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Her smirk is knowing and I can’t help but grunt in amusement. “Yeah, I may have told Link he was getting old if he was only disappearing for an hour.”
Tesa’s eyes widen and she presses her lips together to hold in her own laughter. “Oh my God, you’re going to be responsible for breaking my best friend’s vagina!”
My shoulders begin to shake and I cover my mouth. This girl. “I can’t do any such thing if my cock is in my pants, which is for the best. I firmly deny breaking Tori.”
Tesa’s shoulders tremble as she begins to lose the battle to not laugh. “I really have to go,” she wheezes as she leaves the room and I shake my head.
I kind of love these people. Leveraging myself onto my feet, I see it’s almost eleven. The day passed so quickly. Walking down the hall, everything is so quiet. There’s an open door that’s Miguel’s office, and I pop my head in as I walk upstairs.
The lightness in my step doesn’t dissipate, but I’m waiting for it to burst. I don’t deserve any of it.
Turner is sitting in Miguel’s office with a glass of Jack and coke and he smiles at me but it’s tinged with sadness. He was talking about Lennon while I was playing house.
“I’m going up to bed,” I tell them. “I’ll see you all in the morning.”
I don’t bother asking Turner to come up with me as I continue my way down the hall to the stairs. We’re both hurting, and we’ve been going to bed at different times lately. Earlier tonight when Derek told us about Lennon, we clung to each other and I soaked it all in.
It just feels like so much is falling apart without our girl. The walk up the stairs brings with it heavier thoughts that I’ve been distracting myself from.
Derek is a murderer. This fact in itself, doesn’t bother me as much as you’d think. When I lived in Dublin when I was a teen, I brawled, drank, and was a right asshole. I almost killed a couple of idiots when the bar fights went too far. I was trying to forget my mother’s insistence for order and religious morals.
A couple of the gangs enticed me to fight in the rings for them, but I was always careful to avoid having to swear allegiance to anyone. I wanted to escape if I wanted to, and one day I jumped on a plane when I realized my mother was a lost cause and never looked back.
It’s amazing how the scars of our youth affect us even now.
Slipping into the room I share with Turner, I close the door behind me and lean on it. Taking a deep breath, I shiver at how cold it feels. I miss connection, but I miss my people more.
My feet walk me to the bathroom before I can stop them, and I stare at the vent where the baggie of pills is hidden. My skin breaks into a cold sweat as I ask myself if I really need it. My mind thinks about how gutted Derek appeared when he described how our Lenny looked and I’m again drawn to the drugs.
Unscrewing the nails with my fingernails takes time, letting my brain continue to spiral. I’m not a cold-blooded killer, but there’s no doubt I could kill a man in the heat of a moment. Staring at my hands, large enough to wrap around someone’s head and squeeze, I curse under my breath as the grate falls off the wall.
Making sure to place the screws to the side, along with the metal covering, I pull out my own personal devil. Little white pills.
They’re oxys, I notice, as I shake two into my hand. Looking up, I blow out a breath. Turner probably won’t be to bed for hours, and I can get a blissful high alone. I just want to forget for a bit.
My mind never stops running, the what ifs keep piling up, and it’s so damn loud in there. My eyes well with tears as I let myself feel… everything.
We failed Derek. We sacrificed him for Lennon, even though he insisted. We should have found another way, and his father put him in an impossible situation.
Crush.
Acting by memory, my hands placed the pills on the counter and crushed them with the bottom of a heavy glass. Pulling out a credit card from my wallet, I start to create my lines.
We also failed Lennon when no one followed her outside. Jordan should have followed Derek and Lennon, though they probably would have just killed him and left.
Shoulda… woulda… coulda.
These words trail through my mind with each light scrape of the card through the ground powder. Two lines now stare at me and laying the card to the side, I pull out a hundred dollar bill and roll it up. This will do in a pinch.
My mind drifts as I cover a nostril, put the makeshift funnel to the other and lean over the drugs. I refuse to look at myself, see how far I’ve fallen.
Lennon fought her demons, both physical and emotional for years, and they still found her. Men tried to take what wasn’t theirs all through her high school years, and then ripped it away in a sterile hospital.
Sniff.
The drug burns through my nose as it hits my system and I moan. The drip continues down the back of my throat and I close my eyes as I savor it.
“Fooking hell,” I whisper. Wavering on my legs, I decide to do the next line before I collapse into a happy high. Transferring the rolled up bill to my other nostril I snort the rest of the powder up my nose.
