[Justin]
Enter Chloe. “Am I interrupting something?” Eyebrow arched. “Little Rhysie looks upset.”
“Don’t call her that.”
A scoff. (Women and their scoffs.) “I’m sorry, but there’s a little girl sitting out there all black and blue, the same little girl that you’re constantly giving money to, buying expensive gifts, having sleepovers with when she has a boyfriend of her own… albeit an abusive cokehead.”
“Chloe…,” don’t start…
“What is she doing here, Justin?”
And so begins what I already know is going to be a fucked up day.
[Rhys]
Jealous. That’s always been Justin’s type. Intelligent, ambitious, beautiful women that are excessively jealous. Maybe I don’t have the right to be insulted because he does give me money and really nice gifts, and a place to stay whenever Isaac acts up, but I’m twenty-two. I work, I pay bills, and I know how the real world works… nothing about my life is juvenile; I’m extremely far from being a “little girl.” And Isaac sniffs sometimes but it’s only ever a line or two, his anger… that’s something else, that’s completely separate from the drugs. Something an ice-bitch princess like her could never understand.
Glance at the clock. It’s a quarter to eleven now. He’s still sleeping, big man in charge of a job that starts whenever he wants it to. Junkies never sleep, that’s why Moe and Larenz and all the rest of them slang for him; but it’s his empire… junkie, dealer, it doesn’t matter… they all come to him when he tells them to, and eleven is way too early to be bothered with any of it.
I have to go back and I need Justin to take me there, but that’s such a doomed inevitability.
[Justin]
Fuck, I’m going to be late. Trace is always on my ass when it comes to punctuality. And I’m still not dressed, I had maybe thirty minutes of solid sleep, Rhys is going to make me take her back the way she always does, Chloe’s still bitching, and ow! Shit! I just cut myself.
I should be mad that she broke this bowl… but I’m not.
“I sound like a bitch, but I don’t understand, Justin… if she’s so grown why does she keep depending on you like you’re her dad or something? You think you’re doing what’s right because you think it’s what Gabriel would’ve wanted, but I think Gabriel would’ve wanted her to learn how to take care of herself, defend herself, instead of acting like a child, allowing this dude to beat her. What does she owe him? Absolutely nothing, but she lets this asshole stay in her apartment? He’s almost a decade older than her and he’s just as immature as she is, but even worse, and what’s really sad is your condonation of this behavior… both his and hers…”
I’m bleeding. Her voice begins to ‘wah-wah’ as if she’s a Charles Schulz cartoon character. I try to ignore that her mentioning of Gabe really pisses me off. She didn’t know him, she can never know what he would or wouldn’t have wanted. And telling me I’m condoning both Rhys and Isaac’s behavior…? It’s fucked up and it’s total bullshit; it just goes to show that after a year she doesn’t really know me either.
“Is that the bowl I bought you? What happened?”
I look down at the pieces and shrug. If I say anything right now we might be here for another hour.
[Rhys]
I need a cup of coffee. Without it my nerves are shot. I can’t believe she just brought up Gabe.
[Justin]
Chloe looks at her watch. “Ugh, I’m going to be late.” And with that she leaves.
We usually have breakfast together when she starts at noon, that’s why she came over, but fuck it.
“Justin…” Here we go... From the corner of my eye I see Rhys in the doorway. “I need you to take me home.”
