Chapter 24: April 22

-- SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2006, SENIOR YEAR --

2:47 AM

It was well into the middle of the night, and I was in bed, but I was still awake. Such a state of consciousness was not altogether unusual for me, though there were typically two or three naked females in my bed with me and we customarily would be fucking.

Not this night. Tonight there were no females in my bed, and I had been all alone with my thoughts. At least, I was all alone until the door swung open and Sasha poked her head inside, finding me sitting upright against the headboard.

"You did wait up for me!" she exclaimed happily, and only then did I remember that I'd told her I would wait up so we could have our missed "Sasha Thursday" tonight in celebration of the end of her stripping career.

Grimacing, I shot her an apologetic look and shook my head. "Uh, yeah. I'm up, but not for the reason you were hoping for."

Frowning, Sasha stepped into the room. She'd already changed into her pajamas, a familiar long-sleeved top and bottoms combo patterned in yellow with cute teddy bears. As she approached, I raised the bed covers beside me and she slipped into my waiting arms.

I hugged her firmly, but chastely, and let my head loll back and impact the wood headboard with a muffled [thunk]. Rubbing Sasha's arm, I exhaled slowly and sagged deeper against the pillows stacked behind my lower back.

"What's going on?" she asked quietly.

"It's Elyse."

"What about her? I know she was a little upset last night that you wouldn't sleep with her, but we talked before I left and she said she understood. Did something happen between you two while I was at work?"

I shook my head. "No, nothing like that. She's just gone."

"Gone?"

"As in... gone."

"What do you mean 'gone'?"

I glanced down to find Sasha glaring at me, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "I mean GONE-gone. She left. Stole two thousand dollars out of my drawer and left. Out the door. Goodbye. And I have NO idea where she is."

Sasha bolted upright. "Wait, WHAT?" She threw off the covers, slipped off the bed, and headed for the door.

"Hey, where are you going?" I called after her, sliding across the bed myself.

"To check her room," Sasha called over her shoulder, already two steps down the stairs.

"She's NOT in her bedroom. You think I'd be like this if she was?"

Sasha didn't answer, undeterred. But two minutes later she stomped back upstairs, folded her arms across her chest, and glared at me. "What happened?" she barked.

"It's complicated."

Sasha's eyebrow went up, and her feet started tapping the floor. "I'm waiting."

I sighed and perched my heels on the bed frame before planting my elbows on my thighs and dropping my chin into my palms. "Well first, Brooke called me to say that she and the girls were going back to Carter's tonight."

"Going back? With everything they know about what Elyse went through?"

"Apparently they met up with Carter and he explained his side of the story. In a nutshell, Elyse is a crazy drug addict who will lie through her teeth and say anything to manipulate people into giving her what she wants."

"And I suppose he insisted he's just an innocent victim in all this, a truly stand-up guy, nevermind that he plies women with narcotics so they can get loosened up enough for him to jerk off watching them get fucked."

I grimaced. "In so many words, sure."

"And they BOUGHT that?"

I sighed. "To some degree or another, yes. Lexi's in love, and DJ and Brooke and the rest wanted to keep an eye on her. Me too."

"You left Elyse alone?"

"Well she was actually gone before I went to Carter's party last night. I went there to go LOOK for her."

Sasha's eyebrows popped. "She was gone BEFORE? When?"

"I'm not explaining this very well," I said with a wince. "Let me start over chronologically: I went over to Brooke's place to try and talk some sense into the froshling girls. Andie and Jamie were here keeping an eye on Elyse. While I was out, Elyse stole my emergency cash and walked out the door. Jamie tried to stop her and got a black eye for her troubles. THEN, figuring that Elyse might have gone back to her original supplier, I sent Andie and Jamie home to the Tri-Delt House and I drove to Carter's to look for Elyse."

I paused to collect my thoughts, but Sasha impatiently stamped her foot, demanding, "And... ?"

