"How have you been?" Lip asked hesitantly as he joined Harleigh on the steps, one hand holding the beer, the other holding a cigarette. The clouds were beginning to roll in, indicating that it was going to rain later. He didn't look at her, he couldn't bring himself to trace her thin features, features that used to be bright with determination and resilience, features that now wore a wary, exhausted look.
"How have I been?" she mocked, her tone bitter. She was angry, she couldn't deny that. Lip all but vanished for the last two years, avoiding her like the black plague, only to reappear when she was in a vulnerable, easy to trip up point in her life. "I've been shitty, Lip," she finally said, her eyes locking on his face. "Just got out of rehab this morning."
"You were in rehab?" Lip asked. His eyes darkening as he locked eyes with her. "For what?"
"Heroin," she said, removing a couple chips from her pocket. "Ninety-days clean," she added with a roll of her eyes.
"Holy shit," he mused. He knew she struggled with addiction for years, but she got clean for Al when she was born. He never thought she'd turn to drugs again, especially not heroin. "You can still drink?" he asked, motioning to the beer in her hand.
"Not supposed to, but alcohol was never my vice," she shrugged. "Besides, what's the point? I relapse again, it is what it is."
"Not a good way to think," he muttered, but he was in no place to judge. He knew he had a problem with alcohol, he just didn't want to do anything about it. "What made you choose rehab?"
"Fiona didn't give me a choice, neither did Sean," she shrugged. "Besides, after…" she hesitated. She looked at her hands, trying to decide if Lip was worth her confessing anything, much less everything to. "After I almost died, I guess I didn't want anyone to find me like that ever again," she murmured. Lip stared at her with a pained expression. 'She almost died?' he thought to himself as he watched her wring her hands.
It was a year to the day since Al died and Harleigh was a wreck. The realization that her daughter was gone forever finally hit her like a ton of bricks, out of nowhere, with no warning. She'd been off her meds for weeks now, having traded her regular meds for alcohol, coke and heroin. Spiraling out of control for the first time in years, Harleigh found herself seeking out dirty bathrooms and abandoned buildings during the day for weeks, scoring her usual cocktail from her old dealer with little to no effort at all.
That day, the bitter anniversary of her daughter's passing, she was having an exceptionally hard day, the manic depression, topped with just the general depression that comes with losing a child, weighing her down like a ton of bricks. She was barely able to roll out of bed, much less crawl her way to the bathroom, the ever concerned mutt following her every move.
After spending the majority of the day ignoring her boss's many phone calls, she nudged the dog out of the way and closed the bathroom door, welcoming the silence and comfort the tiny room had to offer. She reached behind the cabinet under the sink, her hands easily fishing out the stash she kept there for such occasions. With a few moments of concentration, she prepped the drug and tied off her arm, her bruised vein popping with some effort. She vaguely noted that she'd have to switch to a new vein soon, the one she usually used harder than ever to locate.
As soon as the toxic mix hit her bloodstream, she felt everything and nothing at all. For her, after that moment, everything went black.
For her brother and friends, it was a different story. Two hours later, Cody walked into the door to find Chance clawing at the bathroom door, barking loudly, his fur standing on end.
"Harleigh? Harleigh, you in there?" he called. Sean and Fiona were following close behind him, having picked him up from school early after being unable to reach Harleigh all day. "Harleigh!"
"Move," Sean instructed as he slammed his weight into the bathroom door. At first, it didn't budge, but after a few more tries, he was able to snap the door open, his arm instantly holding Cody back. "Call 911."
"Harleigh!" Cody screamed, ignoring Sean's warning. He ducked under his arm and threw himself down at her side, his fingers frantically searching for a pulse. He couldn't find one, but her skin was still warm. "Help her!" He begged, tears streaming down his face. "Please, help her!"
Sean jumped into action quickly, doing everything he could think to do to get Harleigh's heart to start beating again. In the ten minutes between Fiona calling 911 and paramedics arriving, Sean had managed to get her heart to beat again, if only weakly, his entire body soaked with sweat. Cody got into the ambulance with his sister as soon as they loaded her in, his face pale, his eyes full of worry.
