by P. Dangelico
In that case, he needs a dictionary app so he can look up the definition of friendship. “Yes, she does mind,” I snap.
“No, I don’t,” girl-at-next-table insists and sends me an admonishing glare.
He’s all yours, sweetie, hangs from the tip of my tongue. Just dangles there. On the ready to be dropped.
She scoots over to make room for him and he squeezes in, despite my lack of invitation. Then he angles his body, giving her his back. Can’t say I didn’t warn her.
Sitting beside me, he takes up all the space like he’s entitled to it. Which, being six-foot two inches of solid muscle, means he’s everywhere at once. His leg, from hip to knee, touches mine. His scent, soap and laundry detergent and a hint of chlorine, is in the air. He’s too close. He’s much too close. By design, I’m sure.
“No, really, make yourself at home, Reynolds. We’re so psyched that you would bestow upon us the gift of your illustrious company,” drawls Zoe. Watching him closely, she raps four short, midnight blue nails on the wooden table. I shoot her a thin-lipped glare that screams cut it out and she rolls her eyes at me.
Reagan extends his arm on the back of the bench, shifts closer to me. To my great annoyance. “My pleasure,” he chirps with a wry smile.
His head dips, his mouth almost touching my ear. “I need to speak to you,” he whispers. The vibration resonates against the sensitive skin on the side of my neck. The warmth of his breath teases a full-body shiver out of me. My temperature shoots up. Apparently feverish isn’t just a turn of phrase.
“Can we have dinner? Like tonight? I need to explain and I really don’t want to do it with an audience.”
Before I have a chance to speak, Dallas returns with two large take-out cups and hands one to Reagan. Thanking him, he places it on the table next to mine.
“Fancy seeing you here, Bailey. We were just talking about you,” Dallas takes pleasure in telling me.
Reagan’s head rolls back. He palms his face. “Dall…” There’s an edge to his voice. This obviously leads me to wonder what they were discussing.
“What?” Dallas says, wearing the most suspiciously innocent look I’ve ever seen.
“Don’t,” Reagan warns him.
Dallas shrugs. His blue eyes take a lap around the table and come to rest on Dora. They sharpen. Curiosity blankets his face. “Do I know you?”
Dora squirms under his intense examination, doing everything in her power to avoid eye contact.
“Weren’t you at that Theta UCLA mixer? You’re Cat Woman, right? With the vinyl getup and the red lips?”
Cat Woman? He’s such an ass. A harmless one, I should clarify. Since I began filming the team I’ve learned two things about Dallas and both are one hundred percent accurate. The first, he has one of the most photogenic faces I’ve ever captured on film. And the second, he’s never been anything other than nice and helpful to me. That doesn’t negate the fact that Dallas is a major player––something he does not dispute. Problem is, I can’t figure out if he’s teasing her, or he’s actually serious.
The thought of Dora in a vinyl jumpsuit has me grinning despite the circumstance sitting next to me.
“W-we have class together,” she answers about a full minute later.
Without invitation, he sits on the bench, crams himself between her and another dude, his muscular arm stretching out over the back of the bench. “Russian lit.”
“English lit,” Dora is quick to correct.
“Right, that’s what I said.” He searches Dora’s face with a pointed look. His cornflower blue eyes narrow. “I know your name…I know it.” He taps his lips with his fingers. “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.”
“That’s D-Dory. My name is Dora.”
“Huh. I guess that makes you an explorer.”
“And I guess that m-makes you unoriginal.”
Guffaws and snorts all around. Dallas grins and it’s not one I want to see directed at sweet Dora. I’m all for growth and experimentation. Hell, I’m sure that’s half the actual benefit of college. But this dude would not be good for her burgeoning self-esteem.
With his hand braced against the back of the bench, Dallas leans in, hovering over her, and she reacts by subtly shrinking away.
“Van Zant, step off my girl. You’re making her uncomfortable.” Zoe’s voice is a sharp knife cutting through all the chatter in the room, the threat clear.
