Page 43 of Her Sloth

“I’m used to the abuse,” he says, jokingly.

I introduce her to the rest of the family.

“Be careful around those two,” I say, pointing at Illy and Joy. “They’re menaces with a kink for being watched.”

“Nothing like a good show,” says Addy, grinning devilishly.

I don’t know what I expected, but probably not that she is so open, jokes around, and is just so…likable.

“Ahmed and Blair,” I say. “Ahmed is Farid's brother, you know, the guard at the lot.”

Addy bumps fists with them both. I watch her converse and interact with them. She’s like a chameleon blending into her surroundings. Different with everyone, meeting them on their level without even knowing the person.

I’m not sure if I have ever seen anyone so emotionally intelligent as her. I’m for sure not.

We have a couple beers. She tells the story of how she got into the scene and her first race. How she crashed a quarter-million-dollar car in her first week, and ended up working for Luke because she wanted to make it up.

The others laugh and hang onto her lips because she is funny, jokes, and laughs with them, like a completely different person.

And it’s only then that I realize how much of a role she plays. There is nothing visible about the woman I know is in there. The one dreading every day and feeling like death itself.

“Addy,” I say after a while. “Come with me, I wanna show you something.”

I walk with her upstairs, get into my bedroom, and slip the window open. I climb outside onto the small tiles from the patio, while holding myself to the roof edge.

She sticks her head out.

“You need a hand?” I ask.

“Are you kidding?” she says, slips out of the windows, and follows me like she has done so a million times.

We climb up to the ridge, and sit there.

We sit there for a long time, staring into the night. She has her legs drawn up and her arms around them to keep the feet from slipping on the roof tiles.

“You don’t have to pretend with them,” I say after a while.

“I don’t know how not to,” she says. “It’s all I ever did.”

“Not with me,” I say silently, my gaze finding hers.

“Not with you,” she says and rests her head onto her knees, looking at me with those intense blue eyes, the hint of a smile on her face.

12

AUDREY

PLAYLIST: I FOUND – AMBER RUN

“Ishould get back,” I say as I let go of my legs after we sat here on the roof for endless moments, looking into each other’s eyes. This night should have gone differently. It should have ended without me. Now, I sit here with her. On a house with a family I am somehow part of.

Only I am not.

I don’t belong here.

I don’t belong anywhere.

She tells me not to pretend, but what else is there when you don’t belong anywhere?