He didn't act any differently towards me three days later at Sunday dinner. I stuck close to Rae, feeling awkward in the group. Debbie, Carl, Mom, Tucker, Molly, Brian, Ben, Michael, Hunter, Lindsay, Mel, Gus, Jenny Rebecca, Ted, Blake, Drew, Emmett, Rae, me. It turned into a big barbeque and the house seemed cramped with close to twenty people piled between Debbie's kitchen, dining room and living room.

It's the most people I've been around that I know, since I was left for dead. I want to run. But Rae's with me. I know she'll protect me. Fucking pathetic, I need a girl to protect me.

He keeps watching me and it's making me paranoid. It's just Brian, but fucking Christ what's with him?

"I get why you were infatuated with him," Bitch. "He's got that sort of God thing about him, doesn't he? Or at least, that's what you were crying out the other night in that building."

"Fuck off, Rae."

She snorts. It's wrong to hit women, right? 'Cause I'd been steadfast in not telling her a single thing about the building on Tremont. Not the tenant I'd been to see, not the reason the person knew who 'me' was through a garbled intercom, nothing. And I'd just let myself be completely manipulated into that one.

"Now, Sunshine, if I were to fuck off, you'd break down in seconds. So don't act like you don't need me and don't act like I'm here for any other reason besides that." She'd started of in a bitchily joking manner, but grew serious by the time she mentioned me breaking down.

Alright, she's forgiven. She hates crowds where she's not safe on a platform high above the dancing bodies. We don't really talk about our pasts, but I think she's got some form of PTSD herself where she's not comfortable as herself in crowds. Working, she's a character. A firewoman, a cop, a naughty school girl. But here, she's just herself and that's scarier than anything. Hah. Kindred spirits.

"So, how'd you two meet?" Debbie asks at dinner and it all begins.

"Friend of a friend when I needed a new roommate." I answer shortly, piling Italian food onto a fork and shoving it in my mouth. Food tastes like ash now and Debbie's cooking is no exception.

"What do you do, honey?"

"In New York, I danced at a club. Kinda like your Babylon, according to Justin. But here I have a few jobs. Day care, bartender uptown and at…"

Rae gets interrupted by Emmett, "That's right! I saw you working at Cleopatra's the other night when I met with a client. I thought you looked familiar, sugar!"

"Another dyke? Fabulous." Brian intones and I glare at him.

"I lick and suck," Rae responds with a smirk. I knew she'd never be deterred by Brian and I think that's why I was willing to come tonight. "But I prefer stick-shift to the automatic models." She's not like Daphne, where Daphne would secretly root for Brian. Rae champions me alone, is loyal to only me. Which is probably why our friendship works. I need something that's mine. Someone. Never really thought I'd be the type of fag to always need a hag, but lets be realistic: gay guys can't be just friends without emotional entanglements or extracurricular sexual activities and no way I'd be friends with some fucking breeder.

Emmett giggles and draws Rae into a conversation, leaving me to lie incessantly about my New York life and plaster on my fakest smile to date. Only one person isn't fooled, and he catches me as I'm in the backyard smoking. Fucker sneaks up on me and I jump, and I can tell by the look on his face that he fucking knows.

"Don't think I recognize the signs, Sunshine? You lived with me for months after the bashing. I remember vividly what PTSD looks like." He takes a drag from my cigarette. "I'm onto you."

Biggest load of bullshit. I have nothing to say so he walks away, thinking he's won. He's won nothing. I don't expect it to be a secret forever (okay, maybe I hope it will be) and Brian's always been too damn intuitive for someone who plays oblivious really well.

And he took my cigarette!

I score that night. Leave Rae at Cleopatra's while she gets her check long enough to run five doors down to Woody's and find Anita by luck. The aging drag queen gives me some good blow and I snort half of it in the bathroom at home. The burn is a relief as the world kaleidoscopes into shapeless color and light.


I'm coming off the high the next morning when I feel a lightweight material land on my bare chest. I'm spread out across my bed, my hands hanging off either side like a crucified Christ. That's how I feel.

"What the fuck is that?" Rae enunciates and her voice throbs through my head.

"You should know. It's fucked your nasal cavity enough times." I groan as I roll over, not interested in her bitch fit.

"Fuck off, Justin." Her tone is hard, I've never heard her like this. "Get that shit out of my fucking house or take it with you when you leave."

I laugh bitterly. She really thinks she can kick me out?

"I mean it. Clean yourself up or I'm kicking you out. I can't have that in my fucking house. I was addicted to it, you jackass!"

"Yeah, and yet you still smoke weed."

"It's a plant! It makes you hungry and giggly. I remember what that… shit felt like, okay? I live with it every day and I face it every day when you're being a problematic twat and I want nothing more than to have a hit in order to handle you or my shit life. I cannot have that here, Justin. And if you're using, you can't be here either. And where the fuck do you think you're gonna go? Mommy's? Debbie's? Brian's? Yeah, like you'll go anywhere where they might see your fucking scars; learn the truth about the person they love. I'm all you've got so you better clean your ass up, or I will."

"The person they love died nine months ago."

She made a disgusted, exasperated sound as she threw her hands in the air. "You're such a dramatic little cunt. The only reason that person 'died', is 'cause you were too much of a coward in the face of pain to keep him alive and thriving. Instead of moving on, you let yourself drown in quicksand. God, be a man, Justin. Face your past, face your fears, face whatever the fuck you need to face, but do it quickly. Or you really will have nothing." She leaves the room and it's a minute or two before I hear the door slam shut.

I take the baggie, empty it onto the nightstand, plug a nostril and inhale.