“It’s fine,” Dora mutters.
“No. It’s not,” Zoe counters, staring a third-degree burn onto Dallas’s already tanned face. When he doesn’t move fast enough for her liking, her stare sharpens. “Now.”
Dallas leans back, takes Zoe’s measure, and grins. “Chill, mama cat. Kitten here has claws. She can speak for herself.”
“Kitten?” both Dora and Zoe say at once, their expressions on opposite ends of the spectrum. Dora’s surprised and Zoe’s disgusted.
Meanwhile Dallas is looking real proud of himself. “Isn’t that right, Kitten?”
“I just threw up in my mouth,” Zoe declares.
“S-stop calling me that.”
Dallas’s attention reverts to Zoe. “See?”
“I missed you,” the man on my right whispers in my ear. Exhaling a tired sigh, I meet him eye to eye. One way or another this is getting resolved today.
“Yeah, what did you miss? Using me as an emotional punching bag? Or someone to eat with because you don’t like to eat alone?” In his defense, he looks hurt.
“It’s not like that. You know it’s not.”
He leans closer. So close that I can count the faint freckles hidden under his deep tan. That I can pick out the sharp needles of dark blue in the rims of his green eyes. That I can see the regret etched in the grooves of his forehead.
“I was wrong.” He breathes deeply, pausing to gather his control. Then he lowers his voice. “I should never have treated you that way. I just…I…”
“What?”
“Would you two just fuck already,” comes from across the table. “The sexual tension is killing us!”
If anyone’s going to die it’ll be Zoe and it’ll be by my bare hands.
The entire coffee shop erupts…erupts. People cheering, clapping, whistling loudly. And I mean the entire place. She didn’t even speak that loudly––not for Zoe.
I erupt too. My face, that is. To the brightest shade of red on the Pantone color scale. This is my basic nightmare. Being the object of everyone’s attention. I can’t even look at Reagan. If I find indifference or worse, an awkward refusal on his face I will die. So I do the only thing I can do; I get up slowly and walk out.
“Alice,” Rea calls out.
“Alice, don’t leave,” Blake pleads.
Their voices trail after me as I pick my way between crowded tables.
“Zoe, that really crossed the line,” Blake scolds her in a hushed tone.
“You were all thinking it. Don’t pretend you weren’t. I just did them a favor,” Zoe argues in a much louder one.
“She’s right,” Dallas mutters.
I push through the glass door and take a deep breath. The crisp October air stings my lungs.
“Alice, wait.” Reagan’s hand wraps around my bicep, gently stopping me.
I turn around to face him. “You were rude and insensitive and you embarrassed me in public,” I begin without preamble. “You know how much I hate being put on the spot. What kind of friend does that?”
His face pinches. He crosses his arms. Looking off, he rocks back on his sneakers. “A bad one,” he quietly admits. “I don’t know what came over me…I mean, I know what came over me I just don’t know why I embarrassed you on purpose.”
In the pocket of his track pants, his phone rings. He takes it out and hits the red Decline button without even taking a moment to see who may be calling.
“What I was going to say before everyone stuck their noses in our business is that I’m sorry. I am so fucking sorry and––”
His phone
rings again. Frustrated, he looks at the screen and pauses, eyes widening in surprise, when he sees the name. “I’ve gotta take this. Don’t go anywhere,” he orders. Then he hits Accept. “Hello? Hi, Foz…what…where is he?”
He rubs his brow, tips his head back. I watch his throat work as he swallows. Something’s very wrong. It’s in his body language, his voice.
His attention returns to me, expression troubled. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” he says, watching me as he speaks. “Don’t let him leave, Foz…okay…yeah. Thanks for calling. See you soon, man.”
Ending the call, he stuffs his phone back in the pocket of his track pants. “I gotta go. I’m sorry. It’s my brother. Can I call you later?” His voice is quiet, subdued.
“What’s wrong with Brian?”
