CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

PREPPY

“Did we fuck?” I asked Dre who dropped a fork. I knew we didn’t but I loved getting a reaction out of her. “I mean I don’t think we did. But I woke up naked on the porch. Wasn’t the first time I’ve slept outside, but I don’t remember actually going out there.”

“No we didn’t fuck,” Dre said. My dick twitched when she said FUCK and I made a note to make her swear more at me from now on because it was the first sign that my cock wasn’t useless after all. “I think you were sleepwalking.” She was irritated which made me believe that me naked on the porch was more than a simple case of sleepwalking.

“You have to be nice to me, Doc,” I said, scraping a chair against the tile as I pulled it out from the table. I pulled the other one out as well. I sat on one, propping my legs up on the other, crossing my feet at the ankles. I opened her laptop and pulled up the page she had bookmarked and pointed to it. “I have post pardum depression.”

Dre snorted through a burst of laughter, wrinkling her nose. I’m instantly hit with an ache to my balls but it’s not an ache I mind. Not at all. Actually it’s the first even remotely pleasurable sensation in that region of my body I’d had since I came back from the brink. “Um...Preppy?” she asked, not waiting for me to answer. “Postpartum depression is what happens to some women after...after having babies. What I think you mean is something called post traumatic stress disorder.”

I waved her off. “Listen just because I call you Doc doesn’t mean you’re a medical expert,” I said, eliciting another small burst of laughter as she rolled and uncovered a ball of dough that had been rising in a bowl on the counter. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what the fuck it’s called, what matters is that I have it, so what I’m saying is that I’ll need to be taken care of. WELL taken care of. Mmmmmmkay?” I asked and when she flashed me a ‘what the fuck ever’ look I stuck out my lower lip in an exaggerated and what I could only imagine was a very pathetic looking pout.

“Oh yeah? Is that so?” Dre asked, turning around with one hand on her jutted out hip, one perfectly arched eyebrow craning upward toward her hairline, and her deep red fuckable lips quirked to the side. “And what kind of HELP is it that you’re in so much desperate need of?”

I opened my mouth to say my usual something sarcastic but at the last second I cleared my throat and even I didn’t expect what poured from my lips. My voice was much lower and raspier than a moment before. An almost-whisper. “All of it. I need all of the help.” There was no trace of any kind of humor in my words. What was I even trying to tell her?

Dre seemed to be mulling over what I’d just said. Her lips flattening into a straight line. She looked over the sink through the window into the neglected back yard. The sun shifted out from behind a cloud and her face brightened instantly, illuminated by the early morning rays. She paused there for what seemed like a motherfucking eternity, closing her eyes and soaking up the warm light.

The clock above the stove ticked louder and louder as it announced each passing second until it turned into tick-ticking insanity pounding within my ear drums. TICK-TOCK TICK-TOCK.

Finally, Dre broke through my impatience when she turned to me again and wiped her flowery hands on her apron. Her lips turned upward in a bright white, full-toothed smile that covered her entire face. My heart sped up like it had been hit with electric paddles, so much so it skipped a beat and I coughed into the crook of my elbow. “Okay, then.”

“Okay then...what?” I asked, casually looking down at my hands and turning them over as if I was inspecting my own tattoos.

“Okay then if you need help, I’ll give it to you.” She paused and I hadn’t realized she’d crossed the kitchen until I looked up from my hands and found her standing over me, so close her knee was pressed against my thigh. I craned my neck to look up at her face. “But my help is conditional.”

“What kind of conditions?” I asked, she stepped away.

“Why are you pushing me away, Doc?” I asked, hating the feeling of space between us.

She turned suddenly, her face serious. “Because you hurt me! Because you fucking destroyed me! Because when you pushed me away last time I might as well have died with you. And I went to rehab and school and there were a million times when I wanted to call you and talk to you and tell you about my day and I couldn’t because you decided that we shouldn’t be together. YOU. Not us, YOU. Then you fucking died on me and I fucking hated you for it. All of it!”

“You’re mad at me because...I died?”

“Yes, and because you never knew the truth. There are so many things you need to know that I never told you.”

“So tell me, Doc,” I said. She shook her head.

“Please, everyone else spares me from the truth because they’re afraid I’ll fall apart. That’s what’s driving me more crazy than any of the other shit. Just tell me the fucking truth!”

“You might hate me.”

“I might.”

“Okay,” she agreed, with a small nod. She straightened her spine. “Then come on,” she said, checking the clock on the stove. “We have time to make it.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, confused why this conversation needed a field trip.

“To the truth.”

DRE

“So that’s how this all works?” Preppy asked, pointing to the man at the podium. “You just get up there and tell a shit load of strangers about all your fuck ups?”

My lips curved up into a smile at Preppy’s choice of wording. “Pretty much, it’s supposed to unburden the soul and remind you that you’re not alone. You should try it sometime. It’s very freeing.” I scrunched my nose in thought. “Well, not right away, but eventually it feels very freeing,” I amended. “Sometimes.”

“Yeah, I get all that, but who the fuck has that much time?” I swatted him with the pamphlet they’d given me on the way in which is what I assume they give out at most of the NA meetings. A schedule of meetings and a list of people you can call if you feel like using again.

“Why are you all the way back here?” Preppy asked in a loud whisper, scooting closer to me in the pew. “Isn’t the meeting in the front where all those other people are?”