I sighed. "Couldn't find her. The minute Carter saw me, he came over to say 'hi'. I asked where Elyse was, and he gave me a strange look and was all, 'I thought she was with you'. I explained that she stole my money and bolted, and he clapped his arm around my back and tried to console me for being only the latest guy of a few dozen to get screwed over by her. Said she'd pulled this stunt with another of his friends the day after Jillian died, claiming that she'd 'seen her own future as Jillian's body went cold on the floor'. Carter said she cleaned the guy out and showed up on his doorstep with enough money to buy more drugs."

Sasha frowned and thought about that. "Well then she's probably at Carter's again, looking to buy drugs with the money she stole from YOU."

"But he insisted that she hasn't shown up." I shrugged helplessly. "When his buddy told him about her stealing about a month ago, Carter said he checked Elyse into rehab. But then she ran away and he hadn't heard from her until Lexi told him she was with us."

"And you just took his word for it..."

"Of course not. I insisted on looking around for her myself, thinking that he might have stashed her away in some room. He let me look around, even hang out in his Voyeur Room while he had some wicked three-way on the other side of the glass. But I never found her. In the end I went back upstairs to keep an eye on Brooke and DJ. I could tell they were a bit more subdued than normal, but they stuck around with their friends until 1am. So I had to stick around as well, and only when they finally went home safe and sound did I leave, too. That's it."

Frowning and still with her arms folded across her chest, Sasha chewed on all that for a minute before glaring at me once more and barking, "That's it? Elyse didn't say anything to you before she left? Gave you no indications she was about to bolt?"

I shook my head. "No, nothing. I had no clue."

Grimacing, Sasha stomped her foot and did a quarter-turn to glare at the wall. "Why did you LEAVE her?"

"I HAD to. Once I found out Brooke and DJ and their friends were going back there, I HAD to try and convince them not to."

"You should have brought Elyse WITH you to help prove your point! Kept her within your sight!"

I groaned. "Okay maybe I should have. But this isn't the first time we've left her with Andie and Jamie. They know her. There's never been an issue before."

"There only had to be an issue ONCE. She freaked out and they couldn't do a thing to stop her. Fuck, this is my fault. I shouldn't have gone back to the club. If I'd BEEN here tonight then--"

"Then maybe she would have given YOU a black eye instead," I interrupted.

Sasha shook her head. "She wouldn't have. Not me. She was my friend."

"Was she? Or was she really a user who manipulated our compassion into giving her a soft landing until she could scrape up the money to buy herself another fix?"

Sasha leveled me with a look. "Do NOT tell me you believe a thing Carter said to convince your little sister. Now I've never met the guy, but from what you've told me – and from what Elyse told me – well let's just say that in my line of work I've seen enough guys like him."

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. "I don't know WHAT to think. Maybe Elyse is exactly the person we came to know these past few days, trying desperately to get clean but fighting so many mental demons along the way. Maybe she's a manipulative user like Carter says. Maybe she's somewhere in-between. I don't KNOW. That's what's got my head spinning tonight and that's why I'm still up right now, unable to think straight and unable to sleep."

Sasha held her forehead with one hand and put her other hand on her hip. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled heavily. Shaking her head slowly, she frowned and muttered, "I have no IDEA where she'd be now. Shacked up with some lowlife dealer, getting plowed while she drifts away to dreamland? Huddled in an alley leaning against a dumpster to get out of the wind? I don't know."

I opened my arms and reached out to her. "I know..."

She gave me a pained look as she slowly approached the bed. "Is it crazy for me to want to hop in your car and start driving up and down the streets screaming her name?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Crazy? Yes ... But I get it."

Slipping onto the mattress beside me, she shook her head. "The rational part of my brain knows I'm being ridiculous. Fuck, I only met her a week ago, but it's been kind of an intense week, you know? We got so close, so fast. I feel responsible for her, and I feel like I've failed her."

"I know the feeling," I replied, wrapping my arms around her and tugging her against my side while I sat back against the headboard. "But there's really nothing we can do. Elyse made her choice. She knows where we live, and she knows how to contact us. But she took that money, punched Jamie in the face, and walked out the door."

"So what? We just let her walk away?"

I sighed. "For tonight, at least, there's nothing either of us can do."

