My eyes slide to his. He’s clearly wasted already, which has me checking to make sure no one else is listening.
“It’s Dascha,” I mumble. Peters waves his hand, hiccuping and slugging back more of his drink. “Yea… pretty sure.”
“Whaddya think… Like, tomorrow?” His eyelids are drooping.
This dude’s gonna need a liver transplant when this purge is over.
“Probably.” My eyes shift. “But hey, don’t tell anyone, okay?”
He grins. “Your secret is safe with me.” He mimics locking up his mouth and throwing away the key. A gape at him, and he chuckles, “Yo, lighten up, man. I’m not gonna tell anyone about the bank robber you’re obsessed with.”
My entire body turns to stone. “I’mnot… I’m not obsessed.”
I’m entirely positive he’s just fucking with me, and my tense awkwardness is just proving the opposite of what I’moverreacting to get across, but I can’t help feeling like I’m falling apart.
If it’s this obvious that I have some vested interested in Dash before he’s even showed up, what the hell is going to happen when he gets to Alabaster Pen and I’m expected to work and behave like a normal correctional officer who isn’t secretly infatuated with the kid??
“You seemed pretty invested before.” Peters gives me a pointed look. “You know all about his story n’ shit… You care what happens to him, man, and I’m just saying, you can’t care…”
“I don’t,” I grunt, gut twisting and turning almost violently.
“You can’t get emotionally involved, brother,” he goes on, ignoring my feeble argument. “It’s the job, and I know you, of all people, know this. You don’t fuck with inmates… you keep your nose clean. That’s… that’s how you gotta do it.”
He stares into his glass for a moment, like he’s being hounded by his own incessant thoughts, before slugging it back.
“I’m… married,” I stammer, then clear my throat. “I’m not… I mean, I wouldn’t—”
“Right.” He smirks lazily, lying back and closing his eyes. “Famous last words.”
Peters is obviously just drunk. I doubt he has any clue what he’s saying right now, but it doesn’t matter. He’sright.
I’m all out of sorts. Just lost in an endless forest of uncertainty.
I can’t stop thinking about Dash, and it’s only getting worse. It’s onlygoingto get worse…
Where is he right now? Is he alright?
Did he mean to kill Karly Clayton? Is he a soulless monster… or was it an accident?
Is he scared? Alone?
Will he be able to survive Alabaster Pen?
WillI??
This overthinking and constant unbalanced obsession is driving me nuts. The music is so loud, it’s rattling my brain. I can feel a migraine coming on, and I just can’ttake itanymore.
Getting up without a word, I leave. Weaving through bodies until I dive out of the club into cool, fresh air. On the sidewalk, I canbreatheagain. Manhattan isalsoloud and messy, and tragic, but at least out here, I’m just another lonely guy with secrets he can’t run from.
So I pick a direction, and I walk. Block after block, I just keep walking. I walk around the city for hours, going nowhere. Escapingnothing, because thereisno escape.
You can run from anythingbutyourself.
Eventually, I find myself at home, though I barely even remember how I got here. It’s late, after three in the morning, when I drag myself up the steps, to our bedroom. The room is dark, but I can make out the shape of my wife, lying in bed, likely asleep.
Sighing out of disillusion, I get undressed and crawl under the covers. Lying beside her, staring at the back of her head, I remember the first time I saw her, all those years ago…
I’d been working for Manuel Blanco for a couple of years, fighting to stay clean, and at the moment, I was losing. We were on a purge, and I was trying to meet my dealer, but he was blowing me off, and the angst of impotent desperation was getting to me. So I went into a random bar for a drink.
