“Just lean the fuck on me and stop your bitchin’,” he snarls back.
“Fuck.All right.”
The thought that I can’t walk to my own goddamn office without assistance makes me want to lash out.But it’s not Bodie I want to fight.It’s my mind and whatever is going on up there.
How the fuck do you fight an opponent you can’t see and don’t know shit about?It feels like a battle I can’t win, no matter how hard I try.
Inside my office, they lay me on the couch.
“Hit the lights,” Bodie says.
Any sound, even the thud of what I assume is Dozer’s boots, hurt my brain.Darkness wraps around me as the lights go out.It helps, if only a little.
Bodie’s voice breaks through the haze.He’s squatting beside the couch.“Where the fuck are your pills, Finn?”
Turning my head, I squint at him.“No pills.”
“What pills?”Dozer asks.
“Pills for his migraines.He’s been getting them more often,” Bodie says, his voice almost a whisper because he knows what I’m like when they hit hard.
“I didn’t know it was this bad.I knew he got headaches, but not like this.Why haven’t you said anything, man?”
“Not the time to have this conversation,” I grate out.
Bodie tells me to shut up, and I hear him tell Dozer, “He won’t listen to reason.Alister prescribed him some new meds.Gave him a few options for surgery, but he says the pills fuck him up one way or another, and the surgeries in the past haven’t fixed the problem so he doesn’t want to go under the knife again.”
“There’s gotta be something that’ll help.”Dozer’s voice is closer now.I can feel the weight of his stare.“What kind of pills has Alister recommended?”
I pull the towel away, but blood streams from my nose again.“Ones that don’t fix me.Make me a goddamn zombie or fuck me up even more than I already am.I can’t protect the club like that.”
I hear drawers rattling as Bodie’s voice cuts through the fog.“I’m callin’ Allister.You need somethin’.What the fuck have you done with the meds?”
I squeeze my eyes shut.“I’m not taking them.”As I lie there, I think back on all the faces that were staring at me like I’m a freak or like I’m broken and in need of help.It guts me—them all seeing me this way.
Something about Lily is triggering the flashbacks, and I don’t know why.
The answers I can’t for the life of me grasp, because I don’t have the brain power to think through any of it.All that exists for me is this motherfucking pain and scattered memories.
Fuck!
Is this all there is to look forward to?More of this until it kills me?
CHAPTER 14
The truth can stare us in the face, but we’re too blinded by what we think we know to see it for what it really is.
I linger in the dressing room until closing time, doing my best to blend in.Figuring out who could be a friend or foe takes time, and a keen eye.So for now, I sit back and watch, waiting to see which girls are genuine and have a good heart.
Roxy and Honey do not fit that category.They’ve been talking shit about me from the moment I arrived.They don’t like my costumes.I have a fat ass.My boobs have to be fake.This or that.They always have something demeaning to say about me or the work I do here.
Honestly, it’s nothing new.
I’ve experienced more than my fair share of this kind of behavior.It comes with the territory of the dance industry.I spent my youth circuiting pageants and dance competitions.Then, I graduated to the high-octane version working the Vegas dance scene.My tough-as-nails skin has been hardened by thousands of brush-offs, rejections, other women working to erode my self-confidence, and ruthless judges or people in power passing judgment on me or my skills.
So yeah, they can throw all the shade they want.It’ll roll right off.
Raven feels more like a kindred spirit.I gravitated to her right away.She’s a boss babe if I ever saw one: intelligent, with a phenomenal work ethic, skills in costume creation, and delivers her criticism in a straightforward, no-nonsense way I can appreciate.It’s meant to push me to look at things differently, not to slam the choreography or my outfit choices.
