by Staci Hart
“Yeah, well, love isn’t always responsible.”
I had no argument. “You sound like a fortune cookie.”
West kept going. “So you could get hurt. She’s willing to risk it, but it won’t work if you’ve got one foot out.”
“So I go all in? Bet it all even though it’s been falling apart since it started?”
His face was earnest, pleading. “You go all in and fight for her when shit goes down. Don’t let her walk away. Don’t walk away from her. Love her, man. Love her like you do.”
I shook my head. “It’s not enough.”
“Of course it’s enough.”
“No, it’s not. You don’t understand, West. My life … my life isn’t simple. It never has been. As much as I want her, I can’t have her because I’m poisonous. I’m toxic. And at the end of the day, I’ll never be good enough for her. I don’t deserve her or any of you — I’m just lucky that I had you all for the time I have.”
West’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what this is about?”
I let out a breath, lips flat.
He put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a hard look. “Patrick, listen to me. Rose isn’t your dad. Rose isn’t Seth. Rose doesn’t love you for any reason other than that she does. You didn’t have to do anything. Don’t you get it? Fight because you want it. You fought to get straight. You fought to get away from your dad. You fight when you want something, and you want her, so why aren’t you fighting for her?”
My throat burned. “I … I don’t know.”
“Isn’t having Rose — even if it’ll end someday — isn’t having her enough to swallow your fear?”
I couldn’t speak.
“She wants to try. If you want to try, if you want her, then fucking go get her. Don’t let anything stand in your way.”
I nodded, my voice rough when I answered, “You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right.” He smiled easily and picked up the ball. “Now come on, Tricky. Let’s burn you down. Set you to rights.”
And we did — we played until I’d sweat out my doubt, burned through my fear, and in the ashes of that, I found Rose once again.
Patrick
Dusk had fallen, and the only light was pointed at the canvas. I guided the brush, knowing where the black watercolor would drip, where the brushstrokes would be visible. The idea had struck me on the way home from the courts, and the minute I sat down, the painting poured out of me. I hadn’t moved since.
I loaded the brush and held out a hand, tapping the base against the flat of my palm to knock the paint onto the canvas in splatters. And then I sat back and looked it over.
It was perfect, or as close to perfect as I could ever get. Now, I’d let it dry, get cleaned up, and make my way back to my old building so I could start to make it right.
I stood and stretched, rinsed my brushes and laid them out to dry.
Someone knocked on the door.
Rose, I thought as I walked through the living room with my heart aching.
When I pulled open the door and found Jared standing there, cold adrenaline pumped through me. He looked much the same as he did years ago, back when we used together, back when he started selling dope. Seth and I were his first customers.
“Tricky?” He looked me over in disbelief. “What the fuck, man.” He came in for a hug, clapping me on the shoulder. I didn’t reciprocate, and he pulled back, smile fading. “Long time. Seth here?”
“He’s at work.” I hadn’t let him in.
He stepped back into the hallway. “Ah, yeah. The old grind, right? He didn’t tell me you were moving back in. You start it up again too? Nobody can stay away from the white nurse too long, am I right?” he asked with a chuckle.
My jaw flexed, lips flat, heart banging like a war drum. “I’m clean, and Seth isn’t here.”
He nodded and looked up and down the hallway. “All right, it’s cool. Just give him this for me?” He pulled a bundle of plastic and white powder out of his pocket and extended it to me.
I couldn’t hear for the blood rushing in my ears. I hadn’t seen any in years, and time had only made the shock that much greater, reverberating through my mind.
“Give it to him yourself.”
Jared’s face hardened, and he closed his fingers around the bag, slipping it back into his pocket. I felt relief almost immediately. “Take it easy, Tricky. Don’t think you’re better than us just because you got out. I don’t doubt for a second that you’ll be back one day. Not one second.” His eyes narrowed as he looked me over before turning and walking away.
I closed the door, hoping I was wrong. That Jared coming over was an attempt to get Seth back in. That he hadn’t started up again — he hadn’t. He couldn’t. — that it was some horrible mistake. A vulture picking at the bones of the damaged.
My heart didn’t slow as I walked through the apartment and opened his bedroom door, stepping into it, feeling like a traitor and a thief. I knew him well enough to know his hiding places. I checked the hollow book on his bookshelf to find it empty. I found the wooden box in the back of his closet with the devil burned into the lid, but there was nothing there but some old photos. And then I looked behind his bed where I found the cigar box.
It was a box I knew well.
My hands shook, the black wolf on the label snarling at me, the words Big Wolf in block letters across the top. I flipped open the lid, knowing exactly what I’d find. Needles. Tubing and cotton. A spoon and a lighter. A small bag of white powder.
I closed my eyes and took a breath. I hadn’t seen his needle kit in so long, but the sight of it brought back the memories in a wave, followed by a flash of need, of want. Even after all these years, my body remembered.
I shut the lid with a snap
I was still trembling as I walked into the kitchen and set the kit on the table, leaning on the counter with my hand over my mouth, arm tucked under my elbow, eyes on that fucking wolf.
Seth hadn’t changed.
