“So when should I come over tomorrow?” she asks, the tires of the car grinding against the gravel as she stops the car a little ways from the building.
“Whenever you want,” I tell her, because it doesn’t really matter. I know I’m going to be up all night and all day after I get enough lines in my system. Then I start to get out of the car, ready to get inside my apartment. Ready to forget all of this. Ready to be free again from my emotions, my conflict, my memories. I’m ready to return to my prison.
“Wait, Quinton,” she calls out, and I pause, turning to look at her.
Her lips part, like she’s about to say something, but then she shuts her mouth and scoots over toward me. I freeze up, wondering what she’s doing. Then she opens the glove box and takes out a pen and tears a corner off an envelope. She jots down some digits and then hands the paper to me. “This is my number, just in case you need to call me for something.”
I stare down at the paper in my hand, baffled that she gave it to me. “I don’t have a phone.”
“I know,” she says, tossing the pen down on the dashboard. “But Delilah does and I want to make sure you have that just in case.”
I try not to get worked up over the fact that she gave her number to me, like she actually doesn’t mind if I call. Like she wants to talk to me. No one has given me their phone number in a very long time and I’m not sure what to do with it. Part of me wants to throw it away and get rid of the temptation to call her, but instead I find myself putting it in my pocket. Then I start to get out of the car, and she leans over and gently places a kiss on my mouth. I’m not sure why she does it, if it’s simply a friendly kiss or if she’s experiencing the same kind of pull I am. But the kiss feels twisted and wrong in a way, because I’m high and I wonder if she can taste it on me—the decay inside me. But in another way the kiss feels so damn right, like if I was living a normal life, one where I hadn’t gotten in a car accident, and I’d simply broken up with Lexi and met Nova, we would have kissed like that all the time.
I’m so sorry, Lexi. For forgetting you. For living. Moving forward in life, while you remain motionless.
Thoughts of Lexi stab at my mind, yet I still kiss Nova back, slipping my tongue into her mouth, getting a brief taste of her before I pull back. “I’ll see you later,” I whisper against her lips and then lean back and take the food when she hands it to me, feeling like I’m leaving a piece of myself behind. But I shove the sensation aside and go back to my apartment, where I belong.
When I open the door, I’m flooded by a musty cloud of smoke and my senses of taste, sight, smell, touch, go haywire. God, I need to feed my addiction. Now. In fact, waiting to get back to my room seems nearly impossible.
Delilah and Dylan are sitting on the sofa, heating up some crystal on a piece of aluminum foil. Delilah is fixated on it, cuddled up to Dylan’s side, watching him drag the lighter back and forth and create smoke. They both have bags under their eyes and I wonder how long it’s been since they’ve slept…I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve slept.
“Where the hell have you been?” Dylan asks, glancing up from the piece of aluminum foil. He looks down at the McDonald’s bag in my hand, confused because we rarely eat. “And where did you get that?” He’s got a fresh bruise under his eye and there’s dried blood on his lip.
“From McDonald’s,” I say, heading for my room, not wanting to talk about Nova to either of them because it feels wrong to talk about her in such a crappy-ass environment. “What happened to your face?”
“You and Tristan happened to my face,” he says, irritated. Then he hands the aluminum foil and lighter to Delilah as he gets to his feet, scooping up something I didn’t notice before on the coffee table. A small gun. What the fuck? “Do you want to tell me what happened with Trace…why you look like you got the shit beat out of you?”
I stop near the curtain that shields the kitchen from the living room and flex my bruised fingers as I eyeball the gun, trying not to look alarmed, but it’s a f**king gun for God’s sake. “He sort of kicked my ass.” I pause, deciding whether I should ask. “Where did you get that?”
Dylan glances unconcernedly at the gun in his hand. “I got it the other day to protect myself.”
“Protect yourself from what?” I ask as Delilah’s attention lazily drifts up from her crystal. Her eyes widen as she spots the gun in Dylan’s hand and when she looks at me she appears horrified, very unlike herself, since usually she pretends she doesn’t give a shit about anything.
