“You ate a salad while driving?” I ask.
She snickers. “Yeah, and I do not recommend it, at all. Seriously messy, and very difficult. But it was that or McDonalds, so…”
“Salad it is.” I sprinkle cheese, stir, sprinkle, stir, and then when it’s melted and gooey, I divide it into two portions and set out a variety of toast toppings—butter, jelly, cream cheese, peanut butter. “What kind of delivery?”
She snorts. “What do you think? Meth.”
I put the butter knife down at stare at her. “Aren’t you working off a debt?”
“Yes.”
“Which I assume you accumulated via addiction.”
“Yes.” This is quiet, almost inaudible.
“You don’t seem like a tweaker. Or in withdrawal.”
“I’m clean.” Her eyes plead with me to believe her, even as her tone remains almost belligerent.
I scratch my jaw. “So…let me see if I’m putting the pieces together correctly here.” I finish putting cream cheese and peanut butter on my toast, watch her do the same with butter and jelly. “You had a habit—emphasis on past tense. This habit landed you seriously in debt to a seriously bad dude, and all jokes and insults aside, your guy Alvin is bad news. You got clean, quit the habit, but you still owe Alvin a few large at minimum. For whatever reason, he’s letting you work your debt off but not on your knees…yet. And you’re clean, but once an addict always an addict—and yet you’re working for the dealer…transporting the very drug I assume you were addicted to.”
“Yeah, well, gotta do what you gotta do, right?” She’s dropped her eyes to her toes, now. “Can’t say I like it, but it’s better than the alternative.”
“Recipe for relapse.”
“No shit.” She shrugs. “There’s a bit of a mitigating factor: it’s taped up in boxes so it looks like I’m delivering packages—auto parts, to be specific. So, I’d have to cut open the boxes and then rip open the packaging to get at it, and then the guys I’m dropping it to would obviously know I’d stolen product, and then I’m fish food or whatever. Less of a temptation than you’d think.”
I huff a laugh. “Bullshit. Every single moment you’re in that car with that shit, you’re trying to figure out how you can get some without anyone knowing.”
She whips her head up to look at me. “You say that like you know from experience.”
“Maybe I am.”
She looks away from me, and mumbles under her breath. Hard to hear because it’s not meant for me, but it sounds like she’s telling herself, “I don’t wanna know, I don’t wanna know, Idon’twanna know.”
I let her have that play for now, because I don’t know if I’m ready to give her that story just yet. “How long have you been clean?”
She swallows hard. Still not looking at me. “Seven months and two weeks.”
“You said your grandfather died eight months ago.”
She nods. “Yes, I did.”
“So...?”
A long, difficult silence. “I had thirty days clean. I was staying with Gram and Grandpa. They knew I was trying to get clean. They supported me. Didn’t judge me. Gave me a safe place to detox, made me food, sat with me, held me, helped me take showers, all of it. Grandpa, who could barely operate the TV, was googling how to help someone through detox.” She chokes up, controls it, keeps going. “Then he died, a massive heart attack in his sleep. Never woke up. And I…I fucking—he was my best friend. The only father figure I ever had, and I couldn’t deal. I relapsed. Missed his funeral because I was tweaked out on a couch somewhere. I was broke—beyond broke. Already owed Alvin a fuckload of money, so I knew I couldn’t go to him for more. So I…”
“You don’t have to tell me any more, Annika,” I say.
She nods. “Yeah, this part is pretty fucking ugly anyway. You don’t wanna know.”
“That’s not it. I’m saying you don’t have to tell me. It’s not that I don’t wanna know. I do.” I cup her jaw, far enough away that I’m at full arm extension to reach her. “You share what you feel comfortable sharing.”
She looks at me, pain in her eyes, and then pulls her face away from my hand. “I honestly don’t know why I’m telling you a goddamn thing.”
“Because you can tell that I get it. Iknow. Because I think some part of you recognizes on an intrinsic level that I’m a safe place for you.”
“Thereisno safe place for me.” Balancing her cane on her forearm, she takes her plate and mug to the sectional.
