On the Edge of Wakefulness, Part 2
Chapter 13
You hold me ... okay? You tell me ... there's something ... beyond the hell ... okay? I need to know…
Téa absolutely panicked in response to Todd's phone call. Her heart had stopped, her breath, her thinking. She held the cell in her hand, leaning forward on a rickety chair behind a seen-too-many-days metal desk in a cluttered LPD office, utterly frozen, unable to move, silently repeating like a mantra, "Please call back... please call back… please call back..."
She was rewarded with silence. And a "private caller" listing on her cell.
"Where are you, god damn it!" Téa shouted to nobody yet hoped for an answer. He sounded like he was dying and the panic choked her. She could see herself trying to resuscitate him, pushing air into his lungs so he could breathe, thumping his chest with her fist. She could feel her fingers on his mouth, his parted lips beneath hers. I will breathe with you. His words confirmed her role in all this madness, confirmed who she was to him, who she'd always been to him since the first time she met him in his office. He was reaching out for her to save him. Tears burned at the knowledge of it, and at her utter inability to do it from where she sat.
"Todd…" she groaned.
His words kept playing in head, over and over. Such darkish poetry. Such language as she'd never heard from him before.
You will hate me
You will disavow yourself from me
Because I'm cut-off.
But you hold me, now,
In your place of peace.
You do that before forgiveness fades.
You hold me…
And I will breathe with you ...
I'll lie with you ...
I'll die with you.
Téa breathed out hard, her hand on her own chest. A revelation. God, she thought, he was so entrenched in hopelessness and despair that it was almost ... rapturous. Other words followed, words she must have heard someplace…
How divine his imprisonment, how sublime his condemnation!
She sat up from her hunched position at that thought. She remembered seeing a similar kind of intense suffering as a child, standing with her aunt at the iron-gated entrance to a cathedral in the outskirts of Mexico City. They'd taken a trip to visit a family friend. From that gate, young Téa had watched desperate people on bloody knees travail the long cement path to the cathedral's open doors, rosary beads hanging from outstretched hands, faces colored with sunlit pleas, leaving a ruby wake behind them. Her aunt explained that they did it for healing of illnesses, for locating lost children, for betterment of their poverty. But some did it to save themselves from Hell. "Penance for bad acts," her aunt said. Téa understood that these men and women offered physical pain in exchange for answered prayers.
For years after, she would wake up gasping in a sweat, those remembered rosaries wrapped around her throat, cutting off her circulation and air, blood beneath her. They scared her deeply, especially the pain in their faces. And yet, they were magnificent! Breathtaking! She could feel their fight, their passion, their complete submission to an idea. Who does that? Who commits to such a painful undertaking based on nothing but faith and the mere possibility of resolution?
When Téa's mother left them, abandoning them, Téa considered doing it herself, asking God to return her mother to her family by offering to crawl to the cathedral. Prayerfully, she would climb out of bed, get on her knees, hands outstretched, and practice walking across the bedroom floor of the dingy basement apartment she shared with her father and brothers. But she couldn't do it. So quickly her muscles cramped and the skin chafed on the shag carpet. Absolute pain. She gave up that dream and so began a lifelong belief that she was not capable of such…
... devotion.
Perhaps, Téa was like her own mother after all: detached and cold, incapable of committing herself to anyone, including children, a husband. Which of course… was why she was still "single," still childless.
Hold me, and I will breathe with you.
So now Todd himself was on a gravelly walk to a cathedral's door asking for salvation through pain. Do you forgive me, Téa? Do you love me ... this way? And like those people on their merciless walk, Todd Manning was... ravishing.
Téa breathed… calmed considerably. She gathered her thoughts and pulled herself together. She really needed Jedediah Chant to tell her where Todd was. But so far that child had clamped down on the information, refusing to be disloyal to a man who had only shown him disloyalty.
She got to her feet, wiped her face and then left the office, heading straight to cell block three, the special holding section reserved for child-molesters, child-killers, cop-killers, rapists... and minors pending transfer. Illogical and insane segregation.
Tell me you're breathing. Show me.
Determined, she marched down the back hallway of Llanview Police Department. It had been a long Sunday, full of argument and yells and reasoning and ignored facts. Hank Gannon, coming in on his day off, wouldn't let up; Jedediah was being transferred to the juvenile detention center after a late lunch. A done deal. And despite the thought that Jedediah would be protected from the deadly claws of Phillip Manning, Téa was afraid for him because of what she knew about the facility.
