He looked down at me as we walked over to the car, adjusting his pack on his shoulder. “I could never get along with the nurses. Don’t know why.”

I shook my head. We got back in the car and headed back into the city and civilization, leaving the looming building with its layers of secrets behind us.

For now.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Perry? Kiddo, you awake?”

Dex’s voice entered my dreams and a light knock at the door brought my eyes open. I was on my back, in bed, in the small, dark den, trying to recall the fragments of the dream I just had. Jacob was in it, again. Jacob and Dr. Freedman.

“Perry?”

The door knob turned and Dex entered the room, covering his eyes with one hand, harsh daylight splaying inside. “Hey, sleepyhead, are you decent?”

I groaned and rolled over. I was decent but all I wanted to do was keep on sleeping.

With a click the lights came on and I heard the door close behind him. He came over and sat in his chair at the desk. I turned my head away from the pillow and blinked blindly up at him. He was wearing camouflage cargo pants and a white T-shirt that was on the tight side. This wasn’t a bad thing. I could see every curve and sinew of his upper body. The fleur-de-lis peeked out noticeably from under his sleeve.

His face looked good. Curious and amused at the fact I was still in bed. He was clean-shaven, highlighting his high, sharp cheekbones and that olive coloring the doctor mentioned last night, and his moustache was almost faded out of existence. His eyes looked bright and not as broody as usual. Not crazed either. Interesting.

I had a reason for inspecting him like this. A terrible reason, but a reason nonetheless. After we had gotten in last night, I put my plan into action. Once he took Fat Rabbit out for his last walk, I quickly dumped out the contents of two of his prescription pills and refilled them with the Valium and placebo pills. I hid his actual medication in the very bottom of my duffel bag and placed the pill bottles back in the hollowed-out book like nothing had happened.

When Dex came back from the walk, he came in the room, we chatted a bit about the mental hospital footage and watched some of the interview we did with Doctor Hasselback. Then he took his pills with a glass of water. I watched him do this, trying not to be intrusive or overly interested, but it was hard. I didn’t know if he’d notice the pills were different. What if they didn’t feel the same way going down? What if they tasted strange?

But Dex didn’t seem to think anything was off. We said our goodnights and that was it. He left the room and I went to sleep.

Now, though, he was sitting in front of me and looking more or less fine, even though the night had passed and the medicine was coursing around in his system.

I know it’s totally wrong to play around with someone’s medication. I know that. Don’t judge me. At least, don’t judge me much. But I needed to know what would happen if Dex wasn’t on his meds. Sure he was still on some – I had only switched half – and Valium was no picnic either, but I needed to see why he was on them. When we were in Red Fox, he had forgotten his medication and had gone the entire weekend without any. There were some side effects, but he had professed to me how much different, almost better, he felt without them. Yet, for some reason he was back on medication again, and this time a whole lot more. It made no sense to me and I knew I’d never get any straight answers out of Dex. I was just planning to do this for a few days, then put his real pills back in before I left. My own little experiment.

I guess I was staring at him a tad suspiciously because he furrowed his brows and asked, “What? Something on my face?”

I smiled quickly, trying to bury the guilt deep down and said, “Just your nose.”

He rubbed it vigorously. “This old thing? Anyway, time to get up, lazybones.”

I sat up slowly and looked around. It was hard to tell the time in this room with no window. “What time is it?”

“Eleven,” he said.

“Eleven!” I exclaimed and sat up straighter. “I have a lunch date, don’t I?”

It was Wednesday. Time was flying and I was supposed to go out with Wine Babe Rebecca for lunch.

“Yes you do. And I need to start working through the rest of the footage we shot last night. And you’re kind of in my office.”

I grunted and got out of bed, but not before making sure I was wearing pajama pants underneath. “Why did you let me sleep in so long?”

“Because you needed it after last night. I needed it too. I only got up an hour ago and that’s because the Rabbit was licking my face, threatening to piss all over me.”

I gathered up my clothes for the day and my toiletries bag and hurried to the bathroom to take a shower and get ready. The apartment was empty and cold and Fat Rabbit was spread out on the couch like a floppy doll and snoring loudly. The skies outside the windows were grey, wet and wild as the Monorail rumbled past the balcony.

