I swallowed hard and looked around my familiar room. For the last few weeks it was a circus of horrors. Now it meant nothing to me at all.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately,” I told her honestly. “It’s time for me to leave. To move out. I’m fucking nearing spinsterhood anyway, it’s getting pretty sad that I’m still here.”
“No…don’t go,” she pleaded with those round blue spheres. Her plea was weak though and I knew she was on board with the idea.
“If I stay here, I’ll just get worse. How can I function being paranoid as hell at each turn? I couldn’t. I can’t live here, with her, worrying about the next time I fuck-up. I might be fine now, but am I ever really all there, especially now that I’m, what, a bloody telepath? This shit isn’t leaving me anytime soon and we both know it. I might not have a demon on my back but I can guarantee I’m not getting rid of my ghosts anytime soon.”
She grew quiet and squeezed my hand back, her eyes dropping to the bed. We sat in silence for a minute, both in our own heads. She gave me no indication that I was in hers.
Finally she pointed out, “But you don’t have a job. You don’t have any money. How are you going to move out?”
I let out a deep breath. “I don’t know. But I have to leave. And soon.”
“You could move in with Maximus,” she suggested innocently.
I shot her a dirty look. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
She threw up her hands in surrender. “OK, well before you bite my head off just hear me out.”
I didn’t want to but she continued on, “Look, we’re both not a fan of him. I know I wouldn’t mine shoving my curling iron up his ass and turning it to eleven, but aside from that, he did do you a favor today.”
I opened my mouth to protest but she shushed me. “And I know it was a weak favor and that most of this is his fault and that he never had your back and yadda yadda yadda and OK, I really hate him too. But I wouldn’t suggest going with him if I didn’t think it would be better than you staying here. Move in with him, get a job and move out.”
“No way,” I said, crossing my arms. “Not happening. Not ever fucking happening. And also, who the hell says he’d want me crashing his stupid apartment?”
She gave me a wry smile. “Perry, it’s pretty obvious he still has a hard-on for you.”
“Oh Ada,” I smacked her arm. “Don’t say things like ‘hard-on’ it grosses me out to hear it from you.”
“Fine,” she said, taking her arm away from me. “I guess you do have one other option.”
I had a queer tightening in my chest and could barely eke out the words, “What?”
She didn’t say anything. She fished her phone out of her pocket and started to text something.
“Ada!” I cried out. “What is the other option?”
She put the phone down and smiled at me. She gestured to my window with her head.
“It’s outside.”
My legs felt like they were encased in cement. I stared at her, bewildered, my mind racing on about something I both did and did not want to think about.
“Go on,” she said more urgently.
I slowly got off my bed and eased my way over to the window. My heart thumped hard against my chest and the blood filtered out of my head.
Outside, across the street, a black Highlander was running, its exhaust floating in the night.
“How the…” I said, barely find the words.
She got up and joined me by the window. “Maximus went to bail him out earlier. He’s still a twat, of course, but at least Dex isn’t jail any more. It’s not like the charges were going to stick anyway.”
I took my eyes off of the sight of Dex’s car, my heart awkwardly tumbling over itself at the thought of him outside, and looked at her incredulously.
“How did you know? Did you plan for this to happen?”
She grinned. “Remember that whole sometimes hearing your thoughts thing we were just trying out? I already knew you were thinking of making a run for it. Dex doesn’t know, I just told him to come here right after Maximus got out. I have a feeling though, let’s call it a hunch, that he’s got a hard,” she paused, catching my eyes flashing, “er, soft spot for you too.”
I didn’t know what to think about that. Looking out at Dex’s car, and the answer she had given me, all I did know is that my life was – yet again - about to change in an incredibly messy way.