I drop Tiffy off at her place and race back to West Cove. My thoughts are all over the place. Did I miss something during our last conversation? Could I have done more? If I’d just stayed at Arcadia instead of going home last night…
Fuck. I need to see him. I just need to know he’s okay.
Chapter twelve
Tom
Ilie on my back on a thin mattress, staring at the ceiling. The paint job is a mess. Uneven streaks, random patches that look like someone got bored halfway through. The shapes form something abstract, like when you're at the shrink’s office having to describe what you see on those sheets of inky disasters.
Maybe one of these days we’ll get to that too. Who knows.
The only sound in the isolation room is the drip of the AC leaking in the corner. Three beats, then a pause. Over and over. It falls into the same timing asA Demon Like You, the track I produced for Indy Hamilton a few months ago.
Being able to pick it up comforts me. Seems like I’m not completely out of tune after all.
Indy, Indy, Indy.
That was a good time. Joan’s friend reached out to me to produce a solo track for her. Somehow it turned into a number one hit in the UK, climbing the charts in the Netherlands,Belgium, Germany, and France. Now it’s even picking up in the United States.
Didn’t see that coming. I have to thank the power of social media for that.
The sharp pain in my hands takes me back to reality. They’re both wrapped in thick bandages, a reminder of how fucking stupid last night was.
Fucking silence.
And now I’m here, locked in a sterile white room, sleeping on a prison-thin mattress with nothing but the sound of dripping water and my own thoughts.
I hate being alone with my thoughts.
So earlier, I played this stupid game where I counted my one-night stands, starting from the most recent, working backward until my memory gave out.
Things got blurry when I was about three years in.
I made it to seven. Then a few from thirteen, fifteen… and of course the one from twenty years ago.
After that, I hated the game.
And myself.
And this fucking white prison room with its fucking leaky AC that won’t shut up.
I try to move my fingers. First on my right hand, then my left. The bandages are tight, but I can still move them. At least that’s something. The pain’s there, but if this is it, I can handle it.
I start humming and then go for Indy’s vocals. She would have laughed her ass off if she could see me right now. My mind goes back to that one night when Indy showed up at my door with a bottle of Dom, all giggly and a little drunk after dinner with her friends.
It had been pouring, and being the true gentleman that I am, I didn’t leave her standing in the rain.
It could have turned into a night of frenzied sex, but instead we’d crashed on the couch, dissecting the rise and fall of modern life, comparing society toThe Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch.
While lifting that decadent bottle of champagne to our mouths, we ranted about the struggle to keep up in a world that seemed hell-bent on dismantling the very values we should be living for.
Like love.
Not that I’d ever truly felt it, but it sounded very Woodstocky spilled from my drunken mouth.
By the time we reached the bottom of the bottle, we sealed a pinky promise: no one would ever tell us what’s right or wrong. We’d follow our hearts.
After that, she passed out on my lap. That was fine. I passed out too.
