New Chapters {Minimal Revision}

***

Chapter 10

***

I knocked away at Blake's door, stomach full of butterflies and all. It wasn't even asking I thought to myself, in a way he owed me that journal. Him and Ramon. If I didn't get to have a real father, I at least deserved to know who he was, what he thought, maybe even what profound understanding of life he hid from the world. In my eyes, that was worth a lot more than whatever his shitty parenting and pathological lying combined could have given me.

"Door's open," he called.

I stepped right in, and there he was on the couch, sorting through the table half covered in glass containers and the black substance. It sparkled even under the shitty lighting.

"What's up, how's everything going?" I asked.

"Oh, you know," he said, laughing a little. "What did you wanna talk about? It's cool if you chill here for a while but I got some money to make, I can't afford to sit around and waste time."

"That's alright, I'm not staying long. I just wanted to ask you about something." I slid the folded paper out of my pocket.

"Do you know what this is?" I asked. "I mean I know it's Ramon's, it's just that this is all I got. I don't know what the rest of it is, or where I could find it."

He scanned over the lines quickly, his eyes lighting up in alarm the second time when he realized what he was looking at. So clearly we were on the same page.

"And you assumed I'd have it, ready to hand over to you."

"No, that's not what I meant. It's just, I never knew him like you did. If there's a whole journal somewhere, I don't know... Maybe I could find out who he was, or even understand him a little... If you have it, I realize it would be asking a lot of you for it, I know that."

"Well good, I hope you aren't that fucking entitled. You always got the hand outs, the easy life, you got to go to the nice white kid school. I got bullshit."

"I told you, my life isn't perfect either. I just need this right now, it would mean more than you could imagine."

He stared at the floor with a look of concern.

"I got it. I should ask why, but honestly I don't fucking care. I just think I should make it clear I don't do that whole handout shit. I don't know what you were raised on, but Ramon always made me earn something if I wanted it. Said I'd appreciate it more. Even if you think this book is gonna fix your life, or whatever dumbass fantasy you have, I'm not just gonna give away my dad's entire story for nothing. That shit means something to me."

"What do you want? I have money, not that much though. I'm in a tight situation with rent and my job, but I'll do what I can if you need some help."

"Yeah, fuck that money." He laughed to himself. "You can help me. You know what these are?" he asked, holding up one of the bags.

"That drug you were talking about last time, right? What was it called?"

"Microdust. I'm a few months behind on rent and bills right now, and I'm not tryna live in the streets. That's not good for business. This is the game changer though, fuck that pill pushing. This is brand new. You help me sell this and I'll give you that journal. It basically sells itself, so I'm giving you a deal if you think about it, I just need you to earn me that rent money and it's yours."

"I gotta think it over."

"Think what over? Either you want it now or you don't. You knew what you wanted when you came here, didn't you?"

I looked away, considering his offer. It was exactly what I wanted, and in a way, what I needed also, with my days as an architect numbered. I hadn't been in shape to design other people's worlds for a while, if ever. Not when my own was crumbling, something that was painfully obvious even to me. Still, the last thing I wanted was to go away to prison.

I wasn't a criminal, but I couldn't have felt more backed into a corner, into a decision no one should've had to make. There was no easy way out of it. I let my heart have what it wanted for once though, it was the type of opportunity I could've easily ruined with my over-thinking.

"I did, yeah," I said.

"Then you'll do what I asked. It's not rocket science, you have to be retarded to screw this up. You meet me at point A, pick up the dust, drop it off at point B, take the cash, and take your ass straight home. They don't arrest anyone for microdust. Not when they're the ones who make it."

"Who makes it? The police, or the government, right? How would you know anyway?" I asked. I'd never been one for drug-fueled conspiracy theories.

"Look the fuck around. The white guy I get it from, he put me on game to everything. It's part of my plea bargain from when I went away for possession and intent to distribute, some off the record shit. It was sell this and help with some research, or go away forever, and you know I can sell some drugs. "

"Wow. What does it do, is it just heroin or something? Amphetamines?"

"Nah not even, this is the crazy part. It's all a digital high, the wildest shit you ever felt. Dude said it's like a direct connection between your neurons and the electrical current in these micro particles in it or some shit, I'm too high to even explain it right."

"Can I try some?" I asked with a persuasive smile, he had me intrigued.

"Hell no, make me my money first. Then you can buy your own and celebrate with Maya and your book, or whatever the fuck you plan on doing with that," he said.

"Do you know why they want you selling this for their research? What the side effects are?"

"All I know is that it makes you happy, and happy people don't complain. They shut the fuck up and do what they're told, and they stop asking so many questions about shit they don't need to worry about," he replied.

"That makes a lot of sense if I pretend you're not a complete asshole for a second," I said.

He sorted away, no longer bothering to look up at me.

"I know it does. I don't know what you heard about me, but I'm smarter than you think. So when we meet up next time, you got a little homework assignment, cause you seem like the type of guy who likes directions. Bring all the pills you got and then some, and after you do that we can work something out."

"Alright. Let me get out of here so you can finish what you were doing."

"Yeah, you do that. Remember, keep this to yourself. Don't go bragging about this shit, your friends won't think it's cool. I got enough customers anyway."

***

Chapter 11

***

Up and down I looked, checking the door for every set of footsteps that clunked by, and checking my phone to see what time it was. I sat there in my office for 15 minutes, waiting on edge for Sebastian to come back for our meeting. I had a bad feeling about it the entire morning, and I barely had the energy to imagine how it could've played out. It was tempting to predict what he'd tell me, as if a couple lame, rehearsed lines of my own saying that he couldn't do this to me, explaining how I had bills to pay, I'd get better, etc. could change a decision we both realized he never should've made.

I knew there was no way it would be that simple when it came time to explain myself, if I'd even get the chance, but it was all I could do to keep my mind moving. That obsessive circulation of thoughts was all that kept me from panicking at the sight of my world crumbling around me. At least it felt like panic.

I struggled to keep this feeling from erupting within me, but on second thought it couldn't have been panic. It was more along the lines of desperation, when everything you loved slipped out of your grasp but was still so close, only an arm's length away.

Finally there were men outside talking. I inched my chair closer towards the door to hear them better.

"What? Why is he still here?!" A man yelled, I was almost sure it was Sebastian.

Another man mumbled something I didn't bother trying to hear.

"What did I just tell you when you came in?! You never do anything right, she's supposed to move her stuff in at 9. Fuck!"

Three pair of feet were huddled outside of the door now. I shrunk in my seat, quietly sliding my work into my bag, secretly hoping they would leave long enough for me to slip out the door as if I never came. The office was claustrophobically humid. After 30 seconds of silence, I started to get up, but at the same time the door finally opened.

"Aiden," he said in the least reassuring tone possible. "Bad news Aiden, we're letting you go. Actually, you should've been let go an hour ago. I'm sorry."

I took a deep breath, staring out the window, and finally glancing into his eyes on the way out to see if he even remotely cared.

"Alright. Fair enough."

It wasn't a painless moment, but it felt good too on top of everything else I didn't want to acknowledge. As I walked past him, he turned me back around by the shoulder, sliding a roll of money into my hand.

"Take this with you, I won't say anything if you won't. You're a smart guy, you'll figure something out. Good luck."

I left the office as quickly as possible, going straight home without even counting the money. It was either too much or too little, there was no perfect amount when bills never stopped coming and I no longer had a source of income. Unless Sebastian had felt profoundly generous, or maybe even guilty, it was nothing more than a nice parting gift.

There was a new text from Blake, a brief reminder. My pills were still at Maya's apartment so I had to take the long way to get them. Her place began to seem a lot more like home than mine ever had. I already stayed there the weekend before, but I figured I'd be able to come back to my real home and be alone for a day until I remembered the plan.

Money wouldn't be anything to worry about as long as I followed Blake's lead, not to mention that I had a college degree and 5 years of experience if that fell through. Even so, I was completely broke. I didn't have a dollar in the bank or even a dime in my cup holder. Considering the reality of right then and there, it was a hollow reassurance, but no moment was ever truly hopeless unless you allowed it to be.

The sun hadn't been up long, and Maya was still sleep. I wanted more than anything to stand there and watch her, it took serious willpower to keep it moving. I didn't stop, but I wanted to. She wasn't beautiful in the way that just any girl you wanted to sleep with could've been, but in the truest sense of the word. Beauty like that was infinitely more common in the world around me than in the countless faces I saw every day, each one as unmemorable as the last.

Her hair was even messier than usual, clothes were all over the floor, everything was a mess. It was chaos. It made my brain hurt, because I hated chaos and I hated disorder, but in all of it was a perfect serenity, and I was the one thing that was out of place. The perfectionist. I was what didn't belong, what threw off such a perfect balance.

That's what was so funny, because perfection often fell short of being beautiful. A lot of times it was sterile, it was cold, it didn't make you feel anything. It was hard to remember perfection. Seeing her there on the way through her apartment to the bathroom, a span of no more than a few seconds, I knew once and for all that beauty was more a matter of idealism than perfectionism. You never knew something was ideal until you saw it for yourself, it was always it's few little imperfections that made it so captivating.

I found the whole scene depressing in a way, because she could never know how beautiful she looked, or how I felt seeing her. I could tell her, but she could never know the feeling, she'd never feel it herself. I wanted to share the most incredible love I'd ever known, and I knew that I couldn't. Some things just couldn't cross that divide from one soul to the next. What followed was the strangest loneliness. It was the kind that was even stronger when you weren't actually alone, and somehow despite someone you loved being so close, this feeling was telling you that you were all by yourself. And you listened, you believed it.

There were 9 bottles in the cabinet, only 6 of them mine. That made me twice as crazy as she was if not more so. She always had pills left over, and I gladly took them if they sat in there long enough, only because she didn't like them at all. She didn't want them, she didn't wanna need them, and definitely hated the idea of having to take them every day for the rest of her life. According to her, she just didn't think she was that broken, and I agreed. I knew she was perfectly fine the way she was, perfectly human. But me on the other hand...

One by one I dumped the pills into a re-closable plastic bag. By the time I finished bottle number six, the bag only looked half full. Somehow it felt like it was filled with bricks anyway, the feeling of money. Maybe I could fit in one more bottle I thought. That was until Maya jiggled the locked doorknob, sending chills up my spine. I completely froze, with no idea what to say or where to hide the evidence.

"Aiden, hurry up! I gotta get in there!" she called from outside.

I felt bad hearing her anxious footsteps from the other side of the door, knowing exactly how she felt.

"Hold on, gimme one minute!" I yelled back.

I flushed the toilet first, and then turned on the sink to buy some time. The only place I could put the bag was in the back of my pants. It would look ridiculous if she saw it, but there were no other options. After that, I slid the window open silently, tossing out the bottles. As quickly as I'd moved, it still felt like a long time that the water was running.

"I'll be right back," I said, kissing her quickly on my way out before she had the chance to say anything first. "I'm going downtown for a little while."

"Cool," she said, hurrying into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind me.

So much for secrecy I thought to myself, she barely looked awake. You could never be too careful with something capable of bringing down your entire world though, everyone in it and everything left of it.

I texted Blake to meet me at Central Park at noon, and planned on spending the 3 hours until then eating breakfast and walking there the long way. Driving would've made more sense, but it was one of those mornings where the jeep refused to start up. It just sat there stubbornly, a 3000 lb. waste of batteries and aluminum. I grabbed a jacket and put the bag in the pocket, but I'd have to carry both because it was too warm to wear it without looking weird.

I thought of the shadiest places I could've found and avoided them, because there were inevitably cops patrolling, trying to outsmart people like me. I had enough time to kill that I walked around it, only because I never had time to just walk around the park. No one did, unless they were homeless or something, and then that was all that they did, either begging for money or sleeping.

There was no glamour in doing something obscure or uncommon when you lived in a box also, that ruined the charm of it. It made me uncomfortable even looking at people who had to set up their entire lives behind a bush that the average joe threw his Starbucks cup into, so I avoided that part of the park too.

Finally Blake showed up, smart enough to bring a nice shopping bag.

"My man," he said, waiting for a fist bump.

"You think you're happy now, I might make your day with the good news I got," I said.

"Good news about this?" He replied, picking up the balled up windbreaker.

"Yeah. There's almost 400 in there," I said in a hushed voice, our agreement had only been for half that many pills to start off.

"You fucking with me?" he asked.

"Why would I lie?"

"I knew this was a good idea," he said, smiling now. "Keep it up, you'll have that book sooner than you think. Just look at it this way, 600 more of these, and it's yours."

I looked around, but there was no one walking close enough near us to listen in on our discussion, and anyone who'd hear anyway likely wouldn't care. Neither of us looked like we were out committing crimes, just two brothers talking at the park.

"600? That's 10 more bottles," I told him.

It wouldn't be that hard to buy them over time, but they wouldn't come out of thin air.

"That's not that many right?" he asked.

"Uh, it's nothing crazy, they just regulate them if you get them the easy way. I have a guy though. It'll take me a little, but I should have one more bottle in a couple weeks. After that I can buy another soon too," I said

"Nice, that's what I like to hear. So you'll know what you're doing when I have you working like I told you before then?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Alright. You'll need this, and you'll hear from me soon when you start," he said, handing over the bag and tucking the jacket under his arm.

"How much do I sell this for?" I asked.

"Oh, shit, I almost forgot. Fill the containers and don't take any less than $200 a gram," he said. "And buy a scale while you're at it."

"Is that really what people pay for this?"

"I guess so, the high is fucking priceless though. You probably shouldn't try it, those pills won't cut it for you anymore if you do."

Before I knew it, he disappeared the opposite direction I was headed. I looked down at the plain paper bag. Whoever made it had been creative enough to label it's size and color at least, in case anyone misjudged it or something. There was an old t-shirt on top, and it would've seemed like I just came from shopping, but it was a lot heavier than it looked.

I peeked underneath, and sure enough there was a big bag of the black powder and some round plastic containers. I knew my life depended on guarding all of it like it was a million dollars, it all looked so expensive. Up close I could see little metallic flecks in the powder glisten under the light that slipped through. There was no doubt anyone who saw it would ask questions, so I couldn't have risked leaving it anywhere but my apartment. I didn't waste another second on the bench knowing how far I'd have to walk with such a heavy bag, I only hoped it wouldn't fall apart on me half way home.

***

Chapter 12

***

3 weeks flew by before I knew it, and in that time, those first handful of deals I did stood out more than almost all the ones after. Standing out was never good in certain lines of work, a beat up car and stained clothes slipped under the radar like nothing else. That's what I started to think at least, nothing was a given outside the sun setting and the cycles of the moon.

Day after day without having as much medicine as I was used to started to take it's toll, and a handful of sticky capsules and a bottle of water every few hours became the routine, even though taking so many at a time meant I ran out faster than I should've. I caught my hands trembling when I concentrated too hard, trying to figure out how I could get more. My mind sometimes drifted from thought to thought without cohesion, without any connections tying them to the world or each other, even though they made as much sense as ever. Somehow nothing was going wrong, but I felt trouble lurking on the other side of every situation. I checked to be sure, often seeing the same darkness in the corner of my eye. The devil's shadow disappeared as quickly as I caught a split second glimpse.

I found out that a good day ended with wandering through the familiar emptiness of my apartment, far too tired to heat up dinner and simply passing out on my bed, alone in every way imaginable. The alternative, sleeping with Maya, made it impossible not to lay there for hours imagining losing her instead, losing everything.

Maybe fear was the hallmark of a good drug dealer I thought, not the type of careless burnout who saw his fifteen seconds of fame on the 6 o'clock news. There was a turning point when I knew that for sure, a night when I had to embrace it once and for all. It was on my way off the elevator when I saw it again, the same piece of paper about some notice but in red, meaning I had to care finally.

One had been waiting there on my door a week earlier, which I crumpled up without looking over twice. I left it right there on the hallway floor. This time it was a formal eviction slip, the final notice. That meant packing up my entire life immediately, which was really just a duffle bag full of clothes and the old notebook pages. Everything else was either already at Maya's or came with the apartment and was never truly mine.

I didn't tell her I was moving in with her, I had the courtesy to at least ask her first, to make it seem like some monumental step in our relationship or however she wanted to take it. It wasn't really, because I already stayed there more days out of any given week than not, but why give her the chance to wonder if I was using her? She was the only person I had left, all that was keeping me from free falling.

Thankfully she agreed, and the next day my duffle bag sat on the floor in front of her tiny closet. Coming home to her there pretending to be asleep turned out to be a lot nicer than when I was on my own, when I thought I liked those long nights of solitude. Worrying about her imbued life with an intensity it needed badly, and every night she spent secretly waiting for me was never again taken for granted. Not when I was in even more danger of losing her.

Each dirty dollar that exchanged hands was another agent who could've broken down her door, and every morning brought that same anxiety, the urgency of putting my entire existence on the line for something so inconsequential. It wouldn't go away, and that fact made it hard to enjoy what harmony I had left in my little house of cards.

On the other hand, today had been suspiciously trouble free. I managed to fall asleep at 10pm and didn't wake up until 8, which was pretty early, but even 4 hours of rest was a stretch most nights. Insomnia wouldn't kill me, which was disappointing when I wanted to try again myself due to sleep deprivation, but this entire day I felt like a human being was supposed to for once.

That didn't subdue my sixth sense for stupid shit though, the warning that went off in my head when I came across someone alarmingly unintelligent. That's why I really didn't like the guy Liam sitting in my passenger seat. I knew as I was driving him back to Tribeca that the black sedan 2 cars behind us, the same one I first noticed in the rearview 8 blocks earlier, had to be a byproduct of something shamefully stupid that he'd done.

I banged another sharp left through an alleyway, flooring it until we emerged on the other side, only to pull out into bumper to bumper traffic. The sedan stopped down at the far end we entered through, with a face looking back at both of us from behind lightly tinted glass.

To be fair, I disliked him from the moment he stepped into my car, which looked worse for wear on the outside, more so than usual even. He was the type of person you were just waiting to have a reason to hate, which was a little fucked up but still life nonetheless. He clearly had money, and I got him to buy a couple containers for $200 more than they were worth, but he smelled funny. Some off putting odor consumed me in seconds, a hybrid of body spray and armpit sweat. I didn't like it, and he couldn't leave my car fast enough, even though he was my best customer to date.

As soon as we passed his apartment building I spotted the black sedan, this time crossing the street adjacent to us. The same silhouette looked in our direction, but the car couldn't stop as we we waited at the intersection. As soon as the light turned green I drove the opposite way, stopping in the middle of the traffic jam we inevitably turned into. Some days it seemed like there were more cars in Manhattan than there were people.

"You gotta get out right here, be careful," I said, looking over my shoulder to see if I was still being followed.

"Take it easy," he said on his way out.

At the same time Liam slammed the door shut I checked my phone to see the second message from Blake, finding out where I'd make the next delivery. This one would take me to the middle of the Bronx, but there was no way I'd creep along through the streets at the rate I was going. I punched the address into the navigation and drove to the Hudson Tunnel entrance, which ran the entire length of Manhattan all the way at the bottom of the Hudson River.

It was by far my favorite place to drive. The curved glass roof of the tunnel was lined with light strips on the walls and separating the lanes, it was surreal looking. The bottom of the River resembled another world entirely, a murky wasteland of trash, strange fish, underwater snakes, and all sorts of ancient debris. For some reason it looked a lot cooler than the ones from movies, surrounded by coral reefs and clear blue water.

This one fit the vibe of the city, a clean structure closed off from the untamed wild it was built upon. Some things couldn't be glossed over with LED lights or pretty architecture. I took in the drive through the 6 lane tunnel while I could, a place where the speed limit was 130, because anywhere beyond the confines of Manhattan was as desolate as the riverbed on the other side of the glass.

As I glanced in the rearview to see if I could pull over into the exit lane, the sight of a black car right behind me made me uneasy. There were two more containers in the jacket sitting in the back seat. I waited to be pulled over, cruising out of the steep tunnel exit on my right, but no lights ever flashed. As I switched lanes a few times, he stayed right behind me all the way to the housing projects. I watched him park at the end of the street right after I did, afraid to leave the car until I knew where he was. The whole situation left me sick to my stomach. The best I could do was get the containers off my hands before something happened.

I marched to the 4th floor of the building, looking down behind me every chance I got. It was the fewest amount of stairs I had to climb in a long time. I knocked and waited for a guy named Gavin to open the door, he wasn't quite as well off as my last customer.

"Blake?" He asked, peeking through the cracked door with a semi-paranoid stare.

"Uh, yeah, it's Blake. You're Gavin?"

"Sweet, I've been waiting forever. Hurry up and come in," he said.

I was nowhere near as weary of him, though I did look out his window to see if the cop was still parked outside.

"So how much do you want again?" I asked, looking over at two girls and another guy on the couch.

All of them were shirtless and in a daze, the girls staring in no particular direction. The room had horrible lighting and trash covering almost every surface. Needles were scattered on the coffee table along with various different substances, a few electronic vaporizers, and a wad of wrinkled up money.

"Depends, let me see what you got first," Gavin said.

I pulled the two containers from my pockets to show him. He was a friendly looking guy, with long bleached hair to go with his countless tattoos. Everyone there might've seemed a little burnt out, but it was hard to judge people ready to hand me over a decent amount of money.

"Yeah, I can give you 850 for these," he concluded after holding them for a few seconds.

"You think you can do 9?" I asked.

"Sorry man, I would but I only got 850 on me right now."

850 wasn't terrible, the extra few dollars I had would even it out.

"Alright, that's cool then." A blue glimmer caught the edge of a glass in the kitchen, which I noticed as I took the money from him.

"Hey, any of you got $50?" he yelled towards the people on the couch, snapping to get their fleeting attention.

"Nah man, just let him have some of it," the other guy said with a notably lazy voice.

"Yeah, sorry about that, you can chill here and party with us for a little though," Gavin said.

"Hold on," I replied, stepping over to the window.

Blue and white lights were flashing outside, and it was too dark to see why. I had to leave. I walked right past him and out the door, hustling back down the stairs to find out what was going on.

******

"Everything okay?" I asked, there was a police officer kneeling on a teenager's head and another man in a navy blue suit staring at his phone.

"You tell me," he said, pulling a piece of twisted metal wire out of my car window. A clothes hanger. "You wouldn't happen to know who owns this vehicle would you? I just caught a couple kids trying to break in, looking for something."

"Yeah, that's my car. That guy was trying to steal it just now?"

"Trying, we got him obviously, but his accomplice ran away."

"Oh, well that's good," I said, unable to look at him for too long.

"You live in this building?" he asked.

"No, just checking up on an old friend."

"Really? You would've had me fooled."

He looked me up and down, I was only wearing sweatpants and an old t shirt. It wasn't overly warm yet, with the typical overcast enveloping the city for the entire week.

"Yeah, I'm on my way home now," I said.

He stared at me harder than ever, a look of both curiosity and skepticism at the same time. I couldn't match it if I tried, instead leaving as quickly as possible. There was time to make it home before it became late if I hurried.

Going back into Manhattan was even easier than the other way around, with traffic literally nonexistent. Everyone went so fast that when there was a lot of cars, the underwater freeway was somehow still immune to congestion. Accidents were impossible as well with the computer aided steering, which was standard on any car in good enough shape to run no matter how old.

I drove for what felt like eternity. Lights could only illuminate the confines of the glass, the water was like a huge wall of darkness against it, navy blue in every direction. There was an unnerving silence so far underneath the city, it was impossible not to relax but it in no way assured me of anything. I slouched in my seat, taking in the calmness and the view, neither of which subdued the nausea I still felt. Only one thought crossed my mind in countless variations- "I can't keep doing this".

"I can't keep doing this," I said out loud to myself, hearing the words only solidified my conviction.

I combed through each syllable and enunciation, every potential way of saying it. That was my truth for the time being, that I couldn't stay the course. Regardless of what I'd do otherwise, selling this substance might've been the end of me before I got the chance to change.

***

Chapter 13

***

"I can't keep making these deliveries," I said, flipping through the channels of Blake's television.

I turned it off, looking at it for a second. It was a clean looking machine for such a messy apartment, only two panes of glass with some wires between them.

"What? Why not?" he asked, shooting me a glance of genuine bewilderment.

"This agent was following me the other day all the way to the Bronx, I was scared as hell. I'm telling you, something's not right about this."

"So you're saying you can't work for me anymore?" he asked with his arms crossed, leaning against the kitchen sink while food simmered on the stove in front of him.

"No, I just can't drive around these weirdos and make deliveries to their houses if cops are watching me everywhere I go. All I'm saying is that somebody's on to us. Who gives you this shit anyway?"

He looked down, his eyes nearly burning holes in the floor, even though I knew he'd never answer the question.

"Fair enough. I know what to do though, and you better not pussy out. We're going to the club," he replied.

"You mean going out, tonight, and selling this there?" I asked, picking up an open container full of the drug off the table.

The black powder didn't stop moving after I placed it back down, shifting around for a little before settling into its prior state. It was as undisturbed on the surface as it had been before, all on it's own. Every particle stuck together magnetically.

"And that's gonna be safer than what we're already doing?"

"Yeah, I used to go all the time," he said. "Sometimes you get kicked out, sometimes you get lucky. Plus you get to lighten the fuck up and wear something nice for once. Do you hate colors or what?"

My jeans were always grey or black even though I had 20 different pairs, and my plain t-shirts were black most days as well, only because it was hard to tell when they got dirty.

"I'm just staying lowkey, but I'd love to hear how the whole drug dealing, teenage pop star look works for you."

"And you say I'm an asshole. I'm about to help you look fly for once and you can't even take a joke, you should work on that," he said.

"You're not the easiest person to feel bad for, you definitely wouldn't make it begging on the corner," I replied. "But what are we supposed to do if we get kicked out? Or if they call the cops on us?"

"That never happens. It's not a big deal anyway, even if they try to intimidate you. Somebody has to do this, who's trying to go the club if they can't get high? Fear is the foundation of failure. You can't afford to care, you gotta just lay low and move this shit like it's no tomorrow."

"I like that, fear is the foundation of failure. You find that in your fortune cookie or something?" I asked, grinning with amusement.

"Fuck you," he said, holding back a smile of his own.

******

"If you want people to pay top dollar for what you're selling, you gotta look the part, otherwise they'll think you're a cop, or assume you might rob them," Blake said, searching through the dresser in his bedroom.

It was still surprising how much thought went into selling drugs, but again, that was also a testament to the fact that we weren't yet in prison. There were only two ways it went if you were charged with anything serious, either you got off conditionally, or you went away and never came back. We enjoyed freedom even more than that feeling we were chasing, and even though so many people liked getting high, not many of them seemed dumb enough to risk getting hauled away to the middle of nowhere over it either.

I dug through his closet, which was this tall wardrobe looking thing filled with jackets hanging up and a big pile of clothes and sneakers on the floor. My boots were nicer than any of the shoes I saw at first glance, but I grabbed a pair of black jeans from near the top. They were shredded around the thighs and looser than I expected, considering we were both 5'11, but they looked cooler than what I had on. I pulled a jacket off a hanger as well, which was also black.

"Alright, I see you," Blake said, looking over at what I picked out while still rummaging through a different pile.

"I might have to keep this jacket," I replied, rubbing my fingers along the stitching.

"Yeah, it would be a breath of fresh air from all those lawyer outfits you usually wear."

"That's how you dress when you have an actual job," I said, laughing to myself as I went to change quickly in the next room.

"I'm actually in these streets though, and it's actual money in my mattress too, so what's not real about what I do? I supply what's keeping the people sane," he said proudly.

I looked out the window as I got my foot through the left leg, trying my hardest not to mess up the rips, we wouldn't need to kill much time. The horizon was deep purple now, it was already getting late.

"I meet the demands of the economy. See, I'm a modern day entrepreneur, meanwhile you make a living as somebody's bottom bitch, you're basically a prostitute. Forget what the law says about selling your body, how can you be a professional hoe and they don't even have you looking sexy? Dressing up like you're about to sue somebody every day and shit? No wonder you take all those pills."

"That's not why I take them. I take them cause I have to, I needed them before I started that job. If not, I would've killed myself a long time ago, somebody else too probably," I said. "You already explained why yourself, they keep me sane, the same reason why you do all the drugs you do."

Before all the words left my mouth, something clicked in my head that I was reluctant to see at first. Saying what I did, it couldn't have been more clear how fundamentally similar we were as people, just the same mind seeing different circumstances.

"There's no room left in this world for sanity, when was the last time you met a really sane person who wasn't broke as hell?" he replied after a few moments passed, walking into the bathroom to stare in the mirror. "I know they're out there, but I don't trust them. The way I see it, there's people starving, dying of all types of shit, living in the streets, sucking dick for a day's worth of rocks, spending all their money on meth, or whatever they do now, all right in front of us, this might as well be hell. Society isn't just all the cool shit and the rich people, you gotta account for the lowlifes too. We just got court side seats in hell, how could anyone be sane here? Is this really where we belong?"

"Wow. That was something. I already feel better about losing my mind," I said, passing him on my way through the apartment.

