“You don’t even know where the store is,” she chides.
“I’ll walk until I find one.”
She stands up and follows him to the door. In the corner of my eye, he kisses her softly and whispers something against her lips. She nods, a hand pressed against his heart, and when he leaves, she closes the door behind him.
When Ron sits down beside me, I open my mouth to tell her what really happened. But helplessness wells up inside my chest until I’m sure I’ll burst. I swallow tears, try again to form a sentence, and then break down crying.
She puts her arms around me and pulls me close, whispers soothingly, “Shhhhh, it’s okay, take as long as you need.”
I hate myself for getting blubbery when I should be warning her. But it’s going to be so hard.
“You’ve been through a lot. Just let it all out. It’s okay. Shhhh. Just let it all out.”
I suck in a few deep breaths. “W-will you bel-l-lieve me?”
She pulls back a little and looks into my face. “Of course I’ll believe you! Just tell me what happened!”
I clutch at her hand for a moment and force myself to calm down. She grabs a tissue from the box on the coffee table; I accept it and clean up my face. My stomach growls. “C-can I have some coffee?”
She helps me into the kitchen and sits me down at her cheap little table, in a rickety second-hand chair. I hear her playing with the coffee maker, programming with beeps and boops, pouring coffee grinds into a filter.
I open my mouth, but at that moment, she snaps her fingers. “I have a great idea!” She disappears into her bedroom for a moment, then returns with a glass pipe in one hand and a little cloth pouch in the other.
“Oh, come on, Ron,” I moan. “Haven’t you given me enough drugs in the past twenty-four hours?”
She sits down beside me at the table and begins packing the pipe with a bit of dried bud from the box. “It’ll calm you down and help you focus. Some nights since this started, I need a hit before bed or I get these really weird nightmares.”
“I have to go to work.” I pause, thinking back over what I just said, and let out a weak little laugh. “I think I still have to work.”
Ron takes the first hit to ‘prime the bowl’, which she insists is a thing, and then passes it to me. I hesitate, but it’d be nice to take the edge off, and right now, I have even more edges than usual. Besides, smoking weed together is the first normal thing she’s offered; up until she disappeared, it was our regular indulgence, usually before going to the movies or after a hard day’s work.
I take a small hit and quickly pass it back to her. She takes a puff and starts to get up. Panicking, I mumble, “I really need to talk to you.”
Her eyes light up, and she sits back down. “Go ahead. I want to hear about what happened.”
I look to the front door as if to make sure we’re really alone.
“It was Tedrin who broke my neck,” I whisper, still looking at the door.
Silence.
I suck in a deep breath and look down at my hands, which are tied in a limp knot in my lap. “He told me I’d find a harmless herbivore, maybe even a baby. I got there and found the spider waiting. It was his pet. Then he showed up and said he wanted it to kill me. Then he smashed up my face and broke my neck and left me for dead.”
Smoking really was an excellent idea. The words scroll past as if I were reading her these events from a movie summary. Too late, I wonder if my deadpan, disconnected tone will make it sound like I’m lying.
“The only reason he infected me was because I had refused him, and for some reason he has this obsession with putting me through what he’s suffered. And because he wanted you to like him. I don’t know whether he finds you useful or respects you or maybe even loves you, I have no idea. But to him, I’m a pawn. He’ll be friendly or make me miserable or even kill me, all according to whatever inner algebra he’s doing.”
I finally look up, and find that Ron’s mouth is hanging open a little, revealing a sliver of her front teeth. She stares at me as uncomprehendingly as if I’ve been speaking fluent Cantonese.
“So,” I finish, “I really don’t appreciate your ‘Tedrin saved your life and is your new best friend’ preaching. In order to save my own life, I now intend to kill him.” Which is news to me as much as it is to her, but the moment the words are out of my mouth, they make sense.
Her mouth shuts, and she blinks a few times. “Uh.” She glances sideways, into the living room, and grins. “Is this a prank?”
