Author's note:
This chapter contains no sexual activity. If that is what you're looking for, please return next week.
As always, thanks for reading, and your votes and comments.
###
Sorrow and solitude
These are the precious things
And the only words
That are worth rememberin'
- Nothin', Robert Plant & Allison Kraus
###
"You're quitting?" My teacher looked shocked.
"Yeah, dropping the class." My heart hammered and I wished I could meet Mr. McLaughlin's eyes. I respected this man. He was a brilliant professor who could distill complex topics down to basic building blocks. He always had time for his students, and he always brought snacks. He'd throw candies at you if you looked like you were nodding off. Good candy too, like Hershey's bars.
He sighed and leaned against his desk, scratched his bushy goatee. "Is it all your classes, or just mine?"
"All of them. I don't think I'm gonna be a nurse."
"Really, Miss Rigg? A semester from graduating and you just discovered this isn't for you?"
That's not what I said.
I gave him a sad smile. "My boyfriend was blown up in one of those recent car bombs. He's gonna need more help than I can give him while going to school."
"So you'll be back to finish your studies eventually? It'd be terrible to see all your potential leave this field. You're really smart, and you've got a way of putting people at ease..." His voice trailed off. "I'm proud of you, miss Rigg. I don't get a lot of students over thirty, you really stood out."
I blushed and held out my hand. "Thanks."
He shook my hand with one of his massive mitts. "I hope to see you in class again someday."
"I hope so too."
I headed out, down the offwhite halfway, towards the exit doors. Time to go see my lawyer.
###
The bells on the door jingled and Ashley looked up from awkwardly sweeping the floor. Gunshot wounds take longer to heal in real life than on TV, and her arm was still in a sling. Her hair had started to regrow too, and while it looked short and shaggy, she'd obviously made an attempt to style it.
"Hey Jess, what's up?"
"Nothing. How's the arm?"
She waggled her eyebrows at me and motioned with the broom. "Everything's slowly getting better. How's Sienna? How's Gary?"
"See is slowly getting better. Gary's the same. Still in a coma. Sienna is actually why I stopped by. You still have that car for sale? I want to get her something cheap for going back to college."
"Yeah, it's still parked in the alley behind the store."
"How much?"
"Thirty-five hundred, but I'll knock five off for you guys."
I snorted. "The hell you will. Rehab on a shot shoulder can't be cheap." I dug in my purse, pulled out an envelope. "There's five grand in there."
"You don't need to do that."
I smiled warmly. This woman had been a fixture in my life and Gary's life for nearly five years now. She wasn't just a great friend, she was a great person. "Consider it an early Christmas gift."
"Fine. Twist my arm."
"Think I'll pass."
Ashley dug in the change drawer, came up with a key that she tossed to me. "I'll title it over tomorrow, that ok?"
"Perfect."
"You want me to drive it over to your house?"
"Nope, I walked."
"In this?"
"Yeah, it's just a little brisk."
We stood there, looking at each other, awkwardly thinking of what to say next. So much history and damage hung between us now. Previously we'd been good friends with great benefits. Now, my life had intruded upon hers, and everyone involved was broken by it.
Fuck.
"One more thing and then I'll leave you alone."
"Yeah?"
"This isn't the best neighborhood..."
Ash snorted. "You can say that again. And that was even before the terrorist attack."
"Do you know where I could find...find, uh, some under-the-table pharmaceuticals."
Her face hardened. "Why?"
"I can't tell you. I just need you to trust me that it's not for anything bad."
"There are better and more legal ways to deal with Gary being in the hospital or school being stressful. You can always come talk to me if you need to."
"Not for that. I drink, I smoke, recreational hard drug use is a bridge too far for me."
"So what do you need it for?"
I sighed. I didn't want to explain this. I COULDN'T explain this. "Just trust me, ok? I'm not starting, I just...I need you to help me."
"What do you need?"
"Opioids. Heroin if possible."
"Shit."
"Ash, please..." I tried to make my voice as pitiful as possible.
She gave me an address that I plugged into my phone, and then glared daggers at me. "If I find out that you've started using..."
"You'll kick my ass?"
The look on her face softened. "Soon as my arm heals up, yeah."
"Thank you."
"Don't mention it. To anyone. Seriously, don't mention it."
"I won't." I paused. "Ash?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for being such a good friend to us. I...I really like you. You're a good person."
###
I picked up two large doses of heroin from the dealer Ashley knew. The apartment looked like a dump, and I kept my hand on my Colt in my jacket pocket the entire time. Another fifty bucks bought me a leather pouch to store them in.
The hospital was my next stop. I parked in the cold multi-story garage and hurried for the stairwell, climbing the floors. The hallway was deserted when I exited, and I moved silently through the corridor. I avoided the main nursing station and headed down the halls leading to patient rooms. I'd memorized the layout when I'd gotten here, Gary's paranoia about always knowing the exits having rubbed off on me.
I paused to collect myself before walking into the room. Maybe a miracle had happened. Maybe he'd be up, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for someone to take him home.
He wasn't. He looked sick, paler than usual, paler than the sheets around him. Something inside him was killing him, and the medicine being pumped in to fight it was almost as bad.
How had this happened? How had our perfect life gone so horribly wrong so fast? How did the world just...break?
I held his hand for a long time. It was bigger than mine. Just as pale as mine now, but in an unhealthy way. I remembered every loving gesture made with those hands...
The way he'd reached out to wipe salad dressing from my chin with a napkin that night we'd had our first expensive dinner together.
Hugging me from behind while playing drunk, life-size Jenga.
His hand on my neck as he held me down and pounded into me.
The way his hands would lift my hair when he put my collar on me if I didn't hold it up first.
The flexing of muscles under his skin as we dried dishes together.
We'd never stand in the kitchen and dry dishes together. Ever again. Strange how something so inconsequential seemed so monumental now.
I sat there, remembering as many moments of our life together as I could, trying to hold back the tears, trying to accept the mental pain like I accepted the physical pain of my stiff, wounded body. Trying to let it flow over me and through me and leave nothing in its wake.
There was nothing to say. No pleading with him to wake up would open his eyes. No begging for a longer fight would prolong his life.
I rose, leaned over, and kissed his forehead with trembling lips. "I love you, Gary. Goodbye."
I past only one orderly in the hall, and then I was descending the steps to the parking garage and the chilly, wet November day.
###
I stopped at the corner store down the street from my old apartment and bought a prepaid phone, activated it while I sat in the car and watched rivulets of rain twist and bleed down my car window.
The rain spattered my leather jacket audibly as I walked fast towards the old repair garage, and my key still worked on the locks. I climbed the steps and catwalks instinctively in the gloom, and let myself into the apartment.
It looked different without the furniture. Dustier than when I'd seen it last, a few years ago. Without curtains on the windows, my footsteps echoed loudly on the floor. I sat down on the wood planks, stared up at the crazy-painted wall. How many times had I painted over that? How many dresses had I sketched on that wall with a charcoal pen, only to paint over the next day?
I'd wanted to be a fashion designer once.