He was hunched over the sink, black powder lines on the basin and residue on his fingertips. I wandered into the kitchen to grab a glass of water with 6 pills in my own hand.

The taste had grown on me, albeit slowly, but I already took 6 earlier in the afternoon so I didn't feel much besides the assurance that I wouldn't crash later on.

"Here, only 'cause you still refuse to wear colors," he said, handing me a pair of high top sneakers I hadn't seen. They were the shiniest shade of bronze, with a strap instead of laces.

******

Blake looked like he was in high spirits as we sat on the subway, speeding silently through station after station. I often forgot how far it was from Harlem to lower Manhattan. The car we rode wasn't one that started in the Bronx, so the seats were spotless and there was no graffiti in sight. Each stop got progressively nicer until we were in Manhattan, and at that point they looked like they were out of a different century.

There was hardly an empty seat when we got on, and by the time we arrived at the nicest station of all, in SoHo, half of the other riders got off with us. A lot of them were far more dressed up than we were, and his idea no longer seemed that dangerous or original when strong cologne conquered the senses and I bumped elbows with someone every step I took, totally enveloped in a crowd of club-goers.

The streets were just as packed, and I struggled to keep my eye on Blake as I followed him down an alley out into another massive parade of people taking up the entire sidewalk. We passed line after line waiting outside of the nicest clubs, places we couldn't get into on the coldest day in hell. 6 blocks later we found ourselves outside of yet another long line, an old looking warehouse with a big parking lot. It wasn't quite as exclusive as the ones right in the middle of the city's nicest neighborhood.

Rather than waiting an hour, we walked straight to the front of the line, where Blake conversed in Spanish with a bouncer he seemed to know already. He handed over one of the many small containers of microdust we both had with us, each of them only held a gram.

The club was deceptively dated looking on the outside, and we stepped into what was likely the nicest place I'd ever seen. Wading through the dense crowd of people dancing, we went straight to the men's bathroom which was even more modern, a room made entirely of rough stone walls and polished chrome fixtures. There weren't ceiling lights, which was pretty ordinary, but the light strips hidden from plain sight were the most striking red blacklights. That was what illuminated the entire building, but only up close could I pinpoint what was so intoxicating about the atmosphere.

I left the stall as quickly as I came in, knowing I didn't need to use it, and came back out to a bathroom as smoky as the dance floor. Blake was leaning against the wall near the sink inhaling what looked like a cigar with some guy, both of them already high. It was easy to tell even without the smell that completely overpowered the air freshener, there was just a careless look in a person's eyes that gave them away.

I grabbed a spot with them and took the blunt when it came back around to me, not at all used to smoking. I hadn't done any drugs since college, but it made sense in this situation to sort of advertise that we were there for a reason. That's what I was going with at least.

After we propositioned enough people who passed us by and money began exchanging hands, we struggled to keep up with the steady influx of feet walking in and out specifically to buy drugs. A half hour later and Blake ran out, but only after more smoking, endless chit chat with every kind of guy you could imagine, and stuffing an absurd amount of twenties in my pockets. We left the bathroom finally, my phone claiming it was midnight.

Blake shoved his way out of sight to the bar, but I hung back and stood outside of the bathroom waiting area. I met eyes with a guy I made a few dollars off of when we first showed up and he immediately came over to talk to me.

"Holy shit that was quality, you got any more?" He asked over the deafening sound of generic singing and electronic bass thumping, which shook the entire building.

"Here," I said, smiling to myself as I dug through the jacket pocket for another container, there were 7 or 8 left.

There was no visible security, so I didn't bother trying to be sneaky as I handed the drugs over to him. Just the sight of green and hands shaking once again caught the attention of girls in tiny skirts, all of them waiting impatiently to check on their makeup.

10 women came over to see what was up and 5 more containers left my pocket, I was making a killing. I stopped counting the money after I filled one of my back pockets, most of them didn't care to ask me a price and they all seemed drunk. Everyone was drunk, and as far as I could tell, everyone was beautiful. The building was beautiful, the people were beautiful, the music was amazing and the last thing I wanted to do was leave.

Another pair of customers in black dresses walked away clumsily with the brightest of smiles, from that point on it was the perfect night. It was hard to temper my desires looking around from one woman to the next, shiny skirts glistening and curious, lustful eyes staring, all of them glowed this strange shade of red because of the light.

When I finally ran out of containers to sell and realized how high I was, I ventured off to find Blake at the bar so I could get a drink and see how he was making out. It wasn't easy to force my way back towards the dance floor. Every minute that passed by brought 10 more people wandering through the crowd. The next couple hours was a semi-conscious blur of downing drinks, joking with people at the bar, giving up on looking for Blake and remembering one too many times that I had a pretty girl of my own back at home, the person who was keeping a roof over my head for the time being.

It was the best problem I could've had, but by the time 2am rolled around I no longer thought about getting laid. The girl I'd come home with and the one I'd come home to both lost their importance when I had to find my belligerently drunk brother. A steady flow of people made their way outside just as the bouncer began to let even more in, and still Blake was nowhere in sight.

The closer I got towards the door, the louder this vague yelling became. Not only did I want to go home, but I had this urge to find out who was yelling and why. When I got close enough to see the moonlit parking lot, my worst fear was confirmed. Blake had his arm around a random girl who was also drunk, the two of them together looking like a couple, meanwhile another guy yelled at them. They all drunkenly rambled on as a crowd formed around them. Some hilarious, disrespectful words came from Blake's mouth, he started cursing the other guy out for some reason only the two of them knew, so finally the guy swung at him, nailing him right in the eye.

Blake didn't look too phased, swinging back and missing, and the guy countered another time as Blake dipped out of the way, only to hit the girl he was arguing over by accident. She fell to the ground, and the civilized fight erupted into an all out brawl. It was his girlfriend from what I could hear, everyone else around me was trying to figure out what was going on as the party unravelled. The deafening roar of the music was drowned out with screams and cursing as people now flooded out of the club, pushing me further and further into the parking lot. Knowing that there was little chance of finding my brother after what just happened, I took off jogging, really picking it up as soon as I heard the first police siren.

I was a block away when I saw something even stranger than the brawl I was running away from. As cops raced towards the club, two girls were among the couple dozen people running ahead of me, they had to be the tipsy ones from outside the bathroom. Just when I realized how much better they looked compared to when I first saw them, still sober at that point, a loud, distinctive crack cut through the night. The prettier girl of the two tumbled to the ground, one of her high heels rendered a distant memory in the process. As she struggled to find her bearings, her friend looked back at her and drifted away, a strange apprehension in her dazed expression.

Yet another cop car closed in, the siren blaring louder than ever down the street. The girls were only a couple streetlights away now. Her friend took several last uncertain steps before making up her mind, and at the same time I walked up next to the girl on the ground, lying there with her eyes barely open and holding her head in pain. Her friend didn't look back again as she disappeared down the stairs of the subway station.

The girl wasn't in horrible shape, just a little too drunk and out of however much it cost for what had to be an expensive shoe. I'd already abandoned my brother so far, and seeing her there helpless, which he wasn't, I knew I had to make someone's night. If not who I came with, I could at least help her end up home safely rather than on the news or the internet. The only split second decision was whether or not I could carry her to the train before the cop car made it to our end of the street. All I knew was that I was drunk enough to try.

She was surprisingly light, which made it easy to hustle down the steps as a train screeched to a halt and street names echoed through the tunnel. Just as I made it to the platform, doors slammed shut all at once and the cars sped off in a hurry. As frustration set in, I checked to see which side of the tracks would take me back uptown. The train that peeled off was headed the wrong way, finishing it's run in the opposite direction I needed to go.

Right before my arms went numb from holding her, another train stopped on the track next to the wall. This one was running in a loop, on it's way back through the middle of Manhattan and Harlem to the Bronx. There weren't nearly as many people on it considering the time, quarter after 2am, so there was enough room to lay the girl down on 2 seats next to mine. She seemed really cold, drifting even closer towards unconsciousness. For a minute she started to shiver a little, having poisoned herself nearly to death, so I took off my jacket and laid it on top of her.

The only problem now was that it was Blake's jacket. I thought about it for a second, there had to be a way I could get it back from her, let alone make sure she made it off the train safely. The car we were riding was in bad shape, with graffiti almost everywhere. There was marker writing on the seats, spray paint on a wall here and there, and even the roof was vandalized.

5, maybe 10 minutes passed before I tried to get her attention

"Hey, you alive?" I asked the girl, shaking her to wake her up.

She squinted her eyes at me, rolling over in the jacket.

"Where the fuck am I?"

"That's a dumb question," I said, laughing a little. "We're clearly on the subway. The better question would be more like, where the fuck am I taking you, so you don't end up passing out here. Or was that the plan for tonight all along, to wind up in this strange guy's jacket sleeping on the subway?"

She sat up.

"I saw you earlier, back in the club," she said as she broke out a smile finally, shaking her head. "You're the guy..."

"That sold you... Yeah. You're telling me you remember anything that just happened?" I replied, cutting her off.

"Come on, I'm not that drunk," she said.

I gave her a look of skepticism.

"I would hope not, that wouldn't make this night any easier," I said.

"Well maybe a little easier, if you're trying to help me forget it," she replied with a sort of sloppy expression.

It was rare to see a girl that good looking with her hair in such bad shape.

"Where are you getting off? If you live around here I'll walk you home, my street is coming up in a few more stops."

"This next one is me," she said, rubbing her head and taking off her mangled up pair of shoes. "I still can't believe that fucking slut left me, the station was right there."

"I know. It's crazy that I even ran into you again, I recognized you as soon as I saw you."

"Did you," she said, grinning to herself. "Good thing or a bad thing?"

"Uh, a little of both. You looked like you were having a good time at least, too bad my asshole brother had to ruin it. He was the guy fighting in the parking lot."

"Was that really him? That whole thing was funny for a second," she said, putting on the leather jacket as the train coasted to the end of the station.

"It was, wasn't it? By the way, you can wear the jacket for now but I need it back before I go home. It's actually his, he let me borrow it."

I followed her through the open doors and up the platform stairs. I didn't have the energy to figure out where we were from the street numbers alone, but once we found ourselves above ground again I knew we were in the Upper East Side.

"Don't worry, you'll get it back. You sure you wanna go home so early? There's no way I can sleep right now, you should come up and watch a movie with me," she said as we approached her building, which was only a block down the street.

On one hand, I knew I had no business putting myself in such a situation, but it would be easier to explain myself to Maya coming back in the morning rather than showing up drunk and high in the middle of the night.

"I guess I can spend the night with you if a movie is on the table. But there better be popcorn or else," I said.

******

"Here we are, make yourself at home," she said as we walked in, closing the door behind me.

"Wow, not bad," I replied, her apartment looked like 3 of mine put together, except with paintings on every wall and real stuff on the shelves.

I kicked off my shoes on an animal skin rug covering the white hardwood. As she flicked a switch, yellow light emerged from grooves in the walls. A big glass television hung up in front of the couch, with bluish-green ivy sprawling across the concrete behind it. The windows were floor to ceiling, and as I wandered into the living room I noticed a little stairway leading to a second floor.

"On second thought, this place is fucking awesome."

"I'm glad you like it," she said, her tired voice echoing from another room as cabinets and drawers slammed shut. "It's too bad I don't have any popcorn though."

"Really? Thats a deal breaker right there," I replied, walking into the kitchen, which was equally as impressive.

Whoever designed the place was pretty fond of concrete and ivy, it was everywhere. Everything looked good though, all the way down to the swirls in the floorboards. Never before had I seen an apartment like it in person.

"Aww, really?" she said teasingly, walking over to me. "That's a shame, but I have something better for you."

"Do you have a name? I almost forgot to ask. I can't enjoy a movie with a girl if I don't even know what to call her," I said.

"Angelina," she replied, running her hands through her jet black hair.

"I like that, I'm Aiden by the way. You usually go by Angel?" I asked.

"No, and please never call me that," she said with a held-back grin.

"Really? Why not?"

"I'm not a good girl anymore."

She stared into my soul for a second as if she'd shared her most intimate secret.

"Good, bad, what's the difference these days..."

"You don't know? I could probably show you," she said, starting to unbutton my jeans slowly.

I was leaning against the countertop, which I barely noticed digging into my back. Right at that point I must've forgotten that there was a world outside of her loft, a city rotting from the inside out. My heart pounded incessantly, the moral dilemma in my head dying it's own slow death at the same time.

"I was gonna say, you're some kind of Angel."

"The worst kind," she whispered in my ear, unfastening the final button.

I grabbed her hands as she leaned in to kiss me, pulling away before I did something I'd regret.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna sleep with you, not tonight at least," I said.

"Why not? What's wrong?"

"You're kind of drunk, I'm kind of drunk, it's getting late, my head hurts... I could go on."

"So why aren't you gonna fuck me then? I'm not seeing how that wouldn't make everything better."

"Yeah, but that's part of my point. I'm thinking we could be friends first and work our way there, maybe starting with that movie you mentioned." I added a little enthusiasm at the end, trying to make it sound like an enticing alternative even though I wasn't a big movie guy in the first place.

Her eyes glimmered with disappointment.

"Or I could leave?"

"Don't leave," she said. "Wait, you're putting me in the fucking friend zone?"

"No, that's retarded, I'm not putting you in the friend zone. That's impossible. I'm saying we, both of us, probably shouldn't do this right now. I think you're beautiful, but it's a mistake waiting to happen."

"You're so full of shit... That doesn't even make any sense!"

"Hear me out though, because it does. Why rush things and then nobody feels the same way tomorrow morning, nobody cares anymore? The novelty is gone, neither of us calls each other, it happens so many times. Trust me. Unless that's what you wanted, another guy to use you, or for you to use him and forget he even existed. I can go if that's what you were expecting."

"No, I already said not to fucking leave." She thought to herself, pacing around the kitchen island. "I guess we can still watch that movie, what do you want to see?"

******

She curled up in my arms on the couch and fell asleep with the TV on, but I knew all along what kind of night it would be. It was only 3am and I was wide awake, yet somehow it seemed like more time had went by.

I knew the journal was all but mine. Angelina had to have some serious cash, and a drugged out rich girl was literally the perfect customer. That coupled with the fact that I'd get to hang out in such a nice apartment meant it wasn't the worst turn of events. If I could get her to make me some money without having to sleep with her also, that would be even better. It wasn't cause I didn't want to, but more the opposite-I had enough instability in my love life, she'd only complicate it beyond repair, even if she could've been the sexiest girl I'd ever met.

By the time I fell asleep, two long hours later, Maya and money were the only things on my mind. How could I explain tonight to Maya, and when could I make enough money to get what I wanted? The girl in my arms was exactly what I needed for the second, most important part, and finally, I knew for myself that everything in life happened for a reason.

***

Chapter 14

***

I pressed a button next to Angelina’s door as footsteps rounded the corner, clunking along. An older man gave me a strange look as he emerged and then disappeared into his room. Dressed the way I was, soaking wet hoodie and all, it wasn’t hard to tell that I didn’t belong in such a classy building.

“That was fast,” Angelina said, showing up to let me in with her hair and makeup done perfectly.

It was pouring rain outside on a Saturday afternoon, but still she was dressed to impress.

“I don’t fuck around, I’m like dominos," I said. "At your door in twenty minutes or your money back."

“No kidding, I didn’t even get to finish texting you. Make sure you take your shoes off,” she replied.

At the same time, another girl walked by with only a towel around her waist, heading straight for the refrigerator. She looked like she woke up in the same thunderstorm I came in from.

“Oh yeah, I should introduce you guys while you're here, this my roommate, who barely lives here. Jessie, meet my new friend Aiden.”

"You have a new friend already? He’s cute,” she said, having barely looked in my direction.

Jessie was as pale as the cream cheese she spread on her bagel, with reddish hair and a few words tattooed on her chest. Other than that, she looked like she could've been related to Angelina. They had nearly the same features, only she was even more voluptuous somehow.

“Is she the same girl from last weekend?” I asked, suspecting otherwise.

I hung my sweatshirt on the back of a kitchen chair and took both containers from the pockets, leaving them on the counter for her.

“Hell no, I don't even like that bitch. She's just one of those people I've known forever, not that you could tell,” Angelina said, talking about the other girl I hoped.

She picked one up right away and opened it, looking at what was inside before losing interest.

“That's why I was surprised for a second,” I replied.

“You’re talking about Chloe right?” Jessie asked.

“Yeah, and the whole club thing,” she said.

“Ugh, I fucking hate her. Why are you still friends after that?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I added. “I was the guy who took her home last weekend by the way, and I’m not a big fan either.”

"Right! Who does that?!” she yelled, her eyes full of outrage. “That bitch better hope I don’t see her any time soon.”

“At least you got a good roommate, you should've just went out with her instead," I said to Angelina.

“I usually do but she was with her boyfriend, or her man, I don't even know what to call him. But yeah, that’s never happening again. Let me go get that money for you before I forget,” she replied as she walked into the living room and up the stairs.

“Why don’t you come out with us later? I hate when something like that happens and its just me and another girl,” Jessie said.

"I know what you mean, maybe next weekend. I have a bunch of errands I still have to run tonight."

"What would those involve, more sketchy drug shit? More of this?" she said with a knowing smile, emptying a container of black powder onto the island countertop.

She pulled a clear straw out of the utensil drawer and went to town. Before I knew it, only half of the microdust was left, the rest was gone for good.

"How'd you guess? I mean, I gotta make money somehow considering I lost my job. Going out twice a week is expensive, and so is what you're doing right now, please don't kill yourself. There's a little...uh..."

I pointed out a stream of dark blood flowing from one of her nostrils, the sight of it did away with anything left of my appetite.

"Whoops!" she said, laughing a little as she grabbed a paper towl from the dispenser. "I'll live, I just quit drinking so I need something to keep me up."

"I was thinking you might wanna save some for the club though, it's not even 7 yet."

"What?! I am the club," she said sarcastically. "The place we're going tonight lets me drink for free, they actually pay me just to show up in something sexy. You should look into it."

"Depends on what kind of club, I don't know if I'd make a good stripper if that's where you're going," I replied.

She gave me the kind of smile that suggested she thought otherwise.

"You're pretty funny, but no, that's not what we're doing tonight. What's the deal with you and Angelina though? Are you her new man or something?"

"I'm her new friend, I don't know if I'd say all that yet."

"Why not? She's so gorgeous, even I would hit that, and I only sleep with men for the most part. You have to be either gay or seeing someone else, and even then... Which one is it? You already have a woman?"

I looked away, refusing to return her piercing stare.

"Damn, is this an interrogation? What about you, miss 'afraid of commitment'? What's the deal with your relationship?"

She hesitated as Angelina walked right behind her, seemingly out of nowhere, leaving a nice roll of money in front of me.

"Letting us know who he is would be a start, never mind what you wanna call it. She won't even tell me her man's name!" Angelina said.

"That's exactly what I mean! I'll let you both sort that out though, I should leave before it gets dark. It was nice meeting you Jessie, hopefully you're not dead the next time I come by," I replied as she snorted another black line off of the counter.

"Don't worry, I'm a big girl. I know what I'm doing," she said.

Angelina was wearing totally different clothes now. To be clear, I liked almost everything about Maya, I knew her inside and out. As a best friend even, I loved her beyond words. Still, Angelina could dress her ass off even if she was only going for a run.

Looks wise they weren't quite on the same level. Thankfully I needed more in a girl than just appearance, which was all I could see in Angelina, but not much more. Not with a perfect, supermodel smile and porcelain skin that put makeup to shame. Her hair was like black silk, and she had a voice that could get you to do things you didn't think you wanted to at first. That was only the beginning. A push-up bra and a red dress later made me question why life gave me such bullshit blessings.

"I'll call you next week for some more if you have enough. You sure you don't wanna come with us later?" she asked.

"Sorry, I wish I could. I'll see you though, stay out of trouble."

I gave her a hug kissed her on the forehead, her eyes staring into mine with the same longing and disappointment. It didn't look like emotional letdown, but more as if she was a few dollars short of her next fix. Most women only played the game for that rush of blood to the head, otherwise romance wasn't so exciting. They were the first to admit it. On the same hand, most men hated being toyed around with, myself included, and I knew I'd take my girl over her any day of the week. Maya was a little crazy, but she was also loyal. We didn't need each other, but we did need what we had between us, everyone else in the world was hooked on it after all. Angelina also had something, but whatever it was probably couldn't compare.

******

A short subway ride later and I was back in the projects, knocking on Blake's door like I always did. I looked around anxiously in the time I waited, envisioning all sorts of paranoid scenarios. What if 3 FBI agents opened the door with their tasers drawn, the whole thing having been a set up the entire time? What if they dropped down through the ceiling instead, or an army of them swarmed out of the stairwell? I needed a few pills, that was the problem.

"Hey," a girl said, peeking through the door awkwardly.

Right away I checked to see if I was at the right room.

"Is that Aiden?" a familiar voice mumbled. "Hurry up and let him in."

His place was messier than usual, and vaguely more depressing. It was probably the weather. He crushed little capsules into black powder on the coffee table, looking a little worse for wear. It was the first time I'd seen him since the night at the club.

"I just wanted to drop off some more money and see how everything's going. You okay?"

"I'm fine, just leave it on the couch," he said impatiently.

I knew I interrupted something, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to find out what.

"Alright. I have to talk to you but I can save it for the next time I'm here, I'll be back soon for another pickup. I'm out of the containers I still had from before we went out. Let me know if you need anything though."

"Yeah, I'll be alright," he said, sounding slightly unsure of himself.

The closer I looked, the worse shape his face was in. It wasn't pretty. Something was off about his friend too, a dark skinned girl who didn't look like she ate or slept much. Before I knew it she was on her knees, going line for line with Blake on the coffee table. The vibe of the place made me uncomfortable, so I was gone without another word. Nothing felt stranger than watching two drug addicts enjoy their favorite pastime in dirty clothes and a dirtier apartment.

It was pouring even harder during my walk back to Maya's, which I made as quick as possible. It was the best kind of storm, the air was still warm but the rain came down like there was no tomorrow. It was almost relaxing enough to make me forget that I'd run out of pills. I dug through my jacket pockets to no avail, meaning I'd have to wait another 3 weeks for more. Who knew if I'd make it, there was no telling if I already began losing it after one day.

The sight of an empty apartment was a relief, mainly because I didn't have to talk to anyone or lie about going to the office. Conversations with Maya felt more and more like pulling teeth, I hadn't realized how imbalanced our relationship became. There was too much passion in the sex and way too little in the words we shared. I collapsed onto the bed as quickly as I could get my shoes off, too tired to worry. I definitely had better things to worry about.

***

Chapter 15

***

"So we're good now, right?" I asked.

Blake thought extra hard while he measured out microdust into plastic cylinders.

"I don't know, it depends. How much money you got for me?"

I handed him a thick wad of hundreds to count.

"Here's two thousand right here, and this is just from the leftover containers," I said.

"Alright, so what are you asking me then?"

"For that journal, that's what our whole deal was for! I sell this for you, you make money without having to get your hands dirty, and then you give me the journal!"

He rubbed his eyes, yawning like he hadn't slept in days.

"Hold up, don't get an attitude with me over some book. Calm yourself before I kick you out, I just got up for fuck's sake."

"I didn't plan on sticking around, trust me, just don't get mad when I expect you to follow through with what you agreed to. I'm not trying to sell this shit a day longer than I have to," I said. "I need a real job."

"Listen to mister responsible over here, I told you I'd give you that book when you made me enough money. You don't think I'm bullshitting do you?"

"I don't think anything, that's why I'm asking you, so I can figure out what's going on. You haven't even mentioned it in two months."

"Cause I'm not worried about it, I told you what I'm worried about. Money is the only thing that matters to me right now. So that being said, I figure you're about three thousand short still," he said.

"You mean one thousand, after what I just gave you?" I asked, tensing up.

"Well yeah, but there's other expenses you're not accounting for. Like the fact that I had to pay 2 grand to bail myself out after you bailed on me. You split when that guy at the club went crazy and wanted to fight me over some girl, and then this fucked up cop broke one of my ribs, so I had to pay out of pocket for that trip to the hospital. I'm leaving that out, but somebody has to pay up for the bail money. You have no idea how expensive an ER visit is without insurance, so forget about that agreement."

"You're serious?"

"Dead serious, that whole night's profit is gone and you weren't even there to help, if anything I'm being generous. I'll give you enough work to make the rest of that money back, but truthfully it should be 2 thousand more. Bring me the money by next Wednesday and you can get that book though."

"Fuck. Okay Blake, if you say so. As long as it doesn't come with more sob stories about your generosity, and how you're actually not a fucking loser, even you have a hard time selling those."

I grabbed the bag, a whole ounce this time, and threw it with the containers into a small bag I'd brought with me, getting up to leave.

"You talk a lot of shit, but you're better off worrying about selling those and earning what you owe me, otherwise we might have a situation here," he replied, eyeing the bag.

He picked up another container of his own. I was certain it was for personal use, so he couldn't have cared about his profits as much as he seemed to. He'd actually gone through quite a few containers in all the time I'd been doing business with him, and I cringed at the thought of how many times over I could've had the journal if not for him being a legitimate junkie now. A quick glance at my little plastic collection revealed random colors and sizes thrown together without a care, Blake was usually OCD about the presentation. Things had changed apparently.

"And you can leave that attitude at home when you come back, unless you wanna learn some manners the hard way."

I was out the door before he could finish talking, hurrying down the steep flight of stairs. I double checked behind me when I got to the bottom, my legs were a little sore like they always were after 15 floors of walking. That fear of being caught wasn't going anywhere, if anything my paranoia was just becoming more creative.

There was even a slick hiding spot I made by accident the week before, I'd been tearing through the jeep for a prescription bottle I hadn't seen the entire day. I wedged my hand deep enough in the back of the passenger seat cushion to tear the stitching that held it in place, and suddenly it came right up. Right away I realized how perfect a spot it would be for putting things I wasn't supposed to have.

As I hopped in the car, I tossed the heavy bag straight under the seat cushion. Black powder was starting to build up on the seat ever since I started to measure out the containers in my car. I also pulled the pill bottle out considering I hadn't taken one all morning. My head felt like a transformer with millions of volts running through it, ready to explode into fireworks any second. At some point that became the cue that I needed my medicine, I wasn't quite as sad most days as I was worried. I mainly worried about losing the few things I had that made me happy, my pills being one of them, but using the pills also meant losing them.

There weren't that many left in the bottle, maybe 9 or 10. That wasn't good at all, I didn't get a refill until the 15th of May. I had to make 7 pills last 7 days, which I worked out after subtracting the two I was holding in my open palm. I usually needed at least 3 or 4 a day, but 2 would have to do if it meant time away from some of my more absurd thoughts later on.

After I swallowed the capsules, my mind circled back around to more practical matters. I wasn't sure what else I had planned for the day besides eating and sleeping, I didn't even start the car as I sat there trying to remember an errand I had to run or a place I had to go. Nothing. Then again, the one thing I needed would take the entire week's time, selling those containers, so maybe I could get a head start I thought.

I sent Angelina a quick text to see if she was home and started cruising around the neighborhood. A few blocks later I got a reply inviting me over, so I headed downtown. Streetlights were on by the time I found a parking space, it was getting late.

******

Angelina opened the door looking a lot less done up than the last time. Her face was makeup free, and all she had on was black lingerie and a matching silk robe.

"Aiden! How's everything?" She said as she reached out for a hug.

"Not great honestly. It'll be better once I get this money though," I replied.

I couldn't help but wonder if it was normal or even a good idea to be friends with your customers.

"What's wrong, is business slow right now?" she asked, laughing to herself.

I followed her into the living room, where the television was on and a bottle of wine sat on the floor by the couch.

"It's not that, I just hate being lied to. You ever have someone promise you something important and then give you the runaround?" I asked her.

"Yeah, isn't that the worst? Or when they give you something and then they end up needing it back?"

"Exactly. What about you though? It doesn't look like you're having a hard time or anything."

"Nope, I actually just got back from work. I've been having a good week so I'll be alright, but you never know what can happen a month or two from now. If you ever need anything you know you can ask me, I still appreciate you looking out that one night."

"Don't even mention it, I would've done that for anybody. Not that you're just anybody, but I wasn't expecting a favor in return. Come to think of it, you could pass me that bottle now that you say that," I said with a grin.

"You can have it, I've been waiting for the good stuff. Let me see what you got for me," she replied.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot." I pulled out the usual container, they always looked the same but the sizes were all over the place now. "This is 6 grams right here."

"Nice, here's $1200," she said as she handed me a roll of hundreds.

They felt a little wrinkled and wet for some reason. Still, money was money, it could've had someone's blood on it for all I cared, as long as it got me the book I spent so much time looking for. I picked up the bottle and took a long drink from it, I hadn't remembered how good moscato was. By the time I put it back down, it went from being mostly full to having a little over half left.

"You sure you wanna get drunk tonight? It's a Tuesday."

