“Why is it you come to me these days instead of Kinski? I’m not complaining. Patching you up is a great crash course in the whole healing thing.”
“You’re good at it, too. When people find out, you’ll steal all of the doc’s business.”
She puts a couple of wide red leaves on top of the paste and wraps my arm in gauze, then uses white medical tape to hold the gauze in place.
I put my shirt back on. The arm still hurts, but it’s definitely better.
“As for Kinski, I don’t need any more neurotic angels in my life. Aelita wants to mount my head on a wall like a stuffed trout and Kinski is in his own remake of Earth Girls Are Easy.”
“Avoiding Kinski doesn’t have anything to do with Candy?”
“You’re the second person who’s asked me about her today.”
“You should call her.”
“Candy doesn’t factor into anything. And I have called. She doesn’t answer the phone anymore. It was only Kinski for a while. Now it’s no one. I haven’t talked to either of them in weeks.”
“You only come over here anymore when you’re bleeding. You don’t talk to Eugène. Kinski is gone. You’ve been avoiding everyone who cares about you. All you do is lock yourself up with Kasabian, drink, and drive each other crazy. Speaking as your doctor, you’ve got serious issues. You’re like those old guys you see at diners, staring at the same cup of coffee all afternoon, just sitting around waiting to die.”
“Sitting around? Tell that to my burns.”
“That’s not what I mean. You came back to get the people who hurt you and Alice and you did it. Great. Now you need to find the next thing you’re going to do with your life.”
“Like learn the flute or maybe save the whales?”
“You should grow up, clean up, and treat yourself like a decent person.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not either of those things.”
“Says who?”
“God. At least everyone who works for Him.”
Allegra looks past me into space, thinking.
“If I gave you some Saint-John’s-wort, would you take it? It might help your mood.”
“Give it to Kasabian. He’s the shut-in.”
Allegra pulls me over to the window and examines me under the light.
“Do you think your face is getting worse?”
“Define ‘worse.’”
“Are the changes becoming more noticeable?”
“I know what I think. Tell me what you think.”
She nods.
“It’s worse. Your old scars are healing and your new cuts aren’t disappearing like they used to. You still heal fast, just not ridiculously fast.”
“Can you stop it?”
“Leave it to you to ask for the opposite of everything I’ve been learning for the last six months.”
“I need my scars. Come on, if you can fix something you should be able to break it, too, right?”