The county had just paid off the family of a young man who died there, a victim of medical neglect. Witnesses said that he'd been locked in his room for two days as a means of discipline after having been in a fight with some other residents. Believing the fourteen-year old child to be manipulating them, the staff had ignored his cries during his second night in isolation. He died early the next morning from a ruptured appendix all by himself, huddled beneath sweat-stained sheets in that locked room. The case never saw the inside of a courtroom and the detention center never got the reprimands it needed.
Téa couldn't help but worry that nothing had changed at the detention center. As such, she had fought Hank Gannon as a lioness would to protect her cub, all to no avail. She had a strange feeling they were punishing Jedediah because he was Todd's son and she didn't hesitate to tell them that. Again, all to no avail. A done deal, Hank had said.
When she finally reached the cell block and asked to see Jedediah, the guard looked at the red- eyed, red-nosed woman in front of him and shook his head, "Sorry – closed to visitors."
Téa leaned in and hissed, "You let me in or I will see to it that you are personally charged with endangerment of a minor, obstruction of justice and denial of counsel. You want all that on your record ... fatso?" She really was too worn out to think of anything snappier.
He tilted his head, his moustache wiggling with an indignant sniff, "Fatso?"
"You heard me. Open the door."
With a grumble, the guard opened it, muttering, "Don't know why you're botherin'. That kid's a real shit."
Easing along the grey corridor with the rotund guard leading the way, she kept her eyes straight ahead and ignored the cat-calls of the other prisoners. Naturally, Téa was reminded of the times she'd seen Todd here, remembrances she preferred not to have. At reaching the cell, she took in a sharp breath at seeing Jed. There he was, sitting on the cot, leaning back against the wall with an angry look on his face. Silently he stared at her with hazel-colored eyes full of disappointment and youthful lack of understanding. The food he'd been brought lay next to him untouched.
The guard then said bitingly as he walked away, "He's all yours. Oh and ya' better get out your 'kerchief. He spits."
After flashing a look of irritation at the departing officer, Téa gazed seriously at Jedediah through the bars. "I'm so sorry about the transfer," she said. "I tried and argued and did everything I could." Jedediah remained quiet, still watching her. He sniffed and adjusted himself on the cot. "Are you alright, Jed? If they've hurt you in any way..."
"I'll be sure to let you know."
Pausing, she then said, "Todd called me."
Jed said nothing, staring coolly at her with those same eyes as his father.
"Something's wrong," she insisted, "and I need to know where he is."
"When isn't something wrong?"
Keeping calm, Téa answered, "He wasn't making any sense–I'm very afraid for him. He sounded like he'd given up."
Jedediah breathed in deeply, turning away, picking at the food with his fingers. Guilt pecked at him. Should have let him keep the drugs.
"I'm begging you," Téa urged. "I promise I won't tell anyone–I won't say it was you who told me." As she asked, Téa gripped the bars, her hands tightening around them. "Please."
Jedediah continued to push around the vegetables on the metal plate, pushing a pea in circles. Round and round until he squashed it with his thumb.
"You know," he said, sticking his thumb into his mouth to clean the pea mush off. "No one ever fought for him. He was ... hurt as a kid ... and no one fought for him. I was lucky–I had my mom. She loved me and made sure I knew that. She never betrayed me and I never betrayed her, ever. And I'm not gonna be any different with my dad. He doesn't wanna be found and I'm not gonna be the one to give him up."
"Even if his life depends on it? He's in danger! I'm afraid that he's going to..."
"Gonna what? Kill himself?"
"Yes!"
Jedediah laughed, "You don't know anything about heroin do you?"
Téa looked at him with confusion, "What...?"
"Just a few hits and he'll be swimming again." Jedediah chucked a couple of carrot sticks into the metallic sink across from him. "Bingo," he said as each one hit the sink dead on. He wasn't abandoning Todd–he was maintaining Todd's secret, his desired isolation and self-punishment. Besides, he thought, this family has no right to try to seek him out now. It would be Jed who would go to him. Jed was the only one who could get through to him.
You got that right.
"What's the matter with you?!" Tea finally blurted out. "He could die using that stuff!"
"Yeah he could. But he'll be HAPPY! He'll be floating away and won't feel any more pain. He reeks of it, Mrs. Manning, and it's endless." Jedediah rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You don't get it ... ya' can't."
"And you do?"
"Yeah, I do! And 'cause o'that, I know he'll listen to me. Don't worry your pretty little head. I'm gonna get outta here and find him. I always find him."
