“Bro, c’mon, you won’t get high just sittin’ in here with us.” Violet playfully tugged on Izaak’s sleeve, trying to get him to join our circle. When he just gave her that irritated glare, she finally rolled her eyes and let go. “You’re so lame. Even Gabe is getting the stick out of his ass for once.” Then plopped down between Toby and me, which oddly felt like she was putting on some kind of show for Izaak.
“Watch that sass or I’ll prohibit you from smoking,” Gabe warned in that half-playful, half-serious tone I could never read.
Violet’s mouth dropped. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“Test me and see what happens.”
“Guysssss,” Molly said, a little drunk. She was standing next to Gabe, giggling with excitement. “Only positivity in the circle.”
Violet scoffed and rolled her eyes, shaking her head at Molly as she and Gabe sat to join us in the circle, leaving me next to my boss. Ugh, it made me so annoyed that Violet had squeezed between Toby and me.
I glanced at the doctor, admiring the way his thin fingers rolled the brown paper into a cylinder. When he went to lick it together, our eyes connected for a moment and I felt his smile, sending a few tingles to my chest.
“Yo I bet the shit they had in Cali was bomb, right Vic?”
x-x-x-x
“I’m no longer Vanessa’s mentor.”
“Whaaaaaaaat fuckin’ finally, bro. I’m proud of you.”
Toby’s body shook with laughter. “I don’t need your pride, bitch.”
Violet wanted to make a comeback, but instead got lost in her own laughter.
“What happened, though?” Molly asked. I glanced over at her to see that she was snuggled up with Gabe, who sat up straight with his arm around her shoulder. Even stoned he looked powerful.
“She was a dirty slut. Who cares what happened!”
Toby inappropriately laughed as he told the story. “I don’t deal with apathy, inauthenticity, or boundary crossers.”
x-x-x-x
“Both of you, my office, now.”
“What the…”
His menacing glare cut her off as he pushed the door open and waited for us to pass. Once the door slammed behind us, he commanded us to sit then paced in front of us.
“Do you know what’s on this?” He held up a memory stick.
My stomach sank, and I felt ready to vomit.
“Looks like a flash drive, bro,” Violet said with a chuckle. “C’mon get to the point, I got work to do.” She was as nervous as me.
Gabe’s demeanor wasn’t as light-hearted as normal. He slammed the stick into his computer, turning the monitor towards us as a video popped up on screen. As I saw the familiar neon red lights of Dominic’s, I braced myself to run.
“We gonna watch a movie?”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Gabe barked.
She rolled her eyes as the video played, sounds of my giggle making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Gabe clicked ahead, pulling up the moment where I confessed to being Pattie Cake. And after the full confession was out, he just paused it, glaring at both of us.
“Come on, you don't think that shit's real, right? We were just fuckin’ with him.”
“Bullshit.”
I flinched at the harshness in his voice, feeling a bit frozen.
Violet kept on. “Do you really think we’d confess shit to Andy?”
“Yeah, I do. And you’re going to come clean to me right now or I'll take this to the authorities. I'm sure they'd love to hear about your illegal activities in Seattle.”
x-x-x-x
No comments:
Post a Comment