I sit with hands folded in my lap and stare into her eyes.
“Come on. He’s still here, isn’t he? You two arranged this.” She laughs shakily, not looking at me. “This is absurd.”
“He’s not what he seems. If you would actually listen to me—”
Her hand slams down onto the table so hard that I jump, and my heart starts to pound. “No, you listen to me!” she screams in my face. “I finally, finally meet someone kind, and strong, and respectful, and fun, who can give me what I’ve always wanted for free, and can give me a way to save the world, and he accepts me!”
“You already,” I clear my throat, “You already have friends who accept you.”
“He accepts me a hell of a lot more than you do!”
“I have never said a word—”
“Oh, yes, you have.” She gets up out of her chair and starts angrily pouring us two mugs of coffee, heavy on the milk for hers. “You say little things, and you give me these looks, and I can tell you don’t approve.”
Now I’m out of my seat, too. “I’ve supported you since the day I met you! I have never said one word—”
“Except joking about all my boyfriends and pushing my buttons and criticizing every little thing that I do, but you like it!” She slams her mug down on the table so hard, a good portion of the coffee slops out and forms a puddle. “You like having that one really worthless friend so you can feel superior! You like having a freak for a friend so you can feel perfect!”
I stare at her, jaw working, and then burst out, “How did we go from me being attacked to you being Little Miss Picked-On?”
“Because you’re still trying to make this about Tedrin! He was with me last night! We talked for a really long time, an-an-and we were getting really close, and I tried to text you, you know, ‘should I tell him’, and I already knew you’d say ‘no’ but I wanted to hear from you! But you didn’t text back and didn’t answer my calls, and I got so worried, and he says, ‘well I may have mentioned an infested area to her’ and I knew you’d gone out alone! With your stupid shotgun that doesn’t even fire!”
“IT WAS EMPTY!” I scream across the kitchen at her.
“And we split up, and I was searching frantically for you, and I found your car—” She abruptly starts crying, looking away from me and sucking in deep breaths and blinking a lot. “And I got so scared, and I went to look, and I found that thing dragging you, and you weren’t breathing, an-an-and I thought you were deeeeeeeeaaaaaad!” The last word comes out as a sobbing moan, and she sinks into a chair.
As I sit back down and stare at her, too angry to offer a comforting hand, I finally realize how this must all look from her side. Not that my story is utterly ridiculous; no, Tedrin’s acted strangely enough that him attacking me shouldn’t be completely outside the realm of possibility. But she’s put up a wall of denial so thick, I can’t hope to breach it.
I listen to her cry for a minute, and then lean forward and put a hand on her shoulder. “You and me can get through this,” I manage.
She sits up, wiping her face, and gives me a bitter look until I withdraw my hand. “I get it, you guys didn’t hit it off. And you didn’t want the needles, I get that, too. But I can’t keep living my life around your opinions. Tedrin is helping me become a person who can live life my way.” She grasps my hand. “Can you understand that?”
I stare at her for an uncomfortably long time, and then whisper, “So, you told him?”
Sh
e stares down at our laced fingers. “I showed him.”
“And . . . ?”
Ron presses her lips together for a moment, and then the corners of her mouth turn up a tiny bit. “I think it excited him.”
In my head, there’s a room with four and twenty whiteboards, all in a row. Scribbled in the corner of one:
Tedrin → Ron (possible motivations)
wants for a pawn
will use for sex
twu wuv
I think for a moment, then make some changes.
wants for a pawn
will use for sex
twu wuv?
In a completely separate part of my brain, a porno soundtrack blares as an IMAX screen graphically depicts Tedrin going at it under the covers with my best friend. I begin dousing that section with gasoline.
“Let me ask you,” I whisper. “Whom do you trust more: The best friend who has supported you since we were teenagers, or the guy who has been unconditionally affectionate toward you for the entire week you’ve known him?”
She shakes her head at the wall. “We’re not still having that conversation. Look, it just doesn’t make sense. Why would he do something like that, and then bring you back so you could tell me?”