“He’s at the hospital. Someone cut him. One hundred and twenty stitches…I gotta go.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. This hospital is in a bad part of town.”
“I’m coming with you.”
He shakes his head, jangles his car keys nervously. “It’s not safe for you.”
“We’re wasting time.”
He exhales, looking momentarily lost. Then he nods.
Chapter 19
Reagan
One hundred and twenty stitches to his face. I’m so tired of worrying. It’s hard to explain how exhausting loving someone with an addiction is. There are times when you just want to let go, cut ties. But that kernel of hope is always there, reminding you that maybe this is it, the time he finally hits bottom and turns it around. And there’s always someone to feed your false hope. That person that knows someone who knows someone that beat it. So you keep going, keep praying. But that day never comes. Only more disappointment.
I drive to USC medical center on autopilot. I’ve been there so many times I could find it blindfolded by now. Alice doesn’t say much and I say less. She seems to have called an intermission on our spat so I guess that’s good.
By the time I park the Jeep in the lot, it’s dusk. The top is down. This is the kind of neighborhood that if it weren’t for the guys guarding the lot, it wouldn’t be here later. We enter the emergency room and I immediately regret my decision to bring her. It’s packed. Children crying. One old woman sitting alone in a wheelchair wails. Huddled in their plastic chairs, everybody else pretends they don’t hear her.
And the odors…Jesus. A putrid mix of ammonia and vomit.
“I’m sorry I brought you here,” I say to her.
She looks up at me with concern. I know I’m being selfish. That I only agreed to let her come because I feel better when she’s around. Seeing her here now, though, among all this misery, I don’t feel any better. It makes me want to put her back in the Jeep and drive her to safety. Where none of this can touch her.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m tougher than you seem to think. Let’s find your brother.” She walks away, headed to the nurses’ station.
“Foz Whitaker called me,” I tell the nurse behind the counter, a middle-aged black woman.
Foz is my brother’s long-time substance abuse counselor. Over the years, I’ve met more addiction counselors and therapists than I care to remember, and he’s one of a few that truly wants to help. Foz is also the one who picks me up every time I’m close to throwing in the towel.
“He said my brother was brought in. Brian Reynolds.”
She purses her lips and gives me a sharp look. “He’s here. Punched an orderly in the face and broke his nose. It took three of us to restrain him.”
Shame washes over me. She’s not happy. I get it. Her job is already difficult, and Brian made it dangerous. I wouldn’t want to work an ER in this neighborhood, either. As I say this, EMTs rush in with a gunshot victim. While I’m watching hell break loose, a hand sneaks into mine. Alice squeezes and lets go.
“Third bay on the right,” the nurse informs us.
We find it at the end of a long hall. “I’ll wait out here,” Alice murmurs and I nod.
Behind the curtain, I find Brian strapped to the gurney, bound by his arms and legs. The gash runs in a semicircle from his temple over his eyebrow down his chin and ends at his jaw. It’s a miracle he didn’t lose his eye.
He picks his head up. “Rea?” Eyes wild, voice stressed.
They already stitched him up, shaved his face to do it. Which is startling because the top half is a deep brown color and the bottom is white. He looks younger with his face clean-shaven but not by much. His eyes are empty. Dull. The rest of him is still filthy. At least he still has the sneakers I gave him.
“Yeah. Bri, it’s me.”
He struggles against the restraints. “You gotta get me out of here, man. Fuck! Look at what they did to me!”
They did to him? The people that put his face back together? I shake my head. “You punched an orderly in the face. Broke his nose. What did you expect?”
“Get me out of here! I’m going crazy.”
Because he’s coming down from meth. I rake my hands through my hair, lace my fingers on top of my head. “Who did this to you?”
“No one.”
“I’m not helping you until you tell me.”
“Arghhh,” he screams, jerks on the restraints some more, his body bowing off the gurney, the veins on his skinny arms popping in stark relief.
“Who cut you?”
“I was helping a friend and I got into it with someone.”
