Page 122 of A Dead Man's B-Side
“Paris!” I went to pound my fist again when it fell on empty space, the girl in question swinging her door open with a mean glare. I didn’t acknowledge it as I stepped inside. “Callum knows.”
“What are you going on about, Alexandr?” She hissed and closed her door, looking almost as paranoid as I.
“I said–” Except tremors weren't racking through my muscles, and my eyes weren’t dilated and red as hers were.
Did she say Alexandr?
“Paris… Why do you look like that?”
My voice came out suspicious and rough, which only seemed to pull a knot tighter around her nerves. “I look particularly fine!”
I paused, eyeing her from head to toe, from the sweaty sheen glossing her skin to her tangled hair.
If there was at least one thing I knew about Paris, it was that she didn’t relax, even in the comfort of her dorm. Her loungewear was fancier than a middle-class woman’s fanciest gown.
It wasn’t that late that she’d be preparing for bed so–
I looked around the room, finding it almost as I’d seen it the last time.
Almost.
The anxious tug on my gut I’d been trying to ignore on my way here seemed to depart on its own, as something new took its place.
The small bag on her nightstand filled with a white powder clued me in on the rest of what I felt I was missing.
Chapter Twenty-one
Alexandr Miroslav
1982
“Paris…”
Her eyes seemed to follow mine, because she jolted into motion towards it, plucking up the little bag, and hiding it away in the first drawer she could find.
Her steps were unbalanced, and her movements were choppy, as if her limbs would bump together and send her tumbling at any moment.
“It’s just goddamned–something to perk me up, Sasha. Ever heard of that?” Her words were harsh and spoken as if she were trying to spit out daggers.
“I…” Today seemed to be a stroll down memory lane, because watching Paris lose herself, lose that whetted charm that made herParis,was like watching my mother. Only now, I've come to realize that no matter how much older I get, the same sense of uselessness ghosts the edges of my mind. I spoke carefully, “I think I should call–”
“No!” Her voice was louder than what she probably intended. “No! You’re not calling anyone. God, why are you like this? You can’t just waltz in here and do as you please. I’m sick of this attitude of yours, Alexandr, its-its so–oh God, must you always be this-this-thispest? Showing up when you’re not wanted?”
Her words were coming out tangled and tumbling over each other.
I shook my head and approached slowly, as if she were a wounded animal, not allowing her words to hurt me. Simply because… they weren’t her words. I knew well enough what these drugs forced out of one's mouth. “This is the drugs talking. You don’t mean that–”
“Yes, I do! I-I do, and you know what? You and-and everyone can slit their wrists if they wish because this is who I am.” She spread her arms wide as manic pride filled her eyes. “Yes, exactly, this is who. I. Am.”
She slapped her palm against her chest and choked on her heavy breath.
I barreled on as if she didn’t say a word. “You relapsed, Paris. And that’s okay. It’s okay to take a couple of steps back before continuing forward. I just want to help.”
She gripped the strands at her scalp, pulling on her hair, and groaned. I followed her with a cautious eye as she marched, swaying more like, around the room to find something. “You shut up. Just shut up. Shut up.”
She began chanting the words, her layers of jewelry clinking around her wrists and neck as she moved. The tattered t-shirt she was wearing and silk lounge pants, a fitting statement of the two Paris’ I’ve now come to know, rumpled further with each of her steps.
She’d made it as far as just under the threshold of the bathroom before her legs gave out, and the weight she couldn’t carry further pulled her down.