"What?" I said with a raised eyebrow. "You think I get drunk off of wine? Me of all people?"

"If you kill that whole bottle at the rate you're going, which is another sip or whatever you wanna call that, then you definitely will. But don't let me talk you out of it, I don't mind taking care of you for a change."

I gave her a skeptical look before picking the bottle back up.

"If by some chance I get sloppy drunk off of red wine, then we'll be even," I said.

I tilted the bottle back, trying my hardest to finish it in one final gulp. I came close, but a little moscato still sloshed around at the botto. She watched it disappear, laughing in amazement.

"Damn Aiden! You're about to put me to shame! How do you feel about that? I'm gonna have to hold your hair back while you spend the night kneeled over the toilet!"

"If I had any hair I'd call it a win," I replied. "How often do you get to see your drug dealer white girl wasted?"

"I'm dying to see that now that you said it, there's another bottle where that one came from," she said. "Oh shit! Do you see this?!" She stared at the television with wide eyed wonder.

I looked over at it for the first time since I came over, and of course she was watching a new season of Starvation Nation. A guy the same size as me and an athletic looking girl were having very rough sex in the living room, at least 3 people were watching, egging them on. One thing that stood out was how the houses got nicer from year to year. The show took place in a classic Tuscan-style palace this season, but otherwise it was more of the same, all the way down to the absurd plot.

"Wow, that's uh..."

"Hot as fuck," Angelina said, finishing my thought for me.

"Well that too."

"I haven't had sex that good in years. Imagine your life being at stake with a guy like that fucking your brains out, and you both know you have to kill each other to make it to the next show. Jenny from season 3 is ruthless."

"Damn, 10 years?"

She gave me a disappointed look of confirmation. 10 minutes passed as she talked about drama from various seasons, which I chimed in on whenever I remembered something enough to pretend I cared about it.

"You know it's all scripted, right? No one actually dies on live television, that would be insane," I said.

"What do you mean? They can't just show something on tv and say it's real when it's not, they could get sued."

I had the urge to burst out laughing, but at the same time I felt a razor sharp pain cut through my stomach. I started to get up from the couch and the entire room tilted, shifting in and out of focus. I hadn't realized how drunk I really was.

"You gonna be okay? The bathroom is the first room on the right upstairs," she said, only looking over at me for a second before diverting her eyes back to the show.

"No I'm fine, I just got a little dizzy."

I took extra care sitting back down, sinking all the way into the smooth leather couch.

"You sure? For the record, if you throw up on that rug I might have to whoop your ass," she said. "You heard it here first."

"Oh really? Don't start something you can't finish, just cause I'm drunk doesn't mean I won't give you a beatdown for talking reckless like that," I said, sounding half serious.

The camera zoomed in to show a close-up of the chef cooking in the enclosed kitchen, he took his time putting the finishing touches on his meals before sliding them out a small window for the contestants, meanwhile the announcers critiqued them with hilariously limited knowledge, they sounded a lot like interns taken off the street or something.

The breakfast and dinner confrontations were always the most entertaining. This time it was a pale, scrawny guy who had nothing to eat, and when he tried to pick a fight with the athletic girl for her food he was swiftly knocked unconscious. The dining room erupted into laughter and amusement over the quick altercation. That was more or less all we'd see this episode, nobody started killing each other until the chef stopped cooking so much food later on in the season.

"Listen, I know a lot more about pain than you would think," she replied.

We exchanged a look of mutual curiosity as she moved around in the shadows. Before I knew it she was on top of me, and the silk robe was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh really?"

"I can make you feel good, or I can make your night a living hell, it's up to you," she said, leaning in closer.

I wasn't gonna let her just take advantage of me, I pushed her over on the couch so I was the one on top.

To her credit, she knew how to push all the right buttons, because who didn't wanna feel good? And what guy could turn down happiness, however short lived, even if he already had a little of his own?

We had only been kissing for a minute before she pulled away, meanwhile she started unbuttoning my pants. I was barely conscious enough to notice the clips of the next episode playing in the background, forget objecting to something no one had to know about. I was far too drunk to act like I didn't want to take her up on her offer.

Things had gotten so heated, and losing track of time made it impossible to tell when the opening credits of one show rolled into the end credits of another. Finally the screen faded to black, and it was just the two of us there in total darkness. I didn't fully process what I'd done yet, but it was too late for second thoughts, and too early in the morning for reminiscing on what I used to love. I had what I wanted, and that was enough for the moment.

***

Chapter 16

***

Warm sunlight was beaming down on my face through the blinds, but it took a minute of delirious wrestling in my blanket to realize I was on the floor. Angelina was long gone, probably closer to getting off work now than clocking in, and the place still smelled like food and sex. I put on my clothes before making my way to the kitchen, and found breakfast waiting for me on the counter.

I didn't mind that it was already 2pm, I heated it up and went at it so I could leave on a full stomach as soon as possible. There were scrambled eggs still in a frying pan, turkey sausage links, buttered toast, and countless other things in her fridge that were most likely up for grabs. She even kept the same energy bars around that I used to buy, but on closer inspection they were the cheap store brand knockoffs that didn't taste right.

Once I washed it all down, I left everything in the sink and made my way home, driving all the way back uptown through ridiculous traffic. Only when I was a block away did I check my phone, but there was just one new message.

"I'm gonna be out all night, see u 2moro," the text from Maya read, with a little heart emoji at the end. Somehow I was in the clear.

I opened the door to her apartment only to find the lights off, no one was there. It was strange because she was usually home during the day, it was always night time when she was gone. I didn't even take off my dirty clothes before I remembered that I needed something, I headed straight to the bathroom.

The medicine cabinet squeaked open revealing it's empty shelves. There wasn't a pill bottle in sight, I tore through every enclosed space before I'd searched the entire room inside and out. I wasn't sure how much I needed the pills, or if I was simply expecting them to be there and was frustrated that they weren't, mine were long gone. Either way it didn't matter. I checked her bedside dresser next, which was the first time I'd ever touched it. I was never one to invade anybody's privacy for no good reason. I tore through each one furiously, tossing junk all over the place as I hoped to stumble upon a plastic bottle or two.

10 minutes later, not only was my desperate search proving to be in vain, but the room was unrecognizable. It was even worse than when she stopped going out for days at a time and refused to clean anything. The drawers were all wide open, with a few of them off their hinges just resting on the floor. I almost decided to give up, though I had the nagging suspicion I was gonna find one lying in the spot I least expected. Surely enough, there was that familiar bottle wedged between the bed frame and the wall, and it looked as if it ended up there by accident. I was completely relieved and started my clean up efforts, however, they didn't last a whole minute before the front door opened.

"Hey, Aiden is that you?"

Instead of answering Maya, I froze. Not once had I considered how she would feel about what I was up to, nor did I have an explanation that wouldn't piss her off. The room was still a mess for the most part.

"Oh my god, I haven't even seen you all day. Have you been outside? It's it's raining so hard right now," she said, the coldness in her voice echoing through the shadows from all the way in the foyer. "Aiden?"

She was walking through the hallway slowly, and my only reaction was to hide the bottle in my pocket. Maybe she wouldn't care as much as I expected, I had to be making a big deal out of nothing. Then again, I did look pretty ridiculous, and literally every drawer and cabinet was turned inside out.

"What the hell?! What did you do in here?!" she yelled the instant she finally saw it.

"What are you talking about?"

"The fucking room, that's what I'm talking about! Don't do this right now, I seriously might hurt you. What were you looking for that you had to tear my entire bedroom apart?! What made you think this was okay?!"

"What are you yelling for, I just needed something for work!" I screamed, my long lost job was the first and only excuse that came to mind.

"Something for work, right? For your job that fired you?! I don't even care, it happens! I was gonna let it go because you were probably embarrassed, I know you can find another one and I'm not really one to talk. I know that! But why are you lying to me?! You're never like this, you're starting to scare me..."

"Just calm down, I can explain what's going on, it's really not a big deal. My bottle of pills was no good, I was out of it when I woke up this morning and they all fell in the sink by accident. So I really needed some when I got home 15 minutes ago, and I was thinking maybe I might find more of mine lying around somewhere."

"Well there was a bottle I had behind the bed. Is that the one you found?"

"Uh, no... I didn't see any," I said, clearly hesitating.

"You have it don't you!" she yelled. "Those are my pills, why wouldn't you just ask me?! Lie to me one more time, I fucking swear... You're not taking those, they're making you act really weird."

"I won't take the pills? You're saying I won't take these fucking pills?! The ones that I need?!"

I took out the bottle so she could see it, and I started to unscrew it so she would realize I was serious.

"Just please don't take my pills, I'm telling you they're not helping you. They're not making you happy, cause what more do you need? Do you need this medicine more than you need me?" she asked.

"Shit, maybe I do!" I yelled.

"If you take my pills you can't stay here anymore, I swear to god. I had no idea you were like this. It must run in the family or something."

"You know what, fuck you Maya!" I yelled, throwing the bottle in her face.

She screamed as the plastic shattered on impact, sending little capsules flying in every direction.

"You just hit me?! I'm calling the police, you better hurry up and get the fuck out!" she yelled in an un unsettled tone, retreating into the bathroom with a blood covered hand hiding her face.

I had no intention on leaving at first, but I had no choice after losing my temper. If I stayed I'd only end up in jail, I had to give her space and let her cool down. I stuffed my clothes into my only duffel bag and picked up as many pills as I could from the floor, slamming the front door furiously on my way out.

The bad weather wasn't letting up, and I had to hurry and throw my belongings into the trunk before I was completely drenched again. I stared through the sunroof into the gloomy sky for a minute before I dialed Blake's number, he was the only person I could stay with that I knew of. It genuinely puzzled me how a person could end up where I was right then, literally everything around me was falling apart.

Blake's phone went straight to voice mail, so I called again. 3 minutes later left me hopeless, my brother wasn't picking up and I more or less had nowhere to go. One last idea came to mind, and I scrolled up a few names in my contacts to Angelina's. Before I could press the call button, I changed my mind. I wasn't just afraid she'd say no, but also that she'd look at me differently, that she'd see me as some desperate drug dealer. I wasn't actually sure if that's what I'd become in her eyes, but I was more unsure of what I really was than ever, and calling her would've made it painfully clear once and for all.

I drove around for an hour before I found a less sketchy part of Harlem where I could recline the seat and go to sleep without being bothered. I couldn't help but notice that no matter what I did or how noble the rationale behind it was, at the end of the day, happiness and I always ended up worlds apart. Meanwhile, the entire night I spent staring at the stars, praying that I'd wake up in a new life.

***

Chapter 17

***

A funny noise snapped me back into reality, and the timing seemed perfect even though I was still exhausted. Straight through the vacant lot I parked next to was the sight of the sun rising, a faint orange disc glimmering over the horizon. It was pretty rare for me to catch it at that exact moment it's light still bled into the midnight sky. I was delirious enough to believe that I'd woken up just to see it, but the persistent tapping on my window proved otherwise. It was a middle aged white guy wearing navy blue from head to toe with a shiny metal name tag. He didn't look too happy.

I shot him my own look of annoyance and sunk back down in my seat, but of course he kept at it. There was no way I could sleep with some cop waiting to ticket me simply for having such a shitty life, the universe kicking me one last time while I was down. I cracked the window a little bit, only enough for my voice to make it through to the other side.

"Excuse me officer? Is there a problem?" I asked impatiently. "I can move if this is a tow away zone."

He woke me up from a decent dream, maybe I'd pick up where I left off if I fell back asleep soon enough I thought.

"Don't make this any harder than it has to be sir, roll the fucking window down please. I have a few questions to ask you," he said.

I looked him up and down, he was more or less your typical New York City cop. All he was missing was the pedophile mustache. Everything about him was so ordinary, yet it was impossible to pinpoint why he looked so familiar. I couldn't care less about the questions, the only thing eating away at me was trying to figure out why I thought I knew him.

"Is your name Tyler by any chance?" he asked, sounding just as tired as I was feeling.

"No sir, you can see my license if you want, my name is Aiden."

"Alright, I didn't think so. You can hold onto that for now. There's a reason why I just asked you that. Around 3 this morning a man was robbed and assaulted in his car on this very block, he's in the hospital now. They doubt he's gonna make it, he took 4 close range bullets to the chest."

"Wow, that's a shame... You don't think I did it do you? And slept right here at the crime scene?" I asked.

"It's funny that you say that, I've met dumber criminals, you'd have a good laugh if I told you some of the things I see people do around here. This is one of the rougher blocks in Harlem for sure. I'm just praying I don't get reassigned to the Bronx soon, that's a whole different animal."

"That's kind of funny to hear, coming from a cop at least," I said.

"So what's the reason for you out in the streets instead of a warm bed somewhere?" He asked candidly.

"I'm not homeless or anything, my girl kicked me out last night over some argument we had, I couldn't find anywhere to go. This is actually a pretty comfortable seat, you'd be surprised. It's heated, the manual says it's got 4 way lumbar support, and some other shit, the whole 9 yards."

"Oh yeah?" he said with a restrained smile. "I've been there, done that, you don't have to tell me. When I was still a rookie my wife thought I was sleeping with my partner, in her defense the girl was cute but she was getting engaged. So it was funny, I spent a night sleeping in the back of my squad car and I got locked in it somehow, smart idea right? Some of the looks I got were priceless. This kid even took a video that ended up getting really big on the internet."

"Oh shit," I said, everything made sense suddenly.

I looked closer at his name badge, and surely enough it was engraved "Lt. Hill" in bold letters. I remembered the story Maya told me about some video her dad was in, it all clicked.

"You saw it before? It's getting old now, but it definitely makes it funny when I bust somebody and they realize that idiot cop from YouTube is the guy who outsmarted them."

"Yeah, I could only imagine," I said, my mind still racing around the idea of Maya's dad suddenly figuring out who I was.

What if he remembered me and told Maya the whole story, wouldn't that be a funny way for us to get back together I thought.

"So tell me again, what time did you fall asleep last night?"

"Around 3, maybe 4. I have really bad insomnia, it's worse when I don't take my medication," I replied.

"Lunix I'm guessing?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"That's interesting. Just for reference, the whole altercation happened at approximately 2:38AM. That means it's your lucky day, you're gonna be our key eyewitness. It's been a slow week so we can really nail this guy with a little more evidence on top of the victim's testimony and the surveillance footage."

"That means I have to ride in the cop car doesn't it..."

"Are you kidding me? You must not have been in one of these things lately, they're really comfortable now. The city figured, hey, 96 percent of prisoners are just repeat offenders. A lot of the time we're dragging someone off for a life sentence, you know, chances are it's the last time that person is ever gonna be in a car again so we might as well make it a smooth ride," he replied.

"Is that so?"

"I promise I won't make you wear the handcuffs," he said in his compromising tone of voice. "Unless you're into that, you wouldn't be the first to ask."

I quickly got the impression that cops didn't take no for an answer often.

"Alright, let me bring my jacket at least," I said, grabbing it off the passenger seat.

I had a gut feeling the station was a lot colder than it should've been. He walked back across the street to his car, talking into the passenger window to a guy who resembled him a little too much, like his out of shape brother or something.

"After consulting with my partner, there's another caveat," he said after he made it back over to my window. "There's been a lot of drug related assaults in this neighborhood, last night's included, so I'm just gonna give your car a quick search. If you are who you say you are there's nothing to worry about, you just never know sometimes. I'm not in the business of letting criminals slip through my fingertips, there's some slick ones out here."

My legs went numb at the suggestion, all I could hope was that his search was as quick as he said it would be. The ounce or so of microdust under my seat cushion was one of those life sentences waiting to happen if he was clever enough to find it, which remained to be seen.

"You can step out of the car now Aiden," he said, eyeing me the same way I did when I realized who he was.

I got out apprehensively, stepping away slowly while he pulled the door open and busted out the flashlight.

"Look what we have here," he said less than a minute later, before he'd even gotten the chance to look through the empty backseat.

"Can you tell me what this is?" He asked when he finally emerged from examining the passenger floor mats, his hand cupped full of a little black powder.

"Hold that thought, you can put your hands behind your back. You're being arrested for misdemeanor possession of a schedule two controlled substance."

He handcuffed me against my car as he read my Miranda rights, forgetting about the rest of his search. It had to be residue from the seats, enough to make me look like a user but not a pusher. Perfect I thought. It could've been avoided if I brushed off the seat the night before, it only would've taken a second. The floor mats were too dirty by themselves to find so much microdust like he had on the seat.

He hadn't lied about the cop car, it was much more spacious than I was expecting, I'd always seen tight, cramped ones in movies with fake leather seats rather than the smooth suede I was sitting on. I certainly couldn't have asked for a more luxurious way of getting hauled away to jail.

My car had been immediately towed off to the impound lot, and I waited in the station for 20 minutes before anyone came in Lieutenant Hill's office to question me. The room was exactly as cold as I was expecting, if not a little bit refreshing too compared to the late May humidity outside.

Another 5 minutes of playing with my thumbs and he returned, a glass tablet tucked under his arm and an unopened water bottle in his hand, which he set down in front of me. My handcuffs were still on, they were shiny electronic ones that might've cost more than the 'minimalist' interrogation room we passed on the way. Even so, a person would've been downright mentally ill to try something in a police station, one look at the weapons a typical cop carried made the absurdity of it alone little more than a passing thought.

"Like I said Aiden, it's your lucky day. Not only was the suspect apprehended in that case we were originally bringing you in for, but you have the chance to help me personally with another one. Mine is a little more important, and I think you'll agree when you hear what's in it for you," he said.

"I'm listening."

"Obviously you know what I found in your car seat, I found .08 grams of microdust. The computer here weighs it out and analyzes it to determine the charge, so you came .02 grams away from a trip to Rikers, seeing that you have a clear record."

"It is my lucky day, isn't it," I said, laughing a little.

I was genuinely, one hundred percent relieved, though not at all in the way he would've guessed.

"So where did you get it?" He asked. "That's my only question Aiden, where did you get it? If you knew what this stuff did to you... This isn't a time for loyalty, right now we're talking about a small reward, a clean record, and the difference between you going home to make up with your girl or spending a night with the boys in the basement. They're dying to meet a cute young guy like you, believe me."

"That's a tempting offer, but I swear I have no idea. My friend does it but I never tried it before, he must've spilled a little last time I picked him up," I said, making it up as I went along.

"Sounds to me like you need to make some better friends. This stuff is only gonna get you killed or knee deep in some shit that I know first hand, honestly, you'll really rather not have stepped in. You shouldn't fuck around with this, it's poison."

"So what, I should hang out with people like you? All self righteous, ready to sell out your friends at the first sign of trouble? Never mind loyalty, people like you would make great friends, right?"

"Fuck loyalty! This drug, microdust, or whatever you know it as, this is ruining our city!"

He got up from his seat and grabbed the water bottle from the table, pacing around me slowly.

"You can help me or not, I'm willing to make life much easier for you today if you give me a name, give me anything. You have no idea what you and your friend are dealing with, and frankly I'm not gonna explain it. You can help me, or you can suffer the consequences later on when that time comes."

"What the fuck do you want from me?! I told you I don't know where my friend got it, you think he's gonna tell me if I asked?! This is the reason why, shit like this! Are you fucking insane?! Nobody's gonna tell me something like that!"

"But you know what your friend goes by, what's his name?!" Lt. Hill screamed.

"I said, what's his fucking name?!"

I remained silent, staring into his eyes curiously before I looked away. What's the worst he could do, yell? Make me spend the night on a bed instead of in my car? Give a criminal record to a criminal? He had no aces up his sleeve, no wild cards, no nothing.

He paced around the office even more, his eyes full of pure frustration.

"I'm gonna figure this out, you're either gonna help me or not but I promise you I will. Maybe you won't talk, and maybe the next junkie does, I just gave you the opportunity to help me and to help yourself. We both know you aren't some oblivious street kid, there's only gonna be one person to blame when you get in real trouble next time. There will be a next time. Keep lying to yourself though, I see right through you. You're spending the night I assume?"

"If you're asking whether or not I'm a loyal friend, yeah, I think so," I replied.

"Alright Aiden. You can follow me. It's a shame you're gonna end up just like your father, I have his whole file right here. You can read it if you like, before you go, it's totally up to you. You can have my card too, in case you grow a few more brain cells overnight."

I put the card in my jacket and followed him to the cellblock, it wasn't a huge jail but there were more criminals than I'd ever seen aside from in some cop action movies. Most of them looked like the worst kinds of people. Despite what he said though, the cells were all really just single rooms, and I collapsed on my bed even more relieved than ever.

***

Chapter 18

***

A loud couple knocks on the door of my cell snapped me awake. There wasn't a single window to be able to tell what time it was, I was surrounded in grey. Every wall, floor and ceiling was bare concrete. I didn't take much of a look around the day before, I came in and passed out right away despite the odd stains on the bed sheets. The mattress wasn't the cleanest. Then again, neither was I, not after the crazy week I had that landed me a night in jail. Now it was time to leave, but where I was headed I had no idea.

A few more knocks got me to sit up finally. I grabbed the jacket and slipped into my boots, the same black leather ones that now looked like they'd been to hell and back.

"I'm up," I mumbled, only half awake.

The solid metal door slid open, but there was a different officer on the other side holding my phone for me.

"Follow me," he said after he handed it over, he looked more like Lt. Hill's partner.

I knew deep down he couldn't have been because of how big he was, one of his necks was bulging out of the other one. Still, I didn't bother saying a word to him considering how unpleasant my breath happened to taste.

Upstairs in the lobby was a pleasant face waiting for me. Angelina actually looked happy to see me, it wasn't a feeling I was too familiar with. I expected it to be a big deal when I asked her to come bail me out, with a little arguing, a little bargaining, maybe a few promises I didn't intend on keeping, but there was none of that. Not even a phone call on my part.

"You're free to go now, she already paid the $1000 fine for you," the cop said, walking away.

"You don't know how fucking happy I am to see you. How did you find out I needed someone to come bail me out that fast?" I asked her.

The fact that she was there to pick me up without prior notice was a little random, not that I really cared. It was about time my luck turned around I thought to myself.

"When I tried calling you last night, it got redirected and this woman answered and filled me in on everything, one of the receptionists I think. I'm sorry, but something's not adding up here Aiden," she said. "Aren't you the one always telling me to stay out of trouble? By the way, you can't pick up your car until 12."

Even though she had on a baggy white v-neck and pajamas, she was almost impossibly flawless.

"That's fine. Listen, I know I say that, but it's only cause you're too pretty to go to jail," I replied.

I followed her outside, it was first thing in the morning and the sun was slowly emerging from behind a wall of skyscrapers.

"You would have so many girls trying to get at you that they'd have to throw you in solitary confinement or something."

"I don't get why you have to say it like that," she said. "All of that sounds great besides the last part."

She was clearly mulling over the possibilities with her eyes. Underneath the glimmer of blue streetlights, their darkness was magnetic, and lost in them a second too long I found myself in her lust-filled inner world of strange daydreams and twisted fantasies.

"Im sure you'd have some sexy admirers, but then imagine the kind of girl who's gonna win you if she had to fight for you in a prison shower," I said. "She'd probably have more facial hair than I do."

"Win me?" She said with a strange look on her face, probably imagining the whole thing play out. "But that's true, I guess I see your point. I'm not as bad as you are to even end up in jail."

"You're right, after the other night I'd say you're worse."

A half block of walking later and a Mercedes coupe unlocked as she approached it. Dim twilight danced off it's curves like lingerie on the waist of a stripper. A pair of headlamps blinked on, and the car sprung to life in near total silence. I hopped in right after admiring it for a moment, it was a stunning machine. The wood grain dash gave her a run for her money, and the roof was entirely made of glass, front to back. The only question in my head was how she could afford such a life, because clearly I was doing the whole 'living' thing wrong. After meeting her, that couldn't have been any more obvious.

"I know, I'm definitely worse then you are. Don't tell anyone though, that'll just be our dirty little secret," she said with a seductive smile. "Speaking of showers, did they let you take one before you left?"

She pulled out of the tight parking space and turned onto the Brooklyn Bridge after a few blocks. Sniffing in my general direction, her face quickly transformed into a look of mild disgust.

"You think I would take a shower in jail of all places? Do you know what they do in there?"

"I do, but that doesn't really happen often. I don't think gay guys end up in jail that much," she said.

"Maybe not, who knows. I wasn't dying find out, but I have a great idea anyway. I could take one at your place, and you can join me, how does that sound?"

"Hmm..."

She contemplated, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"That's tempting, I could give you a few minutes to actually clean up and then jump in, there's only one problem."

"What's that?" I asked.

"My roommate is getting ready for work, and she takes the longest showers of all time. I'm talking at least 45 minutes," she replied.

"Oh, so even if she's done when we get there the hot water would be all fucked up, right?"

"Probably. But I have a great idea of my own, we could take a shower somewhere even cooler."

"How cool are we talking?"

"Long Island mansion cool, so cool as hell."

"Wow, really? How could I turn that down?"

"That was actually a test to see how cool you were, if you said no then I wasn't sure if we were gonna be friends anymore," she said, with a charming yet calculating expression suggesting she was almost serious.

"A cool test? Are you gonna send me one of those 'check yes or no if you like me' notes now that I didn't?" I asked, cracking up at how much she'd just reminded me of early grade school.

"What if I was?" she said, laughing just as hard. "Would I need to? One thing you have to understand about me is that I never take no for an answer."

******

Small towns and sprawling forests passed us by at the speed of light, at least that's how it felt. We were going so fast that the scenery outside began to blur into a continuous canvas of blue and green. As we got closer to our destination, Angelina gradually slowed down when we neared our freeway exit, coming to a standstill when we were less than a mile away, we'd gotten caught up in the local traffic.

"I'm gonna park across the street," she said as we turned onto one of the nicer roads.

According to the navigation, we were all the way in Westhampton. Not bad for a fifteen minute drive I thought.

"Why, is somebody else home?" I asked.

"It should only be the two of us here," she said, staring with suspicion at the place directly across from us.

A lot of the houses in town were fairly generic, but a few left turns off of the main street later and we found ourselves in a paradise of modern estates. Every one of them was massive, had huge windows and perfectly manicured gardens. Cars like BMWs, Porsches and Jaguars pulling in and out of driveways ensured that we didn't stand out much, since I got the feeling we might not have been as welcome as Angelina would've admitted.

"I hope so. I can't wait for this shower, I feel so dirty," I replied as we walked up the lawn.

We both had to squint because of the sun rising over the rooftop.

"That's hilarious, cause I just realized how clean I am. Maybe you can do something about that," she said, looking over at me.

The house itself was a paradox, the materials and the color palette were so conservative and yet the design was bold and modern. The outside was predominately sandstone and mahogany, and yet every surface inside looked like it was stolen from 5 years in the future. The floor plan was wide open, the kitchen was filled with cutting edge appliances, there was even a huge pond in the back yard. It was such an extravagant place that I wasn't impressed by it, I was moved.

It was inspiring that someone could live in so much luxury, but almost sad in the same way that an addict could live in such hollow self-satisfaction. At some point the needles, the rocks, or whatever you were on no longer got you high, instead they took you from nervous back to normal. But when you were that high, how could you still see what was normal? The moments of perfect euphoria shortened to milliseconds, and at the same time the hole in your soul turned into a vacuum as dark as the countless pupils that stared into it every day. That being said, no matter what the owner did for a living, I'd take his kind of normal any day of the week.

"You're gonna have to bare with me, I don't remember which room is the main bedroom," she said.

When we made it to the top of a decadent flight of stairs, I figured out what she meant as we stared down an endless hallway. It was pointless to count the number of doors there were because after it curved and made a right turn at the end, it presumably kept going.

******

The master bedroom didn't disappoint. There was a massive bed in the middle of the room, a huge skylight right over it, all sorts of unnecessary furniture and framed photos resting on every free space. None of them had her in them. They were of an older looking, bald headed black man and a woman who looked a lot like him, if anything she couldn't have been my age.

"Gimme a couple minutes, I have to start that shower real quick," I said, finding my way to the bathroom.

Of course, there was a marble sink long enough for a whole family to get ready in front of, and a shower that made the morning routine seem like a special event. I found some mouthwash first, rinsed my face off, and stared at my reflection for a second before throwing my clothes in a little pile on the floor and standing under the hot water.

The floor was pretty cold because of the air conditioner, so before I knew it the whole glass enclosure was filled with steam. I couldn't see Angelina come in, but I heard the door open and the sound of tapping on the sink. She had to be getting high, I had a sixth sense for knowing things like that.

I remembered the jeep suddenly, if only because of the pills stashed away in it and my burning curiosity of whether or not anyone found them. The fact that I was free should've confirmed that they were still there, but who knew what could happen between the time I was released and when my car was free to go later at noon.

As I was thinking about it, the glass door opened, and Angelina stepped in carefully while her clothes waited outside on the floor next to mine.

******

An anxious voice called from the other side of the bathroom door. I froze, my heart racing while at the same time my ears strained to hear what was being said. We dropped what we were doing instantly. I tapped around on the touch screen shower interface until the water flow tapered off, and eventually it came down one drop at a time as Angelina tiptoed out and started talking to the man through the door.

