Page 21 of All Right No
“What?” Spook rocketed out of his chair.
Dr. Noren shifted uncomfortably in response to the two of them, now on their feet, leaning across the desk towards her. Good, she made him uncomfortable too.
“Please sit down, gentlemen.”
Spook did as asked, but Ash didn’t budge an inch.
“I realise that it may not have been a deliberate attempt to end things—”
“Fuck you!” he bellowed. “I didn’t choose to do anything.”
“Many people feel they have no choice.”
“My former best friend tried to fucking kill me, you condescending bitch.”
“Ash.” Spook rose to his feet again. “That is what happened,” he said to Dr. Noren.
She just sat with her hand flat over the top of the pen she’d been drumming with.
“Fuck this. I am not standing here and listening to this crow tell me I tried to top myself. I came here because I have an issue with my hand I’m trying to fix, but she seems to think that’s all in my head, or if it isn’t, it’s my own fault for being so stupid as to swallow that stuff. Our drummer tried to take out half the band that night. He’s banged up at the minute. If you were offering me counselling to deal with that, maybe I’d consider it, but no, you took one look at me and decided I downed a cocktail of drugs and alcohol for kicks. Un-fucking-believable!”
“I in no way implied—”
“Oh yes, you did, and your tone is still saying it. Poor little metal head. He screwed up, and now he’s just gonna have to fucking live with it.”
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.”
Yeah, of course she was. “You needn’t get your tights in a twist, I’m going. Thanks for wasting my time, bitch.”
He blew through the waiting room like a hurricane, leaving stunned faces and scores of floating papers in his wake, paying no heed to the security contingent, hers or his. Spook didn’t catch up with him until Ash was halfway across the car park.
“We shouldn’t have come. How dare she? How fucking dare she? I’m not frigging suicidal, and I didn’t spike myself.”
Despite him snapping about an inch from Spook’s face, his friend retained his neutral expression.
“Given you’ve a history of depression and addiction it’s not an unreasonable assumption.”
“I had a hard time letting go of some shit a quack prescribed me aeons back, that doesn’t automatically make me a junkie, or a suicide risk.”
“I know that, Ash. You don’t need to yell at me. It wasn’t the meds that you had trouble letting go of, they were merely a symptom of a different malaise.”
Connie. And he knew now that Iain had been behind that monumental cock-up in some way or another. Short of tracking down the girl, there was no way of determining exactly what he’d done. In any case, Ash didn’t want anything to do with her, and putting him anywhere near Iain Willows would not end well. He’d dearly like to plant an axe through his skull.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUUCCK!”
He kicked at the front tyre of the car he was passing, causing the intruder alarm to start wailing. Spook dragged him away from the BMW. “I think we’d better leave.”
He didn’t want to get in the car and sit screwed up with his resentment boiling away inside of him. He needed space to flail and rage. He wanted to throw punches until his knuckles split, and scream blue murder at random passers-by. Being restrained, nope, just nope.
“Ash.” Ginny’s voice cut through the cloud of his anger. Suddenly she was right in front of him, her hands raised towards his face. “Was it bad? What did they say?”
“I have brain damage,” he yelled at her.
“Oh my God!” The colour leeched from her pretty face. She grasped hold of one of his hands and squeezed it tight. “How bad? Did they say whether it was permanent?”
“There’s a fair chance he’ll recover, it could take time,” Spook told her, playing down the bad news. “Ash, get in the car. We need to leave here. Ginny…”
She was quick enough to obey, but Ash refused to be herded. This was big. It was huge. He needed time to digest it, and he was rattled too by the bitch and her assumptions. Everyone always looked at him as if he was some kind of no-hoper. Where they got off on those assumptions he didn’t know. He had more brains than most, and a double first to prove it. He’d had a successful career in an intensely competitive field and made more money than most of them would see in a lifetime. He knew he shouldn’t let other people’s opinions affect him, but he’d never been able to brush that shit off. He wasn’t like Xane, or Rock Giant, who didn’t give a rat’s arse about the norms. Nor was he like Spook, who rarely ever got rattled. Perceptions mattered to him. God help him, he knew he was an idiot for wanting it, but he craved public approval. He wanted people to like and respect him. Was it really such a big thing to want to be loved?
“Ash, let’s go.” Spook stood waiting by the open driver’s side door. “We can work this out.”
Sure, they could all sit around and discuss his faults, but not one of them could fix him. Not even Ginny could do that, though it was her grasp upon his hand that finally led him to climb into the car.
He didn’t speak the entire drive home. What the hell was there to even say? Everything in his world was fucked up, and sitting around talking about it and mindfully colouring wasn’t going to fix that, nor were jigsaws or Lego or finger walking exercises. He was broken, and the only way he was going to survive was if he figured out a way to adapt.
