“Okay.” He stared at the digits. “Does this mean you don’t hate me anymore?”
“Tug, it hurt that you tricked me, but I never hated you.”
“Then you might come to see me some other time?”
“Maybe.” I didn’t want to promise. “Where will you be going from here?”
His gaze stayed on his hands. “Dr. Franklin gave me the option of staying another couple of months, and I accepted. I don’t think I’m ready to go back out there yet.”
“Oh, I see.”
“When I do, I’ll have to find a job and a sober living situation. That’s going to be all I can handle for a while.”
“I think that’s wise. Are you planning to look around here?”
His lips twisted. “Actually, I need to go to a place on the coast called Santo Ignacio. I left there under a big ugly cloud, and I should fix what I did if I can.”
“What kind of cloud?”
“This is pretty embarrassing.” He rolled his eyes and recited the story as if he’d memorized the words. “I was in Santo Ignacio with this friend, and I stole his stuff because I was jealous. So I guess I need to go and pay back what I owe him, but it’s a lot, so it’s going to take a while.”
“Were you in a romantic relationship?” There were a lot of ways that could go badly.
“Nah. We never hooked up, but we relied on each other on the road for a while. I betrayed his trust, like… big time.”
“How come?”
He looked somewhere past me and blew out a thin blue stream of smoke. “I thought he was moving on. I took his stuff to make him sorry.”
“Must be tough, contemplating how to make that right.”
“Yeah. Well…” He took another deep drag. “I could apologize to everyone who ever met me, and it wouldn’t make a dent.”
I didn’t have the right words, so I let that lay there between us like a dead fish.
“Are we okay?” he asked. “I’m a mess, but I hope you know I meant what I said. I wish I hadn’t done what I did. And I owe you ten bucks.”
“I like sober Tug, even if he’s a little sad right now. You seem more like the kid I knew back in the day.”
His brows came together. “I am so not that kid anymore.”
“Yeah, you are. You just have new layers. Like an onion. Or an ogre.”
“I’m not a kid,” he argued. “Jesus. The shit I’ve done.”
I took hold of his sleeve and shook it a little. “This Tug feels more authentic than the one pouring Pixie Stix into his mouth at Denny’s. That’s all I mean.”
“Oh, Pixie Stix.” He sighed happily. “I love those.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He met my gaze as he stubbed out his cigarette. “Do I have to answer?”
“You can choose to answer or not. Pixie Stix made me think of the dentist. Are they catching you up on things you’ve missed? Have you had a physical and a teeth cleaning and—”
“Yeah, yeah. They took us into Sacramento for dental work. And I had a checkup. Physically, I’m in pretty good shape in spite of everything I’ve done. My bloodwork came back good. No STDs, no Hep C. I could hardly believe it. I still need a second set of tests for HIV to be sure.”
“That’s awesome news.”
“Hell yeah it is.” He gave a shove with his foot and the swing started rocking. “I do have PAWS, though, so… I dunno.”
“What’s that?”
“Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome. It’s a fancy acronym that means my brain is fucked up.”
I’d read about that. “How is it affecting you?”
“I can’t sleep. I can’t focus. I have major mood swings. Doc says it’s normal, and I’ll eventually get better. Right now, though, I’m on antidepressants, and I take trazodone to help me sleep. Trading one drug for another isn’t how I thought this would go, you know?”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “I guess I have to take them for now.”
I shifted so I was sitting on my foot and the other wouldn’t drag the swing to a stop. It turned my body toward his. He mirrored the position, except he pushed the swing with his free foot. It felt oddly cozy. It felt like we were friends, chatting at the end of the day.
“Are you glad you came here?” I asked.
“Glad? No.” He gave a sheepish grin. “Grateful? Maybe.”
“Have you contacted anyone in your family?”
“No. There’s no one but my dad and stepmom. I’m not calling them.”
“Have you considered finding your birth mother?”
“Never.” A look of pain crossed his features. “Not once.”
“I understand. I was just thinking—”
“No, actually, you don’t understand. You come from, like, a dollhouse family. You grew up in a fucking comic book store. You can’t possibly understand.”
“Tug—”
He mimed holding a phone. “Hi, Mom. I’m calling you from rehab. What’s been happening in your life for the last quarter century?”
I’d overstepped and badly. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“What’s up with me?” He seemed determined to play this out until the bitter end. “Well, I was blowing dudes in truck stops for cash to buy dope, but when that didn’t pan out, I just stole shit.”
“I said I was sorry.” He broke my heart. “You’re right. It was a crappy suggestion.”
He raked his hands through his hair, which was so long it covered his eyes. “Even I’m not that self-destructive.”
Rather than apologize again, I laid my hand over his.
He stared at our joined hands for a few breathless seconds, then turned his hand and laced our fingers together. “This okay?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t get a romantic vibe from him. The contact felt more like the simple human affection we’d shared in the motel when he was sick and seeking comfort. His tentative touch was like brushing up against by a half-dead feral cat. I doubted he had the bandwidth for anything more.
I put myself in his shoes—utterly alone and going through some pretty major life changes. A little handholding probably wasn’t a bad thing.
The squeak of the springs accompanied night sounds. Crickets, and a breeze rustling the leaves of the walnut trees. Overhead, a few stars battled the ambient light.
The half-full moon sat low on the horizon. Half-empty moon? Its surface flushed faintly orange, due to smoke from the fires to the west. The air carried residual heat from another scorching day.
One by one, cars left the farmhouse. In the distance, a couple of dogs barked their excitement over something.
“I should probably go.”
“Sure. I’ll see you out.” He let go of my hand. “Thank you for coming.”
I nodded. “I’m glad you invited me.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d actually make it.” He picked up his cigs, and we carried our cups and napkins inside. “Not until you got here.”
“I’ll keep in mind that you need to rebuild your trust muscles.”