I dried off as fast as humanly possible and then attempted to whisper questions to her, what would I do? How would I escape, would I even have to? Why was I always right about the worst things?

All Angelina could manage was pointing towards the window, mouthing the phrase "You have to go."

I didn't need to hear it twice, not even once apparently. I opened up the sole window that I could fit through and tried to gauge how far of a fall it was, it didn't seem too bad. It was 15, maybe 20 feet at the highest, but the landing was either soft looking grass or softer looking bushes. I didn't hesitate, looking back just once before I leaped feet first.

The ground came a lot faster than I was expecting, and the grass wasn't quite as soft as I was hoping for either. I took a rough tumble onto the freshly cut lawn, rolling a couple times before lying on my back. Maybe I was already paralyzed, and my spine was too broken to feel it. I didn't try walking yet. Instead, I looked up to see the bathroom window close. I rolled over in relief, not even considering what she'd say to make it out. So many questions swirled around in my head, like who lived there? Why was he home so early? What was his job? What did his car look like?

When the sky stopped spinning, and I gathered the strength to get up and walk around the yard to the front, I wasn't disappointed. He drove what I assumed was the slick looking Bentley coupe, meanwhile a more practical looking Audi sedan was parked behind it, both of them finished in sparkling shades of metallic black, wheels and all. Neither had been there when we came. I walked casually across the lawn to Maya's car, there was no way I could sprint and risk looking suspicious with so many people out and about.

The car wasn't locked, but it was impossible to start without the key anywhere in the vicinity of it. Luckily I had all the time in the world to kill, sitting there in the passenger side half asleep. Half an hour went by relatively fast, and before I knew it, she was hopping into the driver's seat. Her tired face stared over the steering wheel indifferently, not bothering to say a word at first.

"You gonna tell me what happened?" I asked finally. We were back in the main part of town and quickly on our way out, heading towards the city.

"I wasn't really planning on it, no," she said.

"Was he your boyfriend then, is that what that means?"

"Are you?"

Now she had a satisfied grin, but who knew what secrets hid behind it. It clicked suddenly where we were, I was just realizing that she had much darker shit buried beneath the surface than she let on. On the other hand, she was figuring out that I was smarter than she was willing to assume for drug dealer, I hoped she was at least, for her own sake. Maybe it was me that was assuming too much after all.

Come to think of it, I didn't even know what she did for a living, she could've been as dumb as a bag of rocks. She also could've been a sex deprived executive, living out repressed fantasies in her own little world, pretending she could control everyone who found themselves trapped inside it. Neither would've surprised me, nor were they that different.

Stupid women often had this psychic-like intuition that bordered on emotional witchcraft, and in turn, smart ones were usually ruthless and/or mildly insane, always a winning combination in New York City. The only problem was that few people in the world were easy to really figure out, whichever side of the equation you might've found them on, and relying on neat labels to try and do so only guaranteed you lonely nights and a broken heart in return. I knew that as well as anyone.

20 minutes flew by in a completely different kind of silence. Not the tranquil kind, but with this emptiness in the air that was weirdly unsettling. The sound of my thoughts was so loud, in my head it felt like I was screaming at the top of my lungs but she looked totally lost to the world, probably off in some part of her mind too distant for pain to find her, among other things. I desperately needed one of those.

Before we made it back to the impound lot, she cleverly brought up the reason I was taken in for questioning, my living situation. The classic 'Why the fuck were you sleeping in your car?' or something along those lines.

I was too embarrassed to say much about it, but there was no way in hell she was letting me spend the night there again with a warm bed of hers that was empty more often than she claimed to have liked. She actually found it insulting that she had to pry the information out of me, making me explain myself.

Later that night, there I was with her when she got back from work, wherever that might've been. Her makeup was a mess. All I had was questions, more questions than ever. Answers were elusive as always. Conventional wisdom said I had all the time in the world to find them, but if I knew anything, it was how much of a lie that was. The average person got 40 thousand days on this earth, but my dad barely made it to age 40, not even half of that. The clock was ticking, but I wasn't moving, I was just spending those precious days hooked on pussy and prescription pills, both of which came with a list of side effects that put the average research paper to shame. I might have been short on answers, but one thing that was certain was that I was even shorter on time.

***

Chapter 19

***

From the moment I woke up, I watched Angelina get ready with this excitement like I was about to experience something life changing. It might've been 2pm on a Thursday as I sat in bed, but I'd been waiting forever to find out what she did for a living. There were no presents waiting under a Christmas tree, and didn't I have a birthday cake, a new job, or a certain relative's journal to look forward to either.

I didn't press the issue, because usually when people didn't tell you about their job they had good reasons, but I wasn't self righteous enough to care anyway, I was just curious. Obviously she was hiding something, but our entire relationship revolved around sex, drugs, and secrets. Her job wasn't gonna be a deal breaker unless it was notably fucked up.

"Which underwear should I go with, this red pair, or the flesh colored thong?"

She deliberated next to the window, holding one of each in either hand to compare. She was wearing nothing but the silk robe as she slipped into the first option. Sweet perfume filled the air, and thin shadows from the blinds inched across the bed while I watched, the faint possibility crossing my mind that maybe she wasn't trying on outfits for either of us.

"I don't know, I think the flesh colored bra would look better but I'm really feeling the red," I said.

"You're picking out my bra for me too now?" she stated curiously.

Her face mimicked a look of skepticism.

"Maybe, are you?"

She hadn't bothered to try one on yet, and amidst the little pile of lingerie she left lying on the other side of my feet, there were no tops. Not even a t-shirt. I had a good idea of what was going on, but it would've been too presumptuous to accuse her of doing what I thought she was just because of a gut feeling.

"Maybe..." She said playfully, although sounding a little confused.

"Are you planning on wearing one at all?" I asked, minimizing the amount of judgement in my voice.

"I don't know, I'm still thinking about it. You know you don't have to do this right?" she replied defensively.

"Do what?"

"The whole 20 questions thing, beating around the bush instead of asking me where I work. Just fucking ask me already."

Her eyes beamed with anxious enthusiasm, like she was waiting for me to find out. And I wasn't scared to, I just hated finding myself on the wrong side of a woman's sanity. I figured that was why asking certain questions for me was more like playing minesweeper than anything, especially when her answers would alter our relationship forever.

"Alright, are you an escort?" I asked.

I had to throw the kitchen sink at her, so whatever she actually did would sound reasonable in comparison. That was unless she actually happened to be an escort, in which case I'd have some serious rethinking to do as far as my love life was concerned.

"Seriously? I can't even tell if you're joking or not," she said.

"I'm just gonna assume no. That's a relief," I replied, smiling at what seemed like a strong possibility for a while. "Not that I have anything against them, but this place is really nice. Could you imagine what type of shit you'd have to do for the landlord just to make the down payment? "

"Ew, no! Why the fuck would you say that?! Now I'm imagining it! Have you seen my landlord?!"

"I was just kidding, relax," I said, laughing as I checked the time on my phone. "I'm sure you of all people have done worse, let's be honest. We both have."

She looked back at me through the mirror, her expression revealing the slight offense she took.

"I don't mean sleeping with weird slumlords, but definitely something as fucked up as that."

I realized I needed to just drop it.

"So what do you actually do, are you a dentist? Or a... I don't know, a doctor?"

She dug around through the mess on her dresser, clinking miscellaneous bottles against each other and knocking things over by accident.

"That's funny, you were a lot closer with the first guess," she said. "But no, I dance."

"What kind of dancing, like stripping?"

"Almost. I'm never completely naked, the club I work at is too classy. It's a health code violation because of the bar. We make most of our money just from the clientele, like entertainers and businessmen. A lot of women come in too, and believe it or not they usually tip the most."

"I could see that. Women are supposed to be more empathetic or something, they probably eat up that college tuition story," I said.

"I'm the worst, I still tell that one sometimes." She could barely get the words out through laughter, starting to put on foundation in the mirror. "Does it look like I need to go to college? When I dropped out I was making more money than my professors, and that was before I even knew what I was doing. My roommate still goes which is why you never see her."

"She still goes to college? She looked older than you."

"Exactly. Well she dances too, and she is older but she's like a professional student, she's addicted to learning. That doesn't really sound bad hearing it out loud but it's so expensive, and she's obviously never gonna use that degree if she ever gets it."

She might as well use those dance moves for some extra credit I thought to myself.

"I don't understand though, what did you really need to learn when you started?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Everything," she said, looking back at me to emphasize the word. "A lot more than I could explain, but I like it, it's pretty fun. You don't have to do anything with the guys, they pay enough just to watch you dance that it'd be pointless. It's empowering."

"Really? That's cool that you make so much money having a good time, I would've thought you hated it. Where's it at?"

"18th and Broadway. If you're not busy with something else you should come by and see me later."

I checked my phone again to be sure whether or not I had anywhere to go or anyone to meet. A few minutes had gone by and Angelina was still putting on foundation, clearly a never ending process if you were getting paid to look good.

"I don't have any big plans so I definitely will, but then again I don't wanna see these random guys all up on you. I want you all to myself," I said, already anticipating the stinging jealousy that was to come.

"Don't be silly," she replied. "They can't have me, I'm already yours. All they can do is give me their money and hope you might fuck up and do something stupid."

I stared into her evasive eyes through the mirror while she put on her lipstick, my first time recognizing the insecurity that resonated in her voice an instant earlier. It echoed around the high ceilings of her apartment, piercing through the emptiness of the place. It was in the beauty products lined up on the dresser, in her job, her car, even in her male friend laying there in such expensive sheets. The thread count was off the charts. It was impossible not to notice how she surrounded herself with so many props. I could tell the only time she wasn't in character was that brief moment she glanced at her reflection, right before burying her face underneath a pound of makeup.

"Why would I do that?" I said, not quite sure of a good answer.

"Because you're a man, and for some reason men always do stupid shit."

******

The sound of my phone woke me back up again, I was in that delirious half-sleep state that came when you stayed in bed longer than you should've. Now it was after 6, the sun was slowly disappearing, and my headache from the day before was stronger than ever. My eyes burned at the sight of reddish light coming through the blinds, and considering the throbbing pain right behind my forehead, it was obvious that I needed a few pills before I made it out of the blankets.

I never planned on taking a nap, but there wasn't much else to do if I hadn't. I checked my phone finally. In the past hour all I got was a reminder from Blake about the money, everything else was old junk emails and promotional text messages begging me to buy random shit I never heard of.

A quick inspection of both bedside dressers and I couldn't find the plastic bottle. I needed a tracking device on my next one at the rate I was losing them. The pain in my head wasn't subsiding either, so my attempt at sliding out of bed turned into a sad, shameful roll onto the hardwood floor.

A little while later I ended up in the bathroom somehow, which luckily was where I left it. There weren't many pills, barely even enough to fill up the bottom. I tilted the bottle back and downed them all with a cupped handful of water to chase them. I felt 6 or 7, maybe 8. As the rush came, my pulse slowed down and my senses sharpened. By the time I was done examining the creases starting to form in my cheeks, and my buzzed hair that was in need of a fresh cut, I knew I was good to go.

Rather than meditating on my life like I always did, nothing meaningful crossed my mind while I rinsed myself off in the shower. I slipped into nondescript clothes and grabbed a generic looking energy bar from the kitchen counter on my way out. It tasted suspiciously like tough, vanilla flavored styrofoam, but rest assured it was filled with a days worth of protein and 30 different vitamins and minerals. My stomach wouldn't bother me for another few hours at least.

Before I got off the train, I texted Angelina to let her know I was almost there, deciding to meet up with her at the bar. When I took the last step out of the subway station at 18th and Broadway, I looked extra hard up and down both sides of the traffic jammed street. Nothing immediately stuck out as being a strip club. Making the entrance as inconspicuous as possible had to be the point, especially if it was as classy as she claimed it was. I couldn't imagine anyone remotely successful wanting to get caught walking in some high priced brothel, not that they didn't anyway.

Before long, I found a building where loud bass rattled through the walls. The main entrance was little more than a set of opaque glass doors and 4 stories of slate bricks with no windows. There was no name on the neon door sign, but only an illuminated pink pyramid and a purple eye on top with embellished lashes, it had to be the place I was looking for.

The theme continued inside, where recessed purple blacklights lined the black marble floors. Dimmed pink ones were mounted on every wall inside of chrome fixtures. At the end of the short hallway was a pair of huge bouncers dressed almost as well as the few guys waiting in line to get patted down. Glancing at who was ahead of me, I looked more than a little out of place in comparison. It wasn't a lack of class on my part, but more that the typical patron dressed like they were running for election, they each had on a tailored suit with polished dress shoes and expensive watches. The bouncers could've just as easily been their secret service.

A minute later and it was my turn.

"You sure you're not looking for the Triangle Lounge a few blocks over?" The bouncer asked as he roughly patted me from head to toe. "People get them mixed up all the time."

All I had on was a plain shirt and some nice jeans, there wasn't much I could've been hiding besides a flask. The entire time he looked at me condescendingly, reflecting my own belief that I was underdressed. Still, why anyone would want or need to impress at this kind of place was beyond me.

"Is it a shithole?" I asked, looking back towards the door.

Three more executive-looking men were waiting behind me, along with a couple conservatively dressed women.

"It's a little rough around the edges. I used to work there last year," he said, crossing his massive arms the way he had been before in order to look tough. It was working.

"I think I'm in the right place then," I replied, almost smiling. "My girl works here, you probably know her."

"Oh really?" he asked.

"Her name's Angelina."

"Is she dark skinned with blonde highlights?"

"No, she has black hair, unless she wears a wig."

It didn't seem too out of the question as I thought about it, to make it less likely that people she might've known would recognize her either there or somewhere else later on.

"Oh, you mean Angel," he said, laughing a little.

I couldn't help but give him a strange look, but I wasn't gonna ask what he found so funny, I just kept it moving. Truth be told, I didn't think I wanted to know.

The way the floor was laid out, there were 3 main stages front and center. Along with the smaller ones, they looked down on the sea of couches where girls danced and prowled around looking for new customers. It was hard to tell from the low-key entrance but the whole place was packed. Slow electronic hip-hop poured from every speaker too, not exactly deafening but loud enough to drown out whatever awkwardness might've been there otherwise. The girls all looked busy and happily occupied, as did most of the people spending their hard earned cash. Then there was an outer area separated by a railing that surrounded the center, which is where the bar was located.

Surely enough, that's where I found myself waiting, spending $34 on a couple strong but overpriced drinks and a decent appetizer. As if it wasn't enough that you were paying women to hopefully but probably not hook up with you. It was an interesting place, lonely men in suits blew their paychecks on expensive fantasies one dollar at a time, meanwhile I enjoyed the reality for next to nothing. Maybe the whole point was to avoid the reality, or better yet to escape from it. Who knew why, no two people had the same demons chasing them. All I knew was that soda and candy might've tasted sweeter, but they could never put you to sleep like a full plate of real food.

Just as I finished my last mozzarella stick, I heard a familiar voice call from somewhere behind me.

"Baby, there you are!"

It was a girl in red lingerie approaching me.

"So what do you think, do you like it?" Angelina asked as she sat down on the other side of the table.

"The club is pretty cool, it's a lot nicer than I was expecting. You already know you look amazing though."

Even though she was always on her A game, it actually was amazing what the lighting did for some of the other girls. Not all of them could've been that naturally good looking, but it was impossible to tell in the dark.

"Good call on the red, right? I made three grand tonight already and I still have another hour to go."

"Three thousand dollars already?!"

It was hard to hold back my disbelief. It took me over a year to start making one thousand a day doing much harder work, and that was after several undeserved raises too.

"Yeah, it's been a good night considering I got the worst shift possible, you might be my lucky charm," she said with a smile.

"Apparently I should pick out your lingerie every night."

"Maybe, I hope you're serious cause I'm really about to make you. But I gotta get back to work so just wait here for me, I shouldn't be that long."

She disappeared back onto the main floor, the sea of lap dances and black velour armchairs. With nothing really to do, and not much money to spend, I tried to follow her with my eyes to her next customer. Right before I could see who the lucky guy was, another girl with a familiar voice walked up behind me.

"Sir, can I get you another drink?" The girl asked, she was blonde and a little curvy.

"Yeah, can I get a... Uh..." I trailed off, staring at her. I was sitting right in front of one of the pink lights mounted on the wall, so I could see her, but she more than likely saw me as only a dark silhouette.

"Do you need a menu? Or maybe a minute to think it over?" She sounded a little overly friendly.

"Sorry, I just remembered. Can I get a Bacardi and Coke, and also another plate of mozzarella sticks?"

"Sure, is that gonna be all?"

"Yeah, that's it. Thanks."

She didn't once bother looking up from the digital notepad she typed the order onto, disappearing a moment later. The more I thought about it, the more she looked like Maya. It was almost too dark to be sure, but I knew her face too well, even if her being a cocktail waitress at a strip club made no sense to me.

I searched around the club in vain as I waited, seeing nothing but meaningless faces. The main person that meant something to me was impossible to find, and the only other one was on her way back. I wasn't even sure if it was her or if I simply wanted it to be, it was up in the air. If by some chance it was her, I couldn't really judge considering how I earned my own money most days. Still, I couldn't help it, I loved the idea of being in love with someone morally better than me, who knew if there were any good people left in the world otherwise. I definitely hadn't met many.

A few minutes passed before I turned my head just in time to see the waitress on her way back. She had the drink and the plate of food on a platter both in the same hand, wearing the same uniform as Angelina only in white.

"Here you go sir, let me know if I can get you anything else," she said as she placed the drink and the mozzarella sticks in front of me.

"Maya? You're a stripper now?"

"Aiden?" She asked nervously. "Fuck."

Of course it was me. Her face froze in panic and embarassment, like she'd gotten caught watching porn or something. She immediately turned around and walked away as fast as she could. I didn't even get the chance to react, my legs just started moving and before I knew it I was chasing after her through the club, nudging my way through the dense crowd of people.

"Maya! Wait, I'm sorry!"

She was gone. I looked around the security checkpoint, and there were only two ways she could've left through. There was either the main door heading outside, or a more hidden one behind the busy security guards that read 'Staff Only' with a fingerprint sensor right above the doorknob. Obviously I wasn't getting in that one, and if she left the other way she was long gone in the time I took standing around deliberating. It was clear I wasn't making things right with her anytime soon, so the next best thing was to get back to my food before it got cold and Angelina came looking for me.

It was funny, as soon as I sat back down, I immediately saw her dancing in the lap of a bald dark skinned guy in glasses and a suit. But no, she wouldn't be long. I couldn't shake the feeling that the night was already over. I downed my drink in one gulp, and ordered a few more in the time I spent waiting, finishing one after the other until the room turned as hazy as the rum left in the bottom of the glasses.

***

Chapter 20

***

I marched up the familiar steps in Blake's building, the housing project, having to hold my nose because of an especially rancid smell. Apparently someone thought it would be a cool idea to take a shit behind the base of the stairwell, and by now the stench filled the air all the way up to the top floor. With drugs and cheap beer still around, idiots would always find ways to ruin nice things. It was definitely people who made the ghetto what it was, not the other way around, but habits also made the people. Profiting off of vices happened to be a lucrative business, and nobody stood to gain much by refusing to sell bad habits.

Speaking of selling bad habits, I knocked on Blake's door, slinging the old gym sack over my shoulder which held roughly $10,000 cash. The weight of the money was starting to make my arm go a little numb. It was dumb to carry around so much of it in Harlem of all places, but the excitement of being able to cut the dead weight out of my life made it worth it, to be able to move on towards normal people and start fresh again. I only needed Blake to come through for me. From the hallway I could hear him hit his leg on the table and stumble towards the door, probably as high as ever...

"My man, how you been holding up?" He asked with an upbeat voice as he opened the door.

"I'm cool, are you alright? I could ask you the same question," I said, giving him a strange look to go with the handshake he was waiting for. I sat down on the couch, tossing a crusty blue t shirt out of the way.

His attitude did a whole 360 since the last time I was over. Not only that, but his apartment officially crossed the line between messy and dirty, as did his appearance. His facial hair was sloppy, his clothes covered in stains, there were pills and plates of old food lying on the table, crumbs all over the couch I sat down on, and microdust sprinkled on the floor, which also happened to be sticky just for good measure. That was all aside from the usual clutter. I didn't really need to ask him how he was holding up, it was obvious.

"I'm great, I just make deals and fuck these jump offs, know what I'm saying?" He laughed a little too hard, overly pleased with himself. All that purposeless energy could've gone towards taking a shower I thought to myself.

"Blake, I hate to ask but how much dust did you do today?"

His face quickly reflected his annoyance, a snide look in his eyes.

"Don't start preaching already, it's too early for that."

"You dragged this whole notebook thing out so long, you could've just gave it to me from the beginning instead of doing half of the product you had me selling, that's thousands of dollars that went up your nose. And for what?"

"Please shut the fuck up about the journal, you're not even here a minute and you're already talking about it. Give it a fucking rest, I can't find it anyway."

"Don't say that..."

"It's true though, I can't find it. I'm sorry Aiden, I looked everywhere." He didn't sound like he cared too much, pouring a long black line of microdust on the table from a big plastic bag with one of the corners torn open.

"I have the ten thousand right here, money I don't even need to be carrying around for you, and you can't find the one thing you promised me all along? A book?"

I crossed my arms, finding it really hard not to smother him with one of the couch pillows in a mindless rage. The fantasy was tempting.

"I'll look again, but you can have the bail money back if I don't find it. My bad."

"Yeah, go do that. I should've never trusted you, I knew some shit like this was gonna happen."

Blake disappeared into the bedroom, and I turned off the tv while I waited. I would've watched it to kill time but it was cracked right in the middle like a spiderweb. The culprit was a small metal ashtray lying upside down on the floor, ashes spilled all over the place. Blake was really losing it, it was kind of sad to realize. I wanted to hate him for losing the journal, but he was still my brother, and his life was quickly coming undone which was just as, if not more important than learning about someone who was already dead. Chasing after the book was more of a novelty all along, because even though I wanted it pretty badly, making things right with Blake while he was still alive meant a lot more when it was all said and done.

"My bad man, like I said I can't find that book. I turned this place inside out looking for it, I know you were wondering why it's so messy. But feel free to keep that $3,000 because I did make that promise."

"That's why it's messy? If you wanna go with that then be my guest, but fuck that bail money. We both know you owe me a lot more, and it's not even about the money anyway. I'm trying to get to know you and learn about Ramon so I can make things right and grow up, you don't get that though. And the entire time I spent trying, I could've been working instead. I could've been making my own money. I gotta find a job now, this whole microdust thing was a mistake. I'm gonna need a lot more than $3,000 for all the time and energy you had me waste."

"Fuck the offer? That's what's on the table Aiden! You don't tell me what's up, this is my apartment! Do you know who the fuck I am?!

"You're an addict, I know that much. Anybody would've told you that."

"Really? So what are you?" He asked.

"An architect."

He smiled at the sound of it, like I'd told some really clever joke. The words came out before I had time to think about them, they were just a gut reaction. But deep down, that's how I saw myself, that's what I used to do for a living. Designing was the only thing I even knew how to do, that and lying.

"You're an architect? Draw me something then. You know what you can do if you're really an architect, you can draw yourself a new journal and go the fuck home, forget about it. Let it go. Move on." He didn't waste another second, going right at the big line of black powder he'd evened out.

"You're not a smart guy at all, anyone ever tell you that? No, you're really fucking dumb. Look at yourself," I said.

I wished he could've seen what I saw so vividly, two failures on the top floor of the projects, not too far from rock bottom. Rarely was failure quite as transparent. Even I could realize that we were two alarmingly similar people, the same for different reasons. One with almost nothing to lose and the other with even less to gain and nowhere to go, it was obvious he didn't get out much anymore. I wondered if he'd ever figure out the moment the cops handcuffed him to his little drug-lord fantasy.

"I'm not the one with the college degree either, you spoiled faggot."

"You know what, I'll go," I said.

I picked up the gym sack again, which was never emptied, and got up to leave.

"The deal is still on the table, but you're not taking all my money with you. Not 10k, fuck that."

He slid something black out of the couch as I made it towards the door.

"I'll fucking kill you if you don't put my money down, I put that on my life," he said with an alarming calmness.

I looked back to see a gun pointed at me, I wasn't sure he was willing to pull the trigger though.

"You're gonna kill me? In the place you live, with that loud gun, and you're gonna get away with that?"

"Alright. I won't kill you, but I have no problem shooting you, you're not getting anything now."

I sighed to myself, considering how badly I needed the money and how little I wanted to get shot. I put the bag down and left, furiously punching the concrete wall outside his room a second later. Not very smart. I was disappointed in myself, hungry, and on top of that my hand hurt pretty bad. It wasn't shaping up to be one of my better days.

I sat in my car for a little while, empty handed, thinking of where I could go to cool off. I didn't wanna go back to Angelina's and have to face her questioning, which wasn't as bad as Maya's, but it was still pretty annoying. Besides that, I had nothing. Coffee was always on the table, and people watching from the top floor of my favorite Starbucks wasn't a horrible idea. Coffee it was.

******

"Hey, welcome to Starbucks!" A friendly girl said through the speakers of a touch screen interface.

It wasn't a real voice, but instead was paired with a quick video of a model wearing a Starbucks uniform. Only 2 actual people were working from what I could tell, simple button-pressers for carefully calibrated drink-making machines.

I found my way through a series of menus and ordered a veggie sandwich and an iced coffee, bumping my phone against a rectangle of dark glass beneath the screen to pay for it all. $23.10. A minute later and a tired looking teenage guy handed me everything, only so much as reading back my name and what I'd ordered. Clearly Starbucks wasn't paying that well.

I headed to the third floor, which was a long walk with the way the stairwell wound all around the store. It was my favorite coffee shop, mostly because of the music and modern decor, the tastefully generic art and the massive bookshelves that only collected dust but still managed to look great. You could tell the design took an entire group of consumer research analysts to carefully construct down to the most irrelevant details, but that couldn't possibly be a bad thing, even if it wasn't cool. At least someone knew what they were doing. There was nothing worse as an architect than sitting in some semi-popular hole in the wall that consistently mixed up your order, and also managed to always have bad lighting and obscure music playing that was unknown for a good reason.

There was a point in time back when I still had a real job that I came here often, so naturally I remembered the seat I wanted right by the second window. But there were so many college kids and hungry professionals slacking off on their lunch breaks that I had to pick one of the few spots open, which happened to be next to a guy who wasn't too fond of headphones. As I sat and ate my food, clearing out unwanted emails from my phone, I couldn't help but listen to the news video streaming from his tablet. I was the only other person on the floor who wasn't listening to something through earbuds.

"Next on Fox 5, 8 more people killed in the past week by a deadly street drug, should you worry yet? And coming up after the break, a year long investigation finally leads to the arrest of Westchester resident and Brooklyn Heights Academy professor Christian Penn, charged with the sexual harassment and assault of thirty three underage male students and counting."

I couldn't help but realize that news on TV was almost always bad news, 99% of the time it was things that were either upsetting, outrageous or downright gruesome. Still, just as I considered that thought, of course I heard something good for once.

"Also coming up at 6 o'clock, watch this incredible video of animals, that's right, gorillas, chimpanzees, and even pigs, doing arts and crafts and building with mega blocks, all with the help of a new brain implant designed to make you smarter. Not only is it the cutest video I've ever seen, but it could be the single greatest invention in human history. Tune in later and find out what local billionaire CEO's think this could mean for the future."

I had to admit, the reporter made it sound like the most groundbreaking news that anyone had ever heard, yet you still had to tune in hours later just to find out what the big deal was. The guy next to me watching the video wasn't impressed at all though, he held the same expression the entire way through as if it were a homework assignment. He was a well dressed, thick rimmed glasses wearing guy that seemed like the type to carry around popular books just to make himself seem smart by association to the millions of strangers he passed every day.

I got up to throw out my trash and went on my way, heading back home to Angelina's. I didn't realize that all along, the only thing I needed was a reason to be excited about what the next day brought. The only thing anyone needed to go on with life was hope for the future.

***

Chapter 21

***

For the first time since my TV stopped working, over a year earlier, I found myself flipping through channels I thought I'd forgotten about. The vicious headache was back, but eating something made it bearable. By the time I finished a couple energy bars, raspberry flavored ones, I settled on the channel 5 news. I had to admit, the energy bars grew on you after 5 or 6 times of having to almost force them down. Now I was trying to replicate the impossible, which was hearing good news on TV, but I was only setting myself up for disappointment.

One story after the other, I heard reports about houses burning down, tenants suing their cheapskate landlords, grade school sex scandals and more drug related deaths, all types of stuff that didn't make me feel any better about the world. If anything, the longer I watched, the more this feeling sunk in that something was wrong. Where was I going today? Where was my money? Where was the journal? Where did my jobs go?

