"I'm ready now; let's go." Abby said goodbye to her friend and came around the desk. I wondered how much her friend knew. They always seemed to be together; what had Abby told her, if anything?
"Come this way," Abby said, walking towards the exit. Her voice was strained, like being polite to me was the last thing she wanted to do.
I'd never had someone so upset about spending time with me. She wasn't even going to suck it up and pretend. She was letting me have it. A lot of people tended to kiss my ass because they were scared of me. I liked that she wasn't. I'd have been upset about it if it wasn't so cute.
"Was there something important behind that desk you had to do today?" I asked.
"You mean my job?"
"I don’t know why you're so upset. This is what you wanted, wasn't it?" I teased.
"To spend the day babysitting you? What fun," she said sarcastically.
I chuckled. This was great. I hated when people would just roll over on me. I never pulled punches; I didn't expect people to do it for me. She was giving me hell, and it was great. We got to the parked car, and she went around to the driver's seat.
"You like taking days off, so here's another for you."
She looked at me from across the car, shocked. "Your inability to have a good time in a place like this is only a limit of your own imagination, Nate," she said. "The ocean stays salty with or without me."
"And you still have to cater to me, whether you want to or not," I said back.
She huffed and got in the car. I got in after her. I watched her adjust her seat and the mirrors and put her belt on, obviously doing her best not to look over at me. I didn't want to push her buttons so hard that she snapped.
She had been worried about what she'd seen when she'd come into my room — me passed out and stuff — but she'd been upset, too. She had almost been offended by the fact that I
used. Like she couldn't believe I did that shit. Not only that, she had tried to get me to let her help me.
She cared. She was a stranger, and I wasn't her problem. I could die tomorrow, and it wouldn't make her coffee any sweeter, but she still tried to help.
I learned pretty fast after Remus had been signed that unless people could get something out of you, they didn't give a fuck. You were only as good as what you could offer them, and if you stopped being useful, they had a replacement waiting in the wings. I’d been living in LA too long. How sad was it that I was surprised by human decency? I thought.
We had been driving for about five minutes. The resort was already behind us. I didn't know anything about this place, so I had no idea where she was taking me. She had not said a word since the trip had begun.
I looked at the side of her face. She was pretty from that angle, too. Her hair was down again, falling in waves over her chest. It looked like it would be really soft if you touched it.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Are you worried? Do you have any illegal substances in here that I should worry about being found with?" she asked. That was funny. She wasn't going to give me a break, was she?
"No," I laughed. "If I did, I'd take the fall myself. I wouldn't let you get into trouble."
"Why do you-" she cut herself off. "How?" she asked simply, taking her eyes off the road for a second to look at me. What a good question. I asked myself how the fuck I ended up like this sometimes, too.
"You don't have to talk to me, you just have to take me somewhere," I said, halfheartedly trying to discourage her.
"I just don't understand," she said. "You were right about it being none of my business, and I don't want to act like I know anything about who you are and your life, but... What happened?"
"I used to be in a band, one that you've probably never heard of," I added so she didn't ask and find out which one. "While on tour, I got pulled into using, and as badly as I want to stop, it's an addiction."
"You're trying to beat it?"
"It's a lot easier said than done. I mean, you saw."
She was quiet after that, but a better quiet than before. It wasn't the calm before the storm anymore, she was just, I don't know, processing what I had told her. I'm able to tell her a lot more easily than I had thought I would have been able to, I thought. She’d already seen me with the needle in my arm anyway, so lying to her now would have just insulted her.
"I can't imagine how difficult that is for you," she said.
"Well, it's not fun," I said. I had been passed out when she'd seen me, so I didn't know how much she had seen. She had seen my arm, though, if she had seen the needle.