Page 86 of Dirty Like Zane
Like waking up in the hospital with a broken collarbone and a concussion and stitches in my head because I’d fallen off a fuckingbalcony.
Like waking up in a jail cell because I’d wrapped my rental car around a pole and by some miracle hadn’t killed anyone, including the girl who’d been in the passenger seat, whose name I didn’t remember. Was she blonde? Brunette? Tall? Short? I didn’t even fuckingknow.
That kind ofshit.
The kind of shit that had finally scared me enough to realize I had a serious problem, and get my ass intorehab.
The kind of shit I never wanted to pullagain.
Someone came down the stairs next to me and stopped. I didn’t look up, but I saw his snakeskinboots.
Seth.
He sat down next me and looked at me for a long-ass minute. “You hangingin?”
“Nope.”
“You gonnadrink?”
“Don’tknow.”
The words just fell out, and it was a fuckingrelief.
It was the first time anyone had outright asked me, in a long fucking time, if I was gonnadrink.
It was also the first time in a long time I’d actually admitted aloud to another human being, besides Rudy or a roomful of random alcoholic strangers at an AA meeting, that I had the urge to drink and I didn’t even know if I’d be able to overcomeit.
I’d had this urge, many, many times over the past seven years. The entire time I’d beensober.
But not many people really knewthat.
Not many people in my life really understood. Most everyone around me thought I was “cured” or something. I was a rehabilitated alcoholic, anondrinker.
My friends who drank socially, who enjoyed the pleasure of drinking without having it rule and ruin their lives, just assumed I was done with it. That I could sit in a bar full of people drinking around me, or in the middle of some party backstage, or alone in a hotel room, and I didn’t need it. I didn’t crave it. Because I was over it, it was out of my system, I wasstrong.
Or some suchshit.
But those people werewrong.
The only reason I was able to resist picking up a bottle at all was because I’d gone through the torture of detox, of physically getting the alcohol out of my body—so I could think straight enough to stop myself from taking the next sip, by whatever means necessary. So that I was no longer driven and controlled by the physicalneed.
I’d been physically off of alcohol for years now. But the whole mental, emotional part was the part that still neededwork.
Obviously.
Seth said nothing. He got to his feet, and I didn’t blame him. He probably didn’t want to watch me destroy myself any more than I wanted him to. He definitely didn’t want me dragging him down withme.
“I come back in five minutes,” he said slowly, “and you’re still here and still dry, we’re going for a drive.” Then he headed back up thestairs.
* * *
Seth was backin five minutes, maybe faster. I was still here, I was still dry, and he had the key for Jude’s rentalcar.
I told Shady to stay behind. He didn’t like it, because Jude wouldn’t like it, but hestayed.
I got in without asking Seth where we were going, and he didn’t tell me. He justdrove.
He drove until the lights of Las Vegas were behind us, until every sign of civilization other than the road was behind us… way out into the desert. Until I zoned out to the song that was playing on the radio and completely lost track of where wewere.