Maybe I was just asking the wrong questions, but the answers only got worse until I realized that I was a homeless guy living on a stripper's couch. Even that wasn't as bad as I would've imagined, but who would wanna see themself there? That was what failure looked like. Right then I realized I had to go, I had to call my mom or Maya or somebody, I couldn't live with Angelina anymore. It wasn't her fault by any means, but my time with her had more or less run it's course.

I headed upstairs to get my stuff to start packing, I only had to fold my clothes and fit them all in the duffel bag I brought. It was 2pm so Angelina was just starting to get ready to go to the club. She was in the shower from what I could hear, so I grabbed everything and headed back down the couch to get all my belongings together.

Years of doing laundry had turned me into a clothes folding machine, and it was like riding a bike too, you couldn't unlearn it. Pants went straight to the bottom, socks and underwear in the middle, then came shirts on top, neat enough so that there was room to spare. Dirty clothes went in the side compartment on their own so I could wash them when I got the chance, I wanted to leave as soon as I could. It's not like Angelina would want some random drug dealer living with her if he couldn't even deal her drugs, that was the epitome of useless.

Even though I would do it eventually, the last thing I wanted was to have to call Adanna. I could scratch that off my to do list later on, instead I got out my old work tablet and started searching the internet for job listings. The news was still on in the background. I could get better at architecture, I could try harder, study, etc. because there was no point in wasting my degree. In ten minutes I found 17 listings for Associate Design Assistant, 3 for Associate Designer, and worst case scenario there were 20 more McDonald's locations in Manhattan. The headache only made it easier for me to focus on the job hunt rather than listening to the television.

As I was copying down phone numbers for later on, Angelina came down the steps in a towel with a confused look on her face.

"Aiden, what's going on?"

"What do you mean?" I asked. "I'm just looking for a job."

"I mean what are you doing down here, all your stuff is packed up, are you going somewhere?" The concern in her voice was almost overwhelming.

"Something happened the other day and I'm not gonna have any more microdust, probably ever, that's what's going on."

"That's it? I got plenty from you last time, it's gonna last forever, and I can help you find a job if you want, but are you leaving too? You don't have to go just because you're not working, I don't want you to."

She walked over to the couch looking kind of sad, and there was no doubt she was serious. I just wondered how she'd feel with somebody living at her place and using up her stuff without giving her much of anything in return. I knew more than anyone how easy it was to wear out your welcome, especially with someone who genuinely liked you. Living together completely rearranged the dynamics of a relationship.

"I don't wanna go, but I was really thinking about it, cause what am I gonna do? I lost my job, my brother fucked me out of this money he owed me, now I have nothing. You're just gonna get tired of me living here without any more dust, using up all your shit too, trust me. All I wanted was for it to end like this instead of a big fight or something."

"But Aiden, it doesn't have to!"

"What am I gonna do?!"

I stood up, running her hands through mine. She wasn't much shorter than me at all, we were more or less eye to eye. Her's looked desperate and hopeful, mine probably no different. I really needed help, but I didn't expect her to offer any. I definitely wasn't gonna ask.

"I can find you somewhere to work, this place that pays really well. I just don't want you to leave, it's so lonely when it's only me and Jessie. She's never here... I can never go out, cause I'm always working, cause the rent is so fucking high... Then when I do get the chance, guys always act funny, and I'm not gonna bring the ones from work home, that's asking for trouble... Just stay, please, where are you gonna go if you leave?"

"I don't know," I said reluctantly.

"Exactly! I can get you this job trying out medication, you don't need a degree or anything, you just have to know somebody, and you know me."

"Well how can you get that for me? Does it pay well?"

"Its only for a couple months at a time, but you get ten thousand a week while it lasts. And I know somebody from the club," she said, really trying to sell me hard.

"Is it safe though?"

"They're the same pills you already take, the black ones."

"You're a hundred percent sure?" I asked.

If that was the case, and I could get paid to try out a medication I already took, then I'd just wasted ten minutes for nothing. This was what I needed, even if taking the job was parallel to taking a Tylenol on your death bed.

"I can double check," she said with a laugh. "So you're gonna stay? I can give you that number as soon as I get off, I'm already about to be late for work."

"Alright, I'll stay."

I gave her a long kiss, and she didn't say a word after, she just stared into my eyes and gave me the most painful smile I'd ever seen. 20 minutes later and she was out the door and back to the club, where she played on rich men's fantasies for a living. I sat back down on the couch, turning off the TV. I was more confused than ever, but it seemed like everything was gonna work even though I planned on making a mess of it all at first. Fate really had to be on my side now.

***

Chapter 22

***

Was there any good reason for banks closing so early? That was the one and only question on my mind as I pulled at a pair of glass doors in vain. I gave up, peeking around through the next window into the Bank of America. I could see a teller inside still talking to someone while he finished locking up for the afternoon.

"Motherfucker!" I yelled, pacing around in frustration before walking over to the ATM.

According to my phone, it was 4:52, a whole hour and 8 minutes earlier than the closing time listed on the door. That meant I had to try and remember my PIN number, which was saved in my app, which I couldn't use because my phone refused to connect to the internet. The sky looked ominous, with dark clouds swirling around and warm wind blowing a lot harder than normal. I didn't have time to check the news, but the weather had all the makings of a hurricane. It was classic Murphy's Law at work.

I had the appointment that might've led to a new job in just 20 more minutes, but the unnecessary detour I took was about to make me late. I pressed my thumb on the ATM screen and punched in every sequence of four numbers I could think of, finally nailing it with 0123, which was the date of my birthday minus the year.

When my account balance came up, it wasn't pretty. It was 5-digits, but only if you were counting front end zeroes and decimals. $066.51. That was how much I had to my name, meaning that about a week earlier I spent just as much at the club getting drunk and eating overpriced microwave food, all while Angelina worked overtime. It might as well have shown three more zeroes instead, I was worth next to nothing.

I signed out of my account and went on my way, trying to get to the shiny, pencil-shaped hexagon building in under 15 minutes. It wasn't as close of a call as I was scared it would be, because the huge pharmaceutical headquarters happened to be less than five blocks away. A lot of nights I walked farther than that in my dreams, and I made it there with time to spare even. After the fourth block I started to feel raindrops, and the thought crossed the back of my mind of which way I'd take home if it was really coming down by then. Angelina's place was kind of far, so hopefully walking would be out of the equation.

*******

The Fossor headquarters was even nicer than my therapist's office. Besides the obvious corporate logo rug taking up most of the lobby, the theme looked like natural stone walls, hardwood floors, tall windows and small rooms with absurdly high ceilings. High ceilings would probably never go out of style.

The elevator was easy to find, it was a massive chrome structure that was front and center when you first walked in the door. I went straight to the eighteenth floor to find the assistant Angelina hooked me up with.

Finding room 1800 was even easier, it the farthest one down at the end of the hallway, the elevator was right in the middle. There were huge widows on both sides between each of the offices, and the views were pretty impressive, looking into the city on the outside and a ridiculous atrium on the other side.

I wasn't quite high up enough to see inside of the clouds, which engulfed the uppermost floors, but I could still see the entire city and streaks of lightning that poked out from the sky every few seconds. It was beautiful and yet frightening at the same time.

A silver plaque beneath a little peephole was engraved "Clay S. Wilson", I gave the door a few knocks. A tall guy in a sharp suit opened it seconds later, he didn't look all that different from me. His hair was on the long side for a black guy, and his flashy watch was pinkish gold with diamonds. It completely drew my attention away from him.

"Aiden, I'm guessing?" He asked with a reluctant smile, his hand outstretched.

One thing that stood out even more than his wristwear was how deep his voice was for a guy so rail thin. He sounded like he was born to give orders for a living.

"Nice to meet you, and you're Clay, right?" I replied, remembering only because of the plaque on the door. He gripped my hand as if he wanted to pull my entire arm off, and it felt like he could've. "That's a really nice watch by the way, is that a Rolex?"

"Between you and me, I have no idea," he said, leaning in and breaking out into laughter. "It just better be, as expensive as it looks, I'm not a big on jewelry anyway. I'm more of a numbers guy. I'm the VP of marketing, and this is what you get for 12 straight months of record profits and media exposure, it's a gift from Mason."

He showed it off carelessly, in the same way a kid might've shown off his second or third favorite toy that was covered in bite marks.

"Who's that, your boss?"

"He's the CEO, you've probably seen him before. Bald, wears glasses, he's really funny. Anyway, we can get right into this before that storm tears this building a new one."

We both looked out the window at the same time, the hurricane certainly wasn't going away any time soon. Grey clouds seemed like they went on beyond the end of the horizon. It looked as though the world was coming to an abrupt end once and for all.

"Yeah, basically, a friend of mine is helping me look for a job, and she said I might be able to find an opening here. I have a resume too, I didn't know who to leave that with," I said.

"That'll be fine, it isn't that kind of opportunity that we have available right now. What you can choose to sign up for is a little cooler than an internship though, we have a few more spots open for a pharmaceutical trial coming up in about a week."

"So that's trying out new pills?"

"Well not new ones, if you're familiar with our newest drug, Lunix, we set you up with a decent amount of that and track your various medical symptoms throughout the summer. So you report any and every health issue that you have, the goal is to clear up the picture we have of how effectively it truly is."

"The black pills, right?" I asked, he nodded. "I was already on those for 6 months up until March, only for depression though. They worked while I had them, would that disqualify me or anything?"

"Oh no, not at all. And if you're interested, we actually have a second part to the trial that involves our latest project. It's still in the market research stage, so any conclusive information we can get on it is gonna be crucial, this one is a real game changer."

"More than a pill that cures every disease?"

"In a word, yes." He sat up in his chair, his eyes overflowing with pride. "We have a brain implant that cures stupidity, it cures mental inefficiency, it even cures low confidence. I kid you not when I say that this can make you legendary with the ladies, or men, however you roll. This is thousands of years of evolution circumvented right here, we're giving society the short cut yet again."

"I mean, I guess people like shortcuts. I could've used that back in high school honestly," I said. "So what's the incentive to do this second part then?"

"You mean how much money are we talking?" He said with a grin. "You're gonna like this, believe me. Check this out."

He slid a white piece of paper my way. It read like an email copied and pasted onto the company stationary, but the numbers won me over instantly. $10,000 a week for six weeks, that was the first option. The second had 4 more weeks added on in order to undergo the surgery. $100,000 wasn't terrible money for a year's salary, but for two and a half months of basically only taking pills, it was obscene.

"Wow, you weren't lying either. Just tell me where to sign up, I'll start tomorrow if I can."

He smiled the most self satisfied of smiles as I initialed, signed on the dotted line, initialed again, and signed a few more times. I got up, shook his hand one last time, and started trying to figure out the nearest subway station on my way out. A wave of satisfaction washed over me, I was officially a Fossor market research subject.

***

Chapter 23

***

I checked my phone and it was 2:09 PM. I was right on time, the huge Fossor building lurked over the entire street. It was truly massive. Today I was only headed to the third floor, it was the first day of the pharmaceutical research trials and even more importantly, it was payday.

I stepped off the elevator to the sight of a big atrium, which was mostly full. There were no offices on the entire floor. I could only assume there was another atrium or two behind the set of doors in the farthest corner, but there could've been anything. A bunch of folding chairs were set up in the middle, with people slowly filling out the seats as the lights in the room dimmed. I sat down closer to the elevator than the stage, that way I wouldn't have to wait behind the crowd later on when it was over.

A tall man barked orders from atop the stage front and center, and seconds later curtains started to drape down over every window. I could recognize the shiny watch from all the way in the back of the crowd, it was Clay. His jacket was in the arms of an assistant behind him and his sleeves were rolled up, he looked ready to either pitch a pyramid scheme or start a campaign rally.

A white square projection suddenly took up the entire wall in the front of the room, I didn't get why a power point was necessary when everybody was only there for free drugs and free money. There was no need for a whole ceremony too.

The guy next to me looked in my direction at the same time I was glancing around the room, trying to see what type of people showed up, he had the same bored expression as I did.

"Hey bud, you know when they start giving the pills out?" he asked.

"I was wondering about that too, I don't get the point of this whole 'school assembly' type of thing. I just want my drugs so I can go home already," I said.

"I hear you man, they should've told us to bring a pillow. I hate boring shit like this."

Everyone around us was having similar conversations, but the room quieted as Fossor's logo animation came up on the wall in 3D. DNA broke down to spell out the letters, reforming into the triangle logo and then rearranging into the opening sequence of exactly what I guessed, a glorified power point.

"Does anyone in this room know what this is?" Clay asked the crowd, his voice booming out of speakers in every direction.

"Not you Karen, you don't count. Karen is one of our lead scientists."

He laughed, and a short haired woman in a lab coat blushed as everyone looked in her direction for a second.

The molecules had settled into some kind of chemical structure which spun around slowly, it looked like the shape of a country more than anything.

"H20!"

"Drugs!"

"Carbon!"

Hundreds of people yelled out the same few answers. Clay shook his head, a smug look on his face.

"This is the active ingredient in Conix, which many of you may know better as the 'white pill'."

He let the thought sink in, the reaction of whispers in the crowd clearly satisfying him. I remembered Conix, but then again I didn't. I rarely took it, more or less hating the memory of mornings hunched over the toilet rather than any actual pill. The pain and the haziness were both worse than the peace of mind in knowing I was being "treated" for something supposedly wrong with me.

"This is failure. This is 100 billion dollars in revenue lost, this is countless lawsuits... This is the epitome of failure. Needless to say, I hate Conix, but even more so, I HATE failure."

"Fuck Conix!" One guy screamed from a couple rows behind me.

"Now, I'll be the first one to admit, I'm well acquainted with failure," Clay said. "I know it well enough to never want to see it again, and I'm willing to bet everyone in this room feels the same way. We all have problems, whether they're health ailments, psychological issues, or life circumstances. It's all apart of the human experience. Failure plays such an integral part in that experience, which just so happens to be badly in need of an update..." He trailed off ominously, meanwhile the molecules rearranged themselves and changed colors.

"To be fair, every single one of you thinks you're aware of how bad it can be, how powerful that emotion can feel when life hits you so hard, even when you see it coming. But unless you were one of the under-appreciated employees here in charge of developing Conix, slaving away for endless hours over such a massive failure, chances are you have no idea how low it can take you."

The screen faded to black, and a shy looking man's picture came up in black and white with the dates '2006-2061'. No one seemed to recognize who it was, I drew blanks trying to remember.

"If this wasn't the biggest financial letdown in history, it was up there. Because of a few missteps, and a few lapses in judgement, we lost some of the best employees Fossor has ever seen. We lost paychecks for months, job security, faced jail time, and a few of our past innovators even took their own lives because of the relentless media criticism, including former CEO and founder Will Cohen."

I'd never heard of a Will Cohen, but everyone knew who his replacement Mason was, the funny black guy always cursing on the news.

"As we started hemorrhaging money in an attempt to fix our failure, we decided to come up with a more permanent solution."

The screen faded back to white, with the molecular structure still there.

"Two and a half years ago, we came back with Lunix, which was largely the same drug as Conix without any of the toxic fillers. It sounds like that's what it should've been from the beginning, but making a drug with those kinds of unheard of properties was much, much easier said than done. It was a tough task to bring to fruition, but it's currently the best selling pill of all time, profit margins for Lunix in the past year are in 10-figure territory. I already mentioned that failure is apart of the human experience, which is in need of an upgrade, so as a way to ensure no one ever goes through the pain we endured as a corporation, we decided to speed up that upgrade which would've taken evolution thousands of years if it were possible. Left up to nature, it probably isn't."

He paced around the stage, taking a bottle of water from his assistant and drinking some while the animation reconfigured into the word 'Lunix'.

"I told you guys that I hate failure, I despise it. So we took Lunix one step further, we developed a brain implant version of it that effectively eliminates human error. It cures us of fear, it cures us of anxiety, and it makes diseases like cancer a distant memory. It even increases brain function, making us more intelligent, and early research is showing that it should extend the average lifespan by about 30 to 40 years. This is our thank you to the world for being understanding and continuing to support us."

The room erupted into informal cheers and applause, the result of all the anticipation built up in Clay's speech. The logo shifted back around to spell out 'Fossor' again.

"I also want to thank you all for playing such an important role in our future, this monumental step wouldn't be possible without you. You can exit at either of the two doors by the main elevators, and you'll get some pills and a debit card with your first payment on the way out. Thanks again."

I stretched and got up, not in any real hurry because of how far in the back I was sitting.

"What's your name sir?" The woman at the door asked.

"Aiden Rivera."

She was overly nice and her bluish-green eyes had this kind of eerie perfection about them, she had to be either a former model or a convincing android.

"Here's your first payment, all the following ones will be through this card as well. And here's your first supply of pills with instructions, have a great day Aiden!"

"Thanks." I took the card and the plastic container and wedged myself in the back of a tightly packed elevator.

I couldn't believe I had ten thousand dollars for doing almost nothing, it was unreal. Angelina wouldn't understand how relieved I was. As soon as I made it outside, I headed straight to the bus stop to look through the some of the upscale stores downtown. I knew what I could do, I could go shopping and get her something nice, something to show her she really meant something to me.

***

Chapter 24

***

Angelina took a spoon and mixed vegetable stir fry around the frying pan, peeking under the lid of the brown rice simmering in the pot next to it. I saw red, yellow, green, orange, white, even purple... I couldn't think of any colors missing. I recognized the broccoli, zucchini and mini tomatoes, but she laughed when I tried to pronounce the rest of it. Truth be told, I was just happy to eat real food for a change.

The day before, we went out and bought a bunch of expensive groceries from a farmers market a few blocks over, only because we were so used to eating absolute garbage. It was cheap, but even the styrofoam energy bars hit the spot when nothing else was around. I was getting tired of them. Angelina was working until 1am, so she figured tonight was the night she'd cook dinner for us before she had to leave.

"What more should I add?" she asked.

"I don't know, it probably tastes great as it is. Anything else and we might ruin it. This looks so fucking good though, I wanna eat it right out the frying pan," I said.

"I know, right? I was so scared I was gonna burn it. Jessie always makes fun of my cooking."

"Really? You know what, fuck Jessie. That looks amazing, how long did you plan on going without telling me you were a chef too?"

Her cheeks turned light red, a girl like her must've loved the idea of being a housewife. It was the same way that good girls deep down fantasized about being strippers, or something like that.

"I would use that c-word carefully," she said with a smile. "I know how to cook stir fry sometimes, but don't get your hopes up. This is dinner for the whole week right here."

"Oh, I get it. That's why you went so hard with the zucchini, that's zucchini right?"

"Cucumber," she said, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

"Same thing."

She picked up a fork and tried some.

"No, I was wrong, these are cucumbers," she said.

"At the store they were right next to each other so we probably got both. Apparently I don't know what the other shit is, do you?"

She smiled, shaking her head but not saying a word as she had a mouthful of food.

"Here, taste a little," she mumbled.

She held out a forkful for me, but it was still cooking, and the sauce that was in it was so hot that it scalded my tounge. I couldn't physically taste any but I knew it was good from the smell.

"You just gotta let it cool off, it's really good though," I said. "The sauce is a little sweet but it works."

"Shit! Speaking of work, I have to hurry up and get ready."

She'd just gotten a couple plates out.

"I forgot you had to work," I said, a little disappointed. "Why don't you just become a cocktail waitress? I'm sure the hours are a little better and you'd still get good tips."

"No, fuck that," she said in a defensive tone, making a plate of food but looking up at me reluctantly. Her eyes were full of turmoil, but I didn't yet realize what exactly made her upset or why.

"Do you have a problem with me dancing? Is that what you're getting at?"

"It's not, I was just saying. It was only an idea."

"Well it's a dumb idea. Cocktail waitresses don't make shit compared to what I get on a slow night. I already told you that I like what I do, there was no point in even saying that..."

"I didn't mean anything by it, like I said it was just an idea. I didn't know you made that much more, now I do. Sorry."

"Rent here costs $30,000 a month. There's no way in hell a cocktail waitress could afford that on her own, even with a roommate."

"I get it, that's a ton of money by the way. But I understand. I don't care if you dance or not, I just get lonely here with nothing to do when you're always out working."

"Fuck," she said, starting to tear up a little. She paced around the kitchen, trying to hold back some vicious storm of emotions that was brewing. It was obvious I'd struck a deeper nerve than I intended.

She shattered her plate in frustration, stormed out of the kitchen and headed upstairs. I had no idea why, the sound of the glass breaking scared the shit out of me. Meanwhile, I grabbed the other plate and put a decent amount of rice and vegetables on it, trying to make sure I had all the colors represented. That was basically all I knew about nutrition besides the fact that water was good for you, that you needed to eat every color vegetable and not just the green ones. When my ability to taste came back I knew I'd been right all along. The food tasted great, but it was a shame I'd have to eat it alone.

I turned on the tv, it wasn't too late yet so only the news was on. I didn't pay much attention since it was more of the same, the first 10 minutes was all various sex scandals and murders. It had suddenly become a strange, disappointing night. Angelina stormed down the stairs and slipped out the door without a word. I also realized I hadn't seen Jessie in two weeks. Life at that moment had reached a critical point of weirdness and it became impossible to ignore how little sense Angelina made sometimes, and the other times when she made too much. I had to go.

There was nobody else in her apartment, and the only trace of life outside the kitchen was the sound of the television with its volume turned most of the way down. With every step on the hardwood floor, echoes of loneliness followed, and without anything going on to distract me, it was easy to see how depressing a place to live it was. So flawless, yet so soulless. I went upstairs to her bedroom, starting to pack my belongings back up again. When I was finished, I was 100% sure they would stay that way until I finally left and never came back.

I didn't go downstairs again for a while, I sat in bed and watched the smaller tv in her room. While I was drifting off to sleep, I couldn't help but notice bright silver glimmering on her dresser, it was the gift I got her. It wasn't too flashy but it looked pretty nice for how much I paid. It was the kind of jewelry anyone could wear with anything, a thousand dollar platinum necklace that was flat and thin. It had been sitting there for the entire week, she didn't even try it on the day I gave it to her.

As it started getting dark out and I was left with nothing else to do and no more pills to take, I got out my tablet and started looking for a new apartment. My price range was more like three thousand dollars rather than thirty, a lot less than my first one even, which had been ten thousand.

I was still an architect deep down, I always wanted to live in the nicest place I possibly could, I simply couldn't afford anything that pricy until I got a real job. Angelina was proving that there was a difference between an expensive status symbol and a real home anyway, who knew if I needed to pay so much higher if the place felt right. Something really beautiful between us was quickly dying, if it wasn't already dead, but finally I had everything that was important to me figured out once and for all.

***

Chapter 25

***

I glanced at my reflection on the glass shower door, wondering how I made it all the way to the bathroom without remembering. It was a familiar scene. The unshakable aura of a forgotten dream lingered even as soap washed away whatever microscopic dirt was on me, the result of rolling around in slightly-too-warm blankets for 12 hours straight and rarely leaving the house. These days, steaming hot water was more of an alarm clock for me than anything.

'Why am I here?' I thought to myself, the same words that often went unnoticed in my chaotic internal dialogue. They never went away, even when important issues took up my attention, and they neither demanded an answer nor did they need any acknowledgement. The words haunted me, for better or for worse, but as the water cooled off and I woke up all the way, I no longer had to bother asking the toughest question of all time.

I couldn't stay in the shower forever, unfortunately. I stepped out, dried off, and took my six allotted pills for the day. That was it. That was my schedule for the indefinite future, give or take some lazy, passionless sex and another inevitable pill bottle crisis, knock on wood. None of it was too terrible, but even the best sleep of my life couldn't fix the awkward rift between me and Angelina, another concern of mine that refused to go away. Whatever we had at one point was broken beyond repair.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, I put on some fresh clothes as I thought long and hard about the one thing I hoped would hold our relationship together, the platinum necklace. A shiny glimmer of silver on the dresser caught my eye, meaning that it spent another day there collecting dust. Angelina left for work hours earlier. Rather than bringing us closer so we could smooth out our differences, it was becoming more like a pair of shackles, chaining together two people who were incompatible. Neither of us would change, which at one point seemed great, but the time had finally come when I saw who we were deep down and our issues proved otherwise.

It was clear that I gave the gift to the wrong girl, that was obvious now. So rather than sitting there imagining where I'd be if I'd done things differently, I came up with the best idea I had in a while, the only good one really. It was painfully simple and a little risky, but it could work. All I had to do was pay Maya a visit, apologize, and give her the necklace.

Best case scenario, she missed me the entire time and was waiting for me to do something about it, absolute worse case scenario was that I never saw her again. A new beginning or a drama free ending. It was a no brainer to at least try, so I grabbed the necklace, putting it back in the box it came in, which was hidden in the top drawer. The one thing I wouldn't do was sit around while everyone in my life continued to slip away.

******

I rounded the corner of Maya's block for the first time in weeks, it was amazing outside. They sky was deep blue, the sun was shining and the clouds weren't gloomy and overcast for once. It wasn't that hot either. My hair was cut close again and I had on one of my 'nice' t-shirts, almost as nice as the one I wore for my job interview. Nerves started to set in as I walked up the steps leading to her row house, getting ready to knock on the door. The jewelry box was in one hand and my cell phone in the other, which I put away since I already found the street I was looking for on the navigation.

After taking a deep breath, I gave the door a few unintentionally weak, apprehensive knocks. 10 seconds passed and I wasn't sure if anyone even heard them, so I tried again, a lot more forceful the second time. Maybe she wasn't home. I paced around the top of the stoop, starting to fix my shirt when I heard footsteps. The door opened, and I was caught a little off guard. Standing on the other side was a guy almost as tall as I was but a lot stronger looking, with green eyes and slightly dirty pajamas.

"What can I do for you?" he asked with an impatient smile, a transparent mask of likability.

"Hey, is Maya home right now?"

I didn't quite know how to approach him, mainly because I had no idea who he was. He could've been either an older brother, a cousin, or even a rebound, it was hard to say since he didn't look that much like her.

"Maybe, who the fuck are you?"

His expression changed faster than I'd ever seen before.

"I'm Aiden. Tell her I need to talk to her, it's really important. I gotta give her something I've been meaning to for a while." The look on his face grew even more skeptical, there was a good chance he was my replacement and he knew it, or worse, he was worried that I was his, as he should've been. "I don't mean it like that... Well, actually, I do. You could just make sure she gets it later if she's not home."

I handed over the smooth velvet box, the same color and fabric as the chairs at the club where Angelina worked. Meanwhile, another pair of feet clunked along, echoing through the landing, and he looked back up to see Maya about to come down the steep flight of stairs, probably finding it hard to control his obvious frustration.

"Who's that?" She asked him from the top, he had already looked back at me and seemed determined to ignore her for the moment.

"She's busy right now," he said to me. "It's not as important as you think if she doesn't wanna call you to talk about it. You might wanna let it go before you embarrass yourself." He opened the box and closed it right away, not at all impressed by the expensive necklace. "Yeah. I don't know who you think you are, but there's no way that you giving this to my girl is a good idea. I suggest you take this the fuck home."

"Just calm down, this has nothing to do with you. You can't date a girl for a week and think you own her or something, all I wanna do is to talk to her and straighten things out."

"And all I want you to do is leave before I have to straighten you out," he said, his eyes tense and uncomfortable. "When I lose it, you can't say I didn't warn you. I might have to go back to jail today."

"Is everything okay?" Maya asked him, peeking around the door from the shadows behind the guy who'd answered it.

"It's fine, I was telling this guy to go before we have a problem. He was saying some shit about having to give you something."

"Oh," she said. "Well what is it? I know who he is, this is who I was telling you about, the guy I was dating before."

He couldn't hide his serious concern, handing the box over. She looked at it curiously, dropping it on a chair by the door. He turned around to make his case to her, probably hoping my gift would never make it's way into her jewelry box, and that whatever rough patch she'd told him about didn't get fixed.

"Baby, I don't want you talking to him, at all. You should tell him to go."

"I have to, it's kind of important. Can you go wait for me? I'll be right up," she said.

"Maya, I'm telling you, I don't want you fucking talking to this guy! You already have me, what more could you want?! He blew it!"

"Please don't do this right now," she said to him, losing patience. "I told you things were complicated, and you know what? You're not gonna tell me who I can and can't have a conversation with, that's fucking ridiculous! We need to talk when I go back upstairs, just gimme a minute or two."

She gave him a look of dismissal in return, which killed off any last traces of the tough guy attitude that began to disappear the moment she came to the door. He stormed up the flight of stairs like a kid who hadn't gotten his way, looking back with a glimmer of complete insanity in his eyes. I could've recognized it from a mile away just from the feral, untamed rage behind it. Maya glanced back at him, rolling her own eyes in frustration.

"So you wanted to talk? I'm listening..."

"Yeah, uh... First off, I'm really sorry. I fucked up obviously," I said.

"Yeah."

"I just, I have to make things right. I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not shit without you. I've been getting my life together, getting a real job, trying to move on, but nothing feels the same anymore and the only thing missing is you."

"Isn't that sweet," she said, surprisingly half serious.

