Page 35 of Desperate Haste

Connie:

Never gonna happen.

Hank:

I would go. I have no issues with going. Bailey has been on me about healing my ‘inner child’ or some shit for awhile now.

I laugh out loud at the thought of Hank and Bailey talking about his ‘inner child.’

Alright Hanky, then when you go, I’ll go.

Hank:

It’s a date Malcolm.

Kolbi:

I’m so proud of you both.

Connie:

And I hate all of you.

Tossing my phone down on the coffee table, I sit up from my couch and look around my apartment. I’d been reading a biography about Winston Churchill I’d picked up from Goodwill on my way home from morning training when my phone started going off about next week’s campaign session. I can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving already. The last week since seeing Ophelia had flown by because I’d worked nearly everyday at the bar. I finally have the day off though and need to decide what I’m going to do with it.

Feeling a pang of hunger in my gut, I stand and head for the fridge to make myself some lunch. Without even realizing it, the morning has turned to afternoon and it’s past two o’clock already. Thank god for Conrad’s incessant need to keep a schedule or I would have lost my day to Winston. As I make myself a sandwich, my mind goes to the last time I’d had one. With Ophelia, on the back of my truck, out at my favorite lookout spot. I’d taken her there because I wanted to share a piece of myself with her. The spot had been a place I’d discovered by accident but became my favorite place to go to to just think. On a bad day, or a day where I need to clear my head, I drive out to the river and sit on the tailgate of my truck and let the sound of the flowing water fill my brain and wash out all the bullshit that has collected inside of it.

Days where the words of my dad telling me to get the hell out and not come back after I’d told him I was dropping out of school to get clean were too loud. When the sounds of my umma crying when I’d gone to them to make amends, a critical step in the twelve-step process of Narcotics Anonymous, cut too deep. Or the days when the death grip of the screams from my friends finding me passed out on the floor of my dorm room nearly overdosing wouldn’t let go. She doesn’t know it, but it’s the spot where I go when my disappointments become too much and I need to recenter before absolutely losing it. When the pressures of everything become too much and I feel myself start to slip under the water. I haven’t even taken my friends to the spot, but I’d taken her, and I’d happily take her again.

Throwing myself back on the couch, I grab my phone from the coffee table and open up my contacts. Scrolling through, I hit ‘call’ when I find the one I want. Once the phone is illuminated with “Little Fox,” I bring it to my ear and wait for her to answer.

“Hello?” She sounds groggy, almost like she was asleep, when she finally picks up.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“I know it’s you, I have caller I.D.”

A chuckle escapes my lips.Smartass.“What are you doing today? I’m off from the bar and wondered if you wanted to go for a drive.”

“Is this you asking me out on a date? Because I don’t do those, remember?” On the other end, I hear the rustling of what sounds like bed sheets. Is she with someone right now? A heat grows in my throat at the thought of it.

“If it were a date, princess, I would have used the word ‘date.’ But I didn’t, did I? I used the worddrive.”

“Normally I would love to banter back and forth with you because I think it turns you on, but today is not—” Before she can finish her sentence I hear her gag and then what I can only assume is the sound of her emptying the contents of her stomach. A labored sigh can be heard across the line before her voice comes back. “Ugh. I can’t today, Malcolm.”

“Ophelia, what’s wrong? Are you sick?” I push to my feet at the sound of her voice. For a normally affirmed, strong-willed person, she sounds abnormally weak.

“I think I have food poisoning,” she groans over the phone. “I’ve been puking all day.”

My legs move around my apartment without instruction as I collect some things I know I’ll need. “I’m coming over.”

“No, no you’re not,” she tries to refute.

“Shut the hell up and don’t argue. I’ll be there in half an hour.” My hand is reaching for the duffle bag in my closet, ready to throw some clothes into it, seeing as how I have no plans to leave her place until she is no longer puking.

“Malcom, no, I’ll be fine.”

“Do you need anything? Or want anything? I’m stopping at the store on my way over. I can get you one of those magazines I saw in your office if you want.”

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