10:12 AM

"Hey there, stranger," Lynne greeted as she opened the door. "It's good to see you."

I blinked in surprise to see Lynne, and with a frown, I glanced around to make sure I hadn't mistakenly walked up to the wrong door. But although the physical layout was similar, there was no mistaking that I was standing on the second floor landing and was in front of the north-side apartment, not Lynne's ground floor/south-side place. "What are you doing here?"

"I invited her up after you called me to say you were coming over," Amber explained from just inside the doorway. The gorgeous blonde bombshell was still dressed in a sheer nightshirt and a bathrobe, the robe open from throat to tails and the nightshirt short enough to show off her long, long legs and make me wonder whether or not she was wearing underwear. Clearly, from the way her nipples poked through the satin shirt, she wasn't wearing a bra.

I gawked for a moment. It had been a while since I'd last gotten laid, by my standards at least. But remembering why I'd come here, I stood erect and got my brain screwed on straight. "Right. Hi, Lynne. I'm glad to see you."

The petite brunette folded her arms across her chest and gave me a withering glare. "Elyse Laughton shows up on your doorstep drugged out and disheveled, spends almost a week in your house, and you don't even CALL me? Did you forget I was her friend, too?"

I blinked rapidly and my jaw went slack as my memory darted back to the high school cheerleading squad. "Uh ... well ... yeah, I did forget. Sorry," I apologized before a new thought came to me. "Wait, shouldn't Bert have told you about her? On the phone or something? You guys talk all the time."

"That guy ... If he was here instead of on that family trip I'd strangle him with my bare hands." Lynne rolled her eyes and waved me off. "He told me you'd taken in a stray, so to speak. But he only told me she was a girl you'd known from Carter's party freshmen year, and he's been decidedly closed-mouthed about the whole thing. My guess is he's embarrassed and doesn't want to tell me too many details about what stupid shit he did or what crazy slut he hooked up with or something. I never knew it was ELYSE until Amber told me her name like twenty minutes ago."

I shrugged. "Well you know now. And to be honest, I don't think you being around would have made any difference. She's gone now."

Lynne sighed, and rather belatedly she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around my torso. I held her to me and gently patted her back. And she murmured quietly, "Well whatever the reason, it's good to see you."

"You too."

Lynne stepped back and smiled at my traveling companion. "Hi, Sasha."

"Hi, Lynne," Sasha replied from beside me where she'd been quietly watching the entire exchange.

"So ... how was your medical conference?" I asked, shrugging at Amber.

"It was fine, but not as important as this. Besides, I don't want to have this conversation out my front door," Amber said with a nod across the way while crossing her arms over her chest protectively. "The new guy in the apartment over there has been ogling me for the past month, and I wouldn't put it past him to be staring over here with binoculars right now."

Lynne and Amber listened patiently while Sasha and I recapped the events of the past week for them, only interrupting occasionally to ask a clarification question here and there. Then, I told Amber about meeting with the froshlings last night and Lexi claiming that Elyse was a liar who'd fudged the entire story. My inclination was to discount Lexi's claims as the product of Carter's manipulations, but at the same time I couldn't be entirely sure of Elyse's reliability, either.

According to Amber, the truth was somewhere in-between. She'd known Elyse from the first time she arrived on the scene with her ex-boyfriend Dexter a little more than two years ago.

"At the time, Elyse was one of Carter's 'girlfriends', although he didn't mean the term like you or I would mean it. He was a player, through and through, and he was charming enough to pull it off. Every couple of months we'd see some new green-eyed brunette on his arm. Sometimes the new girl stuck around; other times she never came back. But Elyse stayed around as part of Carter's harem for a long time – a couple of years or something – until last December or so when Cameron told me Elyse wasn't a 'girlfriend' anymore."

"Elyse claimed they had a falling out after she tried to get clean," I said, leaning forward in my seat with my elbows on my knees.

Amber shrugged. "I don't know the details, just what Cameron told me off-hand. At the time, I wasn't really interested in pressing her for more information."