"I mean it. I wasn't that much better when we were together, I know that, but I need you."

"After everything that happened, now you need me? What about love Aiden? Cause I really don't need you."

"First of all, I didn't know anything about love, and I still don't, but I always loved you. You're the only girl I ever cared about so much, and now I realize it doesn't matter. Love makes us stupid, it makes us hurt the people we care about the most, like how I hurt you. I was wrong, but I loved the fucking pills too! I really needed them, and you know what, back then I didn't think I needed you the most, and I was so fucking wrong!"

I didn't wanna stop talking, cause she couldn't look away if she tried. She could've already given up on me the day I left, but she couldn't turn down my honesty, especially with the nut case she had waiting for her, the alternative. I knew her too well, and that was the last thing she could do. Honesty was one of the rarest things out there, along with (relative) sanity.

"What do you even mean when you say that you 'need' me? What makes me so special?" She asked, clearly just fishing for a few compliments now.

"I don't mean that you're special, no offense, cause what's so special about either of us? A special girl would need a perfect guy, and I know what I am. I'm nowhere near perfect, but me personally? I just need a girl who makes life worth it when I don't wanna live anymore, who I can't wait to see when I get home, who I can never stay mad at no matter what. I still love you, even if you're a little crazy. I'm fine with a little crazy, I actually like it, believe it or not."

"A little crazy... Like this much?"

She pinched two of her fingers together leaving almost no room between them, smiling the same smile that I always loved. It had this way of making me feel like everything would be alright after all, even if I knew deep down that it wouldn't.

"Maybe a little more. But not too much, like that guy who answered the door a few minutes ago. That's way past where anybody's line should be," I replied.

"Yeah, note to self, never go full psycho. You have your moments too..."

"I know, but I was on the pills for so long, not having them was making me insane. Not being with you is worse though."

"Insane is a little bit of an understatement, or the wrong word. That person that I kicked out wasn't you. I don't know who that guy was, but that was never what I wanted, a drug addict. That's the last thing I need, believe me, I just thought you were different."

"I was, I mean I am."

The sound of a window sliding open grabbed my attention, and I looked up to see the guy staring down at me from the second floor. Maya was inside so she couldn't see, but he disappeared, not bothering to close the window. Seconds later, the sound of expensive things breaking and explicit yelling echoed up and down the street from her bedroom.

"Oh my god, is that what I think it is?"

"Yeah, that was from upstairs. What are you gonna do?" I asked, kind of worried. "Should I get help, or call the police or something?"

"I have to call my dad but I'll be fine. He's a cop."

"Damn. This is my fault, I should've never came," I said, just to see her reaction.

"No, don't say that. I'm really glad you did. I don't know what I was thinking, I've been a fucking mess the last couple weeks. I'm sorry, I gotta go."

She closed the door, leaving me to wonder when I'd see her again, if ever. There was nothing more I could've said to make things right, they simply were what they were. On my way back, I decided that I'd be an optimist and expect it all to work out, and since I was apartment hunting, it was probably Angelina who wouldn't be around anymore. I had literally nothing to do, so there was no reason not to go and see her.

***

Seeing the club during the daytime finally, it made even more sense why the outside of it was so plain. Finding it at night was hard enough, but in the middle of the day it was next to impossible without directions from my phone. I pushed open the front door, stepping on the big pyramid carpet. The sign in the door hadn't been turned on yet, but I could still see the LED bulbs if I looked hard enough.

There was only one bouncer this time, who patted me down and pointed to a pad where I could swipe my phone to pay the cover charge. It was only $15 before 8pm.

Inside the club itself, I would've easily guessed it was a decent Sunday night. The music was blaring, dense clouds of smoke drifted around under the purple blacklights, and there were almost as many girls busy at work as the last time I came. Business never slowed down at the pyramid, apparently.

Only when I had a cold drink in my hand did I realize how hard it would be to surprise Angelina. I could call her or try to find her from the bar, but either way there was no guarantee she wasn't in one of the back rooms or something. I did both, calling her twice but getting no answer. Nothing too surprising. It wasn't until my second drink that I started trying to pick her out from the crowd.

Most of the girls during the day looked a little underwhelming compared to what I'd seen the one night that I came, and it didn't have much to do with the light. Stripping didn't have requirements after all, and I was sure that the more average looking girls made just as much if not more money than the ones that could've been models. All it meant was that it would be a lot easier to find who I came to see, and just 30 seconds later I saw who I thought was her, dancing in the lap of a bald headed black guy wearing glasses and a suit.

I wasn't sure why, but I'd definitely seen the guy before. For a minute, it completely consumed me trying to remember where he was from, and finally it came back to me. It was the same exact guy that she was dancing on before, he had to be a regular. The sheer probability of seeing him again struck me as odd, and maybe something else had evaded my attention. Maybe there was a reason the bouncer laughed when I told him who I was looking for. Maybe it wasn't even the same guy, maybe it wasn't her either.

Suddenly I needed another drink. In 30 minutes' time, 6 empty glasses sat on the bar in front of me. The bartender didn't give me condescending looks as long as I tipped her right, she smiled after each drink as if it were normal to get fucked up in a strip club in the middle of the week. In the day time. One more drink I kept thinking, maybe I'd wake up next to the girl I loved all along, and I'd forget about the last time I saw Angelina.

***

Chapter 26

***

When you're not somewhere you wanna be, you leave, right? I leave. I always know I should go when I realize I should've never came, regardless of whether I do or don't, and this was one of those moments, I was packing my bags for good finally. Well, re-packing them. They were waiting next to the bed for the longest but I hadn't been sure when my new place would be move in ready, and today was the day. My new apartment was right near my old one, a few blocks away in the Upper West Side, though the rent was now only a fourth of what it was in the past, $5,000.

Conventional wisdom said to only spend as much on rent in a month as you made from a week's pay. That meant I was paying just about half as much as I made in a fourth of that time, so truthfully I was only getting half as much property as I could've. Somewhere along the line it got kind of confusing. Judging by the pictures on the building's website, the place was a steal. It might've been in the shitty part of the neighborhood, subjectively speaking, but on the other hand, for a fourth of my old place's rent it was only half the square feet, half as furnished, half as decorated, and a dozen times more inviting. In my eyes there was no way I couldn't simply spend less money if that was an option, especially with my job future completely up in the air.

It was almost sundown by the time I had all my major stuff ready to go. I'd unpacked everything a couple days earlier for some reason I couldn't remember, so I had to put it all back, also having to figure out the way I did it the first time all over again with the biggest stuff on the bottom. From what I could hear, Angelina was still downstairs, she hadn't left for work yet. It was saturday so I knew something was up, because she was all about her money and today was when she made the big bucks. Also, I knew things could get weird on my way out. Because of that, the fact that she might've questioned me about leaving, I only took one of the bags I had, kicking the other one under her bed.

We hadn't spoken to each other in a couple days, and she hardly looked my way as I walked past the living room. She was the type to ignore a problem if it wasn't staring her right in the face, practically forcing her to do something about it. Some action movie was on TV, it looked pretty decent. She was lying on the couch and lines of black residue were there on the table, as was the bag of dust I sold her weeks earlier. It was only half empty, so she hadn't been doing anywhere near as much as I worried she was. She probably saved it for work anyway I thought. I slipped out the front door without a word exchanged between us, heading down to my car.

I left the jeep in the underground lot around the corner, which I'd only recently found out about. Most people who lived downtown didn't drive, so they were missing out on a pretty cool parking lot. That was actually a lie. It was one of those old, creepy, multi-level complexes and didn't look like the safest place to be after certain hours. It was big enough that there were bound to be faint footsteps echoing about every now and then, yet dark enough that shadows engulfed entire corners and most of the spaces between cars. That's where serial killers or rapists could've been hiding, but probably weren't. It was the amount of room I had to leave for the possibility that scared me.

I'd parked on the 8th level, a good couple hundred feet below street level, meaning I had to take the elevator. Being so deep underground was strange, almost like a feeling in the air not too different from being on the top floor of a tall building, or better yet driving in the Hudson Tunnel. As I was pulling out, making my way back out to sunlight and fresh air, I decided that I'd parked in that garage for the last time.

***

When I eventually made it across town through ridiculous rush hour traffic, which took close to an hour, there were enough parked cars lining the streets that made it next to impossible not to have to find another garage. Luckily there was one was right on my street, it was the garage for my entire building and the elevator took you straight to the lobby. The downside to that was the fact that thousands of people lived in my building, compared to hundreds that lived in Angelina's. Not only was it 25 levels instead of 10, but the lights were dimmer and the shadows were even darker, if that was possible. I thought so at least, I could barely see my hands when I stepped out of the jeep.

I grabbed the duffel bag from the backseat and took the long elevator ride up to the ground floor. The building was plainer than my old one, but in a welcome way. There wasn't much pretension in the looks I got from my new neighbors, the design, anything really. The girl at the receptionist's desk actually smiled, as did people walking around the lobby. I filled out forms on a tablet built into the counter, she had me put my fingerprints and retina images into the system, and handed me a nice little white lanyard that meant I was officially a resident.

There were so many elevators that I rode mine straight to the 22nd floor alone, it was a quick ride. The view wasn't bad either. I had a feeling I was gonna like living here.

I pressed my thumb on a doorknob sensor at room 2218, which blinked a little green light and welcomed me through some speaker I couldn't see. It was another studio, so the bed was right in the living room, along with the kitchen, the bathroom and just about everything else. I didn't have any complaints, it was a nice place. The walls were mainly colorful stone bricks with white concrete breaking them up here and there. The huge windows felt like a bonus. I definitely loved what I'd gotten for the price.

The bag I brought had all my essentials plus whatever clothes could fit in it, but not too much otherwise. I unpacked it all and filled up a couple drawers, putting as much stuff on the bedside dresser as I could to make it feel more 'homely'. The rest stayed in the bag. After that I passed out on the bed, which was softer than it needed to be, it was starting to get dark out. I almost felt happy.

***

The light of my phone snapped me awake, nothing was new. I checked the time and it was only quarter of 10, so I hadn't been sleep too long. Then I realized it was ringing, and it was Maya calling me. I fumbled around with it trying to answer, dropping it on the hardwood floor by accident. When I picked it up finally it was too late. Still scratch free somehow though. I deliberated on calling her back, feeling a little apprehensive and thinking for a minute about what she could've wanted, but before I knew it she was calling me again.

"Hello?" I answered sounding intentionally nonchalant, as if it wasn't the highlight of my day or anything.

"Hey Aiden. You busy right now?" She asked.

"No, not really. I'm not doing too much." I laughed, looking down at the blanket I was most of the way tucked into, then glancing out the window down at the restless city. "I'm kind of bored honestly," I said, remembering that it was a Saturday night and that I really did have nothing to do.

"You're bored? Oh my god, so am I. It's the weekend, how fucking lame are we... But I've been thinking about that conversation we had, I'm sorry about what happened with that."

"Don't be, that was none of my business. I got my own drama that's just as crazy. I just wish we could've finished talking, do you wanna meet up and get something to eat?"

"That's what I was about to ask!"

"How does Chinese sound?"

"What, you mean like take out?"

"Not really, I was thinking an actual restaurant. Or eating in at this take out place I used to go to a lot, they always give you the best free egg rolls if you do cause pretty much nobody does."

"Ew, you like egg rolls?" She said, laughing weakly enough that I could tell she hated the entire idea.

"We could go somewhere else if you want, I was just throwing it out there. I'm down for anything that'll get me out of bed."

"I'll think about it, but come over first. Where are you staying at right now?"

"I moved into this new place today. It's not even that far from my old building, I'm liking it so far."

"Oh wow! That's great! I heard, uh..." She trailed off like she didn't want me to know that she knew something.

"You know what, we'll talk when you get here," she said.

"Yeah, I'll see you soon," I replied.

"Bye."

I put my phone back on the charging pad, grabbed a towel and tried out the new bathroom for the first time. It was surprisingly big, with a whole separate shower and tub rather than the combo that I had before. Everything was concrete and the colorful brick rather than marble and stone, but it still looked as good as I could've asked for.

******

"How many more blocks is it? My feet are killing me," I said, regretting my choice to wear the worn out boots.

"I promise it's not that far, I think..." We made a complete stop in the middle of the crowded sidewalk while Maya looked around at bright street signs, undoubtedly without a single clue as to where we were going.

"Oh, that's reassuring. It's not too late to get a cab."

Secretly, I hoped she took even longer to find her bearings, because my legs were more than grateful for the rest. We'd officially walked 15 blocks from her place, lost in reminiscent conversation and ambiguous hand-holding that could've only meant I wasn't spending the first night in my new place alone. On the other hand, finding this mythical, nameless Spanish restaurant she'd been hyping up was proving impossible.

"We're not lost, we missed a left turn a couple blocks ago," she said, tugging my arm the opposite direction from where we were headed.

"A couple blocks? That's all?"

"It should be back this way and 3 more blocks over, we just passed it."

Five minutes later and there we were outside of Dos Hermanos, a minimally decorated "Taquería" that had a neon sign of two smiling sombreros along with yellow holiday lights strung up everywhere. The seating was mainly outside, right under the lights and on what had to be flimsy metal lawn chairs and tempered glass outdoor tables. All four of the long-haired waitresses looked Central or South American, which gave me the impression that they didn't even try with the presentation. It was a little jarring, because style over substance was usually the ticket in Manhattan. The food and the service probably took up all their attention. If I was being totally honest with myself, I liked it better that way, even though the cheap yard furniture didn't inspire such reassurance on its own.

We waited in the restaurant for a second before a friendly, slightly overwhelmed waitress seated us out in the alleyway on the side. It was busy to say the least, along with every other eatery and bar in the city I imagined. As overcrowded as it was during the day, I got the feeling half of the city had to be nocturnal because there was always even more people out after sundown.

It was a surprisingly short wait before we got our food, I ordered a bunch of chicken tacos and she wanted vegetarian fajitas. We split a huge plate of nachos slathered in cheese as the appetizer, but it was all cooked so fast that it came out at the same time. Everything tasted really fresh, like they could've made even the corn chips there in the kitchen themselves.

At first, a little conversation about our last conversation was a failure, we were both going at our food shamelessly. It was mainly me, but she wasn't shy about putting down half a plate of nachos either, she just did it with more self respect than a hungry, full grown man could manage. Still, there was no replacing that feeling of being able to stuff your face around a girl without her giving you a funny look, or taking her out to eat without her sticking with a glass of water and a salad she didn't want. That simply never happened with Maya, even back when we barely knew each other.

"So what happened with the guy?" I asked when I no longer had a mouth full of food.

"What are you talking about? Which guy?" She said, having to think it over.

"I don't know his name, how would I? The argument guy."

"Oh, that guy."

Her expression changed instantly, I could tell things hadn't worked out like he planned.

"Yeah, the crazy one."

"His name is Ryan, he's the assistant manager at the McDonald's I quit from. Before you ask, no, I don't really know what that was... He tried to get me my job back and things happened, but it was never serious. My dad was ready to beat him unconscious and arrest him, but he found out that he already did time before and it wasn't that big of a deal what happened, I haven't talked to him since."

"It could've been worse, I get why he was mad though. I'd feel the same way if I was about to lose somebody like you. I mean, I did."

"I didn't know anybody cared about losing me, is that how you felt?"

"I feel a lot of things. Back then I was desperate, yesterday I felt hopless, and right now I feel kind of bloated, and then relieved at the same time, you know, that we're even here together after all that."

"It's the meat, I'm telling you," she said, looking down at her empty plate and smiling a little. "I stopped eating meat and I never get gas anymore, you should try it."

"How? I almost stopped a few times but it tastes so fucking good. I mean, have you had chicken lately? I like the idea of being healthy and all that, but then the reality is that meat just tastes really good."

"It's only cause you're so used to it. There's way better food out there, when you stop eating animals you don't even want to anymore, it's like that entire craving goes away. But it takes a while."

"What if you smell a really good steak? And it's like, Fillet Mignon that's been marinated for hours, cooking on the grill. You wouldn't eat it?"

She nodded skeptically.

"Not even a little? That's crazy. That vegan shit is like a cult."

"I'm sure it would smell amazing, but think about why we have to cook it. Do you know why?"

She had an amused look on her face as she waited for the answer I didn't have. It felt like a set up.

"Is this a trick question? I don't know, to get all the flavors out of it?"

She smiled and looked away, staring off in the distance.

"Can I ask you something? I'm sorry in advance if it's a terrible question."

"Go for it," I said.

"What do you want from me? I know that might sound weird, since I'm the one who ended things, and I'm the one who called you."

"So you're gonna take all the credit then..."

"Yeah. I don't know what's going on with us anymore. And I still love you, I just wanna know what you're expecting from me now, cause the more I try and think about it, the more I have absolutely no idea."

"I think we should start fresh," I said, barely hesitating.

"See, that's what I mean. That's exactly what I was thinking, there's just too much going on in my head and I couldn't find the words..." She smiled even more than she realized at first. "No, that's a great idea."

"Definitely one of my better ones," I said.

"I knew what I wanted a while ago, I just didn't know if it was worth it, if anything would change. I didn't realize how much I loved you until my dad called me one night telling me he arrested you for sleeping in your car, he asked me if I remembered you. And it was kind of my fault too, not because I did something wrong, but it just happened so fast. I didn't know if I wanted to fix it, but I was scared you wouldn't either."

"I didn't wanna fix it, I needed to. I needed you, and I always will, even if you never need me."

When I stared into her eyes and felt the way she was looking at me, it was like the smile. I knew everything would be fine, even if only for one night, or just one passing moment.

"On a side note, I have one other question, no guarantees you won't tell me to shut up," I said, though that rarely happened.

"That's funny, go ahead."

"So, sex on the first date, great idea or no?"

She sort of laughed to herself, an up-in-the-air laugh that to me, sounded an awful lot like 'Little do you know, you're still in the friend zone right now.'

"I don't know if you were being nice, or maybe you were really hungry, which I wasn't, but if this was about sex we didn't have to go out to eat first. I haven't gotten laid in 2 weeks."

My eyebrows raised immediately.

"And I would've been all over you had I not seen you eat all those tacos."

I looked at my empty plate stoically, now regretting not ordering less of them.

"My stomach feels like an over-filled bag of sand," I said, struggling to get comfortable in my chair. "Like sand leaking out of the corners and shit just cause there's so much. I don't know if I can move."

I was already hating the walk back home.

"I'm sorry Aiden, that might've changed things," she said.

"Yeah, there's no way in hell we're not getting a cab now."

***

Chapter 27

***

"New sheets," I mumbled accidentally, snapping myself awake.

I wanted to say the words in some strange dream where I was folding laundry at my old apartment, only they came out forreal and brought me back to reality. I looked around the empty room, trying to get my bearings. Concrete walls, white dresser, nightstand, kitchen island... I was at my place. No, we were. The two of us.

Currently, I was rolling around in one of the only blankets I owned, wrestling my legs in futile. It was the one that was like sandpaper on one side and barely big enough for one person, let alone two, the one I always sort of hated. Still warm though, if anything it was too warm. I never used it much but it did fit pretty easily with the rest of my clothes when I packed up to move in with Maya.

As badly as I wanted to, I wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon. I wondered how she ever managed to sleep in the same bed as me, I definitely had restless leg syndrome or something. Maybe warm blanket syndrome, which was when the sheets were cotton instead of silk, so the room had to be chilly or else I'd probably stay up all night moving around. That was something I figured out living at my dad's house back in grade school, staying up until it wasn't that dark anymore. Last night had obviously been an exception.

Did I still have the good blanket in my other duffel bag, the one I left behind? It was unlikely. I had to go buy new ones, which I'd do as soon as I went and picked the bag up. It was 11AM already, so even though we had a late night, I wasn't doing myself any favors trying to stay in bed all day, especially when I wouldn't have the time to run errands on Monday. That's when I had to go to the Fossor building to get more pills and take a survey they'd texted me about.

Before I got up, I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and opened the message, re-reading it in my head. I skimmed through it fast enough to get the gist of it, basically I had to let them know about any illnesses or psychological problems I'd been having and for how long. I also had to go to a seminar about the "surgical enhancement" that almost slipped my mind completely. The wording made it sound like one of those pop-ups you got from the fucked up, poorly coded part of the internet.

"Maya," I said in her direction, trying to see if she was awake.

Her eyes barely opened, and her dyed blonde hair was stuck to the side of her face.

"Baby I'm leaving, I'll be back later," I said quietly.

She sighed, ignoring me and closing her eyes again. I kissed her on the forehead and she smiled, rolling over. Then she snatched what little blanket I had off of me, making sure I couldn't change my mind.

******

Water still dripped from my head as I got dressed. I slipped into some black jeans, put the boots on, and rinsed my face off one last time before I found a shirt, even though I'd already taken a quick shower. Outside my window it was a little rainy. It didn't look like it was coming down too much, I could see clear skies if I looked out far enough, but I grabbed my jacket out the bottom of the duffel bag anyway. There was still a worn out business card in the right pocket.

I took the long elevator ride to the basement, got in my car, and drove around in circles in the darkness until I pulled out onto 96th avenue. Traffic wasn't terrible. 45 or so minutes later and I was parking on a side street by Angelina's building. Ideally she would be at work, but wherever she was, today was the last time I'd ever have to see her.

I came in her building the same exact time that somebody was leaving, as usual, removing the annoying buzzer from the equation. Every time I tried to use it I heard a ton of static. It felt like communicating with the dead, and then the door would buzz open for a split second right as I'd give up waiting, walking away in frustration. In the year 2063 you'd think the microphone sound would be crystal clear, considering we had mortality-defying medications and everything, but that would require someone caring about more than making the most money and how to meet the bare minimums of the residential codes.

I found my way to her floor, which was strangely easy to remember if I took the stairs but not the elevator for some reason. I had no idea which one it was until I found it the way I always did. Still, I didn't bother knocking on her door, not when I remembered how to unlock it with the little touch pad on the wall next to it. It had a retina scanner and a fingerprint sensor, but there was also the option to put in a numerical password. It was 0123, quite possibly the dumbest password I'd ever heard of. She was better off just leaving the front door cracked at night.

I opened it slowly, looking around the foyer before I closed it behind me with care. I had this sick feeling in my stomach, almost like I was breaking into somewhere I didn't belong. How could she just be okay with not talking to me, and then think that I would still wanna live with her? Like I had nowhere better to go?

'I'm leaving for a reason' I reassured myself in my head, it was easy enough to forget why. I heard a television in the living room so I took the long way to the second floor, passing the kitchen cupboard and a walk in utility closet. How I made it that far without being noticed was beyond me. I hated taking that way because the light was never turned on and I didn't know where the switch was. Also, more importantly, if ghosts were real, they'd definitely be hiding in her back stairwell. It was dark, out of the way and rarely used, the perfect conditions for whatever ghosts supposedly did while they were stuck between here and the afterlife.

Her roommate once again wasn't home. I peeked in Jessie's small room, which was well lived-in but rarely occupied. Being the last room, the bathroom was closer from Angelina's main bedroom, so I never had a reason to venture that far down the hallway.

Speaking of her room, it was notably messier than usual. Maybe she realized I was leaving and managed to care a little. If so, I would've been surprised, but it was weirdly satisfying to consider that I could have that effect on a woman rather than it happening the other way around, which was almost always the case.

I had to get on all fours to reach the duffel bag under the bed. It was the big one, a little too heavy to carry down the back staircase. I just took the other way, where I'd have to walk right past her. She had to know I was there by now and still hadn't said a word, something was off.

The bag was slung over my shoulder by the strap and my phone was in my left hand. As I headed downstairs and looked towards the living room, I saw the usual first, the ivy covered concrete and the huge windows with the curtains pulled back, the massive television. Some show she always talked about was on, I remembered the characters names and everything else minus the actual title. Then I froze completely, dropping my phone all the way to the bottom. It clanked loudly on each metal step it hit before thudding on hollow hardwood. The sound of the glass fracturing paled in comparison to the sound of my heart racing when I saw the blood, she was slumped over and face down on the coffee table.

I sprinted down the stairs and up close what had happened became painfully obvious. She hadn't yet made it out of the the t-shirt she liked to sleep in, and her flawless, lifeless face was surrounded by a pool of deep red and glistening black powder. Her dark eyes were wide open. Right next to her was the bag of microdust, though it was barely one tenth full. My entire body went cold at the sight of it all, the shock was more powerful than anything I'd ever felt. I could've never guessed how unprepared I was to see someone dead in person, a real human being I knew and not just a pretty face on the big screen.

'I did this' echoed around in my head louder and louder, there was no ignoring the fact that I sold her the drugs. She should've known better than to go so far overboard, but I was still on the hook considering that somebody had to be held responsible. The police wouldn't let this go when they came, they'd go to ridiculous lengths just to figure out where the dust came from. They always did. At that point I'd be done for, and as badly as I wanted to, I couldn't move, dying to look away and still incapable of leaving. The clarity of my hopelessness was paralyzing.

In a strange twist of fate, I was probably lucky to come at the exact time I did. Otherwise they'd come looking for me while I was at home with my guard down, I'd have no way to run or hide. At least I knew that she was gone and that I had everything to do with why, but the one thing I still didn't have was the ability to leave. Not yet. The very first thing I did was turn the television off, and all that was left was the sound of my heart beating faster than I could've counted, louder than ever now. That and the vague footsteps I heard from the hallway outside her apartment. I didn't have much time either come to think of it, so saving myself meant I had to think of something fast, anything. It took a ridiculous amount of willpower not to look at Angelina laying there on the table. So far, as I paced around the living room, I had nothing.

***

Chapter 28

***

The rain outside the living room window came down harder, meanwhile my hands started to shake uncontrollably as I dialed on my broken phone. I held the business card from my pocket in one hand, mindlessly tapping the numbers with the other. I only had one legitimate way for things to work out, and that was by calling the police myself. But I couldn't involve just any cop, I had to get a hold of the one that I knew for longer than I could even remember.

He agreed to come, and I didn't tell him why, I just waited. I went back upstairs and grabbed my duffel bag, calmed my nerves with a couple pills I found in her medicine cabinet and turned on the television, anything that would keep my mind off the future. The future was no good right now. I was more worried about pleading my case and getting the story straight. No matter what I said, I knew that how I told Travis was more important than the words I'd use, and sugar coating something so serious with a guy like him wouldn't work, I had to be straight up about it. I simply didn't want my life to be over, who would?

Eventually he came. I couldn't tell if three minutes or three hours had gone by, but sooner or later someone rung the doorbell, then nearly pounded a hole in the door itself from knocking so hard.

"It's bad, isn't it?" He asked sternly from the other side.

All it took was one look at my face, still in shock, and anyone could've guessed that it was worse than bad. He walked right past me without waiting for an answer, interestingly not in uniform. Could he still arrest me? Did he have his police radio to call for backup? The questions were back.

"Alright Aiden, I think I can piece this together pretty easily. Let me know if I'm wrong."

"First of all, she was already dead when I showed up, but go ahead."

"Yeah. So you're fucking her, right? You live with her or something?"

"Right."

"Then you sell her the dust, or she gets it indirectly cause of you.

"Well..."

"You play a part in her acquisition of the drugs."

"Uh... She did get them from me, a long time ago though. I was coming to get the last of my stuff cause I haven't lived here in a week, we were having problems and then we split up a while back. I think that's why she did it," I said.

"You're saying she killed herself? Maybe unintentionally, or because of grief?"

"That's what it looks like, I mean why else do so much? I sold her a lot, it's not like this was her first time."

"That's a shame, breaking a pretty girl's heart like that," he said sarcastically.

"It's funny, I met her at a strip club, that's what she did for a living. She was good at it."

"I can tell. There might be a promotion in the cards when we get to claim this place as narcotics related evidence."

"You can do that?" I asked, a deeply skeptical look on my face.

"We can do whatever we deem necessary under the law. And you, my friend, are fucked, or maybe not, all hinging on my discretion."

He flashed this cold smile, dark enough to make me forget that he was a decent guy for a second. Maybe he never had been, I actually wasn't too sure. Then he walked over to the coffee table in front of me, snapping pictures on a slick digital camera. I was right next to Angelina but clearly out of his view.

"Say cheese!" He said, getting a bad one of me with the flash on.

His smile this time was a smug, arrogant one. I looked back, and behind me was the couch, with the very floor I was standing on covered in blood. It didn't matter what was in or out of the picture, I was still at the scene of the crime and all he had to do was call it in, which he seemed to be in no hurry to do. He certainly hadn't forgotten.

"Look me in the eyes Aiden. Stop staring at her and look at me!"

I'd actually been looking out the window, but I had a feeling he was trying to get under my skin a little knowing how worried I was, probably still pissed off that I hadn't helped him when he first offered me the chance. Something told me cops lived for being proven right.

"I fucking own you," he said. "Your life is in my hands. You wanna know how fucked you are? I could tell you to open that window and jump, and it would be a solid idea, because unless I'm given a reason to say otherwise, you are finished. You are thoroughly fucked, in every sense of the word."

