Hereyes jumped from me to beside the couch and I followed her widened gaze to findnothing there. When I asked, she shook her head hurriedly and insisted, asalways, that she thought she'd seen a spider.
Therewere never any spiders.
Returningher attention to my face, she soaked a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol beforedabbing at my cheek and saying, “What kind of lesson?”
“Drugsare bad.”
Shestopped her ministrations and stared at me, frozen. “He knows?”
Nodding,I replied, “Yep.”
“Whatis he going to do about it?”
Icould tell from the look in her eyes that she was worried of being caught, ofbeing found out, and I shook my head reassuringly. “Nothin',” I said. “Well,except for cutting me outta his life.”
Hermomentary relief was wiped away with heart wrenching sympathy. “Baby, I'msorry.”
Ishrugged. “Whatever.”
Andyfinished tending to my wound with a few butterfly stitches and a frozen bag ofpeas held to my cheek. She didn't think it was broken but said that it'd lookworse before it got better, and that was just fine with me. I deserved it.
Afterward,she declared we needed to get high and run away for a while. The red flagswaved wildly, but what the hell was the point in listening now? So, I agreed,and then watched as she ran to her purse.
“Ialready opened this one, so we should finish it up,” she told me, hurrying overwith a baggie that looked to be about half empty. She looked at the coffeetable and asked, “Where's the mirror?”
Ipointed at the opposite wall. “Over there in about a thousand pieces.”
“Oh.Okay.” She was unfazed and ran again for her purse, while something peculiar,something different, began to nag at my mind.
“Hey,sweetheart,” I began, as she came back with a compact in hand, “did you get thatshit from your bag?”
“What?This?” She held up the coke, dangling it from her fingertips, and I nodded.“Yeah, I brought some to my parents' house.”
“You,what?” I asked, raising my voice.
Andywas surprised by my tone and stammered, “I-I-I brought it to my—”
“Iheard you.” I stood up, thrusting my hands into my hair and beginning to pace.“Oh, fuckin' God ...”
Thiswasn't supposed to happen. We always did this shithere, in theapartment, where I could oversee things and maintain some semblance of control.But the control I thought I’d had was nothing but an illusion, just somethingI'd told myself to make it seem like I was handling it. But I now realized, itwas just another lie that I'd been holding onto. The only one that I hadactually believed.
“Youweren't supposed to do that,” I muttered, scrubbing a hand over my face.“Goddammit, you weren't supposed to do that ...”
Whathad I really thought would happen? Did I really think I could introduce her tothis shit and expect we'd always be on the same page? I had always been verydisciplined in my drug usage, even in my youth, but why had I ever been stupidenough to expect she would be the same way? Why hadn't I known better?
“Vinnie,”Andy said, rushing over to take my hands in hers, “it's okay, just relax.”
“Ican't fuckin' relax!” My anger was explosive and I pulled my hands from hergrasp. “Jesus Christ, Andy! What if someone saw you?”
Shelowered her gaze and worried her bottom lip. “Nobody saw me, but ...”
“But?”
“Mydad did walk in but I don't think he saw—”
“Jesusfuckin' Christ! This is why we only do this shit here! This is why we don'tever take it out! Goddammit!” I was pacing, gripping my hair in awhite-knuckled grasp and thinking of every possible worst-case scenario.
“Idon't understand what the big deal is. I—”
