Together Again

by Aria Ford

  “Brett, you really do know how to hurt yourself, don’t you?”

  I sighed. Caden, my coach, had always said that. I knew what he meant, now.

  All the same, I knew I had to do this.

  I thought about that. How likely was it that they would do anything to her? For the most part, they hadn’t done anything to me. I thought I had managed to reduce the dangers to myself and my loved ones when I left Miami and came here. It was why I moved.

  But I wasn’t about to risk her life on the strength of that.

  I stood and went to the bathroom, drank water. Then went through to the kitchen to fix myself something dinner-like. I thought that if I ate something maybe my mood would lift a bit. I was starving after all that action, anyway. The thought made me grin.

  As I sat down to my homemade pasta, I tried to think logically about the threat I foresaw to Kerry’s life. Was it really that likely that a Miami drug lord would have connections here in Colorado? And, given the likelihood of the connections, how likely was it, really, that they would harm Kerry to get at me?

  Not likely.

  I sighed. Maybe I was getting paranoid, after all. Maybe all these years of being on the run, of looking over my shoulder for a hit-man, had finally undone my cautions.

  I finished dinner and I still didn’t feel like I’d made any sense of my predicament. I stretched and changed and headed downstairs. The reason I had chosen this apartment block over the other one I could afford to stay in was because of its closeness to the park. It meant that, when I still wanted to, I could jog and work out a bit.

  I really felt the longing to be out running now.

  “Hey! Brett!” Dominic greeted me. He was a guy I had met here in the park—an amateur runner, but a talented one. We sometimes jogged together. I hadn’t seen him for ages.

  “Hey,” I nodded. I hadn’t realized that he enjoyed my company—in the years after I left running I felt like everyone thought I was as much a loser as I thought myself to be—but it seemed that he didn’t. I smiled.

  “You coming to train?”

  “Mm,” I nodded. “It’s a good evening.”

  “It is,” he agreed. “Looks like it might rain, maybe.” He nodded his head in the direction of the clouds, gathering just behind the treetops and the skyscraper on the skyline.

  “Perhaps,” I agreed.

  We jogged round the park together. While we did, I couldn’t help wondering what he would do if he knew anything about me. I couldn’t imagine telling Dominic anything about my past—for all he knew I was just a guy who moved here from the coast, wanting to have a different lifestyle. He didn’t know anything about me.

  “Dominic?” I asked later, as we stretched.

  “Mm?”

  “You planning anything for Thanksgiving?” I asked. It was still three months away, but anyhow. I was just interested. I hadn’t been back home for any of the holidays since my drug problem started to become unmanageable. Now that I was, finally, out of therapy and clean for a year, I was thinking about reaching out.

  “Mm,” he nodded. “I’m going up to my parents in Utah.”

  “Nice,” I said. I leaned to one side, wincing as I stretched my neck. I must have hurt it when I shifted round so Kerry could lie on me more comfortably. I smiled thinking of it. Best way to have a strained muscle I could imagine.

  “You?” he asked.

  “I dunno,” I said, shrugging lightly. “Probably the same.”

  “Oh,” He nodded. “Good. Always nice to see the family.”

  “Mm.”

  I stretched my neck on the other side, wincing again as the tension stretched out. It burned a little and the pain made me think of Kerry’s ankle.

  I wondered what she’d done to it.

  As a runner, I understood a little of what it meant to take real joy in your body. How dance was her life, like track was mine. I knew how painful that loss was.

  I lost my joy too, I thought. But it was my fault.

  I sighed.

  “So,” Dominic interrupted me. “You ready to head back? Getting cold.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “It is. I think it will rain, later.”

  He nodded. “Never can tell, eh? Never can tell.”

  We jogged.

  Back at home, my body pleasantly relaxed after working out a little, I leaned back on my chair and thought about my own choices, and Kerry’s own tragedy. They paralleled each other in a way, except for the fact that, where hers were accidental, mine were all self-inflicted.

  I should never have taken that first hit.

  I closed my eyes, remembering.

  It had been a party, following a race. I had been fizzling with endorphins and wonder. I was starting to get scared of my own success. I remembered that feeling—that sense of standing on the top of a cliff and wondering how the hell you got there. How you would get down. And, now that you were there, who were you, anyway? Fame did things to people. It was a lot of pressure.

  I guess if I hadn’t been so uncertain, so confused within myself, I would probably not have gone along with it.

  It was Royce who gave it to me. He was a good friend. Also an athlete, though a hurdler, not a long-distance runner. We had come up for the contest together, and it was our last day.

  “Hey, man,” he’d said. I looked at him a little suspiciously. He was looking hyped. He was usually not so hyped. I wondered what had gotten into him.

  “Hey,” I said, cautiously.

  “Man, I feel amazing,” he’d said. He looked a little tense—wired in a way I hadn’t seen him before. “I wanted to ask. You want to try it too?”

  “It?”

