18
Emily
Iwalk into work for the first time since everything happened between Kevin and me. Since I’m hostessing today, I hope I won’t have to see him. I’m not prepared to explain the fucked up relationship I have with David.
Kevin walks by with two rags and a spray bottle in his hands, avoiding eye contact. I step away from my stand and take a deep breath before I whisper his name. He wipes at the table in circles, keeping his focus on anything but me.
“Kevin?” I put my hand over his, the same way he placed his over mine in his car. “Can you just stop for a moment and talk to me? Please?”
His shoulders drop, and he looks me in the eyes. He pushes the rag to the inside of the booth and sits down with a loud sigh. I sit across from him, my hand still on his.
“What is there to talk about?” he asks. He looks at me, trying to steady his quivering lip. His jaw clenches, and he looks down to avoid my gaze.
I shake my leg under the table, struggling to maintain my eye contact with him. I want to disappear.
“Us.”
“Us? What are we doing here? You obviously have a you-and-someone-else,” he says.
“It isn't what you think it is. I mean, there’s a long history between David and me, but there’s more to it than I can explain here at work. Will you give me a chance to make sense of this after our shift? Please?”
He's quiet for what seems like an eternity as he looks down at the table. He seems to struggle with whether or not to give me a chance to explain, and that gives me hope. At least he didn’t cut me off and dismiss me from the start.
“Fine. I'll meet you at my car at the end of your shift.”
He taps his fingers on the table before he stands up, nods at me, and goes back toward the kitchen.
* * *
David
Dani’s eyes close,and she falls into a deep sleep. Her body sinks into the mattress beneath her. I ease out of bed, trying not to wake her. I leave the bedroom and walk across the hall to the bathroom where she so often disappears. I open cupboards and drawers, sifting through the contents of each before moving on to the next. I accidentally knock her hairbrush onto the floor. It skitters behind the toilet. I groan and drop to my knees, feeling for it behind the porcelain.
My hand comes across something unexpected. Nestled on the floor, stuffed with tissues like a little sparrow's nest, is a clear bag filled with small tan packets. I’ve never seen something like this, and I don’t know what the packets contain. My brain sorts through the clues: the sniffling, the disappearing, and how especially sleepy she’s been as of late.
I carry the bag to the bedroom, sit down on the bed, and stare at Dani. After a moment, I pinch the back of her thigh. She wakes up and turns over to look at me.
“What the hell was that for?” she asks as she wipes her face. Her eyes widen when she sees her package in my lap. She sits up.
“David, that’s my...” She stumbles over her words as she reaches across my lap for the wrapped mound. I lift it up high and out of her reach.
“It’s your what?”
She brushes her hair away from her makeup stained face. Her body is tense and she’s sweating.
“None of your business, David! Give me my shit back!” She climbs into my lap, trying to reach for it.
“None of my business? None of my fucking business? What is this shit, Dani? And don't make me ask you a third time.”
She recoils, as if about to be struck, then switches gears from offense to defense. She sits back and pulls her legs to her chest, whispering something under her breath.
“What was that? I couldn't hear you.” I grab her chin and make her look at me.
“It's heroin, okay? Happy? It's fucking heroin.”
I try to drop the bag onto the desk by the bed, but it falls into the space between. She watches it drop with pathetic desperation in her eyes. I recognize that desperation. It’s the same look I have as I wait for the pill to fall onto the mirror. It’s the drool that forms as the pill is crushed. It’s the anticipation before the powder finds its place in my nose.
She climbs over my lap and grabs the package. I reach for her shirt, but I can’t stop her. She runs toward the bathroom, her secret held against her chest like a newborn child. I try to follow, but the door slams shut in my face. My hand grasps the knob, turning the cold metal until it comes to a stop. It’s locked. I pound on the door so hard it shakes the flimsy wood within its frame.
“Come on, Dani, open up. Seriously, this isn't funny!”
Sounds of snorting and sobbing filter through the space under the door.
“Danielle, what are you doing?” My voice is stern, and I use her full name, which she hates.
Several minutes pass in silence before I hear the door unlock. Dani steps out of the bathroom like a prey animal searching for predators. She pours herself into my arms. Her cheeks are tear stained and I wipe at them with shaky hands. She kisses me, but I pull away from her, holding her body at arm’s length. I look into her ravenous eyes and realize why her expressions are sometimes so familiar to me. That haunted look.
“God damn it, Dani.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“Mean to use heroin? Or mean to hide it from me?”
“Both.” Her eyes well up again, and a tear slips down her cheek.
“When did this start?”
“A couple months after we got together,” she says in a somber tone.
“Do you just snort it?”
“For the most part. I use a needle every once in a while.” She drops her shoulders forward.
“Jesus Christ, Dani,” I say as I brush my hand through my hair.
There’s a panicked feeling in my chest. I don’t even mess with heroin. The impureness and instability of the drug makes me uncomfortable. The high seems exhausting, as if it takes too much energy to do something as automatic as breathing.
“Don’t judge me. I know you get high too,” she snaps.
“What does that have to do with anything? I snort prescription pills. It’s not even the same level. I thought that’s what you were doing as well, which is why I never said anything. But fucking heroin?”
“Opiates are opiates,” she says.
“At least I can function when I take pills.”
“Can you, though?”
* * *