Page 154 of Two Marlboros

She shrugged and smiled. “Don’t worry, really. I’ll call you soon.”

“Okay, see you.”

I watched her walk away for a little while, leaned a crutch against the wall behind me, picked up the phone and answered it. “Yes?”

“How is it possible that all your dates always end with some surprise?”

I giggled. “Hello to you too, Ash.”

“Shit, you had me worried with that text. Are you okay? And how about Nathan?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. Nathan’s a little worse off, but he’ll be okay.”

I wondered how much he remembered in detail about what had happened, whether he needed comfort, and whether he would want it from me.

“But who were these guys, did you recognize them?”

“No,” I replied, trying to remember their faces. “I have no idea who they were, but to be honest I got the impression that they knew Nathan.”

“Oh yeah? Why?”

“Well, you know...”

To my left, there were two doctors walking down the hallway, talking to each other with a medical chart in their hands. I waited until they passed me and were far enough away before continuing.

“Let’s say they insulted him with some fairly specific details about his sex life, that is.”

“Oh,” he replied dryly. “Shit. I’m sorry. How does he feel?”

“I don’t know, he didn’t say anything about it. And I don’t know if he will, he seemed so humiliated...”

I thought back to that hand touching him, the look of shame and fear on Nathan’s face the next moment, and the desire I had had to break the guy’s neck. I had pawed to wriggle out of the grip that was holding me down and to free Nathan from the dirty, slimy grip of the little group, but the two big men had squeezed even tighter.

“Hmm,” he only replied, thoughtful. “So, you think this attack is by someone who knows him well? Someone who hangs out with him, maybe?”

“Now that you mention it,” I said, as the dialogue with Nathan, sitting at the table, rebuilt itself in my mind word by word, “he told me that a few days ago he broke up with Harvey.”

“And there, you put two and two together,” Ash concluded.

I was reminded of the attentions Harvey had had for Nathan at that party, as slimy as those of the boys who had attacked us.

“You think so?”

The image of Harvey and Nathan, HarveyinsideNathan caused me to gasp in anger. He had certainly humiliated him in those moments, and who knows in how many ways.

“Well,” Ash replied, and I redeemed myself from those thoughts, “either that, or he stepped on someone’s toes. Or both.”

Meanwhile, the dialogue I had had with Nathan about Harvey ended up reconstructing itself. I went over it once, twice, until in the general feeling of annoyance I had felt at hearing about it, I extrapolated another, more subtle one.

“Wait,” and the feeling made its way through me, every second more. “Wait, wait, wait.”

“I’m not moving.”

“Nathan said something about his ex.”

I closed my eyes, and tried to reconstruct the dialogue as accurately as I could.

“I don’t remember the exact words,” I continued, “but he confessed to me that Harvey does coke, and afterward he added something like, ‘Maybe this drug thing got him into some kind of trouble. I even thought he had something to do with the robbery, too.’”

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