"Why are you angry with me? We hardly know each other."
Jedediah looked at her with a depth of coldness that was unmistakably Todd, the expression sending a sharp pain into Téa's stomach.
"Because," he said, "you're just like the rest of them. You let him go."
"Does it look like I'm letting him go?! I wanted him to trust me! I know him in a way you don't. I know how he thinks, how he operates and if I'd pushed him, if any of us forced the issue, he would have gone even further into hiding." Jedediah got caught up in her words, she could see it. He didn't waiver from her gaze, didn't move a muscle.
"I was married to him for nearly a year and I knew him even longer than that. And although a year doesn't sound like much, what we had was worth ten years ... twenty. I wasn't letting him go in the sense that I didn't care about him, I was agreeing to try something that fit him. That could have worked. But it didn't, at least...not openly. So I'm asking you to let me help him, by you telling me where he is."
She lost him at that last statement, Jed sitting straight up, suddenly roused. "You want me to help him by stabbing him in the back? He trusted me by taking me to his place and now you want me to ruin that trust? So you can ... help him?! So you can be the hero?!" he exclaimed.
"Not a hero, Jed ... just someone who loves him. Sometimes you have to break a person's trust for their own good. And in this case ... we have to betray him. He's in so much trouble."
"What are you gonna do anyway? Crt? Grab him around the ankles? He doesn't need that kind of help!"
"And what do you suggest?!"
Jedediah plopped back against the wall, sniffing in frustration then shrugged. "Just to be there, not run away from him. If he sees me, if he talks to me, he'll change because I won't cry, I won't whine. I won't hang onto him. I'll talk ... a-and listen. Besides I have a few things I can tell him, a few tricks up my sleeve."
Téa shook her head at him, at his childlike bullishness and determination. Jed made her so sad–his quickly fading childhood, his love for Todd even though he barely knew him. She had to admit, in some ways what he said was true. She would plead with Todd, she would cry. She would probably throw herself at him to stop him, to assure him that he was valued and worth saving. Damn it all. It was an inevitable scene, but one she thought Todd would be affected by. He needed that and Jedediah didn't understand. He didn't understand them.
Todd wanted Téa to hold him, to squeeze tightly, to never let go.
Yeah, just like that.
When she looked up, Jedediah was at the bars, his hands grasping the metal above hers. In a softened voice, he asked, "What did he say?"
"If there was something beyond life. To me, that sounds like he wants to die, and I'm not going to just sit here and do nothing."
Jedediah stayed quiet. She then said, "You say we've let him go but by keeping this information to yourself, you're not letting us correct our mistakes. You're letting him go."
Jedediah put his head against the bars and closed his eyes. Téa released her grip on the cold metal and touched his hair a bit, finding it so soft in its golden-brown and gentle waviness. Different from Todd's hair, different in its emotion. Jed didn't push her away. She sighed and said faintly, putting her fingers beneath Jed's chin to get him to look at her, which he did. "Maybe we made a mistake by backing off. Maybe we did. But being complicit only hurts him more. I know how special you are, I know Todd will listen to you in a way that he won't for us. But ... things have happened. You're here and ... despite all I did today they're not letting you out. So tell me where he is so I can at least do for you and for him what I didn't before."
He gazed at her, Téa focusing on his features and watching those greenish-brown eyes and aching for him. This boy had been through so much to get to his father and now here he was, stuck behind bars, equally as imprisoned as Todd. After a few more moments in their mutual survey, Jed finally spoke out, saying words that Tea was not expecting.
"He's not alone," he said. "It's not like he's out there ... with nobody ..."
Téa didn't get what Jedediah said and asked, "What do you mean? He's with that drug pusher?"
"No."
"Well, with whom?"
"A woman."
This isn't personal, Delgado.
Téa eyed Jed, brows knitted, not wanting to automatically jump to any conclusions. I will love you no matter what. In sickness and in health ...for better or for worse. "What woman?" she asked after a few moments of quiet.
Jedediah smiled slightly and shrugged, "Dunno much about her. She had bruises on her." He sniffed like he had won something. Like he had proven himself to be above Téa and all the rest of them. Punishing her for having subjected Todd to the horrors of drug abuse. Bruises, she thought. God...he wouldn't ... no ... he'd learned from that.
Téa shook her head, choosing to believe that Jedediah was only gesturing. He wouldn't win on this point.
"Tell me where he is, Jed."
You will hate me
You will disavow yourself from me
Because I'm cut-off.
