Page 23 of Sublimate
“Thank you for calling me,” he said to Cadence. She blushed bright red and tried to twist a curl that was already straight.
“You don’t have to do this,” I told him, but he shrugged.
“I don’t think you have another good option.”
And he was right. I felt achy and sore and also like I was going to cry, but it wasn’t due to the pain. They were being so nice! So I got in—actually, he had to lift me in. I wasn’t very tall and I was very stiff, so it was too hard to climb. I thanked Cadence and apologized to her, and then I did the same to him when we were turning out of the hospital drive.
“Thank you, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I repeated. “You won’t have to lift me like that again.”
“How quickly do you think you can heal? I’m going to help you out when we get to my house, too.”
“But I’ll get better fast,” I promised. “I’ll be gone from your life in no time, just like you thought I would be before. You gave me so much money and I’m sorry that it’s gone. I’m going to try to pay you back, even if you said I didn’t have to.”
He didn’t acknowledge that. “Where’s your car?” he asked me.
“It must be in that parking lot where everything happened,” I said. “Oh, no, I have to go get it! But I don’t know where my keys are.”
“The hospital put your belongings in that.” He glanced toward the back seat, where Cadence had placed a plastic bag. “Where are your clothes?”
They had been bloody and I was currently wearing borrowed items. I wouldn’t have many other options for the future, either. “Kolter burned almost everything I owned,” I answered. “He nearly let the fire spread into the woods, too. I had put what wasleft in my car and it would suck if someone stole it, because I had saved my bowl and my scale.”
“A drug scale?”
“No, I was going to use it for flour,” I corrected him. I closed my eyes, just for a second.
“I don’t think they should have let you out of the hospital so soon,” he said. “You’re barely keeping it together.”
“I’m ok,” I disagreed. “You won’t have to take care of me or even acknowledge that I’m there. No, you know what? I’ll help out around the house. I’ll clean it from top to bottom.” We went over a bump and I gasped in pain. “I can do that tomorrow,” I amended. “Tonight, I’ll make dinner. Is it dinner time?”
“Are you hungry?” Nolan asked.
“No, but I’ll make something for you. I was thinking that you needed to put on weight but you’re different from the last time we were together.” He still wasn’t exactly robust, but who was I to criticize? I was the woman who looked like she’d been hit by a truck and maybe the pain meds were wearing off because I was feeling a lot more like that, too.
“I’m trying to make good choices,” he told me. “I still haven’t had a drink.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “I’ve been wishing good things for you and hoping that you were ok.”
“You could have gotten in touch.”
“No, I couldn’t.” After Kolter had found out about me going to the burger restaurant, things had been bad. He had hurt me alot and for a while, I hadn’t been able to get off the couch. Then, when I could, I had been very ashamed of what had happened. “I was so sorry about losing your money,” I explained.
“Vivi, I’m going to be honest. That was nothing to me. It was just what I happened to be carrying that day and I’ve felt like shit about it ever since.”
“Why?” I asked. “It was so nice of you!”
“It was nothing,” he repeated. “I’ve spent more in one night at a bar. Much more. You wanted to start a new life and I handed over my pocket change and sent you on your way.”
“Why would you have to help me? But you did anyway, more than anybody else ever has in my whole life. And I’m glad it was only pocket change to you because Kolter and his mom took it and went to the casino. They lost everything. Then he was even angrier.” I sighed, and very carefully leaned back against the seat. It had been a long couple of weeks, dealing with all that crapola.
“And he followed you to a parking lot last night, and he got mad again,” Nolan continued the story.
“No. It wasn’t him,” I said flatly. “He couldn’t have done this because he’s currently incarcerated, as of three days ago. He got fired from a job last winter because he grabbed one of his coworkers and it’s been an ongoing problem. I guess he went to her house to try to convince her that she should stop cooperating with the police.”
“What were his methods?”
I remembered what he had told me. “I didn’t do shit! I was only trying to talk to her and then her fucking husband came to the door and disrespected me. That was why I threw the rock through their window.”
I fought back the urge to yawn because it would have hurt my jaw and ribs too much. “He was terrible,” I told Nolan. “The police came over to find him so I sent them to his mom’s, and he got in a fight with them. He had a few warrants for other stuff, too, and it all added up to a high bail number. His mom sold her truck to raise the money but it wasn’t enough. Now she doesn’t have anything to drive and he’s still locked up.”