I should have known. I wanted so badly to believe he could, believe that he was different this time, and in the end, he’d lied to me. Again.
I don’t know how long I stood there in his kitchen with shock and anger and fear tumbling through me. Time stretched to a crawl, snapping back to speed when I heard Seth’s key in the door.
He smiled at me when he walked in, though it slid off his face when he saw his kit on the table. He looked back up at me warily.
“Jared came by for you,” I said flatly.”
He put out a hand. “It’s not what it looks like, Tricky.”
“Then enlighten me.”
He set down his bag, his eyes wide as he tried to convince me. “I’ve got a handle on it, man. It’s not like it was before — I only use on the weekends, just for fun. It’s not interfering with my job or my life, I won’t let it. I’ve been down that road before.”
I laughed, sharp and loud and without a hint of joy. “Yeah, you have. Just for fun?” I shook my head. “I cannot fucking believe you. This is how it starts. This is how it always starts — you know that. But you have no control. You never have control. None of us do, not when it comes to this. How is it that you didn’t get rid of your needle kit? That should have been the first thing you did. There is no halfway with this. There’s no sometimes, and you’re lying to yourself if you believe otherwise.”
He hurried to the table with conviction across his face, in his voice. “It’s different now,” he pleaded. “I know I can handle it, Patrick. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. I still don’t drink. I don’t even smoke weed. But this … I don’t know who I am without this.”
“I know. But I know who I am without it. Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? Don’t you realize I can’t be around this? I can’t even see this fucking box, Seth.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“Well, I fucking did. You lied to me, Seth, and this time is the last time. This ends here.” I pushed off the counter and made my way to my
room.
“I didn’t lie to you. When you asked me, I was clean. I didn’t ask you to move in here, and when you offered, I didn’t think you’d take me up on it.”
I didn’t answer as I blew through the apartment with him on my heels.
“Dammit, Tricky,” he huffed. “I always knew you thought you were better than me. Like you’re strong and I’m weak. You’ve got the answers and I’m some dumbfuck screw-up who can’t get his shit together.”
I turned on him, brow low. “I don’t think I’m better than anybody. But as much as I want more for you, I can’t help you. I never could. And I can’t give anymore.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “You can’t leave, man. What am I going to do if you leave?” His chest heaved as he begged. “What do I have to do to make you stay?”
But I shook my head. “Nothing. There’s nothing you can do.”
His face bent in anger, neck taught as he pulled back a fist and slammed it into the drywall, popping a hole in it the size of a softball. He breathed heavy as he leaned against the wall, pressed his forehead to the sheetrock, voice ragged, body ragged. “I tried. I’ve been trying. I don’t know what more you want from me.”
“I want you to want to quit. But you don’t. You never will. You have to quit for you, not for me, not for anything but yourself.”
His voice cracked. “I don’t know how.”
“I know,” I said sadly. “But I can’t stay. I can’t, Seth. I can’t know that’s within reach. I can’t walk in to find you with a needle in your arm. I just … I can’t. You have to understand that, if nothing else.”
Seth stood and looked me over, his face thin and ashen, lined with pain and regret. “I can’t understand anything.” He turned and walked out of the apartment.
I trudged into my room and began to pack my bag, stowing away supplies in their boxes, carrying them down the stairs and ultimately to the cab I called. And then, I went home.
32
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN
Rose
THE BAR WAS STEADY ENOUGH that night to keep my thoughts occupied, and I was so grateful. I did my crying, and then I hitched up my britches and went to work. Red, red lipstick and black, black liner helped my mood considerably, or at least helped me hide it a little.
I’d been far too busy to think about Patrick. Until Seth walked in.
I couldn’t puzzle out why he was there as I walked over. Maybe he wanted to talk to me on Patrick’s behalf. But as I looked him over, I knew that wasn’t the case. He took a seat near the end of the bar, smiling at me, but that smile left me unsettled. There was something feral about him tonight — he looked more like the Seth I used to know than he had lately.
I headed down to greet him with my best fake smile on. “Hey, Seth. What’s up?”
“Oh, you know. Just living,” he said flatly.
I tossed a cocktail napkin in front of him. “What can I get you?”
“Jack on the rocks.”
“Sure,” I said, glancing at him as I filled the glass with ice. “I thought Tricky said you’d quit drinking.”
“Yeah, well. Guess he doesn’t know everything.” The words were wry and cold.
Unease slipped through me. “Yeah. Guess not.”
He seemed to try to shake off whatever was on his mind. “It’s been really good seeing you lately. I’m sorry about everything that happened with him.”
I smiled and passed the drink over. “Thanks. Just one tonight? Or did you want me to start a tab?”
He picked it up, his eyes hungry as he looked into the glass. “A tab would be great.”
I glanced at the time. It was eight, early enough in the night to see what would happen with Seth. If he got tanked, I’d text Patrick. Maybe he’d behave himself and split after a drink or two, and I wouldn’t have to.
But somehow, I doubted that.
Patrick
It took me two trips to get everything from Seth’s, including the painting I’d done that afternoon. And just like that, I was back in my old room, feeling more sure of myself than I had in ages, though still shaken from Seth. It was like being slapped back into reality, from a dark room to a light one, and I could see, even if not all that I saw was pretty.