After a minute, after some troubled looks and thinking, Jedediah said at last, "The China Moon Motel at the county line. Room 28." Téa let out a breath of relief, but Jed didn't let her rest too long, adding, "They're both staying there it looks like."
This...isn't...personal.
"Thank you, Jedediah. I won't tell him you told me."
Jedediah bowed his head to her slightly, said, "See you around." He turned at that and lay down on the bed, putting his hands behind his head. Stared at the artwork above his head, wishing wishes on the toilet paper stars above him.
Téa started to leave, but then looked back at him. "You take care of yourself," she said, getting him to glance over at her. "Remember every person you meet in there – don't forget anyone or anything they say. I know you're smart – I know you can handle yourself on your own, but don't get cocky, don't ... spit at anyone ... don't be on the offensive. Defense is the answer."
"And the same to you, Mrs. Manning, be defensive. 'Cause he's gonna give you all he's got."
Téa swallowed hard at that, wondering what exactly went down between Todd and Jed. Then... had to give in to one last question … for more information … disclosure … forewarning.
God ... don't ... don't.
"Is this woman…like a girlfriend? Is that what you're trying to say?"
Jed smiled a small one, his eyes directly on her. "She's a prostitute. And from what I saw with my own eyes … from what I heard with my own ears … he takes full advantage of her services."
The hush in the jail cell snaked along Téa's skin, her resolve … shaken. She felt slapped, hard. She eyed the boy in the cell who hadn't loosened his gaze on her, finding it hard to believe that Todd hadn't actually raised him. Certain things, maybe, are hard-wired into a person. Like cruelty.
"You certainly are your father's son, Jedediah. I'll be at the center as soon as I can ... and Viki will, too. Every day."
"I'm not saying it to be mean. I'm warning you. Defense, Mrs. Manning."
Jedediah turned back to his stellar study. Counting the stars ... one ... two ... three ... and the minutes until he was going to be transferred to juvie. A whole other kind of hell, he figured.
In turn, Téa left him and walked back down the corridor, imagining herself with outstretched arms, aged rosary beads wrapped around her fingers and the pain of being on her knees again. Devotion – commitment. How much was she really willing to take for Todd? How much pain was she willing to endure to have her prayers for his healthfulness answered?
You will disavow yourself from me.
"Come on, baby, you get on up now. You hear me?"
The depression had come on like a gargantuan vulture upon a rotting carcass. It had swept down on Todd and dug into him as deep as its claws would let it. It sat on top of him, pecking at his skin, at his lips and eyes. Taking bits of him into its hungry beak. Peck ... peck ... pecking at him, preventing him from moving, from talking, from being awake. Brandy's voice reached him, sure, but when you have two tons of feathered and muscled misery on top of you … well ... you're sort of restrained.
"You scarin' me. Does this have to do with what we did, baby?" She kept stroking his hair, brushing it back. And she was starting to cry, sounding so helpless. So pitiful. "'Cause it was real nice, baby. You don't gotta worry about nothin'! Come on ... get up. Get up, baby ..."
From beneath sweat-dampened sheets, Todd opened his eyes barely and looked at her, but found it impossible to maintain the energy so he closed his eyes again. He was too tired, too laid upon. Couldn't even wipe his own runny nose or fold up a little more to relieve the stomach cramps he had. The vulture tugged on strands of his hair and it snapped at his head. He tried to cover his head with his arm to keep the ugly bird away, but it really wasn't any use. Couldn't fucking move.
"No ... no ... no ... you keep awake ... you stay awake. You hear me?" She kept touching him, his hair, his cheek, his shoulders, and his chest. He could feel her fingers and hands on him, but he was powerless to stop her.
She looked at him, rubbing his nose with her thumb, seeing it was runny. She raised his eyelids, seeing his eyes red and moist. She wiped the sweat off his neck. A little gasp escaped from her lips.
"Baby, oh no, you know what this is? You gettin' hooked on the dope. Oh no … oh no … you need a shot. You need it. We only got dust left, the stuff in the cottons. I'll try to get as much as I can … it ain't much at all. I'll have to cop some more from Mo'. You gonna get sicker if you don't have any. Oh no. I don't believe this…don't you worry 'bout the money ... don't you worry. I got plenty ... and I ... I can make a deal with him. Oh baby…this is real bad. But you gotta get up 'cause I gotta work. I can't leave you like this."
Todd tried to say, no, no, no, he couldn't be an addict 'cause addicts were human and he wasn't human, he was a nothing, a non-being, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes again and watched Brandy fuss over him, but her movements were too quick so he went back to his muddy world. It was funny – when he was on heroin, life was pudding. Without it – mud.
