourself."

Jon turned his face sharply away. Something cool was slipping over the skin of his arm, and he absently brushed it with his fingers and looked down. His own blood was smeared red against his fingertips. He wiped them against his pants, feeling like the elevator had dropped another floor lower—just when he thought he'd hit bottom. "I hate you," he said dully. "I don't need you fucking with my life. It's my life."

{Cary}

Cary's face was going numb, and his heart was lurching with Jon bleeding beside him and lying to him about it. Lying to himself about it, too. Did Jon even know what he sounded like right now—how close to the ledge he was living?

"Take me back to the addictions place," Jon said in a toneless voice. "I need my dose."

Cary dropped his eyes to his own scarred arms, pushing his feet against the floor and trying to steady his breathing. He'd cut a long time before the feeling of despair had overwhelmed him and he had decided to cut deep enough to end it. Jon's words were shaking those memories loose, except this was someone Cary cared for so much more than his own piece-of-shit skin.

If Pete and Mel had to put another one of their kids in the ground...

Cary wiped his sweating hands against the front of his shirt. Jon had to get this or it didn't matter where he dropped him—he was going to keep cutting. He held his stomach down behind closed teeth, pressing the button to lower the window on his side. Ignoring Jon's horrified What are you doing? he punched the heel of his hand into the side-mirror until it bent with a plastic crack. He wrenched the largest shard of mirror plastic out of the frame and all the hair on his scalp lifted, feeling the sharp edge against his fingertips.

He shoved his sleeve up his arm before he could think about it and slashed a pair of lines above his elbow, where he'd seen Jon's cuts. Jon gave a little squeak, jerking upright, putting a hand over his own arm.

"Look," Cary said through gritted teeth. "Does this look fine to you?"

"Don't!" Jon lunged for him, covering Cary's cut with his hand and reaching for the sharp.

Cary held the sharp out the window—out of his reach, his eyebrows lowered as he watched his friend's face. "Home. The hospital. No more hiding."

"Cary—" Jon's voice broke, and he crumpled back into his seat, wiping Cary's blood against the front of his shirt. Cary took the opening to set the sharp against his arm and drag it over the blood-slick skin again.

Three fresh cuts, and no pop of color in his head. He just felt like throwing up.

"Stop—Jesus—stop!" White-faced and shaking, Jon held his hands, splayed and smeared, between the two of them.

Dizzy, Cary held the sharp against his skin, leaning his cheek against the steering wheel. "Where am I taking you?"

"Home," Jon wrenched out. "Fucking take me home."

Cary popped the door open and staggered onto the asphalt, chucking the sharp into the street. He retched as he pressed his hand over the cuts, feeling them open and slippery under his fingers. Sagging against the car, he swallowed against his aching throat. He had feelings about these cuts he'd never had before—big, sad ones. Jesus-God—sorry. He curled around himself. Body—sorry. Heal for me, okay?

When he was sure he wasn't going to throw up, he got stiffly into the car. Jon was rigid, staring straight ahead, his fists clenched between his knees. Cary pulled out of the parking lot without speaking, focusing on navigating roads that were snarled with evening traffic. When they finally turned into the quieter residential area where Jon lived, Cary asked, "When did you start?"

Jon's breath sounded like a knife being drawn. "When I quit. When I got so sick I couldn't tell myself anymore what I was doing was okay. That I could manage it." His voice was as cracked as the mirror, sitting cock-eyed and vacant, on Cary's side of the car. "And I still needed something. Drugs cost money. Cutting is free." He drew another breath through his nose, digging his back into the seat. He was glaring out the window like it had offended him. "And it felt good. You know it does. After I fucked it all up. To bleed."

Cary made a soft sound, blinking tears out of his eyes so he could see to drive. He felt Jon turn to look at him, and it was quiet in the car while Cary wiped the tears off his face with his sleeve and drove with one hand.

"Why are you crying?" Jon asked shakily. "I thought you didn't have feelings like that."