Harleigh crashed four times before they were able to stabilize her. She'd never forget the look on the nurse's face when she finally woke up for good. The nurse rattled off her toxicology results, how her blood alcohol level had been just shy of .40, which would have been fatal considering how little she weighed. She also informed Harleigh that she had gotten a hold of a laced bag of dope, that if they had been even five minutes later to find her, the fentanyl in her heroin would have killed her. The toxic combination had caused her arrest four times, leaving her heart permanently scarred, but she was lucky, lucky to have survived at all. Lucky to have woken up without any major deficits, something that could not be said for countless other addicts around the world.
It was then, that Sean, Cody and Fiona made the unanimous decision that Harleigh had to go to rehab. Sean agreed to foot the bill, as long as Harleigh agreed to a three-month stay at a local drug rehabilitation center and agreed to work off her debt when she was released. Two days later, she was signing in, leaving her family and friends behind.
"Holy shit," Lip murmured again, his hand instinctively finding hers. "Jesus Christ."
"Yeah," Harleigh sighed. The sound of a car door opening reminded her that Fiona would probably have a million questions for her. Fiona was very much wrapped up in her own problems, with her wedding only days away and her life finally seeming to come together, Harleigh felt guilty for worrying her friend yet again. "What about you? After that night, what happened?"
She was referring to the night he'd hit her. Even after all that time, he couldn't forgive himself for letting himself lose control enough to hurt the only person in his life who could get him to dig deep and find what was really going on in his life. Lip wasn't a sharer. Lip always concerned himself with other people's problems to avoid his own. He'd done so for as long as he could remember. It was easier that way – easier to deal with life when he was helping other people clean up their messes.
He thought back to that night, a lump forming in his throat as he relived the last time he saw Harleigh all over again.
Harleigh had arrived at his dorm after a long, frustrating day. Lip had already been drinking since early that morning, his mind foggy as she pushed her way into his room, her eyes searching his face for anything, any sign of the man he used to be. It was a few months after Al's funeral, the first time Harleigh actually came to check in on him in person.
"We're all worried about you," she said softly, sitting on the edge of his bed. Her hair wasn't brightly dyed anymore, the red now faded to a muted chestnut, a color so similar to Al's, it made his stomach twist. "Everyone's worried."
"Why?" Lip growled. He was angry, he wasn't entirely sure why, but he was angry. Angry she showed up unannounced, angry at the way she looked at him, angry that she seemed to be judging him when she was in no better a place herself. "Why?"
"Because you stopped answering your phone. You stopped checking in. No one's heard from you in weeks," she muttered. "We…I need you, Lip. This has been the hardest couple months in my entire life and you're the only person that exists who can even begin to understand how hard it's been."
"I didn't know her, I met her for all of five minutes before she got sick. Why the fuck do you think this is hard on me?" he growled, his eyes ablaze as he glared at her.
"It doesn't change the fact that she was your daughter!" Harleigh cried, tears welling in her eyes. After weeks of hiding in her room, she finally accepted that Al was gone, but the reality of the situation was she'd never fully heal from that wound. No matter how much she'd gone through already, she'd never fully heal from losing Al.
"You kept her from me," Lip accused, his eyes locking on hers. He took a step towards her, his hands balled into fists. "You could have…you could…" Lip was too wasted to get the words to come out. He wanted to say 'you could have tried harder', but he knew that wasn't fair. Instead, he glared at her with angry, bitter eyes.
"Listen to yourself," Harleigh screamed, her own eyes flashing with anger. "You're turning into Frank! Drinking your future away, blaming everyone else for your problems! If you kept that bitch Mandy in check, you could have been a part of Alanna's life! She asked about her dad all the damn time! Do you have any idea how hard it was to keep you from her? I was afraid that crazy bitch would kill me!"