Lying there, absorbing Brandy's ministrations, he poked around in the mud and saw lots of stuff. He heard himself say horrible things to people who meant something to him. He called his devoted sister a bitch and used the worse language with her. He held his own son as hostage for money. He treated Jed roughly, hurting the kid. Not to mention the shit beneath the sheets. Which led to his screwing a prostitute without protection. He did drugs on a constant basis and even did it in front of his daughter. Practically. Virtually. He didn't recognize that person. It wasn't him. Right?
Oh it's you, all right. It's more than you. It's even a slightly nicer you. Gimme a fuckin' break.
Deserving ... deserving ... punishment.
Come on Brandy, come on. Let me lie on you. Let me dirty you the way all those other bastards do to you every night. Let me be your john and you can be mine. Johnny boy, Johnny girl. Johnny jump up and taste the hell. Come on, Brandy, come on. Let me.
With all her strength, with all the muscle her small person could muster, Brandy slipped her arms under Todd's and pulled him to a sitting position, only he didn't sit, he sort of fell onto her instead.
"Come on ... baby ... you just gotta wake up," she said, straining as she moved him. "You're getting dressed and you're comin' to my place. I gotta work – you'll be fine with me. That way I can check on you."
He shook his head and mumbled, "No ... no ... jus' leave me alone." He pulled back from her and fell backwards onto the bed, pulling the sheets around him, but Brandy got uncharacteristically tough, stood up and pulled them off.
"Come on! I ain't leaving you here and I gotta work!"
Todd had no clothes on and it was cold and he was getting pissed at having his darkness disrupted. He kind of liked his misery, kind of liked that vulture. Being eaten alive was familiar comfort.
"You bitch," he muttered, helplessly exposed, curling up tighter for warmth and to ease that cramp in his gut. Brandy chewed on her lip a minute and then grabbed his jeans off the floor, dropping them next to him on the bed. She brought his t-shirt, too, and socks. Put them next to him. Started putting his socks on. He kicked at her without much strength, frustrating Brandy. "Come on!" She sort of yelled and it got Todd's attention because he never heard her talk like that. It was as if her voice wasn't capable of it.
She stood away for a second with her hands on her hips and then knelt down to him. "Baby ... I'm sorry you gotten yourself all hooked on the dope... I'm so sorry, but you gotta come outta this, okay? You just got to!"
She bent down to him, kissed his mouth repeatedly, touching his head, whispering to him, trying to get him to wake up. But it wasn't any use. "Baby, you don't understand, if I'm late to this meetin', the guy ... he gets real mean and I just don't want any of that tonight ... you know?"
"Fuck off," Todd sighed.
At that Brandy stood up and marched to the kitchen. She had to try. Mixed up the tiny bit of heroin she had left from the stuff she had put aside for Todd, repeatedly ran the mixture through the left-over cotton filters, finally getting enough juice in the syringe to hopefully make a difference. Not a new needle because he'd run out of those, too. Over at the bed, Todd had slipped back into his sleep and sheets. Brandy pulled off the covers, evoking a half-hearted complaint. She decided to shoot him up in a vein on his leg because she didn't have the heart to cause any more damage to his arms. He jerked a little at the unexpected pinch.
Rubbing the red spot where she pulled out the needle, she murmured, "It ain't much but it should do something." She kept smoothing the pinch, massaging his leg. "I hope this helps baby."
He heard her words and was gonna tell her to piss off, kick her off him, but just before the words came out, he felt it. A subtle but definite warmth running through his body, sprinkling his brain with something sugary, something tasteful. Not anywhere near full-on pudding, but something less so. Maybe like lemon yogurt, or ... or ... sugared black coffee. Still sort of sweet but a little tart or bitter depending on which you have. Enough sugar to tolerate the other. He opened his eyes to Brandy and smiled slightly.
"Okay," he mumbled. "Okay. Okay ..."
She laughed, "Can you say somethin' else?"
"Okay ... "
"Oh baby ... you think you can get dressed now?"
"Okay."
Brandy hugged him, giggled at his okay, and kissed his cheek. He sort of shrugged her away, smiling a bit. He didn't feel cold anymore. Reminded him that so long as he had heroin, he didn't need clothes or food or sex or water. He didn't need people. He didn't care about any of his history. All those bad things... just didn't matter anymore. This was just a taste, yeah, but it reminded him of the full shot – the righteous, glorious walk down the shiny path of a heroin nod leaving no doubt about this drug's incredible ability to lift him out of Hell. The spirit was wrong – how could this be bad? Nothing at the hospital had given him this kind of relief.