“Baby, put the gun down,” she says, her voice quiet—scared. She’s scared and I am, too, honestly.
“Fuck you,” Dylan snaps at her, and then he looks at me. His expression is stone-cold as he ambles toward me, the veins in his neck bulging, anger simmering in his eyes about ready to burst. “I had to get this after you two f**ked up and now we’re all on very thin ice.” He points his finger at the bruise below his eye. “You see this f**king thing right here? I got this because I was jumped by Trace and his guys.” He jabs a finger roughly against my chest. “Because you two worked for me and messed him over…like it’s my fault you’re dumbasses.” He leans forward, his breath hot on my face. “Do you know how stupid you are to mess around with Trace?” He steps back and rakes his hand over his bald head, his other hand at his side, grasping the gun. “Jesus, I knew this was coming and I’m sure it isn’t over with yet. The guy’s a relentless douche.”
“You don’t know anything for sure…maybe Trace is satisfied now that he beat the shit out of me and you,” I say, knowing it’s a stupid thought process and that there’s no way that could be possible, but Dylan is all worked up with a gun in his hand. I glance over at Delilah as she gets up from the couch, watching us with caution. At first I think she’s going to come over and try to talk him down, but then she eyes the door like she’s going to run.
“Yeah, because that’s the way the world works,” Dylan snaps, swinging the gun around while he turns in a circle. Delilah freezes in place while I realize just how severe this situation is: that he’s high and he’s got a gun and I’m standing right here in front of him. The question is: do I care? I’m not sure.
He stops spinning and lowers the gun. “You two better stop f**king up,” he warns in a low tone. “I have a lot riding on connections and I don’t want you messing up any more of them.”
My heart is thudding in my chest as I think about how ruining his connection with Trace is only part of the problem. Tristan has also been stealing drugs and money from Dylan, like he did the other day. But as far as Dylan knows I was the last person with the money. Does he know it’s gone? Does he think I took it? Will he shoot me if I tell him it was Tristan? Do I care? Jesus, my thoughts are racing a million miles a minute, flowing in a crooked stream through my brain. I’m losing control and I need to get out of here.
Dylan tosses his gun onto the coffee table, making both me and Delilah jump. I seriously expected it to go off, but it doesn’t and the air starts to cool, although Dylan still looks like he’s going to hit me, his jaw set tight, his fist clenched, his arm kinked and ready to strike.
But then he settles down and backs away, putting up his hands. “Take care of this mess—fix things with Trace. Get him drugs or pay him back—do whatever you have to to make this good again. And pay me back that f**king money you two were supposed to use for the exchange at Johnny’s before your dumb ass got beat,” he says in a voice that carries a warning. “Or else you’re out of the house. You and Tristan both. I’m tired of your shit.”
I want to tell him that this apartment doesn’t belong to him, since we’re renting it together, but the gun is lying on the table, so instead I nod, even though I have no idea how I’m going to do either of those things. Then I go back into my room without saying another word. Tristan is waiting there with a mirror out in front of him along with a spoon and a syringe and a small plastic bag filled with crystallized powder. He’s just staring at it with his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs.
When the door creaks, he glances up, looking relieved, and as soon as I see what he has in front of him, our emotions match. “Thank God,” he says. “I thought I was going to lose my mind if I had to wait a second longer.”
“We have a huge problem,” I announce as I kick the door shut behind me. “Did you know Dylan has a gun?”
Tristan nods his head distractedly as he stares at the spoon. “Yeah, he made a point to show it to me yesterday when he threatened me and told me that I needed to patch things up with Trace and to pay him back the money we took.”
Anger flickers when he says “we,” but I quickly simmer down, remembering I owe Tristan more than I’ll ever be able to pay him back for killing his sister. “You should have said something. He completely blindsided me with it just now.”
He shrugs, glancing up at me. “Sorry, I forgot.”