"So that means you weren't around when all the other crap Elyse claims happened went down."

Amber shook her head. "I wasn't, but I'd been there to see others fall off the wagon. It wasn't pretty. Meth addiction is deadly, and I mean that literally. There was this one girl, Raleigh ... I only ever saw pictures, but let's just say she didn't die a quiet death."

Sasha shuddered beside me.

Amber winced. "Sorry. I'm sure Elyse is doing better than that."

"But you don't know, do you?" Sasha replied quietly.

Amber shrugged helplessly. "Sometimes girls find a way to get clean. Sometimes they get help. I'm proof of that."

"But sometimes a girl turns to prostitution?"

Amber winced. "It's not unheard of. Although to be fair, once a girl goes down that path ... well ... the rest of the party circle doesn't really want to have that girl around much, you know? Ruins the vibe. Party people don't want to associate with that sort of thing..."

"But would Carter ... well ... pimp out his girls that way?"

Amber winced again. "It's complicated. I can't imagine him ever sending girls out onto the streets the way you might think of a pimp. More like ... he'd run an escort service for his rich friends. Arrange a friendly companion. Play matchmaker a bit. But there was never a 900-number or an ad in the yellow pages. He just sort of did that stuff for people he was connected to, you know?"

"And you were part of all that?" Lynne asked with a rather obvious tightness in her eyes.

"Me? Goodness, no," Amber exclaimed immediately. "I was a party girl, not one of Carter's thralls. For one thing, I always had enough money to cover my expenses. For another, my ego would never let me stoop to that sort of thing. I did some crazy things while wired, and a few things I'm not proud of as well, but nothing like that."

"But you can see Elyse doing that."

"She did, I know that for a fact. It's part of being one of Carter's favorites, like being the entertainment in his Showroom. He arranges all that."

"And the thing with Jasper?" I asked. "Could Carter have 'sold' her to him?"

Amber grimaced and shook her head. "I kinda doubt it. I only ever saw the guy a few times, but your friend was right about that one: Carter DETESTS Jasper. Those two do NOT get along, and the few times he showed up, Carter went out of his way to make sure his goons kicked the guy out pronto."

I exhaled wearily, taking it all in. "So Elyse lied to me."

Sasha put her hand on my leg. "She didn't lie about everything."

"I don't know, maybe she did. Maybe everything she ever told us was a bald-faced lie designed to manipulate us."

"To what end? For two grand in cash and a roof over her head for a few nights? I don't think so." Sasha shook her head. "If she was that desperate of an addict, she'd have been getting high from the beginning. Instead, she was drug-free for almost an entire week right up until something snapped inside her Friday night and she ran away. I choose to believe that she didn't deliberately mislead us. I choose to believe that she's scared, and she's alone, and for one reason or another, she felt that she HAD to do what she did that night. For all we know, she's back at our house right now, crying on the doorstep and hoping you'll let her in again so she can apologize for stealing the money and running off to get her fix last night."

I blinked. "You really think so?"

Sasha shrugged helplessly. "I want to think so, don't you?"

I took a deep breath. "Then maybe we'd better get back to the house."

12:24 PM

Elyse wasn't crying on our doorstep, and there was no sign that she'd come by the house while we were gone.

Neither of us knew what to do. I called Adrienne, just to let her know what was going on since she was the one who'd sent Elyse to my doorstep in the first place. She seemed suitably concerned but of course couldn't do anything from where she was. And besides, she was pretty busy and couldn't stay on the phone long.

After a bit, I came up with the idea of calling the police, just to see if Elyse had been picked up or anything. The cops couldn't open a missing persons report or anything just yet, especially since I wasn't related to Elyse in any way. But I managed to convince the sergeant to put my phone number into the system so that if she (or if "Serena Grey") did turn up, somebody would give me a call.

Sasha wanted to go looking for her, and asked me to stay in the house just in case Elyse came back. I told her she was crazy, and asked where she planned to start looking. Her suggestion of heading into Oakland and asking random black people where she could buy some crystal meth was met with a wide-eyed look and even more accusations that she was being crazy.

