Kick (Songs of Perdition #1)(29)

I shook a little. I was getting out. The press was out to skewer me and possibly my brother. My little coterie of f*ckbuddies and hangers-on were going to steer clear of me and the media attention I dragged behind me. My relationship with Deacon was in a sick holding pattern. Amanda was still dead. I’d broken, or at least fractured, a lifelong bond of trust between me and my sisters and brother.

A little community service would go a long way to distracting me.

Bored, yet jumpy and upset, I went into the cafeteria. Dinner was starting. The staff placed trays of deluxe meals into the steam trays. I’d never see them again, those chattering people in hair nets, and I hadn’t even gotten to know their names. I said good-bye in my mind to the cafeteria, the patio, the holes in the camera matrix. I said so long to the grey painted over everything, the flat lighting, the sterile corners. Karen came in, all unkind angles and protruding bones. I excused myself from Margie, who waved me off, and stood next to Karen as she plopped her journal on the tray.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m getting my recommendation in, like, twenty minutes, then I’m outtie.”

“It was good to see you again,” she said flatly.

“You should call me when you get home. I mean it.”

“I don’t think I can do an Ojai again.” She poked through a basket of perfect yellow bananas as if unable to choose one, though they all looked the same to me.

“Yeah, me neither.” I said it, but did I mean it?

Deacon had kept me away from the life for months, but I didn’t know where he and I stood. He might be out of my world forever, and if that was the case, then what did I have left but more of what had gone before? I found I wasn’t looking forward to anything. I was terrified of speaking to Deacon, of being in my big empty condo. I didn’t care to see Earl or Charlie. Didn’t want to delve into what had happened with Martin or Debbie. But mostly, I wasn’t looking forward to partying. Didn’t want coke, but knew I’d snort it when I got bored. Didn’t want sex, but knew I’d need it when I got sad.

Karen got to the bottom of the basket. The banana at the end was black and soft. No one would want it. She picked it up and put it on her tray instead of all the firm, ripe ones.

I’d figure it all out once I was home. I might figure it out licking the base of some guy’s cock or tied to the ceiling like an enraptured side of flesh, but I’d figure it out. I just had to go deeper. Harder. Full throttle into whatever tornado I’d walked into. Yet when I spoke, something completely different came out.

“Something has to change,” I said. “I don’t think I can live like that anymore.”

“Yeah,” Karen said pensively. “If I knew how to stop doing this, I would.”

“It’s a problem. Me, I mean. I have a problem.” I said it with a little laugh, as if to disavow it even as I said it. I was taking a practice run at thinking I had something to fix. It was like an audition for recovery to see if I had the talent to pull off the role.

“Fiona,” Margie said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “We’re up.”

I hugged Karen. “Good-bye. Eat something, would you? You’re skin and bones.”

“I will. Good luck out there.”

Elliot and Frances entered through the glass doors, and I noticed that he was frowning. We walked in silence to the conference room. I said good-bye to the linoleum, the garden outside the window. Silently, as a prayer to people not present, I said good-bye to Jack who was completely unf*ckable, Warren who was an act of violence waiting to happen, Mark who was one of a hundred or more.

I didn’t know what waited for me outside. I didn’t know if Deacon would take me back, didn’t know if the media would crush me, but I was ready to be out of Westonwood—that was for damn sure.

seventeen.

Mom didn’t come back. It was just me and Margie with Elliot and Frances. The table shined in all its lacquer glory under the horizontal shadows of the window blinds. A black spider of a conference call unit sat in the middle of the table, ignored. I tried to make eye contact with Elliot, and he met my eyes once we sat. I saw no reassurances in the gaze, but he was never one to let a crack in his professional veneer show.

I tucked my hair behind my ears. Had I brushed it? I was about to go back into the world, and I’d hate to do it ungroomed, sloppy, with scraggly red hair and no makeup. I already felt as though I had one foot out the door.

“Ms. Drazen,” Frances said to Margie, “can we get you anything?”

“Out of here?”

She smiled so disarmingly, Frances laughed, and the tension of the room broke a little.

“Well, thanks for coming.” Frances looked as if she’d applied lipstick fifteen seconds before opening the glass doors. “This conversation is being recorded for the patient’s protection.”

I almost laughed out loud but choked it down.

Frances continued. “Doctor Chapman and I will be issuing our recommendations to the judge and district attorney for the City of Los Angeles, in the case of Fiona Maura Drazen.” Frances folded her hands in front of her and looked me in the eye. “After careful consideration by the administration of this hospital, and the bearing in mind the counsel of Dr. Chapman, we’ve decided to recommend you stay at Westonwood or another accredited facility for an additional fourteen to forty-five days of observation, pursuant to Section 5250 of the California Welfare and Institutions code.”