Cary didn't answer for a full block, words straining against his chest, tears leaking down his face. "I got them back." He tried to clear his tight throat and get a full breath in, but couldn't. "From being with Jesus. He did what you said he would and made me alive again. So I cry now. And feel things. It's fucking—annoying." His words roughened. "It slows me down. I can't just feel nothing about my asshole friend cutting. And how bad I would miss him if he did what he's thinking and ended himself." His stomach felt like a deep sharp pain, knotted in his middle. "I care about that shit now—like I actually feel it hurting. Maybe how you've felt all along. It sucks. I don't know how you lived like this all the time."

Jon leaned his head against the window. His face looked pinched and exhausted. "Why I liked getting high."

They were silent. Jon seemed to shrink into himself, getting smaller and smaller the closer they got to his house. When Cary pulled up to the curb, he just sat hunched in the passenger seat, eyes on the road ahead. The car went silent, the engine ticking faintly as it cooled.

"It's just going to be the same shit as before," Jon said finally, the words heavy.

"You don't know that," Cary said. He pushed his hand against his stomach—he wanted this to work out for Jon so bad that he didn't know what else to do.

Jon turned his face to him, his eyes grey and flat. He seemed to decide something and spoke. "We passed my dealer's house a minute ago." His mouth was drawn down in a deep, unhappy curve. "I'm good enough to walk there now. He'll take an IOU 'cause he knows where I live. Or I'll find some cash in my mom's wallet. My parents can't watch me 24/7—they have the girls."

Cary watched him from under his lowered eyebrows, swallowing the garbage taste in his mouth. It sounded all too likely.

Jon turned his face straight ahead, his freckles standing out against his white skin. "I'm not a good person. And I'm not strong. If you leave me here, the first chance I get, I'm going to get so fucking high I don't remember any of this." His voice was strained and soft. "And I can't wait."

"You are going to turn your brain into a fireworks show and hope you drag something recognizable out of the wreck after," Cary snapped, so quick and sharp that it felt as if his father had taken hold of his mouth. "Fuck, Jon. You do that—you even take the same amount you been taking before, and your parents will find you dead in the morning. Jesus. This—" His arm shot out and he caught the back of Jon's head, spreading his hand around his skull. "This is who you are in here, and you could wreck it right now so easy." He caught his breath, gripping the back of Jon's neck, feeling the ridge of his skull and the little bumps of his spine going down to his back.

Jon hunched under his touch, his eyes shut and his face creased with some strong emotion. "I don't care," he said. "I don't care if I do."

Cary stopped breathing, looking at him. Please care. He lifted his hand. It felt as if Jon was slipping away and it didn't matter how tight he held on if he wanted to go.

"You could have just lied to me and walked up those steps," Cary finally said, in a low voice. "You sure you want to be done? No more biking in the ravine? No more pizza? No more girls?"

Jon let out a shuddery breath, and Cary swallowed past the lump in his throat. "No more Bea?" He saw Jon's face flinch and kept trying. "No more bedtime hugs? No more pancakes on Saturday? No more hearing her laugh at your stupid jokes?"

"Fuck you," Jon whispered. "I already don't have those things."

"You're going to get them back," Cary snapped. "You can't just give up—you made it through the worst and you survived. Now you need to keep on—one foot in front of the other."

"Take me with you." Jon turned his face to Cary, his expression painfully open. "If you want me alive so bad."

Cary sat back, startled.

"I can't bullshit you because you know. I'll be as good as I can," Jon said. "I'll try to get better like you say. I'll be far away from anywhere I know to get some more." His thin chest was rising and falling like he was running uphill.

Cary felt the weight of Jon's life like he had suddenly dropped into his arms. He took an unsteady breath. "I don't have no taper dose for you. They won't let you take it out of the house."

"Do I need it?" Jon was pale and damp with sweat. "To get clean—do I?"

"It's no fun without it," Cary said.

"None of this is fun," Jon said bitterly. "At least I'd be with someone who gives a shit." He swallowed, watching Cary like he was afraid he was wrong about that, like the next minute his friend would kick him out of his car and drive away.