“Maybe he knew you wouldn’t believe me. Maybe he didn’t plan on bringing me back, but changed his mind because you were upset. Maybe he had some kind of psychotic break and hasn’t yet figured out a way to cover it up.”
She scoffs. “Then why would he stick around?”
“He seemed pretty keen to run off to the grocery store.”
She gives me a withering look. “I’m not buying it.”
I heave a sigh, pull my hand from her grip, and stand up, move to the window. I want to make sure no one is digging through my back seat for free ammo—
My car is still in its spot, and Tedrin is sitting on the trunk, playing with his phone. There’s a grocery bag beside him. But Ron and I have only been talking fifteen minutes at most. How the hell— Note to self: Superpowers carry over to grocery shopping. This torturous immortality might not be so bad, after all.
“I think I’m gonna go,” I whisper. “I need to think.”
“A few minutes ago, you tried to . . . you know.”
“If Tedrin was telling the truth, then even if I make another attempt, I’ll be fine.” I bite my lip, then fish in my pockets for my keys. “And I don’t think I’ll make another attempt, anyway. I just have a lot to think about. I’ll call in sick to work.”
She gets up and moves to my side, puts a hand on my shoulder. “You sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll text you.” I turn to face her.
Ron wraps her arms around me. “Promise me you won’t get yourself hurt again.”
I return the hug as tightly as I can. “Hey, shut up, it’s my job to worry about you.”
She snickers and pulls away. “I love you.”
“You, too.”
She turns to her spilled coffee, and I hurry out the door.
I head downstairs — halfway down, I remember my bloodied shirt and have to resist the desire to turn back and borrow one from Ron. If anybody asks, I’m doing a zombie cosplay or whatever people in this neighborhood would find plausible.
When I come around the side of my car and reach Tedrin sitting on the trunk, I’m shocked to find him smoking a cigarette. He glances my way, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, hey. I figured I’d give the two of you some extra time. I heard yelling.”
Rage burns in the back of my throat. “You are an overflowing sack of shit.”
He quirks his head confusedly.
“Don’t try to gaslight me, you asshole.” I point a finger in his face. “Were you betting on her not believing me, or do you just like fucking with people? Or did you think I’d forget what you did to me last night?”
His confusion slowly clears, and he looks contemplatively at his cigarette. “Yes, actually.”
I blink, momentarily losing track of the tirade I was preparing.
He takes a long drag, watching me, then exhales smoke. “Honestly? I thought the resurrection process would screw up your mind and you wouldn’t remember what happened. There goes a theory I had about this . . . ‘infection’, or whatever it is.”
I’m officially jarred out of my anger. “You really thought I’d forget?”
He ashes his cigarette. “I’m working on a guidebook, What to Expect From Your Horrifying Alien Symbiote.” He taps a fingertip to his temple. “As you can tell, I haven’t been the most stable guy since I transformed, and Veronica had some memory issues when she first resurrected. But if you’re still clear-headed—”
“Clear as crystal, you fuck.”
“. . . then it looks like I need to rewrite a chapter.”
I stare at him for a moment, then suck in a deep breath. “What else have you learned so far?”
He makes a generous, expansive gesture. “What would you like to know?”
I brace my hands on the edge of the trunk, haul myself up, and settle down next to him. “Does nicotine still affect you?” I ask, indicating his cigarette.
He nods, smirking. “They’ll kill me, I’m sure, but they calm me down.” He proffers the pack, but I paid attention in health class, and silently decline. Besides, I’m still slightly high, and don’t want to add that dizzy nicotine feeling into the mix. “I smoked a bowl with Veronica a few days ago,” he adds. “Physical effects are diminished, but the mental effects are . . . interesting.”
We sit for a minute, him smoking, and we stare out over the parking lot at the pathetic copse of dying trees across the street.
“You tried to kill yourself?” I whisper.