NOTHING.
"Hey... Brandy?"
"Yeah?"
"How you do this without junk, huh? How you do it? You been through shit, too..."
Johnny-girl, Johnny-boy.
"I don't know, I jus' do. I give myself things, pretty stuff for my place. I accept the way things are, baby. I can't do nothin' to change nothin'. I am ... who I am, like the cartoon says." As she spoke, Brandy had pulled up the sheets to cover Todd, seeing that he wasn't going to move to correct the problem himself.
Forgiveness – acceptance. It's all right there, Johnny-boy.
"You make it sound so easy," he said softly, sort of smiling a bit, with that particular unfocused stare he had when high. "I buy a lot of things and they don't help at all."
"It ain't easy, I get sad, too. That's when I take a night off. I'll sit home and watch the T.V. Take a bath. Eat some..." She giggled. "Eat some ice cream, a whole tub all to myself!"
"Ice cream and bubble baths – how does that make the shit go away?"
"Baby, it never goes away. I just cut myself a break is all. I just say, Brandy-girl, you pretty, you a decent woman, you ain't too dumb, and can sure support yourself. I don't need nobody – just maybe a little real lovin' every so often. I then sit back and say, yeah, that's all true and it's what I got to keep myself going. Otherwise...I'd..." She laughed again, "I'd be jus' like you!" She leaned in and kissed him on the nose. "You gonna get dressed then?"
There was a knock at the door, distracting the two of them and Todd slowly sat up, shaking his head and sniffing.
Brandy called out, "That you, Mo'?"
When nobody answered, Todd looked at her questioningly, tugging his jeans up to his thighs, then simply sitting, sniffling and rubbing his face. He was itchy too – the dope always did that to him. Made him ... itch. Brandy was already in her work clothes: thick black stockings, patent-leather stiletto heels, a short shiny skirt, and a black lacy camisole.
"Baby," she said, smoothing out her skirt, "Can you get the rest of them clothes on? I know that I didn't give you enough shit for you to get all noddy on me." There was another knock on the door. "Now what's wrong with that Mo' that he ain't answering me? I'm coming…Paulie…just you hold on!"
She went to the door and opened it slightly, leaving the chain on. Saw large brown eyes on a real pretty face of a woman she never seen before who looked sort of…stunned.
Brandy said sweetly, "Hey, what you want?"
The woman seemed to swallow hard and then looked at the ground, then away. "I'm looking for someone," she said, her eyes going back to Brandy.
"Who ya' lookin' for?"
Seeming to gain strength, she then said, "I'm looking for Todd Manning – this is his room, isn't it?"
Brandy bit her lip, blanching, and looked back into the room briefly before facing Téa again. "You got the wrong room," she said and promptly shut the door. Todd had heard the voice, recognizing who it was, and felt sick. Brandy was leaning up against the door, Todd staring at her.
"Who was that, baby?"
Johnny boy, Johnny girl. Let us be dirty and miserable in our existence. Let me show you my scars and the trash that I have left behind me, the children, the family, the wife. Let me show you how much they hate me. Jump up and taste the hell.
"God," he sighed, and then sort of chuckled, leaning back on the bed so he could pull up his jeans the rest of the way, managing only a couple of buttons which meant the jeans rode low, hip bones and cut oblique muscles revealing his recent non-eating habits.
"It's my wife," he said softly, "And she's gonna be a li'l upset wi' me."
There was another knock at the door and Todd got up at that, shaking his hair out, his muscles, as if getting ready for a fight. Brandy got scared at seeing a distinct change come over him. She backed up and sat on the couch. Shutting up. Making herself invisible. 'Wives' were a bad thing to working girls – sometimes they had knives on them and they always had bad words.
Todd saw Brandy back off and he sniffed. He was fighting his high, now. Needed to not have someone here who wanted him to stay in pain. Yeah, yeah, he kinda did call her… but he didn't mean for her to come on over. He knocked his head back, sniffed and straightened up. Not enough heroin in his blood to make him nice – not enough to make this pudding.
He pulled open the door and there in front of him stood a very sad, very concerned Téa Delgado Manning. All brown eyes, all gorgeous, untouched perfection… in her lawyer clothes, and lawyer boots...
And she cut right through his heroin high… straight to his heart.
I will die with you.
To be continued….