I want to get mad at him, but at the same time I sort of understand how he could forget—how easily our spun minds can make things disappear. “So what are we going to do about it? I mean, he’s super pissed and I guess Trace gave him a shiner—kicked his ass like he did mine.”
“We’ll look for the gun when he’s asleep or something and get rid of it,” Tristan suggests, stretching his arms above his head as he blinks tiredly, probably ready for his next boost of adrenaline.
“Okay, but even if we do that, we still have to worry about Trace coming to kick your ass.”
“If he does then he does,” Tristan says indifferently, his hands flopping onto his lap.
I bend down and lower myself to the floor beside the mattress, moving slowly because my body still aches. “I think we need to take care of it.” Not for me, but for him.
He rolls his eyes. “Just because Trace threatens us doesn’t mean he’s actually going to do anything about it.”
I look down at my banged-up body. “You really think so?” I ask.
Tristan grunts unenthusiastically. “Fine, I’ll figure out a way to pay him back or something. Or better yet, we could just find where Dylan hides his dealing stash and give him that.”
“Yeah, I don’t think pissing Dylan off is going to help this situation at all.” I bring my knee up and rest my arm on it. “We just need to find a way to pay Trace back what you owe him.” I glance at the spoon and mirror on the floor and the bag of crystal. “And I’m guessing we need to find a way to pay Dylan back, too, since I’m assuming you already spent that money you stole from him.”
“I’ll figure something out,” he says, still looking like he doesn’t give a shit, like he doesn’t care what happens to him, and it makes me angry, not at him, but at myself. Because deep down, I have to wonder why he’s here in this shithole. That maybe part of the reason is because I killed his sister and he couldn’t handle the pain, just like I can’t. “I’ll go break into some houses and get some cash. I should be able to scrounge enough up over the next week or so.”
I’m not so sure, but it’s a start. “We should get started like tonight.”
Tristan nods and I rack my brain for a better way to get him out of this, one that I know for sure will work. What I want to do is call his parents and tell them to come get him. I’m not sure how well that’d go over, though, considering they hate me and Tristan probably would get really pissed and refuse to go with him. And what if they said no?
“Where’d you get that?” Tristan asks as he catches sight of the bag of food in my hand.
I blow out a stressed breath as I glance down at the bag and remember I have other problems, too, at the moment, like how determined Nova looked to spend time with me—be with me. “Nova made me take it.” I set the bag down beside my feet and lift my h*ps to take the piece of paper with her phone number on it out of my pocket.
Tristan scratches the back of his neck and then collects the spoon from the floor. “Yeah, she seems to care about you, doesn’t she?” He rotates the spoon in his hand as I grab my empty wallet and tuck the paper inside it, deciding to hold on to it for a while.
“She cares about everyone,” I mumble as the awkwardness between us rises.
“Yeah, but she really seems to care about you,” he says, watching my response with interest.
“Maybe.” I remember her words in the car, how she said she wants to help me. Me, the fucked-up druggie loser. I take the spoon away from him and toss it aside, then pick up the mirror and the plastic bag full of crystal. The crystal is calling to me, promising me that it’ll let me forget everything that happened today with a simple taste.
Tristan drops the spoon back onto the floor and steals the plastic bag from me, opening it up, then dipping his finger in the white powder. “So how did it go with Nova?” he asks distractedly. “I mean, what does she even want?”
My hands start to quiver with my need to feel the taste of it—to forget everything that’s happened today. Nova. Dylan. Trace. Lexi. Ryder. Everything and everyone. “To help me.”
His concentration is diverted to me. “What?”
“She says she wants to help me.” My eyes are glued on the bag in his hand, not on his words, not on Nova anymore. Everything is slipping away, which is why I love it—need it to survive.
He studies me, skimming the tattoos on my arm. “Why?” He says it like he can’t understand and neither can I. I’m worthless. He knows it. I know it. Everyone knows it except for Nova.