He had a good point. I felt him out for a second, letting his words lose their edge and trying to guess what his next move would be. His eyes shared a glimpse of something he'd been holding back, and come to think of it, I never exactly knew the true reason I had his phone number.

"So what do you want?"

"Help. I need your help with something that's bigger than both of us. This right here," he said in a quiet, urgent tone of voice, pointing at Angelina's lifeless body. "This right here is the main reason why. Microdust isn't a street drug, it was made in a lab in North Jersey and you're gonna help me prove it. It's gonna be sold everywhere soon under a different name and face, microdust is only a test. The real thing is coming, and it's gonna do exactly what it just did to your friend here. And it's gonna make trillions."

"But how?"

"Seriously? How what...How this? How us? Or how do we stop it?"

"You could start with the second one," I said.

"You think I have all the answers?"

"There's just too many fucking questions..."

"That's the worst part," he said. "You can't figure out any of them without asking more, and then you realize that we might just be fucked. See, when I say that you're fucked, what I really meant is that we're both fucked. We're all fucked, and I'm gonna try and do something about it. You can help me, or you can hurt yourself, my point all along has been that you have the choice because of the things you know."

"I'll help, but I mean, how? What can I do?"

"You already have some crucial information, which is a lead on the supplier of the microdust. The guy that you get it from gets plenty right? And you're the middle man?"

"I guess, I never looked at it like that before but that's about right."

"So first off, I obviously need to know who this guy is that has access to so much. I'm close to figuring out how they're introducing it into the mainstream drug market, but they're not using that many people at the top. I mean, we can both guess who's making it, and chances are we'd be 100% right, but we need evidence. They're covering their tracks real good, paying off everybody who's somebody, like my boss, and those people are paying the guys like me."

"It's my brother Blake."

"Call him."

I pulled my now-destroyed phone out and started dialing again. It was a pain to avoid getting glass in my fingers.

"What are we gonna do about Angelina? It's been almost an hour. Also, if they're paying off everybody, who's gonna get this evidence? Do you show the commissioner or something?

"This isn't something we go to the cops about, it's too damning for them. Too big. They'd probably kill you and I themselves and make it look like we never existed. I know a few journalists in the national media who are waiting for more info on everything. I'm not the only person who knows what's going on, far from it, I'm just the one with big enough balls to speak up and say something about it. That's the only way we can get the word out, but when we do, it's gonna be a real shit storm."

"And we might still be fucked..." I said, finally understanding the extent of what he meant.

"Wait till it really sinks in. These are some rich motherfuckers, who, by the way, know everyone and everything important. Information you couldn't dream of on fucking cloud 9. If they had any reason to care, they could know you better than you know yourself. How long you like to take a shit, what kind of girls you're into, how much of this stuff goes up your nose, things of that nature."

He rubbed a finger through some of the powder that didn't have blood on it, getting a close look at it and then flicking it away. The phone rung twice before it went to voicemail.

"He's busy, I'm gonna try again in a minute. Also, something happened."

"Something I should I know about?" He asked, a surprising amount of concern in his eyes.

"Last time I saw him he pulled a gun on me over the dust. I could be wrong, but I think he fucking hates me. There's actually no reason to think he'd even answer the phone, or help us out if he did."

"I'll figure that part out later then, so we should do something about the girl instead."

"Yeah, probably a good idea," I said.

I gave her one last look, and it sunk in once and for all that I was deep in over my head. I always had been, the feeling was nothing new. The only difference now was that the life I wanted when I first left college was so far out of sight, it almost felt normal chasing after the one everyone had been saying I needed. I did that for a lot longer than I should've, cause all along I was scared that maybe they were right, but where did that get me?

"You don't wanna touch her, do you..."

"You can't?" I said, with absolutely no intention of putting my hands on a dead body.

"I hate blood, always did. And dead people. I really wonder how I made it all these years sometimes," he replied, staring off into the distance.

"Paramedics it is?"

"I'll call them."

******

When the doorbell rang, Travis got up immediately to answer it. We'd been sitting in the kitchen in near total silence, neither of us in much of a mood for talking anyway.

"Follow my lead, you're my partner."

He pulled a black gun from his jacket and slid it across the counter to me.

"It's just a taser, don't hurt yourself."

"You think I never used a gun before?" I asked.

His almost-laugh said that much on it's own. Then again, I hadn't, but it's not like I needed him thinking I was gonna fuck up for no reason.

I picked up the gun, running it through my hands. It was bumpy with a round metal cartridge at the tip and a ring of green light in the chamber. It was also surprisingly heavy for plastic.

I got up and followed him to the door, standing behind him and changing my expression as quickly as I could.

"You ready?"

"Yeah."

He opened the door, and a timid looking paramedic with glasses was waiting on the other side.

"Lieutenant Hill, NYPD." Travis flashed his badge to the guy. "This is my partner in training."

We both moved out the way for him to come in, closing the door behind him.

"Shit!" He said, peeking around and seeing the body right away.

"Calm down, kid. We got a call about 45 minutes ago from this residence, the girl was overdosing but she hung up before we could switch her over to Mount Sinai."

"She was gone by the time we got here," I added.

"Have you... Have you called this in yet?"

"Did it as soon as we found her," Travis said. "It could've been Microdust, take a look at the table right there."

"Oh yeah, that's it."

"This has been happening a lot lately in Lower Manhattan. Mainly with rich kids too. Of course they tell you don't do drugs, so no real surprise that it's full of bullshit chemicals and junk metal, but I still can't figure out where all the blood comes from. You see what the dust is, it's just this powder. No one in the NYPD knows why it's happening, and these deaths are kids. These aren't people with compromised health, you know what I mean?"

The paramedic nodded, rubbing his fingers through the powder.

"I didn't start seeing these cases until a year ago, but they're really picking up now," the guy said. "The weirdest part is that it's not physiologically addictive. Some of the doctors thought it was a brain injury at first but it's looking like it's autoimmune. Check out the blood, her white cells are all dead. Look at the color."

It just looked like blood to me. Travis made funny faces like he was having some revelation, but both of us were probably clueless when it came to medical science.

"Hey Jordan, we're gonna need a stretcher and a body bag on the eighth floor," he said into a little earpiece. "No, the cops are already here. It's a drug OD."

"Listen, we're gonna stay here until the cleanup crew comes," Travis said. "It's protocol. We got the incident report and everything to fill out."

"Do what you gotta do," the paramedic replied nonchalantly. "I'll be right back officers."

He walked out the front door, pulling out a little metal tube.

"Taking a smoke break," Travis said when he was finally gone.

"This was some kind of day."

"You haven't seen shit yet, this was nothing. You busy tomorrow?"

I nodded.

"I got work for most of the day."

In reality, I wanted to make sure I had enough time to rest. Going to the Fossor building never took more than an hour, but I was gonna lose my mind if I didn't catch up on my sleep.

"What about Tuesday?"

"Tuesday I'm free," I said.

"Tuesday it is then. Gimme a call and we're gonna pay a visit to your brother."

"Sounds like a plan. What are we gonna do about the blood and everything?"

"Let's wait this out. I can get a guy to do a little cleanup but once they get the girl we're finished here."

Before long, a short girl in hospital scrubs came up with the stretcher, the other guy was back with her. Travis was snapping some more photos before we left. I got one last glimpse of Angelina before he zipped up the bag, the very last time I'd ever see her for sure. I thought for a second about death, and what it really meant to live. Then we all parted ways.

***

Chapter 29

***

"You remember which one it is?" Travis said, looking out the jeep window at the housing projects.

"Front and center. He lives near the top, I hope you wore some good shoes cause there's no elevator."

"Isn't that great." On his feet were these strange leather, box-looking things that apparently cops wore.

"You know, you might not even make it to the third floor in those. You could just wait here if it's gonna be too hard on your back or something like that."

"I think I'll be fine," he said, laughing at the thought of it. "On that note, you wanna hold the taser again? So he doesn't yell at you? Nobody fucks with a kid with a gun, trust me."

"I'm good," I said, looking at it and thinking otherwise.

"You sure? It'll make you feel like a badass, which is important when you're fucking around with dangerous criminals. I do some bold shit when I have my gun on me."

He made this face that said why not, and held it out so I couldn't refuse it.

"Alright, I'll take it. Is it loaded?"

"Hell no. But pretend like I didn't tell you that, it's a confidence thing. The real bullets are up here, my friend," he replied, tapping his forehead and failing to hold back this wicked grin.

"Bullshit. So if I shoot myself right now nothing's gonna happen?"

"Go ahead and try."

I looked down the barrel apprehensively, the same light was still glowing. He was still grinning.

"No, I'm just fucking with you, its got a full cartridge. A couple hundred shots. Whatever you do, please don't shoot that, whenever a trigger gets pulled someone at the station takes the entire video and makes an incident report out of it. Yeah, actually, never shoot that. Take the cartridge out right now."

I looked around the taser for a second with absolutely no idea what I was taking out or how, handing it back to him so he could do it himself.

"Wait, so where's the camera? Is it on the gun?"

"No, look."

He pointed at his eyes and then slid up one of his sleeves, showing me this shiny metal wristband. On second glance there was a touchpad on it, and after he tapped it a few times his eyes transformed from dull blue to green, then amber, then glittery gold, then back to normal.

"Retina displays. What you see aren't my real eyes, just digital renderings of ones. They're like contact lenses and yeah, they change colors."

"What else do they do?"

"Mainly record everything I see and take pretty pictures. They tell you the time too but I turned that off, it was too weird seeing that everywhere I looked, like a video game. Oh, and they can also show you your heart rate, as if I can't feel it beating out of my chest every time I stand up."

"That's it?"

"I learned not to expect much. I'm sure as hell not James Bond, I'll tell you that. I don't know what the FBI uses but it's gotta be light years better than these. When they started handing them out they made it sound like I was gonna be some kind of robocop, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah," I said, imagining some hulked up, terminator-esque guy wearing colorful little 'retina displays'.

"They sounded cool at first, and then come to find out it's just more surveillance. The band records audio. They capture so much that they have some computer program sort through it all."

"Look how nice that wristband is though. They can't be that bad..."

"Everything is so slow too, if I wanna turn my eyes gold it takes a whole fucking minute to scroll through the colors. I gotta get you a pair eventually anyway, you'll see."

"If you say so," I said. "You ready?"

******

"He's not gonna do anything crazy is he?" Travis asked, genuine concern in his expression.

"I don't know, he's just an addict who happens to sell the shit he's hooked on. Would it matter though? I thought you were that 'never worried', 'mr. tough guy' cop."

"That's only the gun, I'm telling you. But I really don't wanna have to shoot this kid," he said, stopping to catch his breath.

We'd just made it to the top of the stairs on Blake's floor, heading down the hall towards his door. Travis pulled out his gun well before we got there but I was holding the empty taser the entire time. Travis stood away from the view of the peephole before I knocked.

A full minute passed before I heard footsteps. I gripped the gun tighter, holding it out of sight behind my leg.

"What do you want now?"

Blake's muffled voice echoed through from the other side. It was a thick door, solid metal inside and out.

I froze up and looked over at Travis. He read my confusion in a split second, rubbing his fingers together. Money.

"Hey, listen. I got that money I owe you. You're my only brother, I'm not gonna try and fuck you out of a couple thousand, it's not even worth it."

"You owe me a couple thousand?"

"If you don't want it, then no. But I got it."

Travis grinned, staring down at the floor. Blake sighed.

"Alright man, let me put some clothes on. The door's unlocked."

We fist bumped in silence before we let ourselves in. Travis was starting to grow on me. I didn't necessarily like him before, I respected him, but you never know who you're dealing with until you've been around them a while. Especially a guy like him, a cop. He wasn't bad at all.

I shut the door while Travis looked for a good corner to hide in. Not for long, but probably long enough to catch Blake off guard. That he did. It all happened so fast, one second Blake is looking at my taser, then an instant later Travis has his own very real gun on the back of his head.

"Freeze, NYPD," he said, sounding as nonchalant as ever. "Listen, just sit the fuck down, I don't wanna yell. No bullshit, no handcuffs. Just do yourself a favor and shut the fuck up for a minute."

Blake started to say something that he held back, looking around at us in panic and confusion.

"No questions yet either."

"You thought I was really gonna give you a couple thousand dollars?" I said, smiling at the fact that it worked.

"Yeah, that was stupid," Travis added. "I'm gonna make this real simple for you. Right now you're looking at a life sentence in Newark just for the amount of dust on that table and in your system. You tell me everything you know about it, especially where it came from, and you're still a free man."

He looked around at us again, probably angry at himself judging by the look in his eyes.

"There's a guy," Blake said slowly. "He works for some drug company."

"And this guy is who you get the dust from?"

"He gave it to me in bulk. I only met him twice, the first time was when I was about to go to away for selling coke. They thought it was coke, but really they found it was just crushed Lunix pills."

"This guy paid you a visit in jail?"

"Yeah, it was part of this drug diversion program. Like, if you get caught using something or selling it, they could have you do some shit for them and then they let you off the hook. They said it was like a social experiment on drug culture."

"And you believed that? "

"They never explained it much. Hey, I love being a free man, I'm not gonna question some guy who can do me a favor like that."

"Were they even keeping tabs on the profits?"

"No, that's the best part."

"People started following us," I said.

"What kind of people?" Travis asked.

"Cops, I think... They were just watching cause nothing crazy ever happened, not to me at least."

Travis thought for a minute, meanwhile Blake shot strange glances my way.

"Aiden, what's his name again?"

"Blake."

"Blake, do you have anyone's number or email from that diversion program they offered you?"

"Not any more... I tried calling it last week and they shut it off. Weird as shit, right?"

"Yeah. So nothing?"

"Nope."

"I might have something," I said.

"What's that?"

"I do this test trial thing at the Fossor building, they give me $10,000 a week to take pills so they can monitor the side effects."

"Go on..." Blake said, curiously interested. "I need the hookup for that, they pay you to give you drugs?"

"Crazy right? So at the end of the month I'm supposed to get this brain implant that makes you smarter and immune to all these diseases."

"You do that and you didn't think it would be a good idea to speak up?!" Travis yelled in frustration. "After everything I told you?!"

"I didn't think it was important..."

"Are you fucking kidding me?! No, you have to be joking. Gimme a minute here," he said.

We sat there in silence for literally an entire minute, waiting. Thinking.

"Alright, I got something. The CEO, his name is Mason White. The both of you are gonna go and break into his office, and after I give you the retina displays you're gonna take pictures of his emails. You gotta get some real good ones, some incriminating ones."

"How the hell do we do that?" Blake said, looking at him like he had two heads.

"I mean, really? The CEO though?" I added. "It could've been the president for all that."

"Or the fucking pope. You said break into his office?"

"Yeah, it won't be as hard as you're making it sound. See, there's this film..."

"Oh, a film, huh?" Blake replied sarcastically.

"Yeah, something our detectives use to pick up fingerprints. It's simple stuff. You put the film on the door handle, it sends them to my computer and runs them through the database. Then you take this little metal tube thing, and you pick which person's prints you wanna duplicate. Still with me?"

I nodded, he just shrugged.

"Anyway, after you do that, you press the tube into this... It's like a gum."

"Oh, there's a gum too, you hear that Aiden? We're gonna break into a billionaire CEO's office with a stick of Wrigley's. Spearmint, right?"

"Shut the fuck up and let me finish. The tube heats the gum and puts the fingerprints on it. It'll feel like human skin, you wear that like a glove and you use it to get past the fingerprint scanner."

"I think that makes sense," I said.

"And you?" Travis asked him. "Blake?"

"Man, I don't know. This shit sounds hard, don't you usually get your 'detectives' to do something like this?"

"I didn't get to the hard part yet. Somebody's gonna have to get a good picture of his retina on his way out, I'm thinking you Aiden. Don't make it obvious either, I'll explain it all better before you guys actually try this. I know neck beard over there is itching to screw something up."

Blake rubbed his untamed stubble, it was nowhere near long but went well past his jawline. I'd just shaved earlier in the morning.

"Keep in mind, it's either this or Newark, I'm counting on you two. I'll be in touch, stay out of trouble."

He held his open palm out for the gun, which I handed over, then he disappeared out the door. I didn't stick around to chit chat either, I was gone.

***

Chapter 30

***

Few places could make you feel more alone than a Manhattan sidewalk during rush hour. Stepping out onto Wall Street, I saw a wall of expressionless faces on either side of the street, an endless procession of cars that came to a standstill, buildings taller and more important than the ones anywhere else, but nothing was as notable as the lack of space. And make no mistake, the place was huge, but there just were so many people that numbers failed to fully explain it.

I looked both ways before crossing at a red light, and I looked around to see where Blake was. I lost him. Oh well, he knew where we were headed. The colon between the time blinked every couple seconds on the edge of my vision and my heart rate was at 97 beats per minute. The Fossor building wasn't far, just one more avenue block away. On the way I fixed the small metal clip on my ear, no thicker than a hairpin. It was both a headset and a mic, which I controlled through a metal wristband just like the one Travis had. Mine was in brushed copper instead of silver.

It was even nicer to touch than it looked, and almost weightless at that. He'd also greatly exaggerated how long it took to change your eye color, not that you could see it happening anyway if you weren't right in front of a mirror. I didn't bother turning the headset on yet, it was still hard to hear myself over the noisy crowds of people migrating in and out. Before I could get a clear message through, a hand on my shoulder scared the shit out of me.

"Guess who?" Blake said, half smiling and half exhausted looking.

It was too loud to hear anything yet. He followed me to the elevator waiting area, where we stood around for one of the big ones with another 3 or 400 other people. Travis made sure we looked the part, Blake had on a peacoat over his best dress clothes and I was wearing one of my only suits.

We were headed to the sixth floor from the top. After the ride already started I stared Blake in the eyes until I caught his attention.

"I'm not your fucking friend," I said.

"Okay?" He replied.

"Just for the record."

"You're gonna hate me forever over that dumb ass book? Seriously?"

"Not forever. And hate is a strong word, but if that dust kills you I wouldn't lose sleep over it."

Another few minutes went by before either of us said anything, so I turned the headset on. The elevator slowly emptied floor by floor, stopping at each one. The ride was instantaneous but it took a while for a dozen people to go through one little door at a time.

"Aiden, you hear me?" Travis said before I stepped off.

"Yeah."

"I see what you can see, Mason should be ready to leave his office in 3 minutes. I'm looking at a copy of the floor plan right now. Leave the elevator and make a right."

"Alright," I said on my way out.

I found the bathroom and took a piss, washed my hands and looked in the mirror. I was surprised to see just me there, alone, something that never happened here this time of day.

"Take a left," he said right as I was leaving.

As I was passing the elevator, I realized I'd never been so high up in a building. The windows were floor to ceiling, I saw everything. I'd never felt so small before.

"Check out blue tie at the end of the hall, that should be your guy."

"With the glasses and the pocket square?"

"That's him. Get nice and close, don't do anything weird though. I'm not the only one watching."

I causally glanced at a tiny black pod that was harder to spot than you'd think, practically hiding.

"Play it cool, like you're impressed, you know, try and make his day."

I got closer and closer, seeing for myself that he wasn't alone. Not only that, but he looked familiar. I saw the same few people everywhere if you could imagine. This "Mason" guy was one of them, the strip club immediately came to mind. There was a massive bodyguard and what had to be his assistant, a second guy much skinnier than me. I'd play the employee card, whatever that was. Basically, I'd make some shit up.

There he was, mere feet away.

"Get him to talk to you, I need a nice clear shot of his eyes. Compliment his suit."

"Hey sir, I'm sorry to bother you, but where'd you get that suit from? It looks great on you," I said to him.

"Oh, this old piece of shit? Chase, where's this from again? Kohls?"

"Men's Warehouse, sir."

His assistant didn't look up from his phone, and his bodyguard was barely paying attention.

"He knows all that stuff. I got a big meeting soon though, take it easy kid," he said, checking his watch.

"Meeting my ass," Travis said over the headset. "If by meeting he meant buying hookers off the internet, then maybe. Maybe strippers."

"You have no idea," I said.

"I did get some money shots, you should see these. Here's what you're gonna do. Go to change your eye color, but Mason's retina should show up as a choice at the very end. You're gonna need that to get in his office, it's the second to last door on the left."

"What about Blake?" I said, now standing there alone.

"He's coming, meet up back at the bathroom real quick. You guys gotta be in and out the office, I just wanna go over what you're looking for again."

******

"There you are," I said as I pushed the door open. "You alright?"

"I'm sweating bullets," he replied, rinsing his face off.

He wasn't lying.

"You think that was bad, I had to actually talk to the guy," I said. "I was scared this wouldn't work but I got the pics."

"Oh nice, I barely got the prints. He was saying you gotta wear this gum shit on your hand. I swore one of us would screw up and ruin it all."

"No, not today, definitely not us of all people. This won't kill us, we've done worse. I know you've done worse. You ready?"

"No," he said, cracking a nervous smile. "Let's do this."

We walked down the hallway, careful to duck eye contact from the small handful of people we passed, ice water in our veins. Blake looked around double checking, I peeked at the hand, and I turned the doorknob while I looked into the retina scanner all at once. The way the moment played out was breathtakingly flawless, the kind of timing you couldn't ask for in a hundred different tries.

"Get the door before somebody sees us," I said to him.

"Oh my god, you got it," I heard through the headset, it was all he could say.

I felt more like I was ready to burst into flames now, I had to unbutton the top of my dress shirt. My hands were starting to shake.

"Look at what else he gave me," Blake said.

It was black and solid looking, an old police handgun.

"Is that a taser?"

"No, it's a 'glock', whatever the fuck that means. It's not connected to the internet which is all that matters. You gotta hurry up with those emails, I'm not trying to go back to jail."

I calmed down a little and turned on his computer with only the gum covered hand.

"Good afternoon, Mason White," the computer said softly showing a little picture.

He looked a lot older and more soft-spoken in his avatar. I didn't dare bother doing the voice commands. It took a second to find where the emails were, I wasn't used to windows computers.

"Here you go," Travis said. "Don't worry about outside, the door is clear. I'm watching your brother too."

"Am I checking his inbox or sent mail?"

"Let's give the sent mail a little look first."

I clicked through one by one as quickly as possible, snapping photos with the wristband interface. My vision focused every time I took one. After that I went through both his inbox and his trash, which wasn't emptied surprisingly. That had all the good stuff.

"Alright, close everything and shut it down," Travis said. "Let's not push it."

I was glad to leave when we did. The coast was clear outside and we had no physical evidence on us to draw suspicion. The way it was drawn up was genius. It wasn't even a narrow escape, I walked out the front doors more calm than I walked in. I caught Blake looking over his shoulders even after we were outside, he'd done it enough times for the both of us.

I could see him changing, and I knew what we did meant something substantial to him. It was probably the greatest thing he'd ever done and he had no idea. We made our way back to the station now closer than ever, more similar, though I always knew that, and also more satisfied with ourselves. We were thrilled, even though everything we had was on the line. It wasn't an unusual feeling at this point. After all, time wasn't on our side, we'd never be as young or carelessly stupid as we were again. I found something I hadn't put into words until right then, and I loved it.

***

Chapter 31

***

"This is the jackpot right here," Travis said with a big grin.

He had the whole gang together in his office at the station including a woman I'd never seen before. We were there for a couple hours already, the three of us on the verge of sleep while he re-read incriminating emails. I doubt he had much clout with the amount of office space they'd given him, just four bare concrete walls.

"Look, he spelled it out for me. He couldn't have made it easier if he tried. In February of last year his advisor warned him that 'Unregulated amounts of stainless steel and aluminum oxide flakes in batches of Conix could potentially pose a health risk'. So he knew all along."

Blake glanced around at us all having said almost nothing the entire time, clueless.

"Is that poisonous?" I asked.

"Maybe, but not only is it dangerous as hell, it's probably sourced from junk metal with who knows what else in it. Somebody's paying them to dump their industrial scraps into the pills and this 'Microdust' shit."

"Wow. Are there any emails spelling it out the way you just said it?" the woman asked, the journalist he'd invited.

"Let me find a better one from this April."

As he dug through the emails, I looked back over at the middle aged woman. Her hair was wavy and chestnut brown with a few streaks of silver, and her sweater was old and ratty along with her stockings, she wasn't ugly. She did look like she'd dabbled in some shit back in her day. It was actually more of a vibe than a look.

"What's your name anyway?" I asked her.

"Me? I'm Joanne. Joanne Graves, Huffington Post."

"So you're a blogger?"

"No, I'm a political columnist. I broke the news of Senator Jacobsen's affair last year."

"Oh really?"

"I even got nominated for an award because of it."

"You'll definitely win one this time if you get to break this."

"I wish it were that simple," she said with a weary smile. "I might win a prison sentence first, we all might."

I didn't know what to say other than 'that would suck', but that sounded stupid in my head so I didn't.

"Here it is, this ones about a problem with the 'Immunity Mechanism'. This is some really interesting shit here," Travis said, starting to mumble incoherently as he read along to himself.

"You said this is from April?" She asked him.

There was a long silence until he finished.

"Yeah, April 29th. Alright, so the jist of it is that the newer pills cure diseases by programming our genes to fight things they normally wouldn't know how. Through this computerized database, the pill digitally changes the way our cells work. Same with the drug, that's why it's so popular. It's developed through market research to give the best high and the perfect amount of addiction. There's a huge margin for error though, which they realize, and that's where this brain implant thing comes in. Any update on that by the way?"

"They don't tell me much, they just give me drugs and pay me on the way out," I said.

"Fair enough. The thing is, they figured out something ridiculously wrong with it and they're gonna sell it anyway."

"What did they find? It sounds like it could work," Joanne said.

"That's what I said, but the brain implant is so good at reprogramming our cells that sometimes they 'forget' how to function on their own. It changes the way we think and the emotions we feel by growing more brain cells and reprogramming the ones we got, but they're not all as healthy as they should be. It takes too much energy to do what it tries to do. Then the viruses adapt and the implant learns, it figures them out, and there's even certain viruses that eventually start to outsmart it. That's not to mention the ones not in the database."

"So that's why people are dying?" I asked.

"You'd think so. What happened is, they're realizing that certain people's immune systems start to fight back, and all types of things happens because of that, mostly bad things. The craziest part is how they came up with all this but can't figure out how to fix that one little part."

"And it's gonna come back to fuck them," she said.

"Let's hope so."

The door creaked open and an overweight black man peeked his head in. He had a full head of grayling hair and his name tag read

"Travis, what did I tell you about overtime?"

I hadn't noticed the dark sky through the window until now. Rays of amber sunlight had been replaced by the glow of blue streetlights.

"You were off the clock at 6, and you're already up to 60 hours this week. I can't have you doing this shit anymore!"

"Sorry, I was working on the... uh... The 96th street case, I lost track of time. It won't happen again."

The guy looked at us all before he mumbled something under his breath, slamming the door shut harder than he needed to.

"Go the fuck home!" He screamed from the other side, echoing up and down the hallway.

"That's the boss," Travis said quietly, a faint embarrassment in his voice. "Nice guy, isn't he?"

He started packing his things, as did Joanne, and pictures began printing out of only a small metal frame with a tiny laser.

"I'm gonna guess we're leaving now?" Blake asked, his eyes were still almost shut.

Joanne yawned.

"Yeah, let's call it a night. Joanne, I'm gonna send you the rest of the messages, the ones you could use in your write up."

He handed her a small stack of the ones that just came out of the printer.

"Sounds good. Nice meeting you two," she said, leaving immediately.

"Listen up," Travis whispered, his eyes getting big and his voice as careful as it had ever been.

"This is some serious shit we just did, and what we're about to do, I want you to lay low. I won't be in touch. Stay out of trouble and if you've been paying any attention at all, stay off of that shit. That mainly goes for you."

He stared Blake in the eyes, getting nothing more than a shrug in return.

"I can't make any promises," Blake said.

"Yeah, you're a fucking idiot, I promise you that. You can leave, theres something I gotta tell Aiden."

Blake took his time getting up before he disappeared, probably off to go kill himself slowly like he always did.

"So?"

He waited until the door shut all the way on its own.

"Just don't hurt her," he said.

"Who?" I asked, realizing the answer right as the words came out.

"What, you thought I didn't know? Maya, my baby girl, take care of her."

There was a slight pause, then a look we exchanged.

"You forgetting something?" I asked.

He suddenly seemed puzzled.

"No 'or else'?"

"I'm not into empty threats," he said. "She could do worse, she's had all types of guys and none of them had shit going for them, no redeeming qualities, no nothing. She's been depressed, we had her in rehab, she can't keep a job, and I never hear about anything until it's too late. Just don't hurt her, she's all we got."

"I love her," I said.

A little smile slipped through the concerned expression he had, but only for an instant.

"Take care of yourself too," he said. "Nobody else owes it to you. That's what they never tell you about being a man."

We shook hands, which unexpectedly turned into a hug, then we left the office. His boss rounded the corner at that same moment, a miserable look in his eyes, no doubt checking to see if Travis was still there.