Cary rolled his shoulders, thinking about keeping Jon right next to him, where he could check whether he was okay anytime. His stomach unknotted, smoothing out. He slid the key back in the ignition, already running over the stuff they would need to pick up before they left the city: Gatorade and poppyseed snacks and water bottles. And a first aid kit. He checked Jon sideways, and then took a long look at the house. Pete was going to be worried out of his mind. The only way to make it up to him would be to bring home a clean Jon after this was over.

///

In the bathroom of the gas station 30 minutes out of the city, he texted Pete. <Jon's with me. He's staying clean. Please don't worry about us.>

He jumped when the phone immediately lit up, vibrating and chiming. "Shit," he said, fumbling with it and picking up the call. "Yeah?"

"Cary?" It was Mel.

He swallowed his stomach back down. "Yeah it's me."

"You sound like you're in a tin can."

"It's a washroom." He took a breath. "Listen, we're okay. I don't want you and Pete to worry."

The was a brief silence. "Where are you heading?"

"North. My mom's sister has a farm near Cold Lake? I'm going to stay for a bit."

"Hope House has been calling, looking for Jon. He's supposed to stay there another six days."

Cary closed his eyes, rubbing his finger over the throbbing edge of the bruise on his face. "I know. I went to say bye and he wanted to come."

"He isn't supposed to—"

"Mel, he's cutting." It came out blunt. There was an abrupt silence, and he wished he could see her face. He remembered Pete telling him earlier today to use his words and he tried to do that for her too. "I saw it today and I didn't know what else to do. He's not okay there. He wouldn't come home. His dealer is just up your street and he said he'd start to use again if I took him back. He asked to come and I said yes. I'm really sorry."

It took a few moments for her to respond. "When do you think you'll bring him back?"

He covered his eyes, trying to think. "When's my trial date? To testify?"

"A week. Next Monday."

He tasted sick in the back of his mouth—that soon. "I'll bring him then. He'll be through the worst."

"It's not the worst idea you've ever had." Mel said wryly. "You might be as good for him as rehab."

He barely heard her, needing to ask this next thing, but hating to hear the answer. "Pete?"

"He's not back from the Elders' meeting yet," she said.

His chest ached, remembering the words he'd heard one of the men hurl at Pete in the parking lot. "Is he losing his job because of me?" The Whites lived on a knife edge as it was, barely making it month to month.

"Because of you?" She sighed. "I don't know. Things have been broken between him and the leadership of this church for a long time. From before we came. I've wondered how much longer he would be able to stay. It's not an insignificant mark against him that Jon..." She seemed to struggle to continue and changed tacks. "If a pastor can't care for his own children—the church takes that really seriously. And so they should."

He swallowed again, an empty click in his throat. "I feel really bad, Mel," he said in a low voice. "I made it worse after everything you done for me. It's stupid to keep saying sorry when it don't make it better. But I am..." He closed his eyes, his tongue momentarily frozen in his mouth. "...sorry." It stumbled out. "I'm sorry."

"Hon." Her voice was soft and warm. "You're forgiven. Pete and I will get through this together, like so many other things."

Her easy forgiveness slid home like a blade, opening him deep, and he caught his breath, pressing his fingers to his eyes to flick away tears.

"Pete wasn't always a pastor, you know—he used to build homes. He was good at it. He could go back to that work. We'll be all right."

Cary managed to get a breath in his tight chest. That was something real that he could understand. Maybe the Whites would still be okay.

"Take care of yourselves, all right?" she asked. "We'll be praying for you every day. Give my love to Jon and bring him back when he's ready."

"I will," he managed. He had almost hung up when he heard her say, "Cary. Love you."

He made the phone dark and shoved it in his pocket. When he turned, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the sink—the bruise blazing red and purple up the side of his face, and his mouth trembling and soft. He ducked his head and ran water over his fingers to press against the heat of his eyes. Love you. Bye.