Emma… I want her to get well. I want a miracle.
I want things to go back to how they were a few months ago. I want…
It doesn’t matter. What I’m gonna do is what I usually do as of late. I’ll walk into a bar and drink until I’m shitfaced. Until I can’t think anymore, and my fucking head is empty.
How the hell am I supposed to look out for anyone when my world is crashing down?
***
“Found someone?” Tyler asks the next day as I enter Damage Control. He’s manning the reception desk and entering appointments on the computer. The desktop background is a photo of his son, Jax, who has to be a clone. Nobody can look so much like their dad at the age of four, honest. Asher calls Jax ‘Mini Ty.’
“Come again?” I grab the book of appointments to check who to expect today. “Found who?”
“A new roomie.”
I blink stupidly at him. I’m hungover as hell, and my head pounds like a war drum. “Roomie…” Oh right. Erin, my current roommate and Tyler’s girlfriend, is moving out. Moving in with him. Which leaves me in the pleasant position of having to look for a new roommate. “I, uh…” I scratch the back of my head, and try to think through the headache. “Not yet.”
“Have you started looking yet?”
“Nope.”
“You realize she’s moving out tomorrow, right?”
Tomorrow? Hell. “Time flies, doesn’t it?” I say darkly and move to my booth on unsteady legs. Fuck, I’m still drunk. Just how much did I have to drink last night? I can’t remember the end of the evening. Or the last bar I visited, after I was thrown out of the previous one.
Christ.
I dig into a drawer and find aspirin. I swallow two, dry, and rub my itchy eyes.
Shit, Erin is moving out. I should put up an ad on Craigslist, maybe also print some and post at the campus, or even here, in the shop. Ask around. I can’t afford the apartment on my own, and I’ve grown quite attached to it. I’ve lived there since I was seventeen, since Emma married Matt. I like it. I’m used to it. I feel safe there. Ocean used to share the place with me—the other tattooist of Damage Control—and then Erin. And now…
I pass my hands along the shaved sides of my head. My Mohawk is outrageously tall, and I should trim it down. I don’t have the energy right now to style it with gel and hairspray, so it doesn’t droop like the tail of a rooster.
But my sister likes it.
The thought stills me, and the image of Emma in the hospital bed, pale and sick, lodges in my brain like a bullet.
So much for trying to forget.
It doesn’t look good, the doctors said. They’re doing their best, but at this stage…
Fuck. I blink at my surroundings and shake myself. What was I thinking…? Oh, right. Get to work. Find a roommate. Then check on my sister and brace for the news.
For the fucking news. I kick at the booth wall and curse.
“Hey,” Tyler calls from outside my booth, and I grit my teeth. “Zane, you okay?”
I swear, if anyone asks me this one more fucking time…
“Forgot to tell you, man. We’re having a barbecue tonight by the lake. Wanna come?”
“No, I’m cool.” I kick the wall again.
“Zane…” I hear worry in Tyler’s voice, and that’s the last thing I need.
“What?”
“Join us tonight. It will be good.”