Page 32 of Flawless

“I recall when those used to be your favorite breakfast,” I say, pointing my fork at her plate while I chew my first bite.

Nodding, she says, “It still is. I haven’t had one in some time, and no one makes them quite like you do.”

“So, you’re not going to eat it?”

“I will. It’s just that might stomach is flipping over on itself.”

I set my fork and plate aside briefly and ask, “What are you nervous about, Dani?”

“Just how you’ll respond to me when I tell you these things.”

“I’ve always been your friend, haven’t I?”

Smirking, she tilts her head sideways and says, “No. You haven’t always been my friend.”

Laughing, I say, “Okay. You’ve got me there. I was mad for a bit and didn’t speak to you.”

“Five years is more than a bit, Z.”

“Tell you what. I’ll make a promise right here and now that no matter what you disclose to me, I’ll still be your friend when it’s all said and done. After all, I came here to the island and stayed in your cottage, didn’t I?”

“That’s because you had no place else to go,” Dani says, spinning on her stool to face me.

“Do you believe that? I had many places that I could go. All it took was money.”

“You needed anonymity.”

“For the right price, I could have gotten that.”

“What are you saying, Z?”

“No matter how angry I’ve been at you, no matter how much time has passed since we spoke, you’re still in my heart. I came to where you would be. Even if you weren’t here physically, I knew that a part of you would always be here. This was how I could be close to you without being with you.”

Dani spins back around to the island and chews her bottom lip thoughtfully.

“I just spent the last ninety days in a drug rehabilitation center.”

Dani closes her eyes and inhales before she slowly exhales. I sit and watch her without saying a word. I know that she needs to do this her way.

Her light fingers clutch the edge of the island. My eyes stray to her chipped fingernails surprised to see her hands looking that way. Danica Maxwell would have never been caught dead with chipped nails. Everything had to be done to perfection, including her hair, nails, feet, and face.

“It started two years before I met you. We would occasionally smoke weed. My roommate and I would. It started in our apartment with the guys we were dating at the time, and it increased to whenever we were at a party or nightclub. By the time that I met you, I had graduated to nose candy.”

My face remains impassive, but on the inside, I’m rocking. I never had any idea that she was on cocaine back then. She had never done that around me or even alluded to the fact that she was doing it.

“It was only occasionally back then. As time went on, I tried to find ways to escape the memories that haunted me, the nightmares that tortured me, and the shame that I carried around with me daily.”

Tears roll down Danica’s face, but I can see that she’s put this protective wall up around herself, and she doesn’t want to let me in. At least not now.

“Eventually, the cocaine, the weed, and the alcohol weren’t doing enough. I thought that getting my own show would help rid me of my pain. The first two years were excellent. I was doing wonderful things as an influencer in the modeling world although I retired, and my talk show was taking off. The third year I returned to business school to get a degree. I was so proud, Z, but then I had a skiing accident in Gstaad.”

“I recall reading about that. It happened four years ago, right?”

“Yes, it happened not long after we broke up. Anyway, I was in excruciating pain after having broken my leg and injured my back.”

I think about how badly I wanted to reach out to her during that time. I decided that it was best to stay away from her because I was still in a bad place, and she didn’t need my shit.

“That’s when I was prescribed oxycodone. It was wonderful at first as it eliminated the pain that I was feeling from the accident. In time, the pain would flare back up, and I would continue taking the medication for the pain. After a while, I didn’t feel as if I could function without it. That’s when I knew that I was hooked on the pills.”

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