  He had reached into his jacket surreptitiously. It was a good jacket—powdery blue and well-cut. Stupid, the things you remember. It felt like yesterday, the recollection that crisp. He took out a small tinfoil package and opened it. It had a powdery substance inside. I recognized what it must be without having to be told.

  “Man, I don’t know,” I said. I wasn’t into that kind of thing. I had never used drugs before and I didn’t drink. I might have been twenty-four, but I was an innocent as far as these things were concerned. I had never even seen a drug in real life before.

  “It feels incredible, Brett,” he said. “It’s just one sniff, and you—it’s not like you’re high, not exactly. Just that you’re floating and you’re full of energy and there’s no more pain.”

  I sighed. That sounded good. I had recently strained my quads and they still burned a little. I looked at his face. Looked at the package. It was when I looked at my coach that I decided I was going to try.

  It’s fine for us to take performance-enhancing drugs when he says it is, I thought a little rebelliously. They were encouraged. And as far as I knew they were also bad for you. So, if that was okay, why not this?

  I frowned at him.

  “What do I do?”

  He passed me the package. “Go in the bathroom,” he said, and take a little bit, like this…” he demonstrated, taking out a small pinch, barely visible in the greater mass of powder. “And…sniff!” He demonstrated that too—not actually sniffing the stuff, mind you, but just miming it for me to copy.

  I nodded. “Fine.”

  I was nervous. I stood in front of the mirror. Looked at my face. Should I?

  I recalled what the guy had said about the energy, about the pain, and the fact that I’d stop feeling anything. It sounded too amazing. Too scary too. But compelling.

  I closed my eyes like I did before an injection, put my fingers into the powder and took a section. Sniffed.

  The rest of the evening was a wild, crazy blur. I had never felt like that. I couldn’t exactly say how I did feel—not in words—because the next morning I recalled almost nothing of what I had done. But I knew that it had been amazing and that the way I felt now, back in my body, with its aches and its pains and its ordinariness, felt frustrating, boring and dissatisfying.

  I would do anything to be back in that
other, colorful world.

  I was hooked.

  Sitting in my small, cramped apartment now, I shrugged and chuckled bitterly to myself. It was a real irony that I had sold all that—my fulfilled, happy world, my talent and my success—to buy white powder.

  Now, look at where I was. In a run-down seedy apartment with no family and few friends, with only a fraction of the strength and health I had, with a dwindling supply of cash. With a life devoid of affection. And with the danger that, at any time, my past could come out and catch me. Sweep away any love I ever managed to find in my life again.

  “Was it worth it?” I sighed.

  Of course not.

  It had taken years—slow, painful, frightening years of withdrawal, and counseling, and introspection—to get off the stuff. Now, finally, I was free of it.

  Or at least, I myself was free. But the world of drugs has a long reach. And a longer memory. And the dealers I owed money to were not going to let me forget my debt—even if I ran across the country to escape them.

  I hoped they had. I had paid them off when I moved here, and so far I had only received one threatening blackmail request since then. If I was lucky, they were making enough cash where they were to forget I existed. I might be able to hold what I had and be safe.

  I sighed and went to the window and drew the curtains.

  I read for a while to settle my mind and then went to bed. I couldn’t help thinking about Kerry. A few hours before, she had been on this bed beside me. I could smell her. Sense her. Recall her. I slept and when I woke I still hadn’t decided what to do.

  Should I stay in touch with her? Or should I walk away now and not risk inflicting danger on her life? I truly cared for her happiness and wellbeing, but it felt like I could only control one of them.

  “Come on, Brett.”

  I checked my phone. My tummy tingled as I saw a text. It was from her.

  Hey, Brett. Want to have dinner on the weekend? I get time off.

  I smiled. I really, sincerely wanted to.

  I yawned and walked to the front door, planning to check the mailbox for the papers. I should stop thinking overmuch. It was simple. There wasn’t any danger to Kerry here in Colorado. Why would there be?

  I was stable and, as far as I could tell, my debts were settled. It was time for me to let myself out of this cage of worries.

  I took the papers out of the mailbox. A note slid to the ground and settled by my feet. I lifted it.

  I closed my eyes in pain.

  You still owe us, Brett, the note said. And we know where you live.

  I crumpled it in my fist and with it, knew that my hope of having anyone in my life was over.

  CHAPTER 6: KERRY

  “Kerry?”

  I turned around to find my colleague behind me, two plates of breakfast in his hand.

  “Yes?” I asked. I blinked, trying to look awake. It was eight in the morning and I had barely slept.

  “You know where these are meant to be? I thought table four!” He sounded worried and alarmed. He inclined his head in the direction of the table, where two women in business dress were happily eating our famous granola. Not for them, evidently. I closed my eyes in frustration and looked around.

  “That a burrito?” I asked.

  “Looks like it,” he said.

  “Ha, ha,” I said dryly. “Well, I have an order for burrito for table seven. Try there.”