Last I heard he was sleeping in a tent somewhere downtown, in one of the tent villages that are popping up all over the city. The homeless population in the state of California has blown up in recent years, along with property taxes and the cost of housing. People can’t afford the rent anymore. The elderly and those on pensions and disability are most at risk, but substance abuse and mental illness are also part of the problem. And no one has a solution.
“Helping a friend score drugs?”
“No, man. They were gonna rape her and I had to stop them.”
This is how it all started. And it’s happening again. Brian’s savior complex getting him into trouble. If there’s a woman in distress in a twenty-mile radius, he’ll find a way to get involved. “I gotta get back to her. Get me out of here, Rea. Please!”
Tears appear in his eyes and my stomach twists. As much as I want to help, my gut tells me he’s a habitual and crafty liar, willing to do and say anything to score his next fix.
“She’s in danger, Rea. I can’t let her get hurt.”
It’s Jessie all over again.
He starts to cry outright, his face crumpling in pain. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. My throat feels sore and my eyes damp. This is my brother. This is all that’s left of him.
“Foz said he’ll have a bed for you at the end of the week.” I don’t even recognize my own voice. It’s strained and broken. “I’ll sign you out if you promise to try rehab one last time. Do it for…what’s her name?”
His head falls back down on the gurney and tears streak down his temples. “Lisa,” he murmurs.
“You can get Lisa out of danger, really help her, if you get clean.”
He nods. “Okay,” he quietly concedes. “Okay. Let me get her somewhere safe and I’ll go.”
I sign him out a short while later. The hospital doesn’t want him any more than he wants to be there. The only reason they patch him up from time to time is in deference to my parents. Although they’ve never asked that he get special treatment. They’d rather he “learn his lesson the hard way.” As if addiction is a lesson to be learned.
They give me a packet with antibiotics and ointment. I hand him the ointment and he stuffs it in his pocket. He won’t take the pills. He’ll sell them for drug money, which is why I hold on to them.
I introduce Brian to Alice and he immediately gets quiet, avoiding eye contact with her. Part of him is still there, hidden behind the junkie he’s become. He’s aware of what he looks like to her and it embarrasses him.
Twenty minutes after that, we’re
driving down S. Central Ave. Late at night, this part of the city is an eerie ghost town. A deserted movie set. We spot a few people sleeping on the sidewalks, covered by cardboard. Other than that it’s an occasional car and a lone man pushing a shopping cart full of junk. It’s unseasonably warm tonight. I’m in a t-shirt and yet this guy is wearing at least four winter coats and a hood.
Being here makes me uneasy. This neighborhood is absolutely dangerous and having Alice in the car scares the shit out of me. If anything were to happen to her because of me...I can’t even go there. It would absolutely destroy me. Despite the urge to hold her hand, I remind myself that I don’t have the right.
“Here! Stop here,” Brian orders from the back seat. The Jeep hasn’t made a complete stop and Brian is already jumping out. “You got any money for me?” He has the balls to hold out his hand while he scans the area nervously.
“No,” I immediately fire back. “And if you don’t show up on Thursday at the clinic there won’t be any more money from me. You hear me?” Brian’s eyes get shifty, avoiding mine. “I mean it this time. I’m not going to be responsible for you ODing.”
“I gotta go.”
“I’ll see you Thursday,” I hammer again.
“Thursday,” he quietly repeats.
“It was nice meeting you, Brian,” Alice says in the sweetest voice. My gut clenches. This girl is awesome. The fucking best. I don’t deserve to be her friend. Not after the way I treated her.
Brian smiles briefly and looks away. “You guys better get outta here. It’s not safe for you.”
I want to yell no shit. I want to yell at him until he listens.
Brian pivots and runs off.
“Thursday!” I shout. But he’s already around the building and out of sight.
Alice
With the streets mostly empty, it only takes us half an hour to get back to campus. It’s 1 a.m. by the time Reagan parks the Jeep in front of my dorm. We haven’t exchanged a single word since we dropped off Brian, his very sweet and very troubled brother.