“Dashboard. Red leather. Your hands on the wheel.” She spits out the words like she’s annoyed with me. “Street lights. Rain.”
“Good. Now name four things you can touch.”
Her fingers curl around my jacket. “Your jacket. The seat. My hair.” She pauses. “The door handle.”
She’s looking for escape. I’ll need to address that.
“Three things you can hear.”
“The engine. The rain. Your voice.”
“Two things you can smell.”
“Paint. And...” She inhales shakily. “You.” Clears her throat. “Your cologne or whatever.”
“One thing you can taste.”
“Pennies,” she whispers. “Blood. I think I bit my lip.”
Back on steady ground.
“Good girl. You’re here in the present moment again. Know what that means?”
Her body shudders, teeth clacking.
“It means the flashback is over.” I keep my tone academic, detached. “The MDMA lowered your inhibitions, and whatever happened tonight triggered a traumatic memory. Your brain couldn’t distinguish between past and present.”
“Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop talking to me like I’m one of your fucking case studies.”
A smile tugs at my mouth.
There it is.
The defiance that makes breaking her so much more satisfying.
“Would you prefer I talk to you like a child?” I ask. “Use small words? Pat your hand and tell you everything will be okay?”
“Everything won’t be okay.” Her laugh is too cynical for her age. “They all saw. The collar, the bowl, me on my knees like?—”
She cuts off with an angry sound.
“Like a what, Haven?”
She turns her face to the window. “Trailer trash.”
“That’s the drugs talking. Chemical depression follows the high. Your serotonin is depleted.” I take the turn toward my neighborhood, the houses growing larger, more isolated. “In the morning, you’ll have a better perspective.”
“In the morning, I’ll be a meme.”
“Thankfully, you don’t have to deal with that now. Try to enjoy what’s left of the ecstasy, instead of catastrophizing.”
“You’re being patronizing.”
“I’m being practical. You’re having a crisis. I’m qualified to help. That’s all this is.”