  “Whew! Thanks, K.” He smiled. “I knew you’d save me.”

  I shot him a look—one of my best fed-up looks. He laughed. I headed into the kitchen and tried to not feel annoyed. Everything grated on me this morning.

  “Kerry?” Chef called cheerfully. He was frying mushrooms, his hat at an angle, sweat on his face.

  “What?” I said. I was trying to arrange toast neatly on a plate and trying to turn off my brain.

  No matter how hard I tried, images of Brett kept on coming back to me. Brett on the bed, his smile lighting the darkness. Brett with that knowing smirk. Brett kissing me.

  “Hell, I was just going to say something,” Harry said, sounding hurt. “No need to shout at me.”

  I closed my eyes. “Sorry, Harry,” I said. “I was just lost in thought.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “These mushrooms are going out to table six, yes?”

  “Mm,” I agreed. I finished plating up the scrambled eggs and toast and put them on the tray, heading out.

  In the front of house, I watched Braden taking orders, the wry grin on his face cutting into my heart. Why was everyone so damnably cheerful? I was fed up.

  I had texted Brett three days ago, and he hadn’t said anything. It was almost Friday, and I still had no idea as to whether or not he would be eating with me on Saturday night.

  It wasn’t just the inconvenience of not knowing, of course. Or of not really even looking forward to the weekend and my day off on Sunday. It was the fact that I really wanted to hear from him. I had just met him after five years, and the least he could do was say something in reply to my text! I mean, it felt to me as if our connection was real. And intact. And huge. Like old times. But what if that was my head?

  What if he really didn’t care that much about me, like I did?

  I sighed.

  “Excuse me?” Someone said from under my nose.

  “Yes?” I said, turning my attention to a man who had gone slightly red in the face, an annoyed expression on his face. I sighed. It was the business breakfast crowd. They tended to get impatient.

  “I want to order a coffee. And my friend here wants to order something to eat. If that’s not too hard?”

  I heard the irony dripping from his voice and I had to contain my temper.

  “Your orders?” I asked.

  While they placed them, I mentally counted to ten. I smiled and went into the kitchen. Then I handed the paper to Chef and went outside. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I wanted to cry.

  Dammit, Brett. Why was he doing this to me?

  I stood outside and breathed in fresh morning air. In, and out. In, and out. I tried hard not to feel frustrated. Or hurt. Or sad. I was almost succeeding, when a voice spoke from behind me, saying, “You okay, Kerry?”

  I sighed.

  “I’m fine,” I said. It was Braden. “Just a rough day.” My voice was dry.

  He nodded. “Sure.” He rested a hand on my shoulder, gently. “Anything I can do, just tell me, okay? Always ready to help.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered. My throat was too tight for my words to come out properly. I was crying, but I didn’t want him to see. I looked away.

  “Anytime.”

  I went in, trying not to look up. Chef passed me the plates and I made them neater, then headed out into the front room to deliver them.

  I felt as if all the hurt and sorrow from the last five years had filled me up, brimming over, unleashed by Braden’s unexpected caring. I remembered all the sadness about my career, my foot, my pain. My loss of Brett. My feeling like I had let everyone down. My feeling like a failure.

  “Here we go,” Harry said, passing me the bits and pieces for the breakfast roll. “Will you put it all together?” he asked. “You make them look better than I do!”

  I laughed and smiled at his blunt, kind smile. “Thanks, Harry,” I said.

  As I worked, I tried, valiantly, not to cry. My colleagues were so sweet to me here! I wondered, sometimes, why I missed the dance world. I had loved it and it was my life, but here in this smaller, more ordinary world, I felt safe. I felt cared about.

  I might have been a fire-bird there, but fires burn.

  In this safe, ordinary place, here in the Hill View restaurant, I was happy. Not the dazzling, wild heights of amazement my dance career had welled up in me, but a safe, contained sort of happiness, like a campfire compared to the sun. It was sustainable. I would never know if my career would have been.

  I probably wasn’t that good anyway, I thought.

  “Hey,” Braden called
cheerfully. “Pancakes for table one. We got syrup?”

  “I’ll check!” Harry yelled back. “If not, you know who can go fetch some, right?”

  Braden laughed. “Maybe…”

  I was smiling again when I went out with the plate.

  This time, when I took the breakfast to the two businessmen, they seemed quite friendly.

  “You local?” The other man—not the more-impatient one of the two—asked me.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “Been here two years. Why?”

  “Oh. Just wondering if you can recommend anything to see ‘round here?”

  I made a short list for him of local sightseeing opportunities and they both grinned and thanked me. I went in feeling much better.

  I had almost gotten over my sadness about Brett when work ended. The day was too busy to think much about anything. It was when I sat down in my car and looked at my phone that I remembered.

  Still nothing.

  I thrust it into my purse.

  Dammit, Brett. If he disappeared once, what’s going to stop him from disappearing again?