One Last Thing Before I Go

the apartment.

CHAPTER 23
    “W ere you really going to have sex with that girl?”
    “It was a strong possibility. She gave me this pill.”
    “So you were being date raped? Is that your story?”
    “I don’t need a story. We were two adults.”
    “It doesn’t go by cumulative age, you know.”
    “She was legal.”
    “How do you know? Do you ask for ID before you have sex?”
    “No, but that’s probably not a bad idea.”
    “You’re not charming, Silver. You’re a creep. How would you feel if I fucked Jack?”
    “Shit, Casey.”
    “No wonder you never remarried. You’re too busy chasing skanks who only do you to get back at their fathers.”
    “Is that what you were doing? Getting back at me?”
    “No. I actually had sex with an age-appropriate partner.”
    “So you figured a condom was unnecessary.”
    “You’re an asshole.”
    “Tell me something I don’t know.”
    “OK. I’m moving in.”
    “Where?”
    “Here. This shithole. You got yourself a roommate.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I’m pregnant and you’re suicidal. We’ll have a blast.”
    “I’m not suicidal.”
    “Yeah, and I’m not pregnant.”
    “Why are you here, Casey?”
    “Isn’t this where you come when your life goes to shit?”
    “Your life isn’t going to shit. I’ll take you back to Early Intervention tomorrow. We’ll get it taken care of.”
    “Yeah, about that. I’ve changed my mind.”
    “What? When?”
    “Right around the time you decided not to have that operation. You inspired me.”
    “Casey . . .”
    “I’m going to ride it out, just like my old man.”
    “You’re an idiot.”
    “It runs in the family.”
    * * *
    He met a girl in a bar, or a club, or a movie theater, or a fraternity house. The point is, there was loud music playing in the background. As soon as he saw her face, he knew what it would look like when she ended it. But he went in anyway, because he was eighteen and horny and years away from knowing how much there was to truly fear. Maggie Seals. She was taller than him, a long, limber playground of a girl, and in the black light of her dorm room, the silken mileage of her skin went on forever. He followed her around like a puppy for his entire freshman year, and went broke calling her long-distance over summer break, but she still showed up the next fall with a prepared speech and a new boyfriend. For a long time afterward, every girl he slept with felt just a little too small.

CHAPTER24
    H e wakes up and thinks,
I’m alive
. This simple fact fills him with a sense of accomplishment. He didn’t die in his sleep.
    Last night he was filled with the electric certainty that he would. That at some point, mid-snore, that last bit of threadbare tissue holding his aorta together would finally snap, and he’d bleed out in his sleep and wake up dead. The thought made sleep impossible. That, and the knowledge that Casey was in bed a few feet away, in the second bedroom that, in spite of everything, he still thought of as hers. He was thrilled to have her there, but also terrified that she would be the one to find his cold lifeless body. He lay awake, picturing the scene: She comes in, calls his name a few times (he still cannot picture her calling him Dad), and then tentatively approaches the bed. Silver? she says. Then she prods him, his shoulder most likely, and in doing so feels how stiff and cold he is. Her eyes grow wide as she realizes what’s happened. But then what? That’s where he ran into trouble. It would have been nice to imagine that she is overcome with grief, but the truth is, Silver couldn’t see it. And also, hadn’t he put her through enough already? So maybe just a wry smile, as if to say “Good one, Silver,” and then a quick phone call to Denise. But maybe not even that. Maybe an indifferent shrug—
Oh well
—and then back to normal for all concerned. She grabs her phone and posts a Twitter update:
Found my dad dead in his bed. WTF? #howwasyourday?
    But at some point, his racing mind must have run out of steam and allowed him to sleep, because here he is, waking up. And now he can hear voices coming from the living room, and he instantly recognizes his father’s deep baritone laugh. It can’t be Sunday already. He sits up in bed and falls back instantly as the room starts to spin. For a little while, he worries that he’s having another ministroke, but then remembers the little red pill on that girl’s tongue and realizes that he’s