Dylan stays that way until we’re halfway across the balcony and then goes back inside the apartment, shutting the door behind him.
I turn around and focus on walking. “Is Delilah okay?” I ask Quinton.
He shields his eyes from the sun with his hand. “She’s as okay as the rest of us.”
“She seemed out of it.”
“That’s because she was.”
“What’s she on?”
He hesitates, his hand on my back tensing. “You really want to know?” he asks, and I nod. “She’s on heroin.”
“Do you…” I inspect his arms, noting they’re sore-free, but I want to be sure. “Do you do it?”
He shakes his head with no hesitancy. “Not my thing.”
“Oh.” I’m not sure if that makes me feel better, because he still does drugs. “What about Dylan?” I ask as he guides me around a man standing in the middle of the balcony, smoking. “What’s he on?”
“His ass**le-ness,” Quinton begrudgingly says.
“So he doesn’t do drugs?” I ask, astonished by the idea.
“No, he does,” he replies, slowing down as we approach the stairs. “But high or not, he’s always a dick.”
It’s a lot to take in—maybe too much. Everything around here is so dark and it hurts to walk around in it, even if I’m only visiting. I can still feel it taking a toll on me. The heaviness. The fear. The temptation. So much could go wrong just from my being here.
But you need to be here. You need to save him. Like you didn’t with Landon.
Quinton withdraws his hand from my back and we start down the stairs. “So where are we going today? Or are we just chilling in your car again?” He seems twitchy, his brown eyes really large and glossy and his nose red. It makes me sad to see it, how he’s hurting himself.
“Do you want to go somewhere else?” I ask, holding on to the railing.
He shrugs as we reach the bottom of the stairway. “I’m down for wherever, just as long as I’m back by like five.”
I want to ask him why, but at the same time I fear the answer, so I keep my lips sealed. We climb in the car and I start up the engine and crank the air, trying to think of a safe place to go. “There’s this good restaurant my friend Lea told me about,” I say. “We could go get something to eat there.”
He waves me off. “Nah, I’m not really hungry.”
“Okay.” I try to think of somewhere else, but I don’t know Vegas very well.
“I know somewhere we can go,” Quinton says with a thoughtful look on his face, his honey-brown eyes temporarily lighting up. “But you’re going to have to trust me.”
It takes me a minute to respond, because even though I want to trust him, I’m not sure I can. “Okay, but where is this place?”
“It’s a surprise.” He gives me a smile, but it’s difficult to see it because I don’t think it’s real, rather created by his high. But I play along, because it’s all I can do. Pretend that it’s real. Pretend I’m okay with everything. “Okay, but you got to give me directions.”
He motions to me to drive forward. “Get going and I’ll guide you there.” He winks at me. “Just relax. You can trust me, Nova.”
Even though every single part of me screams that I can’t, I force myself to drive forward, letting him guide me, hoping I’m not going to do something stupid and make a wrong turn. Because one wrong turn can lead to a lot of damage.
Quinton
Dylan’s been acting strange lately, even though we managed to pay him back with some money we stole from a house the other night. He seems more violent and erratic than he has in the past. I think all the smack is starting to screw with his head a little bit, so I don’t like it when I walk out and he’s paying so much attention to Nova. I shouldn’t have left her out there alone, but the moment I saw her, my heart leaped in my chest, way too excited to see her. Such a wrong reaction and I had to go back and get enough crystal for a hit or two if I need it, if I get to feeling too much while I’m out with her.
I’m actually probably way too high to be doing anything, yet somehow I find myself out and about. It’s like one minute I’m back in my room, absorbing as much intoxicating crystal as I can, feeling my heart rate speed up to the point where I feel like I’m flying—feel like I could do anything, and then suddenly I’m driving in the car with Nova, flirting with her like we’re on a date.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Yet at the same time I’m perfectly content with being stupid—with being near her, because I’m soaring.
High.
Confused.
After I get her away from the apartment and Dylan, I tell her to drive and she does, trusting me, which she shouldn’t, yet it pleases me in the most f**ked-up way possible. By the time we’re pulling up to the building, I can tell I’m going to mess this up badly. I can feel it, yet I’m too spun out of my mind to care.
“So this is where you wanted to take me?” Nova asks, with a baffled look on her face at the sight of the dated motel that I found one day when Tristan and I were looking for a place to crash after we got caught shoplifting and had to find a quick place to hide. The thing is I’m still not even sure if we were ever being chased or if paranoia set in.
I take off my seat belt because she always makes me wear it whenever I’m in the car with her. “Yeah. I know it looks a little sketchy, but we’ll be okay,” I tell her, and when she still looks skeptical, I add, “Trust me, Nova.” My thoughts laugh at me, deep down knowing I’m not trustworthy, but it’s like I can’t get my emotions to link with my thoughts and my thoughts to link with my mouth, so I’m just saying stuff, cruising through the motions without thinking of the consequences.
She swallows hard, but then unbuckles her seat belt, and we get out of the car. I meet her around the front and I don’t know why but I slip my arm around her waist and again I don’t know why, but for some reason she lets me. It’s so hard being near her when I feel this pull toward her, yet I also feel this push away from her, driven by my guilt.
“You seem in a really good mood today,” she notes, glancing up at me with those gorgeous eyes that I’ve been sketching every day despite the battle of my inner thoughts.
I shrug and pull my hand away, giving in to the push and the guilt. “I’m just in a normal mood.”