“What did you say?” she exclaimed.
“Do you have any Mentafixol left? I take it too, but this time when I went to the health center at the casino to get my prescription refilled, the pharmacy was out.”
At least, this is what Holly thought Elijah had said. But the pharmacy could not be out of Mentafixol. The pharmacy was never out. Her sanity, her whole life depended on it. “Did you say the pharmacy is out?”
“Yes.” This was the first thing he’d said that Holly understood completely. And now that she examined him up close, she realized he might really be having that exacerbation her parents had warned her about. He looked feverish. His tight black T-shirt stuck to his pecs with sweat, and his wavy hairline shone. The pharmacy was definitely out.
“But how did you know I take Mentafixol?” she asked. Had everyone in high school and college known about this all along? Did everyone at the casino know? She would die.
He said something that Holly didn’t catch.
“What?” she asked, feeling foolish for not being able to hear him at all, and wondering why he seemed to hear her perfectly without watching her lips.
“I just knew,” he shouted. “The pharmacy said they should get a new shipment soon. They’ve been saying that for two days. In the meantime, I’ve come down off the drug, and you know what that’s like.”
“No, I don’t.” Holly shuddered. She was very careful to take her pill every night so she would never experience those symptoms again. Even if she hadn’t been careful herself, her parents had been hawkish about her medicine while she lived with them. Now Kaylee reminded her to take it. God willing, that pill would stave off the symptoms of her disease for the rest of her life.
“I’m asking you for a pill,” he said, “just one pill, to tide me over until the pharmacy gets a shipment in a few days. Then you’ll have some more and I’ll have some more, and we can go back to pretending everything’s fine.”
This talk of the pharmacy running out of Mentafixol scared the hell out of Holly. She had three days’ worth of pills left in the prescription bottle in her purse. She took the pills with her everywhere so she’d always have one available. If she gave one to Elijah, she’d have two days’ worth left. What if the health center still hadn’t received a shipment on day three? What if the day she’d given away to Elijah was the very day her MAD caused her to be committed, or—worse—made her hurt another person?
Then again, what if she didn’t give Elijah a pill, and he got committed or hurt another person tomorrow? She would never forgive herself. And if their positions were switched, she hoped Elijah would give her one of his pills.
“I would,” he said.
She blinked at him in the flashing pink darkness. “What? You would what?”
“Do it for you.”
Holly’s heart raced as the thought struck her that Elijah could read her mind.
It was all this talk of going crazy. She was paranoid about being crazy, but she wasn’t crazy, not as long as she took her Mentafixol. She talked herself down this way, breathing light and fast, looking into Elijah’s green eyes.
Then she glanced around stealthily again. Someone might mistake a pill passed between them as a drug buy. Or someone might discover she was insane. Satisfied that no one was watching them, she reached into her purse, shook a shiny gold pill out of her prescription bottle, and held it out to Elijah in her palm.
He took it carefully with his thumb and forefinger, pinching her skin ever so gently, a pleasant tickle that shot across her hand and up her arm.
Then he looked at her and opened his mouth to thank her, she supposed. But something happened as she watched him.
He paused, lips parted.
Against her will, her gaze flitted to his lips. He was so hot, but now was not the time to get involved with him, when they were both struggling to enter the adult world with a disabling mental disease.
However, back in ninth grade, what would it have hurt for her parents to allow them to go to the prom together? She could have spent the night laughing with Elijah and stealing kisses from him. She pictured what it would be like to kiss him now.
Still holding the pill in his fingers, he reached up to his mouth. She thought he would swallow the pill dry. But when he paused, she realized he was only touching the pill to his bottom lip.
His pupils expanded almost to the rims of his green irises. Wide. Wanting.
Electricity rushed through her. She didn’t dare breathe.
Then his other warm hand slipped around her neck. He pulled her close and kissed her deeply, sweeping his soft tongue inside her mouth.
A shove tore her away from Elijah and sent her reeling into the table and chairs behind her. The edge of a tabletop slashed across her back, but years of maneuvering in high heels enabled her to spin toward her aggressor.
Rob.
7
As Holly regained her balance, she realized Rob had shoved her and Elijah at once, pushing them away from each other. Now Rob turned his back on her and moved toward Elijah with a balled fist. Elijah still faced in the other direction. He couldn’t see the fist coming at the back of his head. Holly opened her mouth to shriek a warning.
Inexplicably, Elijah ducked.
Rob’s dense body followed the unchecked momentum of his fist. He crashed into the empty table behind Elijah. Chairs bounced against the wall. Rob came up holding one of them. Time seemed to stop as he stood with the heavy metal chair above him like a movie monster rising from the sea and towering over Tokyo.
Elijah was taller than Rob, but he was dwarfed by Rob plus chair. He crouched underneath with nowhere to go. Holly screamed as she watched Elijah move forward to grab Rob around the middle. She could tell this wouldn’t work. The chair would make contact with Elijah before he reached Rob.
Rob brought the chair down—and stopped only inches into the swing.
Elijah tackled him. They both fell into the tables and chairs. Holly danced backward as Rob’s chair, shaken loose by Elijah’s hit, tumbled toward her across the floor.
“Break it up!” bellowed a six-foot-four Diana Ross advancing toward them. Holly teetered on her heels and got caught in a wave of brawny transvestite bouncers grabbing Elijah and hustling him out the back door of the club. He halted suddenly in the corridor, bending down to pick something up from the floor, and Cher nearly tripped over him. Elijah put his hand to his mouth—he’d found Holly’s pill where it had rolled on the dirty floor and had swallowed it dry, oh, gross—but the trannies mistook his hesitation for another attempt to tackle Rob. They muscled him out the door and didn’t stop until they and Elijah and Holly all burst into the dark parking lot behind the club.