"Beautiful, busty 21-year-old girl like you walking into the seedy parts of town looking for that kind of trouble? You're likely to get kidnapped and sold into sex trafficking!"

In the end, Sasha resigned herself to the fact that she had no idea what to do. She plopped down on the couch, turned on the television, and tried in vain to stare at it until she could stop thinking about Elyse. Then when that didn't work, she put her face in her hands and shook her head for a few seconds before looking up at me and saying, "Come here and open your fly."

I blinked. "Uh ... what?"

"I need a distraction."

"And your idea is to give me a blowjob?!?"

"Well ... I don't know what else to DO!" Sasha flailed her arms out and shook them before abruptly curling into a ball, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Her heels on the edge of her seat, she rocked slightly and put her face down into her knees. "I can't take it, this feeling of ... helplessness. Not now. Not again."

I'd already moved to sit beside her, and I was in the middle of stroking her back when the word "again" finally hit me. "This isn't the first time someone's walked out on you," I stated in realization.

Sasha shuddered and pressed her face even deeper into her knees.

"Sasha, I'm so sorry I didn't realize it sooner."

"Not your fault," she mumbled.

Instead of stroking her back, I wrapped my arms around her and molded myself against her body. Her rocking stilled, but she still shuddered every now and again. Gently, I told her, "This isn't the same as what happened with your mom."

"What, doing drugs and disappearing?" she scoffed. "It's exactly the same."

I frowned and hugged her tighter. "But Elyse isn't your Mom. She's just a girl, a scared girl, and if nothing else I think we understand a little better why she would have left. Elyse is an addict, and she told us from the beginning there was a high probability that she'd bolt in search of another fix. I know it hurts. I know you invested yourself into trying to help her, but this isn't the same as a parent abandoning you."

"I know, I know. The rational part of me knows. But it still sucks to have someone walk away from you like that." Sasha took a deep breath, and some of her shuddering went away. "I didn't do a thing for my mom. I didn't help her, even as SHE spiraled into addiction. Maybe I wasn't the grown-up I am today, but I wasn't a child, either. I was old enough to do something, but I didn't. I lost her, and now I've lost Elyse, too."

"You can't compare what happened with your Mom when you were a teenager to what's happening with Elyse now. They're different situations, different people. You're a different person. And you can't let your guilt over what happened then affect what's going on right now."

"But it does. Different situation, different person, but the same feeling of helplessness. Same feeling that it's somehow my fault, that if only I'd done something different she wouldn't have abandoned me."

"The only one at fault here is Elyse. She's the one who walked out the door."

Sasha snorted and shook her head. "Can't believe she'd do this to me, especially after what happened in her own past. Did you know her Mom walked out on her, too? It was one of those things we bonded about from the beginning. I sometimes wondered if our two moms were out there somewhere, together, bonding over the daughters they left behind."

"You can't dwell on that. You've already let your pain from losing your mom impact the way you treated Elyse, but you can't let it continue to affect the way you handle the pain right now. It's too much for anyone to handle, it's misplaced, and you're smart enough to know that."

Sasha exhaled slowly, and she began to uncurl, so I backed away and gave her a little space. She sat up a little straighter, although she still had her arms wrapped around her knees. "Fine. So maybe my guilt over not doing more to stop my mom's addiction played a role in how fervently I wanted to help Elyse. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't have tried, and it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like hell to have a second person walk out of my life like this."

"I know it doesn't."

Giving me a red-eyed, haunted look, Sasha swallowed thickly before mumbling, "I can't sit around and do nothing. If I do I'll go insane. So come here and unzip your fly."

I rolled my eyes. "Like I could even get it up right now."

"You're Big Ben. You're always ready."

I frowned and shot her a look. She simply sighed and rubbed her face with her right hand. But I reached for that hand, gently took it away from her face, and leaned in to tenderly kiss her on the forehead. "I get that you don't like feeling helpless. I don't either. It's just ... there's nothing else we can do, not for her."

Sasha shook her head sadly and put her face back down on her knees.

Not for her...

Not for her...

