Page 95 of Severance

“You want a hit?” Zeke pushes himself off the wall and moves closer. His face drops to mine and the smell of weed crawls up my nose. “You having a panic attack or something? You want me to call someone?”

I swallow past the chunk of lead in my throat and shake my head. “No. It’s okay.”

“You sure you don’t want a hit? It helps with anxiety.”

“Umm…Yeah. Okay,” I agree, mainly because the buzz from the vodka is dumbing down my common sense.

We step under the awning to hide from the drizzle, and Zeke pulls out another joint from his pocket for me and lights it up. I smoke it carefully, without looking at him, while he asks me some random questions. They aren’t personal and his company is better than being inside, but we get interrupted before our joints are done. The doors swing wide open and a group of people pour into the alley.

“Hey, Zeke!” I hear someone yell behind me and my spine stiffens.

A few girls walk up to us. My guess is that they’re here because of the free weed.

There’s an exchange of hellos and hugs. I watch them all swoon over Zeke from the corner of my eye, minding my own business until platinum blond hair swims into my line of vision.

She sees me too but doesn’t say anything. When Zeke hands her a joint, she sticks it between her bright red lips and flicks the lighter. I stand in the middle of all the activity, surrounded by the chatter, my heart rate kicking up again and my head spinning.

“Didn’t you date DK?” one of the other girls asks, giggling. “You had a pretty Instagram with cupcakes, right?” More giggling.

I blink at her through the cloud of smoke, unsure of why she finds it funny.

“She asked you a question, Virgin Mary,” Snow White hisses, her hard gaze shifting to my face.

Annoyance courses through me, but I don’t let it show. I can’t. Not in front of these people. My tone is flat. “Fuck you.” I toss the last of the joint on the wet asphalt.

“I wouldn’t say fuck if I were you.” She lets out a sinister laugh. The kind you’d hear in a high school hallway. Perhaps she didn’t get the memo that this isn’t a teenage soap opera. “Or your daddy might find out.”

“Are you the one who’s going to tell him?” I deadpan, trying my best not to let my emotions get the best of me. Although Jess always said I wasn’t the type to pretend. “Snitch.”

Whispers around us die down. I hear Zeke’s coughing.

“I might.” A wicked smirk touches her lips. “I might tell him you’re slumming it with both brothers too.”

My anger rises and heat floods my veins. I’m not sure whether she saw something when we were at Jackson’s house or it’s just her jealousy speaking and she knows nothing, but the words hurt me and I want to hurt her too.

“Dakota is dead.” My voice begins to shake as I speak, and the tension between us spikes. “Stop talking about him like he’s still your boyfriend. He’s not. He’s fucking gone and he’s not coming back!”

I choke down the tears of anger filling my eyes and rush inside to hide. The combination of vodka and weed running through my system is making me dizzy, and my feet are beginning to feel like two bricks. They’re dragging me down to the floor and I have to stop and lean against a wall to catch my breath, but the music rumbling through my head is too loud.

I need to get out of here.

* * *

The weed really kicks in when I’m in my car driving. Unlike last time, it hits me super hard. Hopping bunnies kind of hard, where my body and my brain seem to have traveled to two different dimensions. My head is a centrifuge, rotating and spinning, and I can feel the gray matter bouncing against the walls of my skull while I hear myself chanting non-stop, “God, please don’t let me crash… God, please don’t let me crash.”

My foot on the gas pedal feels too light and I’m convinced that without the right amount of pressure, I’ll drive into a ditch or a wall. Basically, I’m too stoned to pull over. Parts of me understand this is all the vodka and the weed’s fault, but my brain is so fried that I can’t perform a task as simple as using the brake pedal to stop the car. Instead, I just keep driving until my hands become numb from holding the steering wheel.

I’m not clear on how or why I end up in front of Mikah’s place. Some of my memories between when I left the charity thing and now are missing, but by the time I make it to his apartment, the effects of the weed have worn off a little. My head’s still spinning, but my body is somewhat my own again, and I force it up the stairs using whatever strength is left in me.

My phone’s in my car, but I don’t even care if Mikah ever texted me back—I just need to see him one last time before he goes away. Things between us are still unresolved and we never talked about the sex or Dakota. We actually never talked about anything.

I ring the doorbell a few times and wait. I struggle to stand up straight, and my arms feel like they’ve been dipped in mercury.

Mikah opens the door and drags his gaze along the length of my body, stopping in the vicinity of my face.

“Were you just going to leave like this?” I toss my heavy as hell hands in the air and peek into his apartment. There’s nothing inside except the couch and dozens of boxes.

“Are you high?” Mikah’s eyes follow me as I saunter into the living room.

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