Purple Hearts(63)

I looked at Cassie. Her eyes were narrowed at Yarvis. “I work a minimum-wage service job, I have to check my blood sugar eight times a day, and neither Luke nor I have the money to buy or rent a vehicle that can transport him across the river to the, uh, what’s it called, the Veterans Center on South Congress. So.” Her words caught. She took another breath, trying to calm herself, and put on a strained smile. “What do you recommend as far as trying?” Then, after a pause, she pushed out a sarcastic “Sir?”

Some sort of buried conditioning from a year of army training moved words out of my mouth before I could realize what I was saying. “Don’t, Cass.”

“Thanks, Private,” she snapped.

I pressed her hand. She pressed back. She wasn’t only being disrespectful to the one person trying to help us, she was blowing our cover. We weren’t acting like a married couple, just bickering a little. She was on the verge of full-on fed up.

“It’s all right, Luke.” Yarvis looked at Cassie. “I’m sorry. I know it must be hard. I didn’t mean to lecture you.”

Cassie’s eyes softened, though she was still breathing hard. “It is hard.”

He turned to me. “Have you at least been doing your basic PT at home?”

“Yes,” I lied.

I could feel her eyes on me, debating whether to call me out. Don’t push it. Please. We have to sugarcoat things so he can get out of here.

“I’m still getting used to things,” I added, resisting looking back at her.

“Yeah, well,” Cassie said, sensing my thoughts. “We’ll get him up in no time.”

“You poor kids,” Yarvis said. “You’ve both got dark circles under your eyes. It’s going to get easier.”

“I’ll be right back,” Cassie said. She fluttered her hands toward the two of us. “Can I get either of you anything? Honey?”

“No, thank you,” Yarvis said.

I shook my head, though what I wanted was a pill. This was too much. My hand started moving toward my pocket, where I’d started keeping them in my sweatpants.

“Hey,” Yarvis said, leaning close to me, snapping his fingers. I looked at him in his pool-water eyes. “What’s your deal?”

“Nothing, sir. Just tired.” My pulse quickened.

“Your pupils are tiny.” His smoky voice was harsh. “Are you taking opiates?”

I swallowed, jerked my hand away from my pocket to my knee. “For the pain.”

He raised his bushy eyebrows. “And only as prescribed?”

“Only as prescribed,” I repeated, hoarse. I suddenly remembered what the surgeon said. Pain is the alert system. Maybe I’d fallen because there was slippage and I couldn’t tell.

“I’ve seen kids better off than you go down a dark path. Don’t do that,” he said, pointing right between my eyes. Right between cloud head and regular head. “If you don’t believe you’re going to make a full recovery, you won’t. Do it for her,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen.

Cloud head almost laughed. As if Cassie would want me to do anything for her, let alone clomp around her apartment doing pony exercises. I’m pretty sure the only thing Cassie wanted was a time machine to take her forward to the day when I’d be gone.

Cassie came back, sipping water. Yarvis sat back in his chair, a smile on his face. “You know what you two need?”

“A farmhand?” Cassie asked.

“A dog.”

Cassie snorted. When Yarvis got up to use the bathroom, I slid a pill from my pocket, swallowing while Cassie was looking the other way. Yarvis was right about me, but it was too late. I was already on a dark path. But I’d be fine. I’d figure out what lay on the other side of it once I got out of here.

The rest of this interview was going to get a lot more pleasant for everyone with cloud head around. Best to just ride it out, smiling. Best to just become furniture.

“Huh,” Yarvis was saying, looking out one of Cassie’s windows down at the street. “Wonder what that Bronco is doing.”

“What?” I said, almost a whisper. I wanted the Oxy to hit me harder, to slow down the pumping of blood.

“Oh, it was idling out there when I came in, and it’s still there,” Yarvis muttered.

Cassie joined him at the window. “I’ve never seen it before.”

Johnno. He found Cassie’s house. I didn’t have the money. Why couldn’t he get that through his head? I didn’t have it, and I would pay him when I did. But facts didn’t matter in Johnno’s chaos. I couldn’t see out the window, but I could imagine his twitchy face in a cloud of menthol smoke, ready to hop out with Kaz behind him, ready to snap.

He could come up here at any time. He could hurt Cassie.

“It’s leaving,” Yarvis said, his voice far away.

I clung to my wheels, my wrists pulsing on my useless legs. If he came back, if he came up here and tried to hurt me—tried to hurt Cassie—all I could do was watch.





Cassie


“Mm.” Toby kissed my neck as I tried to get the notes right. “Do you have to practice? We practice enough.”

“Of course I have to practice,” I said. “You know that better than anyone.”