But maybe for someone else?

Here's a bright idea: Why don't you go get Kim?

Kim?

Yeah. Skinny little Japanese chick? Pregnant with your baby? Remember her?

Of course.

You've put her off long enough, don't you think?

Yeah ... Probably too long, in fact.

Damn fucking straight.

I took a deep breath and stood up from my spot on the couch. "Look, if you want a distraction, I've got something I need to do. Elyse will ... well ... I guess she's on her own for now. But for me, I'm going to get out of here. Still, especially after that talk we just had, I'm not just going to walk out on you. Why don't you come with me?"

Sasha looked up at me. "And go where?"

"To Kim. I feel as helpless as you do right now, and I can't do a damn thing for Elyse. But I've got to do something productive, and to be honest ... Even though I've been scared to go do something about Kim, I've put her off for Elyse's sake more than I should have already."

Sasha glared at me. "What? You can't give up on Elyse! You're Big Ben. Mr. White Knight himself, come to save the beautiful maidens from the terrible world we live in."

I shook my head. "I'm not giving up on Elyse. If she comes back, or if we find some trace of her whereabouts, I'll be right with you and do what I can to help her. But she's not here right now, and she's not here by her own choice. Nobody showed up in this house and kidnapped her against her will. She walked away, and after telling us she wouldn't hurt a fly, she punched Jamie to get out the door."

"That doesn't mean she isn't in trouble at this very moment and in need of our help!"

"There are a LOT of people out in the world that are in deep shit and in need of somebody's help, but we can't help all of them."

"I'm not asking you to help all of them, just Elyse. Come ON."

I sighed. "Okay, maybe I wasn't with her day and night for the past week the way you were, so maybe I'm not as ... attached to her as you are. She's not my guilt-replacement for a lost mom, so it's not as personal to me. But you have to remember that a week ago you didn't even know Elyse existed. She showed up needing our help, and we really did our best for her while she was here, didn't we?"

"You promised," Sasha glared at me with evil in her eyes. "You promised you'd never let her go back on the street."

I frowned. "I promised I'd never PUT her back out on the street, and I'll stick to that promise. If she wants to stay here, for this to be her sanctuary, I'll let her in immediately. But how far do we really have to go to rescue her? Sasha, we're WEEKS away from graduation. I've got a LOT of other shit on my plate. Really, I tried to do the right thing for her in the first place and look at where it's gotten us! Right now, there's nothing I can do about Elyse. But there IS something I can do about Kim. SHE means a ton to me as well, and I've stuck my head in the sand for waaayyy too long as it is. Can you please understand that?"

Sasha huffed and folded her arms across her chest, like she didn't WANT to understand, but a moment later she screwed up her face and looked a little peeved to realize I was right. "Fine..." she pouted.

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I'm going to go and try to fix things with Kim, but I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable with you being alone. Do you want to come with me?"

She waved me off dismissively. "And if Elyse comes back here while we're gone? No, I'm staying. I'll change into some comfortable clothes, make a bunch of food, and stare at the TV for a while."

"All day? Maybe you should get your homework done."

"Are you kidding me? I can't think about my studies at a time like this. Could you? No, I'll wait as long as I need for Elyse to come home."

I made a face, not exactly liking the idea of my house being Elyse's "home", but it would be arguing semantics at a time like this. "How about we call someone to keep you company?"

"Like who?"

"Andie ... Jamie ... Peyton," I suggested. "You girls are friends now, aren't you? And Peyton promised she'd be available to help out with this situation."

"Maybe. But I'm not sure how Andie and Jamie feel about this place after what Elyse did to them last night."

"Still..."

"I'll be fine," Sasha insisted.

With a sigh, I replied, "Okay, okay. Call me if you hear anything. I'll come right back."

Sasha suddenly picked her head up. "But what if something comes up? I don't have any transportation."

I thought about that for a half-second and dug into my pocket. "You don't have a car, but you DID get your driver's license, right?"

Sasha popped her eyebrows. "Uh, yeah."

I tossed her my car keys. "Mustang's out front if you need it."