Chapter Twenty-One: He's an Enigma

It's a long night. Jeremy puts Holly to bed on the couch downstairs, which I'm begrudgingly thankful for, even though I think it's a little condescending to think she needs to be put to bed, and I'm pretty sure that the blanket he gives her is actually a carpet.

Upstairs, with the power out, a sleepy, candle-lit sing-along starts in the living room, fueled by marijuana and wine.

I feel like in another life, I could have been a guy who would be right up there with them, having a blast.

But I'm furious at Jeremy, annoyed with Kurt, worried about Holly, and I really just want to go home.

Even though I'm not sure I really understand the meaning of the word 'home' anymore.

I can't go upstairs without feeling like I'm being choked to death by the growing clouds of candle, cigarette, and marijuana smoke anyway, so I stay in the basement with Holly and the two or three other people who are attempting to sleep.

I'm having trouble sleeping because I can't stop coughing and I can't stop thinking, so I just wait for the storm to pass and hope that the village clears the roads sooner rather than later.

But the time the storm blows over, I'm close to tears just because my whole upper body hurts so much from the strain to breathe, and it's not getting any easier.

I feel a little bit like I have sponges in my lungs where the air should be.

Jeremy comes downstairs about an hour after the sun starts to come up to a freezing cold, clear blue sky.

I pretend to be asleep so that I don't have to figure out what the appropriate level of polite anger is that I'm supposed to show toward him.

But I eavesdrop on him talking to a couple of girls on the futon in the corner.

"I just called the people at the town hall."

"And?"

"Apparently half the power lines in the county are down, and the state wasn't exactly prepared for it. They have to bring in new cable and poles from all over North America. It could be days before we get power back."

"Fuck. This is a nightmare. When are the roads going to be clear? I've got rehearsal on campus at noon, and there's no way my car's making it through all this snow."

Jeremy says, "They're working out from the shed where they store the snow plow. Once they get to the hospital and the main drag, they'll do this street. But there are trees and power poles down all over the place, so god only knows how long that will take."

"How'd you convince them to come to this street first?"

"Well, he'll never admit it, but I'm pretty sure Blaine should have been in the emergency room hours ago."

"Oohh. Right. Poor guy. He's being a trooper, but he's been coughing all night. You really think it's serious?"

I can feel their eyes on me and I hope that my fake-sleeping is convincing enough to mask my complete humiliation.

Jeremy says, "Yeah. Look at him; his lips are turning blue. He's barely breathing. My brother had asthma like that. It can really fuck you up. I tried to get people to stop smoking inside, but what can you do?"

The girl says, "I'm sure he'd have spoke up if he was really in trouble."

"I wouldn't be so sure. He's a… he's an enigma, Blaine is. Plus he's super pissed at me, so yeah. I figure he wants to get out of here either way."

"Fair enough," the girl says, "You are a complete asshole."

"Yep," Jeremy agrees.

Fuck him.

But seriously, I should be at the hospital, so whatever.

Holly wakes up when half the people in the house start cheering for the snow plow guys as they make it to this street to dig debris off the road and push the snow out of the way. Everyone helps everyone get their cars out of the snow banks and jump-start each other's frozen car batteries.

Holly drives me to the hospital almost wordlessly, her usually gorgeous hair tangled in a giant mass of red curls.

Before long, I've had an injection of something that makes the clamped up muscles in my lungs relax, and I'm breathing meds through a mask, crammed against the wall in the hallway of a hospital too tiny to cope with the massive amounts of storm-related injuries flooding in.

"You look like crap," Holly says, "I'd be smug about it if I didn't feel so bad for you."

I raise any eyebrow. Holly adds, "Because you always look good. And it's a little infuriating. But I'm officially not attracted to you at this moment."

If I didn't feel like my limbs were made of bricks, I'd smack her. Instead, I just stick out my tongue from inside my nebulizer mask.

"What a shitty night," Holly says, "I'm so sorry I forced you to go to that party."

I shrug.

"Jeremy was right, you know," she says, "I knew what was in those cookies. I could see it in his eyes when he lied to me. But I ate them anyway."

She looks so defeated and ashamed that I slide over and motion for her to join me on the bed.

"I don't know what it means," she says. "I just know that I wanted to get high, and so I did."

I pull the mask off my face and whisper, "It's okay, Holly. People mess up. Just… do you think it's going to happen again?"

Holly bites her lip. "I don't know," she says. "I don't know if this counts as a relapse. It was pot. Not speed. I've never even really liked pot that much."

I squeeze her hand.

She says, "I still want to be sober. I don't want to fuck everything up again. But damn, Blaine… it felt nice to get high. To be able to just enjoy myself and talk to those guys… everything is just so much easier when things are… fuzzy."

I know exactly what she means, but it scares to hear her talking like this.

Holly says, "Things are so hard when you're sober. I feel like last night I was functioning like a real person for the first time in months."

She kisses my cheek, cuddles closer to me, and adds, "But I guess I just have to remember how fucked up everything gets when you throw away reality just to make things easy."

She's a little bit poetic sometimes. Or maybe I'm just woozy.