Page 8 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

She stood, and I missed the comfort immediately. I peered up at her as she went to the sink and filled one of the mouthwash cups with tap water.

Her pajamas were cute. The satin top with a swing hem and matching shorts were a departure from her typically bohemian style. I needed to get some like that. They were soft.

In another blink, she was back. I grabbed the paper cup with trembling hands and emptied it. The drink washed the tang of bile off my tongue and soothed my raw throat. I wanted more but, before I could ask, Sully was hugging me again, and I was clinging to her.

Despite my stomach roiling, my eyes leaking hot tears, and my muscles aching, I still wanted spray paint and a blind grab into Chaz’s coat pocket drugstore. I needed Sully to know that. Even though she hadn’t asked.

“I-I thought it would help,” I stammered.

Her hand moved over my back in soothing circles. “I don’t think that much wine helps anyone, sweetheart.”

My features contorted in a frown. I’d hoped she would infer so I wouldn’t have to spell it out. Coming clean was almost as hard as staying that way.

Snuffling a breath, I pulled back from her while keeping my gaze low. “Not the wine,” I said, then swallowed. “I… I’ve been trying to remember. Pills usually help. But they didn’t.”

“You’re using? Right now?”

My head wobbled through a nod.

Her face fell, and I couldn’t bear to see it. I tucked my chin into my chest, wadded myself into the oversized sweater, and wished I could disappear.

Sully’s voice was gentle as she continued. “We really need to get you a sponsor. Someone who understands?—”

“Nobody wants to sponsor me,” I argued. “I’m too sick.”

She sat back and took my clammy hands to hold between us. The tile was cold beneath me along with the porcelain tub behind me, making her fingers the sole tether to warmth.

“Hon, that’s not true,” she said. “You’ve been going to meetings?—”

“High,” I cut in angrily. But I was mad at myself, not her. “I’ve been going to meetings high as fuck, and those people…” I shook my head. “They don’t get it.”

Sully sighed, and I fixed my eyes on hers. Her dreads were bound in a thick ponytail, and her face was bare of even the scant makeup she wore to work. She had an honest face; I’d thought that since I met her. Well, since we’d been reintroduced. I trusted her.

“I need to remember, Sully,” I said. “I have to.”

Her lips pressed a thin line. “What do the drugs have to do with that?”

It was my turn to heave a breath. I pulled my hands free to scrub one over my chapped cheeks.

“I see him,” I said. There was no need to explain who “him” was. “I trip, and I see him, and I miss him, and it’s stupid because he was only here for a few weeks, but he’s been here forever.” I thumped a finger against my temple, sparking fresh tears I had to muscle past to grit out, “He should be here now.”

Sagging back, I tipped my head against the glass shower door. The corners of my vision blurred as I fixed my gaze on the plastic vent fan cover and remembered how all this started. How clever I’d felt hiding my first batch of X in the Airstream’s bathroom, and how devastated Loren had been when he found them. Like he expected better from me. He shouldn’t have.

Sully rubbed my knee. “Indy?”

I straightened to meet her gaze and found it fraught with indecision.

“I have an idea,” she began, “but I don’t know if it’s a good one.”

“I’m open to bad ideas,” I mumbled.

She glanced aside, pondering. “Do you remember the memory charm we tried a month ago?”

It sounded vaguely familiar but, the harder I thought about it, the more my thoughts buzzed like static. After a moment, I shook my head.

She hummed a somber sound. “It didn’t work, but I think I know why. I think you’ve lived too much life to contain it all.”

Squinting made pain pinball between my temples, but it also prompted her to continue.

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