The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(31)
The minute the business started to tank, so did our relationship. Graham’s mood swings had become more frequent and more dramatic, sometimes violent. He seemed to always be on edge, stressed out, and it didn’t take much to set him off. We were deep in debt and I didn’t know how we were going to pay the rent on the dispensary or the loft. Even using the interest payments I received from the trust, we were going to be significantly short.
The sex had become nonexistent, but now we didn’t even talk. Graham had been bringing home edibles—marijuana in dried fruit, cookies, even things like gummy bears. He said it helped him to relax and fall asleep. It definitely did that. Most nights he passed out on the couch, which was a blessing, because if he’d also been drinking, which was not infrequent, he quickly became incoherent—or belligerent. Half the time his speech was so slurred, I couldn’t even understand what he was saying. And the one time we’d tried to make love, he hadn’t been able to get a hard-on, and that had just made him angry and spiteful.
“I’m tired, Andrea,” he’d said, quickly getting out of bed. “I’m under a lot of stress at work. What did you think was going to happen?”
“I was hoping it would help you relax,” I’d said.
“You want to help me relax? Talk to your trustee and see about using the funds to help us pay some of these bills. I’m killing myself at the store. The hours are killing me.” Then he’d stormed out of our bedroom and slept on the couch.
I was walking home from the dispensary with a massive headache, the kind that makes you squint because the light hurts your eyes. My stomach churned as though I’d been standing on the deck of a boat in high seas trying to read a book. My lunch was in a knotted plastic bag, and my inability to eat it, again, had left me feeling weak. I had an appointment later in the week to see the doctor for what I was sure was an ulcer.
As I stepped from the elevator onto our landing, I just wanted to change into my sweats, curl up on the couch with my latest novel, and lose myself in some fictional world.
I punched in the four-digit code to our keyless door lock. The lights were off, but the pale-blue light of a streetlamp filtered through the blinds. I noticed this because I never lowered the blinds. The window looked toward the Willamette River, and the view was the best part of my now-pricey loft that I doubted we’d continue to be able to afford.
Graham sat on the couch with his back to the door, so still it was like looking at the back of the head of a mannequin in a department-store display. His suit coat, the black-and-white checked pattern he’d recently bought, hung haphazardly over the back of the sofa, as if tossed, which was not like him. He was meticulous when it came to his clothes.
“Graham?” I said, my voice questioning.
His head moved, but it was more of a flinch, which was a relief because the thought had crossed my mind that he had died seated on that couch.
“Graham?” I said again, stepping farther in.
“Well, it’s over,” he said, voice hoarse and soft.
I set my keys on the kitchen counter and stepped to the side of the couch with the window at my back. I was looking at him in profile. His hair was untamed, as if he’d been tugging on it. Beside him, on the couch, his tie lay balled up. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up his forearms in tight bunches. On the table was a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a glass. Thankfully, the bottle looked relatively full, but beside it was an open mason jar from the dispensary filled with dried apricots laced with THC, the chemical in marijuana that causes the high.
“What happened? Did you talk to the bank?”
He’d had an appointment that afternoon to speak with the bank about extending the loan payments, or securing an additional loan. Judging from his demeanor, the meeting had not gone well.
He nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly, his lips pursed. Then he stood so suddenly I flinched. He grabbed the bottle and came around the couch, leaning down into my personal space. The alcohol and smell of the apricots was strong, almost enough to make me puke. My stomach lurched but I looked away and sucked in air.
“I did.” He grinned and stepped past me to the window. He put his fingers between the blades of the blinds, pulling them down so that they crinkled, and peered out like a man in hiding.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he said. “I’m eating the inventory.” He turned and smiled at me, again without any humor.
“How many have you had?” I asked, looking at the mason jar. I had learned that the potency level in the edibles was much higher than smoking a joint, but the real problem was that the level of THC was difficult to measure. People made the mistake of eating one edible, feeling nothing, and eating another, not realizing the effect from the first edible had yet to kick in. When it did, it could be debilitating.
“I don’t know,” Graham said, running his hand down the blades as if over harp strings. “And I don’t really give a shit.”
“Do you think you should be drinking?”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “What would you have me do, Andrea, read a book? Live in a fantasy world?”
“Is it that bad?”
He approached. His grin had now become more sinister, the kind you carved into a jack-o’- lantern to scare trick-or-treaters on Halloween. When he leaned forward, I took a step back.