Ideally everything was only beginning, maybe that's why it felt like the worst was yet to come. I had exactly what I wanted, which wasn't much, but karma was a bitch who could never be underestimated, the coldest. I knew that finally, which is why the chilly September air caught my attention on my way home. It was a beautiful night, I looked up at the clear sky and the almost-full moon, but it was a little cool to be the end of summer. It felt too perfect, too good to be true, so I did what I always did when that happened, I enjoyed it while it lasted.

I made it back to my apartment before it had gotten too late, and when I came in the only lamp was turned off and streams of light danced and glimmered on the walls. The place was empty besides a couple piles of clothes on the floor, one of them mine and one of them someone else's, Maya's. It was just a guess, but who else would try to surprise me like that?

She was in the bed, she probably fell asleep waiting. It was quarter of eleven already. I didn't even bother waking her, just sliding in the blankets too and dozing off, dreaming about the future for the first time in the longest.

***

Chapter 32

***

The sun wasn't up yet, but it was close, the light of the dawn was peeking over the horizon. The streets were dead, relatively speaking at least. It was peaceful outside. Just as my money came out the ATM, my pocket started vibrating again, I'd already checked a couple minutes earlier and knew what I'd find. Two missed calls. I pulled out my phone just in time to miss another one.

All of them were from Travis which was odd, because just the other night he said he wouldn't be in touch. I didn't know if I should've been relieved or not, but I was. Then, as soon as I got the chance to call him back it went straight to voicemail. I decided to let it go, and if it was that serious he'd call me back, otherwise I'd hurry home and get back to bed.

As I crossed a street closer to my building, I noticed a guy staring me down a few blocks away, headed the same way. He was wearing all black and was talking to somebody on the phone at the same time. He didn't seem in too much of a hurry, but I saw him again the next block, and the next one, and the one after that too. I didn't see him as I entered my building, but there he was in the lobby as I rode the elevator to my floor. I got the chills as I opened my door.

Maya was in bed still, but I woke her up as soon as I kicked my sneakers off and put my wallet on the dresser.

"Baby, what's wrong?" she said, so quiet I could barely hear her.

Footsteps marched around outside the door, I looked in that direction before I could even get a word out. There was more than one person, that was for sure.

"Somebody's breaking in," I said nervously.

"What do you mean, like a burglary?"

"I don't know. This guy followed me, you gotta hide," I whispered.

A pair of loud bangs on the door startled her. They were trying to break it down but they couldn't.

"Where?" She asked.

I looked around, the only place that made sense was a little closet next to the bathroom, barely a walk in. It was more like a glorified cabinet, but it was the only place she could fit other than under the bed.

Right as she closed the closet door, the other one flew wide open with a flash of light and a hard kick, there were only two men standing there. One had shot a hole right where the handle had been seconds earlier, it was vaporized. I was frozen where I stood, cornered. I couldn't even run with them standing by the door, but they looked at each other before they bolted towards me.

I sprinted towards the bathroom as the first guy closed in, then I juked in the other direction as he lunged, he went flying dramatically and fell flat on his face. There was still the other one to worry about, the shorter guy. He didn't have his gun out, but for some reason he thought he had enough time to unholster it before I could make it out the door. As soon as I noticed, I went sprinting past him, and only his desperate, arm-flailing dive at the last second dragged me down to the floor.

Fingernails dug into my calves, and I kicked around in the general area behind me, hoping I'd get a face maybe. I struggled to move mere inches on all fours, trying my hardest to get near the door. I could hear people opening their own doors down the hall, and mine was open enough for anyone walking past to see in, but needless to say no one did. The moment I thought I'd probably escape, a powerful jolt of electricity up my legs paralyzed me. I yelled out to make it stop, writhing around on the cold hardwood. He'd almost tased the life out of me. Suddenly I was in the worst pain I'd ever felt, I hoped I'd pass out and wake up when it was over. That didn't quite happen.

***

In the time that I did partially lose consciousness, no longer than a minute, fears of the worst began to surface in my mind. I worried that they'd find Maya, that maybe she'd cry out and they'd kill us both, or something along those lines. In actuality, when I looked up, both of them were on their phones, one of them talking to someone again, the taller one that shot the door open.

"We found your man Aiden, he was at an ATM off of Broadway. We got in a little scuffle but I'm gonna bring him back as soon as I find the other one that has the pictures," he said.

He finished up the conversation and then hung up, walking back over to where I was lying next to the dishwasher.

"You're really fucked now," he said, clearly exhausted.

All three of us were sweating and out of breath.

"Just tell us this," the other one added. "Where's Blake? That's his name right, your partner? Where are the pictures at?"

"He's not here," I said, still in too much pain to move.

"Don't fucking lie to us!" the taller guy screamed at the top of his lungs, waving the gun around.

I genuinely thought I was about to die. It wouldn't do them any good to kill me, but the look in his eyes said as much, he was losing it. The shorter guy let him calm down before he said what he was about to say.

"We heard you talking to somebody before we came in, where is he?"

"I told you, I don't know. I was just going back to bed," I said, struggling to get the words out.

The shorter one held his face in the palm of his hand, smiling though, I was confused.

"Were you talking to yourself then? You think we're that stupid? I'm trying to make this easy for you, my friend here wants to fuck you up. He's been talking about it all morning."

"I was," the tall one said. "It doesn't have to go the way it's about to, believe me. Unless you tell me where your partner is, or hand over those pictures you took, I'm gonna fuck you up."

"He's probably still here, I'll check the bathroom," the other guy replied.

"You're telling me nobody's hiding here, he's not gonna find Blake in that bathroom?"

"Nobody else is here, I swear!" I yelled desperately.

He sighed, looked around, and wound up a vicious kick for me right in the ribcage. I yelled out in pain, nearly coughing up a lung, then blood. The floor was already wet, my face was too.

"You learn how to fucking co-operate, or there's more where that came from."

"I didn't see him in there," the shorter guy said.

"Fuck! Where's he hiding?!"

"He's not here! I'm alone!" I screamed, almost incoherently.

It was hard to pronounce anything when you were in the worst pain of your life, but in that moment I wasn't lying. Just like usual, I truly was all by myself, even though it seemed the exact opposite in the literal sense.

"What did he just say?"

They looked at each other, confused.

"I'm alone!" I repeated.

The words no longer sounded like they did in my head at all.

"Speak English, you fuck!" The tall one yelled.

"Did I hear that right, I'm at home? What does that mean? We know you're at home, you fucking idiot! His bed is right there!"

"He took his shoes off when he came in! Can you believe this guy?!"

A muffled thump came from near the bathroom. It had to be Maya.

"You hear that?" The short one asked.

"I think that's a closet over there, go check."

He walked over carefully, pulling out a flashlight and shining it through the spaces where you could see into it. Luckily it was filled with clothes, plenty of places to hide. My heart was racing anyway, I never intended on dragging Maya into any of my shit.

He opened it, looked around a little, then closed it.

"Anything?"

"Nope, just junk. I guess his partner's gone, should we take him in now?"

"I'm gonna find those pictures," the tall one said. "You have one last chance to tell me where Blake is, I'm giving you an out. You take this, or you get ready to have the worst day of your life. Don't think it can't get any shittier than this, I'd love to prove otherwise."

I couldn't manage another word, just coughing up more blood. He waited a moment.

"So nothing then?"

"Nothing it is," he agreed.

He wound up one last kick, this one coming straight for my head. I got my wish finally, and everything went dark, I was gone.

***

I had a short vision, maybe a memory or something, that I was back in my old apartment. I was still an architect, which I knew somehow, and everything was the way it was when I first met Maya. She was laying in the bed and I was sitting on the edge, playing with the old gun. She looked worried, but I couldn't make her understand that it didn't work and it never would. She was naturally skeptical so we argued, and for some reason I tried to prove it to her. My own doubts crept in as I pulled the trigger, but I snapped out of it and woke up to a big splash of cold water, back in reality. I was drenched in ice water, my clothes were soaking wet from it and the cubes were melting on the carpet under my sneakers.

I was handcuffed to a chair in an office building. We were high up, definitely near the top, and the entire room was empty, it had to be a little side room for doing things that didn't have their own designated place, like interrogating people. On second thought, I was the kind of police handcuffs that looked expensive and made the thought of breaking free more of a funny joke. Looking around, I didn't see one cop.

"Wake up!"

"I think he's up now."

The first voice sounded familiar but the second didn't. I had no idea who was talking, my vision was blurry and there were duplicates of everything. Six faces surrounding me, two doors to my left, two moons shining through the series of windows. That couldn't have been good. I blinked a few times, then closed my eyes until I could feel the pain again. It took a second, but all the bruises, gashes and broken ribs hurt as badly as ever. When I opened them back up I could see pretty clearly that it was just the two guys who had broken into my room plus one other one wearing a suit. He stared at me with a concerned expression.

"Any word on the pictures yet?" He asked them.

"I just got a message saying they searched the other guy Blake's apartment but he wasn't there. This one didn't have much when we found him, just some cash and a broken phone."

The short guy who hadn't said anything handed the phone over to the man in the suit, who handed it back to the taller one. He pocketed it without a second glance.

"Gavin, I have a serious problem," the man in the suit said to the tall one. "I swore we worked on this, but I guess you're having trouble doing what you said you would do."

"What do you mean? We found the two guys you wanted, what more could we even do about the other one?"

"No, that's not it. Look at him, he's bleeding all over the chair and shit. I said to use the taser first, what the fuck is he bleeding for?"

They stared each other off for a second.

"He's bleeding because you didn't fucking listen! This isn't rocket science, you just listen to me! You're not the fucking CIA, stop trying to beat people's faces in! We have a guy for that! Now you have to take him to the hospital!"

"We could just..."

The suit guy cut him off.

"No, you take him to the fucking hospital, what if he dies? Look at his face, he can barely stand up. Now we have to get charges pressed, if you would've just gotten rid of the pictures the way I told you to... I mean, I specifically said no blood. Tell me you have an excuse for being so fucking stupid, please. I'm waiting."

He took a deep breath.

"No sir," the tall guy said.

His partner watched just as amused as I was, even more so probably. He had the strangest look on his face, embarrassment and something else. Restrained laughter maybe? I couldn't laugh, instead I started to cough up more blood.

"Next time you listen, or you're done here," he said, poking him real hard on the chest with every syllable. "That's a promise."

"What, you would fire me? After the shit I've seen?"

"No, I didn't say that. Pay attention." He couldn't have looked any more frustrated. "I said, you LISTEN to me, or you're FINISHED. I PROMISE you that. Take care of that now, will you," he said, looking my way.

He didn't wait up, leaving the two goons to try and get me out of the leather chair I was sinking into more and more by the minute. They didn't bother restraining me in the first place, and they had to carry me down the hallway all on their own, a pair of feet dragged along behind us in silence.

An elevator stopped shortly after they pressed the button, but it had a few occupants already. Three men in suits and an even better dressed woman stared down at their phones, the woman looking up as the two guys carrying me balked at entering. The look on her face was two parts confused, one part horrified. She looked back down before the doors shut.

The next one was empty, and they dragged me in, leaning me up against the glass. My vision went dark before we hit the bottom.

***

I opened my eyes on a stretcher, gliding through busy hallways on this floating slab of metal wrapped in bed sheets. I could feel heat coming through the other side of the mattress pad, so much heat, but I was in mid air regardless. It was pretty amazing machinery to me, I'd never been to a hospital before and actually paid much attention to anything. The two men from earlier were following closely behind a doctor who lead the way.

We took a left at the end of the hallway, there was a room with pastel vinyl curtains hiding the other side and a pair of flat screen televisions on the walls. I was lucky enough to get the spot by the window, but there was a police officer waiting in the room with another doctor already, they were waiting for me. It wasn't just any cop either, he was big and had a head full of graying hair and tormented black eyes like he never slept, he was Travis's boss.

"Aiden Rivera?" He asked.

That was never a good sign, when someone said your name like that and they already knew it. I nodded.

"Aiden, you're under arrest for four counts of trafficking narcotics and resisting arrest."

"Trafficking drugs? Where the fuck did you get that idea?"

"Around the same time we found this in your jacket, three ounces of microdust. That's enough to supply an entire block of addicts, needless to say there's almost no chance of deferment therapy even though this is your first time."

"That's bullshit! He made that up, that's bullshit! They're all liars! This is bullshit!"

I repeated the words over and over, yelling louder and louder. The doctor's faces grew more concerned by the second, but I kept at it. The cop in charge signaled to one of the doctors, who in turn did something to my IV. Whatever he put in it worked fast. It wasn't a subtle change in my vision, but more like the room collapsed into itself, and the light never returned, I was out cold again. I was absolutely fucked, and there was nothing I could do about it.

***

Chapter 33

***

I peeked out of the darkness to the sight of colorful lights and flashing holographic displays, bright red and crystal blue, everything was blurry. I wiped my eyes clean and it all came into focus, vital sign monitors and mediocre television commercials, four of them playing at once on the same screen. A brown skinned man, black at first thought but probably Indian, nonchalantly changed the bag of dark liquid that hung by the window, connected to me through plastic tubes.

"What's that?" I asked him, my voice was raspy and tired.

My muscles were tired too, not aching but just out of energy, and my neck was sore from the bad pillows. Other than that I was no longer in pain, I couldn't feel any of the nasty bruises or bloody gashes. No black eyes either, though I didn't have a mirror to be sure. The blue patterned hospital clothes were surprisingly soft.

"This is Lunix intravenous suspension, it should've taken care of the broken bones and most of the pain. You feeling any better now?"

"I feel alright, I think... How long have I been here?"

"3 days, going on four. We had to put you in a medically induced coma until we got everything cleared up, I think you should be good to go later on though."

"Wow, I guess that's why I feel like I've been in this bed for weeks. And the cuts..."

"Should be healed up by now," he said with a self-assured smile, finishing my thought for me.

I rolled up my sleeves and my forearms were pale-ish, as pale as they could get at least, but there were no physical remnants of the vicious ass-whooping that was still fresh in my memory. My right wrist was handcuffed to the bed. I couldn't have been that out of it after all, three days was nothing. I felt my lower left ribs, where I vividly remembered the loud, gut-wrenching sound of them cracking, but they were as good as new. The doctor noticed me checking for the missing signs of my injuries while he did his work.

"That IV does THAT?"

He emptied a couple bags of the suspension down a big metal sink and fixed the replacement ones before he answered my question.

"Yeah, it does that."

The door interface made an electronic beep that caught his attention, he went and looked through the little rectangular window before he tossed his gloves and the empty bags in the hazardous waste bin.

"Perfect timing, I was just finishing up. Looks like you've got a visitor."

"Do you know who it is?"

"It's a girl, she's been here all weekend checking up on you," he said as he started to type notes on his tablet. "She's cute."

I couldn't help but smile, any news like that was liable to make my day when I'd spent the past few in a coma.

Maya and the doctor swapped places, it wasn't a very big room when you gave it a closer look. The window facing the city was small too compared to the size of the wall, even the TV was wider. She looked as good as ever, not like she was trying but more as if she'd just gotten out of bed. Maybe it was the fact that she looked less crazy when she was tired, I didn't understand why but it was true. She had a bag too, it was full of all kinds of stuff judging by the random bulges in it.

"I can't believe you're awake," she said, holding my hand that wasn't locked onto the bed railing.

She made her way around the machines and stuff keeping me alive to give me a kiss, up close she seemed in slightly worse shape than I was. That had to be because of how much I'd gotten better from the drugs and how much she'd probably been stressing.

"I can't believe you're here right now."

I still sounded like I needed a nap.

"I've been here since last night, when they told me they weren't sure if you were brain dead or not, they said you fell and hit your head pretty bad. Sounded like bullshit, but it's not like you'll tell me what really happened anyway. You always lie to me."

"Why would you say that? I thought we were past all that, I tell you everything now," I said.

She hadn't looked like she meant it exactly the way it came out.

"I don't know, I'm just frustrated."

She paced around the little room before she found the remote to the TV and turned the volume almost all the way down.

"I've been worried sick about you. It was pretty bad a couple days ago, right before you started healing. You looked, uh... terrible. Like, the worst I've ever seen somebody who was still alive. You didn't have a black eye, your entire face was black and blue. They said you couldn't stand on your own and most of your ribs were broken. My mom dragged me home cause I was pissing off the other guy over there with my crying and screaming."

She smiled nervously, looking over towards the silhouette of the empty bed we could both see through the curtain. "He's gone now, they moved him."

"Fuck that guy," I said.

She laughed a little.

"But yeah, that's really amazing that the bruises are gone," she said.

She looked at my face with surprised curiosity, expecting me to look terrible apparently. I guess not looking terrible was always good. It wasn't long until I remembered all the questions I had, answers I didn't care to hear momentarily. I knew it right then, even more so than the fact that I loved her, that she was all that I had. I really considered who I was and where I was, and it became obvious that she was everything to me. Painfully obvious. She was thinking about something important too, I could tell.

"Any idea when these are coming off?" I said, holding up my handcuffed arm as high as I could.

"Oh, I almost forgot," she replied.

She dug around in her bag and pulled out a small, rectangular piece of hard plastic.

"It's an electromagnet, I took it from my dad," she said.

In a few seconds the handcuffs fell onto the bed, clinking loudly against the metal railing. I was gonna try and escape so I hid them under my only blanket. The noise startled me because the reality of what I was doing meant we had to keep it down, if anyone came in I'd be caught.

"I guess it was bad then, the whole thing with the charges?" I asked.

She shook her head in disappointment, looking frightened at the very mention of it.

"Your trial was this morning."

I looked outside, and it was probably around mid day by now.

"And?"

"And they sentenced you to life in Newark for drug trafficking."

With my hands free and a way to get out, I knew I wasn't nearly as down about the prison sentence as I should've been. It hadn't blindsided me by any means, not on its own at least.

"How could they do the trial without me?"

"We were all here watching it on tv, it was over like that." She snapped her fingers, then her voice somehow got even more serious. "I don't know what you've been up to, but you might wanna look at this. There's more too, but check this out first."

Out of her bag came a pair of slim metal tubes, recyclable little newspaper projectors. I turned on the first one she handed me, it was the New York Times and the date was for September 16th, 2063. Clicking the two other buttons next to the power button turned the pages with this elaborate animation, it was pretty cool. Clearly I didn't read the paper much at all. The front page headline read, "Out of the Woods? Guess Again!" and there was an unflattering picture of Mason, the CEO, next to a digital rendering of a pill bottle with a hazardous skull and crossbones edited over it. The long subtitle read, "Fossor Pharmaceuticals CEO in hot water as he denies BRAND NEW allegations of corruption, once again, despite insurmountable evidence of a massive public health crisis on the company's hands."

"This got published in the New York Times?"

"No, it didn't, because I bought the real New York Times for that date, it's two days ago. The story in that one is all over the news right now, I found this other weird one in my dad's car last week."

The look in her eyes demanded answers, but there wasn't much I could tell her without having to explain even more, and then explain things I never intended on telling her. Some things you'd rather not know, but you never know that until you know that, meaning you have to find out the hard way.

"So he had a copy of the Times before it was supposed to even come out, but then the one that actually gets ran is completely different?"

"No, it's not even completely (italics) different, this is so fucking weird... It's almost the same story with a different spin on it, but the one he had wasn't for the same week. Like, why did he have it so early?"

I opened the second newspaper projector, the headline read "Shut it Down", with the subtitle reading "Pharmaceutical giant halts operations in preventative measure due to supply chain quality concerns, loses a billion dollars per hour of ceased production." The picture was of the corporate headquarters on a sunny day, a massive building in Manhattan that everyone saw all the time.

I then started skimming the article, which gave this lavish amount of praise to Mason for having "ethical concerns" in a "company historically embroiled in shoddy business practices," painting him as some sort of hero fighting the system. It was obvious from the first paper that someone had used the threat of the headline in order to pressure the company, and a billion dollars per hour wasn't something they would readily give up without the use of blackmail and underhanded tactics on our part. When that time came, they wouldn't miss out on such huge profits without making themselves look good in the process. After all, the things they could buy with that kind of money was anyone's guess. Certain people sometimes sold their morality to the highest bidder. I was just glad that everything wasn't for nothing, whatever works I thought to myself, and the plan did work even though we were all paying the price.

"Is he okay?" I asked her.

I couldn't tell from what she had already told me, I didn't have the time to really think about it when the two goons were talking about looking for Blake. They never mentioned Travis. She started to tear up and shook her head.

"Is he... Shit, is he alive?"

"Yes he's alive!" She screamed, immediately looking embarrassed afterwards. "It doesn't matter now anyway, does it?!"

I could hear footsteps when she stopped yelling, someone or multiple people were eavesdropping by the door.

"Don't worry, he'll be alright," I said, both of us knowing that I had no way to tell. She clearly knew a few things I didn't, but I could've said the same thing.

"He knew what he was doing," I said quietly.

Her expression changed from hopelessness back to curiosity.

"Did he have something to do with this?" She asked, mindful of how loud her voice could be.

She looked towards the door, hearing exactly what I heard. Someone was being moved out of their room, which must have taken a few people.

"Everything," I whispered. "He had EVERYTHING to do with this."

She got anxious when I said it with such little thought and so much assurance. Not BAD anxious, but I could tell her mind was racing a mile a minute. She was frozen, paralyzed with all kinds of emotions and this sheer and utter confusion. I just didn't want her to worry, there wasn't much we could do. All I could do was escape.

"We have to go," I said.

I gathered my energy to get up off the bed, I couldn't imagine it being easy with the amount of time I spent laying there half dead. Even so, when I sat up, I felt a lot better than I expected, and I hopped out and onto the cold tile floor. I was stronger than I thought I was, but we all were. I put on my shoes and took off the hospital scrubs, the bloody clothes I came wearing were still underneath. All they'd done was hooked me up to the IV machine and checked to see if I was dead or not, and it worked. Of course it worked.

"Wait, there's something else. You're gonna like this."

She dug through her bag one last time and pulled out a messy stack of papers. They were crinkled up and fading, barely being held together by a series of rusting staples.

"Don't even ask me why I have this, I still don't know. Your brother gave it to me. It's a journal? Maybe? Or a book? Like I said..." She trailed off.

It was the journal. Come to think of it, a messy stack of worn out papers that could fall apart at any moment came up a little short of the umbrella term "journal", it didn't quite meet the definition of the word. Holding it in my hands, it was a little disappointing, but I was still amazed that it existed.

"Wow. And you don't even know what this is, I swear, you have no idea how much I love you."

"I thought you would like it," she said, smiling and obviously satisfied, if only for the moment. "You're right, I have no idea what it is, but you have all the time in the world to figure that out."

"No, I know what it is. I've been looking for this forever."

I got up and kissed her, I made it a good one in fear that it would be the last. I had a gut feeling otherwise.

"Tell me this won't be the last time I see you," she said, practically reading my mind.

"This won't be the last time I see you." I felt a little nervous as I peeked out the window, we were high up.

She could sense the uncertainty in my voice.

"I don't believe you!"

She laughed for a second, but then started to cry. They certainly weren't tears of joy.

"When this is all over with, everything is gonna be just like the way it was," I said, forcing a smile and completely switching up the tone of my voice, even though I wasn't as confident in my words as I made sure to sound. "I promise. Since you got me something, I got my own gift for you next time, soon. I hope you can wait."

"I have something even better for next time too, this was just a warm up," she replied, smiling because she got it. "I should go now. I love you."

She kissed me one last time for the road, then she was gone. Oddly enough, I was all alone again for the first time in the longest, but I wasn't lonely. The last thing I needed right then was company. I gathered my wits and figured out a way to open a useless lock on the window, a ten second ordeal, and looking down at the ground below I was at least twenty stories up. Maybe higher. There was a distinct ledge I could scale and a balcony only a few floors down, at least 20 feet, which was a livable fall. 30-ish feet, at most, and an uncertain landing was something, but far from painless. The way I saw it, my choice was either freedom or death. No matter what, laying back down and taking my medicine was no longer an option.

I slipped my sneakers on, leaning up against the bed to tie them. I got the window open first, but there was the tightest space to make it out through, the smallest window sill. I'd never been so close to death and real life all at once, both of those things were waiting on the other side of that tempered glass. In the moment, my nerves got the best of me, I was clumsy. I started knocking things over as I tried to squeeze through. Not much came down right away, but it all went to hell when the heart rate monitor crashed and fell to the floor. Machines started beeping, their alarms went off and lights started flashing too. I kept at it, but it wasn't easy squeezing through that window, it was actually next to impossible.

The door opened, it was the doctor.

"Hey! Stop that, get back in here!"

He darted back to the hallway, yelling for help.

"Officer! Hurry up, he's trying to break out through the window!"

I was already out by the time they came. It was a wide concrete ledge, easily big enough to scale by foot. My problem was that my legs were shaky when I landed on it, I slipped. Going over the edge wouldn't kill me, but it wasn't reassuring when I was looking down and the balcony seemed just as far as the ground, I chalked it up to nerves. Still, somehow I didn't quite panic. It all happened so slowly, it was unbelievable. They hadn't seen me at first, looking around the room as I dangled there in the sky with both of my hands firmly gripping the rough concrete, they almost gave up before I peeked my head up over it. Our eyes locked, and as they sprinted towards me I faced a split second decision, a life changing one to say the least.

They didn't have a clue what was underneath me, they probably assumed I'd die. I didn't know what would happen, maybe I'd break both legs, maybe I'd hit the ground running. Suicide was always tricky to try and wrap your head around, the state of mind to waste a life. Real life is priceless. They'd never understand why I let go, but it wasn't about the fall, I was falling anyway. We all fall where we're pushed like dominos, powerless to fight gravity. Some people are fortunate enough to get pushed forward, or to land on their feet, I was rarely one of them. I always hated the pain, time and time again I closed my eyes as I braced myself for impact. I was dreaming my way through life, if that's what you would call it, a "life".

It took forever for me to learn that a dream is meaningless if you never open your eyes to reality. I let go this time in order to wake up right before I hit the ground, like falling from the sky in my sleep. I didn't want the cop to save me, he wasn't exactly pulling me away from certain death. He was saving me from freedom when he grabbed my wrist, one second later and I would've been gone. I would've been free. I knew it wasn't an ideal escape, but beggars can't be choosers. I wasn't chasing the past anymore or living in fear of it either, the past is never how we remember it. It's overrated. The past is a stack of dusty old papers I didn't have time to read, I was too busy living in spite of the future, in spite of mortality. I couldn't waste the gift of life on conformity or normality, I was too busy opening my eyes to the beauty of the present moment, learning how to love what I needed and not what I wanted.

The side of my head swelled up from being violently thrown in the squad car, this after they escorted me out of the hospital, it was annoying not even being able to rub it because of the handcuffs. The lump swelled bigger and bigger before I forgot about the pain. I closed my eyes the whole ride back to the police station, dreaming of what I loved, what I needed. The truth was that I needed someone who could love me back, but the reality was that I'd just hit the ground face first for the last time, the hardest I'd ever fallen. The truth was that good enough wasn't really good enough, I needed an ideal escape, the real thing. Real freedom. Handcuffs wouldn't cut it.

***

The shuttle headed to Newark was packed. Far too many people had been up to no good, there was about a thousand of us on one alone. Roughly half of them looked like violent criminals, the other half were just like me. There were at least ten more shuttles both ahead and behind us. I lifted my head up off the window, it was moments before sunset and the sky was shades of purple melting into orange, amber, and indigo. We were finally at the Jersey City Peninsula, the entirety of which made up the prison city. It was a huge, martian-like landscape dotted with shiny metal pods, the electrical borders which the guards pointed out themselves, and sprawling hills made of rocks and sediment. There were no signs of life besides a few of those shitty junk trees that grew anywhere. The hills went on for miles.

Even with the hills it was pretty flat overall, there was water in every direction and the only light coming from where we were headed had to be from the prison complex itself, which grew closer by the minute. The skyline slowly shrunk in the distance, and for a quick second under that glow of surreal twilight, it was infinitely more beautiful than I had ever known in my 27 years of looking up from the streets. It looked like an optical illusion on the horizon, a mirage. The cold steel pillars and sheets of mirrored glass which housed the finest sociopaths, thieves, and serial killers of my generation merged into one shiny structure all it's own.

When the shuttle stopped, I hadn't reached the end, I knew it in the deepest part of my soul. The stars said otherwise, it was a long day and I could barely will myself up out of my seat. I wasn't afraid of what lied ahead, after all it was impossible to fall any farther, I was starting from the very bottom. They un-cuffed my hands at the gate, slipping a chrome band on my wrist that would electrocute me to death slowly if I tried to run, in their own words. It didn't look or feel heavy but when it went on it became a solid piece of metal, I'd just traded one shackle for another.

As I walked alone in the dark with my head down, single file in a line that went on for miles, it wasn't the past I had to look forward to. Freedom wasn't a place or a moment in time, it wasn't a dollar or a shiny black pill or my bed either. It wasn't the idea of the future. I knew in that instant that freedom was love itself, nothing short of the real thing.

***