Oberi’s encouragement pushed me forward. Ivy saw me coming, and tried to run off. I called out, “Ivy, stop! I… I need help.”
Ivy halted in his tracks, then reluctantly turned to face me. “What do you need help with, precious?”
“I need you to get better,” I pleaded. “So I can get better, too.”
Ivy’s eyes got even sadder than they already were, and he said, “I don’t know why you should care about me. I sure don’t.”
“Because… I can’t possibly lose another friend again.” I buried my head in my hands. “It’s too much. I feel like I’ll break. I couldn’t stand saying goodbye to Monica. Don’t ask me to say goodbye to you.”
Ivy knelt down so we were eye level, and he reached out to brush my hair away from my eyes. “I’m too far gone, precious.”
“Don’t say that. I’ll do anything to save you.”
“You and I both know I gotta save myself, and I just don’t wanna do that anymore. I’m ready to give up, so let the drugs take me.”
“I can’t let you go. If I had to keep fighting through all the pain of being in that hospital and coming back to all of you when it would’ve been so much easier to stay away, and stay dead, then I’m begging you to try, at least one more time.”
Ivy stood tall and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I look like shit.”
“Come on. Let’s go somewhere.”
I had him take me back to The Devil’s Playground. He sat on the floor in front of me, and I began working on combing out his hair. Oberi lay across Ivy’s lap, ears perked and attentive.
I always had a comb on me, just in case my hair got out of place. But Ivy’s locks were a ratted mess. There were huge tangles that had turned into knots, and spots where there were chunks missing. I didn’t think he’d had a shower in days, if not weeks.
I did my best not to cry, because that would only make him feel worse. I got to work on detangling what I could. I couldn’t stop Ivy from using, but I was a damn good cosmetologist, and I was at least determined to save his hair.
“I don’t even like drugs,” Ivy murmured, trying to give a helpless explanation. “I don’t know if I ever did. But they helped.”
I pulled out a snarl and set it aside. “How’d you even get started on them, anyway?”
His tone was despondent. "I didn't really wanna do ‘em… wasn't interested, to tell you the truth. But life at home kept on getting harder and harder, and the jobs I took weren't getting any easier… I hated going home with those clients, so I'd just numb myself out to it, because I couldn't stand what they did to me. Every new guy that picked me up made it worse. So I just kept on getting higher and taking more drugs, so by the time they got done with me I hardly knew where the hell I was. It was the only way, you know?"
I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know if it was. But I wasn’t Ivy, and I hadn’t been in his place or had to deal with what he’d gone through, so there really was no way for me to know.
“I’m named after my dad,” Ivy said quietly, and he wrapped his arms around his legs. “Just so you know.”
My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. No wonder he’d been so attached to his stage name as a dancer. “Your dad isn’t you.”
“Bullshit. I’m a scummy asshole, just like him. Nothing but bad choices all my life.” He scoffed. “I named myself after my favoritedrug,for crying out fucking loud.”
“You wanna know what I like about ivy? People try to trim it, or cut it down, but it grows and grows until it overcomes everything in its path, and when that happens, everyone is forced to accept that it’s beautiful.” I brushed his hair back. “The drug isn’t you. You’ve taken Ivy and made it your own. You got to choose your own name and share it with the world. That’s pretty special.”
“Easy for you to say, when you have a name as pretty as yours.”
“Yeah, but I’m pretty picky about how people use it.”
“How so?”
“It’s okay when strangers call me Ava, but I don’t like people calling me Ava-Marie. Not unless they’re close to me. I know it’s my name, but it’s special. I want to save it for people who I really love.”
A warm fondness took over me as I recalled my first kiss with Charlie. It’d been at the Elven gate outside of the Institute during the Darke Games. “I guess that’s why I kinda lost it when Charlie called me Ava-Marie for the first time. Not Ava, or pidge, but who I really was. It was like he was seeing me for the first time.”
“I’ve never felt seen like that. Not even by Chance,” Ivy mumbled. “I suppose I can’t, if I don’t even know who I’m supposed to be.”
“What do you want to be called, Ivy?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I’m still experimenting with pronouns, and it’s all so confusing… I feel happy when Charlie and Chance call methey, but I don’t mind when you sayhe, either. I feel like both, and that’s rightandwrong at the same time.”
