Purple Hearts(86)

“It’s done now, though,” he continued, putting his hands down. “Trust me.”

“How am I supposed to trust you?”

He spoke quieter now. “I took care of him, Cassie. I mean it. You’re safe. That’s my first priority, especially now.”

“I don’t care.”

Now. He was talking about what happened yesterday, and the night before, and long before that. The feelings that had grown for him, that I was ready to give. I’d fallen for every single lie out of his mouth. I’d blinded myself.

“I know I can’t change what I did, and I take full responsibility for it.”

A laugh built in me, hard, spiked. “You can’t offer to pay for a TV and expect everything to be fine.” My mother’s windows, broken. Her bare feet, cut.

“I didn’t know he would do that. I fucking almost killed him last night, Cass.”

I stayed quiet.

“And I didn’t like doing it, but I would do it again. I would do anything for you.” Another look of shock. He hadn’t known he would say that part, either. He was staring at me, barely blinking. I could hear him breathe. “If you want to forget about what we have and never speak to me again and be with Toby, fine. But you have to at least know that I have real feelings for you. That’s why I’m being honest with you. I’m telling you everything. When we kissed the other night, I meant it.”

“Don’t,” I said. I was so angry, my words caught in my throat. He was trying to smooth it over. Trying to distract me from my anger. And on this day. The most important day of my life. “I have to go do soundcheck.”

I headed toward the door.

Then I paused. I kept my voice cold, staring at the floor. “I want you out, Luke. Don’t come to the show. Don’t come back here. I’ll contact you about a divorce.”

“Wait,” I could hear Luke say. It was one of those moments when his pain crossed the bridge, and I could sense his agony. I bolted down the stairs away from it, and shut the door.





Luke


I refused to accept this. I stood under the ash trees across the street from Cassie’s house shortly after she and Toby had left, my packed army bag on my back, Mittens’s leash in one hand and my cane in the other, and knew this was not how it was supposed to go.

Maybe she didn’t have the same feelings I had for her, maybe she was scared out of her mind, but this wasn’t the end. Hell, maybe she and I weren’t even meant to be friends after this, but we had both fought too hard to build these new lives just for them to be knocked down by Johnno.

And those new lives were forever going to be connected, I knew that. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know when. But they would be.

So, yeah, maybe I was being delusional.

That’s one of the great things about having an addict’s brain: We are fantastic at fooling ourselves. We could fool ourselves all the way until the end.

For instance, right now, I had started to think it would be a good idea to be cloud head.

My heart had just been ripped out, leaving a gaping hole.

Cloud head was good at filling holes.

But then I thought of Jake. I thought of what I’d done to him when I had succumbed to Oxy the first time, when I’d tried to escape.

Today was not unique in the grand scheme of things. Every day was hell, if you were paying attention. Every day would rip a new hole, maybe two, maybe three. Knowing this full well, sometimes I started to think that the rest of my life would be like bailing out a sinking boat. Once you stopped the leak that came from one pain, another hole would open.

But at least now I wasn’t alone. “Right, Mittens?” I asked her, giving her a scratch on the head.

Mittens barked.

“And where should we go now?”

I didn’t know. There was nowhere to go, at the moment, just the street stretching before us. Maybe if I started moving, maybe if I went around the block, Cassie would be waiting for me when I returned, and I could take her into my arms and we’d go from there.

I dropped my bag next to the tree, and leaned my cane against its trunk. I looped Mittens’s leash around my hand so she couldn’t get too far, made sure my shoes were tied, and started walking.

I walked fast, putting full weight on my injured leg. The same amount of weight I put on the other. Every step was a new hole and it hurt like hell.

But then it didn’t. So I moved my legs faster. I added bounce to my step. My heart carried blood to every ending and back in an instant. My bones did not break. Everything was working as it should.

The body is a miracle, did you know that, Mittens?

House after house passed, and the pain was there, but I was there, too.

Mittens galloped beside me, her tongue flopping.

My throat was raw and my lungs burned from lack of practice, but I felt awake, alive.

I didn’t need to attach the pain to other objects, other scenes far away where I had found peace. I found peace here.

I was running.





Cassie


“Check one,” I called to the empty bar, late-afternoon light hitting the dim neon and gilded walls. Any other day this would be a triumph, imagining my music hitting the bodies that would fill the tiled floor. But Luke’s shocked, bitter face haunted me. Drugs and threats and my mother’s broken windows. Luke drawing my leg across his lap. A drop of drool falling from his opiate-slack mouth. His nightmares. His calisthenics. The way his big hands flopped to his sides when he told me the truth. Everyone who he had lied to, everyone I knew and didn’t, following him like ghosts everywhere he went. I had brought poison into my home. The memory of Luke’s lips on mine sent a chill through my bones, the kind of staticky, tipping feeling I got before my blood lacked sugar, or the feeling I used to get when I couldn’t make rent.