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“I usually do too,” Jack admitted. “What else do you hate?”
Adrianna smiled and rolled her eyes. Jack never missed an opportunity to learn more about her.
“Socks with holes in them,” she offered. “Tell me something you hate.”
“Acrylic fingernails. Give me another.”
Adrianna smiled at her own natural nails and then told him, “The slimy part of a tomato. Your turn.”
Jack took a sip of his wine and gave her, “Bad tippers. Now tell me something you love.”
Adrianna chewed and thought for a moment. “Cheddar biscuits from Red Lobster.”
“Oh, good one,” Jack agreed. “What else?”
“It’s your turn.”
“Okay,” Jack said, reaching out to wipe a spot of sauce from Adrianna’s mouth. “I love your lips.”
Adrianna licked them causing Jack to groan inwardly. “Don’t do that,” he told her. “We’ll never finish eating.” Putting another forkful of spaghetti in his mouth he told her it was her turn again.
“Anything that combines chocolate and peanut butter.”
Jack laughed. “You know, for someone so skinny your loves are an awful lot about food.”
Scraping her plate of the last bit of pasta Adrianna told him, “I’m not going to stay skinny long if you keep feeding me like this. That was delicious, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied and accepted a kiss from her. “When was the last time someone cooked for you?”
Adrianna thought back. She couldn’t remember. “My mother, last Christmas, maybe?”
Jack reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear, looking at her with sadness. Adrianna didn’t like that look and so she distracted him with asking for another thing he loved.
“Playing with your hair.”
His eyes switched from sadness to adoration and Adrianna softened. “I love when you play with my hair, too.”
He gave her a small kiss and then left to clear their dishes. A moment later he returned with a pack of cigarettes and asked her to join him on the fire escape.
Jack helped Adrianna through the window and let her sit in the metal, folding chair while he sat on the floor across from her, leaning his back against the railing. After lighting both of their cigarettes, he pulled one of Adrianna’s bare feet into his lap and ran his fingers down from her ankle to her toes and back up again.
“Do you want to stop taking the Vicodin, Adrianna?” Jack bluntly asked after a minute of listening to the music and voices carrying up from the bar below them.
Adrianna drew on her cigarette and leaned back in her chair. Exhaling, she sat quietly and thought about her answer while she watched the long stream of smoke vanish into the night air. Yes, she wanted to stop taking the pills. She was terrified of becoming like Jack’s father, or worse, abusing her body until it shut down on her. But she was also terrified of what giving up her pills meant.
“I do but I’m scared,” she admitted.
“Tell me what you’re scared of,” Jack probed.
“I’m scared of how I will feel without them. The longest I’ve gone without a pill is six hours and I wake up feeling horrible. I can’t imagine what I’ll feel like going more than that.” Adrianna played with the frayed edges of her cut-off shorts while nerves danced through her.
“What else are you afraid of?”
“The depression. The pills also helped with that.”
“There are other ways of dealing with depression, you know?” Jack told her. “There’s therapy and medications that are much less dangerous, Ade. We will figure something out to help with that. Is there anything else?”
“The pain, I guess,” Adrianna sighed. “I remember waking up from surgery in the hospital one time and the pain was so bad, I just wanted to die, Jack. I’m scared that without the pills I’ll be in that kind of pain again.”
Jack finished his cigarette and mashed it out on the floor next to him before tossing the butt over the rail with a flick of his finger.
