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Plenty of idle time for my mind to run wild.
When Alicia just lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything, I expounded on my words.
“I antagonized him this morning. I knew he wasn’t shit, and I poked at him, egged him on. I think that… I think it put fuel on whatever fucked up fire he had going on.”
“You’re serious?” Alicia asked, frowning at me.
She’d been sitting with me the whole time, mostly in silence, but the occasional question had come up.
“I am.”
She huffed, shaking her head. “Nyx, you are entirely too smart totrulybelieve that man assaulted Tati because he was pissed off at you.”
“Look at the timing,” I argued. “I fucked with his head, threatened him this morning, and then tonight… this is what it is.”
From her seat across from me, Alicia narrowed her gaze. “So in the course of a day, a normal,notrapist just decided to become one becauseyoupissed him off? That might be the most self-centered bullshit I’ve ever heard.”
My eyebrow shot up. “What?”
“Thisisn’tabout you Nyx, although I understand why you might be confused,” she said. “Whathedid is whathedid, and that doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
She stood from where she sat, coming to sit beside me and squeeze my shoulder. “We’re going to find him. And when we do, he is going to have exactly the kind of night he deserves. So let’s keep the focus where it belongs. Starting with… how is Tati?”
I shook my head. “About like you would expect. Last time I spoke to Blue, she was refusing to go to the doctor to get checked out.”
“I’ll get in contact with Blue, see if I can send Loren over there,” Alicia mused.
I raised an eyebrow. “Should I know who that is?”
Alicia grinned. “You will. She’s a good friend—my daughter’s mom.”
“Yourdaughter?” I asked, confused.
“My partner, Cree, he has a child with her,” she explained.
“And you and her friends?”
“Yes, we are.”
I shook my head. “And everybody is just... good? It’s not messy?”
“It is leaps and bounds less messy than a lot of situations that should be very simple,” she said, shrugging. “Everybody is happy, and healthy, and I’ve got no complaints.I’mhappy.”
“That’s possible?” I asked, genuinely. We weren’t exactly poster children for what anybody could consider a normal life. Our chances of gaining – and maintaining – the usual markers of “happiness” were next to none, as far asIknew.
Alicia sighed. “Even with all the fucked-up stuff between…Yeah. It is. Even for you. And Tati will be okay, too. She has all the resources, all the support—”
“That’s not exactly a guarantee, is it?” I interrupted. “It was never okay for my mother, and... look how that went.”
I knew that wasn’t a fair comparison; it wasn’t one to one.
My mother may have had money at her disposal, but any sort of community, any sort of care… she had none.
We’d both suffered for it.
“I’m so sorry for what happened to you,” Alicia said, and this time when her hand came to my shoulder, it lingered. “None of it was okay. If it makes you feel any better… you weren’t the only one I couldn’t protect. In case you were ever thinking it was just you,” she told me, and I shook my head.
“I know that shit wasn’t your fault,” I admitted. “It’s not like any of us were given many choices of our own. That’s what they put a failsafe on us for, right?” I chuckled, trying to find some humor in a situation that wasn’t at all funny.