I set the painting down in my room, and Lily spent a long time looking at it with her fingers on her lips and her eyes shining.
“It’s perfect,” she’d whispered as Lily, West, and I stood around it quietly.
A little while later, I showered and changed, then sat down at my desk and wrote a note. It was the first step. The first word to tell her what she meant to me, and I wouldn’t stop until she was mine. Not this time.
I would fight for her. For us.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to find a text from Rose.
Hey. I’m sorry to bother you with this, but Seth is at Habits, and he’s been drinking for a few hours alone. I’m not sure if he’s okay.
I texted her back as my heart sped up. I’ll be right there.
Thanks, Patrick.
I stood and left the painting where it was in my room, no longer having time to leave it in her apartment, my fears about what was next with us replaced by something far worse as I hurried across the blocks to her.
Rose
I should have called Patrick sooner.
It was getting late, late enough that the bar had cleared out, even Bob who paid his tab with a smile, nodding to Seth as he asked if I wanted him to stay. But I sent him on his way, sure Seth was harmless. I texted Patrick anyway, though, uncertain what else to do.
When I made it back behind the bar, Seth sagged over his drink, shoulders sloped. He spun the glass around by the rim.
“Doing okay, Seth?” I asked in my bartender voice.
He smiled. “Great. Better than ever.” The glass spun around again, and he watched his fingers. “You know, I’ve been wondering about something.”
“Oh?”
Seth looked up at me, half smiling, half something else. “How come you and I never hooked up?”
I chuckled uneasily. “Well, I did have a boyfriend when you lived with Tricky.”
“Yeah, but I mean, I always thought we had the vibe, you know?”
I shrugged. “To be honest, knowing your past was always chasing you was kind of a turn off.” It was honest, all right. Too honest, and the moment it left my lips, I wish I’d made up a lie or a joke or anything.
He shook his head at me, eyes hard. “Tricky had the same past.” It was almost an accusation.
“Not many people are like Tricky, though. You know he’s different.”
“Right.” The word was bitter, and he picked up his drink and killed it. “Can I get another?”
I laughed gently, looking for footing, trying to diffuse the tension, giving him whatever he wanted to buy time until Patrick showed up. “It’s late, Seth. Don’t you have work in the morning?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
I watched him for a moment. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. How about that drink?” The words were sharper than before, so I smiled and picked up the bottle.
“Sure.” I poured him another drink with my mind screaming, wondering when Patrick would get there. “Hey, I’ll be right back. Gonna grab a couple of things from the back.”
“All right.”
I walked past the bathrooms and into the stock room, propping the door open with the doorstop, letting out a breath as I walked toward the back wall.
“You know,” Seth started, and I jolted, spinning around to find him blocking the doorway. “The first time I ever saw you, I was sure you and I would be a thing.” He took a step into the room, and I took an instinctive step back. “I wish Tricky hadn’t made me leave, but he always was the golden boy, you know? He got the job.” He took another step. “He got the girl, even if he lost her.” The corner of his lip curled into a smile. “Twice.”
“He earned all that. No one gave it to hi
m.”
He took another step, and so did I. “He and I came from the same circumstances, but somehow he gets it all, and I get nothing. I tried, Rosie. I tried so hard. But it’s never good enough. It’s never enough.”
Seth moved, and when I took a step back, my back hit the shelves, sending the bottles clinking into each other gently. I had nowhere to go as he closed in on me. “Seth—”
He was close enough now that I could smell the whiskey on his breath as he reached out to touch my hair, running a strand through his fingers. “I’m not gonna hurt you, Rosie.”
I didn’t believe that for a second. “What happened to you?”
He shrugged as his eyes ran over my face, assessing me. “I’m not clean enough for Tricky, so he left. Moved out.”
“Patrick only wants to help you. You know that.” Where is he?
A shadow passed across his face. “Maybe I don’t want any help. Maybe I’m tired of bending myself into a shape that doesn’t fit. Maybe I’m tired of fighting what I want. I should just take what I want instead. Like you, Rose.”
He pressed his body into mine, slipped a hand into my hair and squeezed until I cried out in pain. My arms were by my side, fingers gently groping for anything on the shelf that I could use as a weapon. They brushed the neck of a bottle, and I fumbled with it until I could grip it with my heart thumping so hard, so loud. I squeezed my fist around the neck and snarled.
“Get the fuck off me, you son of a bitch.”
But the angle was odd and slow, the bottle heavier than I thought as I brought it up, and I knew through every millisecond that it wouldn’t be enough. His face twisted, full of rage when he realized what I was doing, shifting into shock as he flew backwards, then sideways into the shelves against the other wall.
Patrick stood in Seth’s place, staring at his back with his body tight, jaw firm and lip curled, voice dangerously low. “Don’t you ever put your fucking hands on her again.”
Seth pushed off the shelves, roaring as he flew at Patrick. But Seth was too slow. Patrick barely moved, didn’t even flinch, just shifted and threw out a fist, catching Seth in the jaw.