“‘Tried’, there’s a funny word.”
When I look up at him, his eyes are squinted against the sunlight, and he’s staring into the middle distance.
“I didn’t have what you and Veronica have,” he murmurs. “I had no one to turn to. I was alone and in pain and didn’t know what was happening to me. I thought I might die, or become a zombie, or, worse, just keep going like that. Like this.”
I look at the ground.
“So I tried.” He holds up his forearms. “I used to have marks on my wrists, like I had slit them. But it’s impossible to bleed out. I’ve . . . more recently tried to hang myself, but the needles pushed open my throat enough to keep me breathing, and then,” he brushes the underside of his neck with a fingertip, “they formed a sharp ridge that cut through the rope.”
And despite myself and all my hatred, I can see him all alone, without friend or home or explanation for the agony building in his intestines — tying a noose for himself. I resent the sympathy that wells in my chest.
“I don’t even know how I got a gun. I don’t know what was going through my head; I can only speculate. But it was only after . . . that I started to understand.” He stares down at his cigarette, then stubs it out on the sole of his shoe. “We are going to be like this for the rest of our lives, and I have no idea how long that’s going to be.” He smiles at me. “I promised I would tell you how to kill me, but I guess in the end, nothing can.”
“What about fire?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I haven’t tried full-on self-immolation, but I lost some skin when the convenience store went up, and it grew back.”
“So if we stuck you in a furnace, you think enough cells would survive to rebuild your entire body?”
“I’m willing to bet.”
I taste ashes. “That’s alright. Makes my job easier.”
“Oh? You’ve decided to join us?”
I shake my head, still watching those trees. “I’m gonna find a way to kill you.”
He stares at me, and his smile fades. “Don’t be this way.”
“You made me this way. My body isn’t completely taken over by needles yet, so you might still have more strength and speed, but you’ve placed me on the game board, and that was a mistake. No, wait, that’s not right. You made a mistake when you involved Ron,
but you signed your death warrant when you involved me."
He absorbs that, then shakes his head sadly. “I’ve decided to live. If you come after me, I will fight back. Wouldn’t it be better if the three of us worked together and supported each other?”
He stares at me, and I stare at the trees.
“You know what the worst part is?” I whisper. “If you hadn’t come to the church, if you’d let the spider finish me off, if you hadn’t jumped the gun and rushed in to gloat, if you hadn’t revealed what a sick monster you are . . . I would have bought it as much as Ron has. I’d have come through all this thinking you were a smug asshole on the surface but a nice guy underneath.” I shudder a little. “I guess I should thank you for not letting me live in a fantasy world like Ron.”
“Do you want me to tell you why I’ve acted this way?”
I want nothing more in the entire world, but in the end, he probably can’t give an answer that would satisfy either of us. Come to think of it, he probably can’t provide any useful information about the infection — at least, not without potentially coating it in bullshit — that I can’t quickly discover on my own.
So I shake my head and step down onto the asphalt. “Get off my car.” I don’t wait to see if he obeys; I head to the driver door, slide in, and start the engine.
Tedrin appears at the passenger window, grocery bag in hand. He leans down and starts to say something.
I throw the engine into reverse, look into the rear view mirror, and back out abruptly. I hope I’ve run over Tedrin’s foot.
He doesn’t call out or chase after me; he just lets me drive away.
While waiting at a stoplight, I twist around and look into the back seat. My gun is still there on the floor. It occurs to me that Tedrin returned it to the car after my suicide attempt and didn’t attempt to take it after I swore my blood oath. Maybe it didn’t occur to him, or maybe he was still holding out hope that I would decide to play nice, or maybe guns don’t scare him—
I groan and rest my forehead against the steering wheel. I’m so mentally exhausted, even overthinking is a strain. Here I am, alone, with some kind of parasite nesting inside my nervous system, and I have no idea what the rest of the day will look like. It bugs me that it’s 9:09 AM on a Monday and I’m not at work.
Eden Green Page 7