"You could have tried!" Lip screamed, his face now inches from hers. "You could have fucking tried!" He grabbed her by her shoulders, pushing her roughly against the wall. Her head collided with the plaster, anger bubbling in her chest. She made no move to defend herself. In a way, she deserved this. "I am nothing like Frank!" he shouted so loudly, Harleigh shrank back. Then he did the one thing he had never done before. His fist collided with her face, not once, not twice, but three times. When he released her, she slumped against the wall, her hand flying to the busted lip that was dripping blood. She looked at him with wounded, terrified eyes before pulling herself together enough to run from the room, not another word to be said to the angry, drunk man.
After she left, Lip punched the wall, the last of the anger finally bubbling over. He slumped to his knees, tears threatening to fall from his eyes. He hated himself for what he had just done. Never in his life had he laid a hand on a woman, never. Yet that night he did. He hurt the one person who always came through for him and he hated himself for that. He drank himself unconscious that night, putting the conversation as far behind him as he could.
"I'm sorry," he murmured as he stared blankly at his hands. He wanted to take her hands and never let go. He wanted to take back everything he did to her, but he knew he couldn't. Harleigh may have forgiven him a long time ago, but he couldn't forgive himself, not for that. Not for putting fear in her eyes.
Harleigh was about to say something else, but the backdoor opening caused them both to look up. Chance barreled down the stairs, landing painfully on Harleigh's lap before she had a chance to react.
"Sean dropped your van off at Patsy's, figured you'd need it later," Fiona said as she came outside, a beer in her hand. "Thanks for picking her up," she said to Lip who nodded vacantly. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Harleigh nodded hesitantly. "Tell Sean thanks,"
"Tell him yourself," Fiona smiled as she stepped aside so the older man could step out onto the small porch, his arms crossed in front of him.
"You missed the meeting," he said, though his tone was gentle.
"I got caught up," Harleigh sighed. "I needed to see Al."
"There's another meeting at 8, I'm taking you myself," he said softly.
"Alright," she nodded slowly. "Thanks."
Fiona and Sean exchanged a worried look before turning to leave the pair on the steps. Harleigh wanted to give Lip a hug, to tell him that she had forgiven him and that everything was going to be okay, but she couldn't. Just seeing him made her remember a simpler time, when life wasn't as messy and every day wasn't a struggle to get through. Instead, she grabbed his hands in hers and squeezed.
"Life's fucked up, but we get past it," she said cautiously, still hesitant to let herself get too close. "Remember the book Fiona used to read to us when we were little? The Dr. Seuss one?"
"Not really," Lip admitted. He had no idea where she was going with this.
"You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go..." she recited. She had read the book to Al every night since she was born, it was 'Oh! The Places You'll Go' and despite the book never really making sense to her, she loved the message it sent. "You're smart, Lip, you've got your whole life ahead of you. Yeah, we're South side, yeah, we've been through hell and back home again, we've been dealt shitty hand after shitty hand, but fuck, if getting out isn't our end goal, what the fuck are we doing?" She looked at him with thoughtful, loving eyes. Lip smiled in spite of himself, once more remembering how much that girl…that woman meant to him. She always had a way with making even the worst situations bearable.
"I missed you," he murmured as he let himself scoot closer to her, his hands tightening in hers. "I'm glad you're okay."
"I'm not okay," she said softly. "But I'm alive and that's worth celebrating."
They shared a comfortably silent moment before both getting to their feet and heading back inside. For the first time since Alanna's untimely death, Harleigh found herself feeling just slightly back to normal. On the flipside, Lip found himself reeling all over again. Harleigh was his best friend, but she came with so many memories attached to her, he wasn't sure he was ready to let her back in just yet. Not fully. There was a lot that she didn't know and he was sure she felt the same. In many ways, he wondered if they'd ever get back what they had before everything happened. Before her brother killed himself and she decided to disappear. Before they'd slept banged and created that beautiful little girl. Before their lives became complicated, messy, fucked up lives that they wouldn't wish on their worst enemies.
Harleigh wasn't sure either. She wanted him to be who she knew he could be, the smart, cocky, sex driven ass hole she fell in love with so many years ago. She wasn't sure where that part of him was hiding, she wasn't sure if she'd ever see that side of him again. She hoped she would. She missed the man she fell in love with, but she also knew that life changed people, some for the better, some for worse. Only time would tell if they'd get past those dark days, much less get past them together.