I had barely gotten ready when Dex pounded on the bathroom door to tell me Rebecca was already waiting outside. I had wanted to look nice today – there was something about Rebecca that had me nervous and wanting to look just as put together as she did – and it took a lot of extra time to blow dry my thick hair straight (even though I used Jenn’s super-powered dryer that nearly flattened me against the wall) and put on more makeup than usual.

I opened the door and Dex was right outside, waiting. He gave me a surprised once over.

“Whoa, who are you trying to impress?” he asked with a smirk. “This isn’t a date, you know.”

I rolled my eyes and hurried into the den, throwing my pajamas on the floor and shoving my boots over my leggings. “I just like to keep you on your toes.”

“Well, you do that, all right. One minute the ‘who gives a shit’ rock and roll tomboy, the next you’re all pretty and girly and stuff.”

I quickly laced up the boots and straightened up, flipping my hair back over my shoulders. I put my hands on my hips. “And which one do you like better?”

“I like all of you,” he said. He smiled, closed-mouthed and strangely sad. I blushed and quickly pushed past him through the doorway.

“I’ll text you when I’m coming back,” I called over my shoulder as I made my way to the door. Fat Rabbit noticed I was on the way out, flipped right up, and scampered over to me. I shooed him away with my foot.

“Oh wait!” Dex exclaimed and scooted over, digging into his back pocket. He pulled out his wallet and handed me a fifty-dollar bill.

“Are you paying for my lunch?” I took it from him, confused.

He nodded at it as he stuck his wallet back in his pocket. “Just give that to Rebecca. She’ll know what it’s for. K, kiddo?”

I frowned at him as a way of saying goodbye and left the apartment.

Once I reached the lobby and saw how wet it was outside, I thought about going back upstairs to get an umbrella but I could already see Rebecca’s hazy form through the fogged up doors, sitting in a running hatchback parked at the curb.

I stepped outside, not giving myself enough time to get nervous about my lunch date with one of Dex’s friends (and a Wine Babe, let’s not forget) and quickly opened the door to the car as the rain poured down on my newly straightened hair.

“Hi!” I said, waving at her.

I stepped in the car and shut the door, which shut in the inevitable awkwardness with us.

I turned in my seat to look at her and was met with a giant puff of pot smoke.

I coughed, my lungs seizing from something they hadn’t been exposed to in a very long time.

“I’m sorry,” she said in her proper English accent and blew the rest of the smoke out to the left of her and out the window, which was open a crack, the rain coming inside and saturating the rim of the door.

“That’s OK,” I said, getting a hold of the spasms.

“Do you want any?” she asked, offering me the joint in her pale, delicate fingers.

I shook my head, not wanting to explain that I wasn’t eager to go down that path again. I didn’t have a problem with anyone smoking pot, it’s just that there was a reason they called it a gateway drug. And even though 90% of the population can smoke it and call it a day, it was just the starting point for me. It was better if I avoided it entirely. On that note, it was probably better that I never drank again, either, but we can’t do everything that’s right for us. I was allowed at least one vice.

“More for me then,” she said with a smile. I noticed how much softer her face looked when she smiled, almost girlish. She was dressed impeccably, wearing a modest grey linen shift dress that was structured and tailored to her body. The sleeves went out into little pointy corners that combined a 40s look and a futuristic style, like something out of Blade Runner. She had a thin black patent belt at her waist, her hair was perfectly in place and a maroon felt hat sat on her head at a nice angle and perfectly matched her lips and nails. Even though I put in the extra effort that morning, I felt like a giant slob next to her.

“So where do you want to eat?” she asked and brought the car out onto the street. It felt like the beginning of awkward small talk.

“Oh, I’m easy,” I said. “I don’t know Seattle that well so I couldn’t really suggest any place.”

We paused at the corner and she craned her head around, looking out at the street. “Which one’s your car?”

“They let me park in the apartment parkade. I have a motorbike so you can just rest it in the corner and no one says anything.”

Rebecca laughed, rich and amused. “A motorbike?”

She gave me a quick look before she brought the car onto the main road and roared along beneath the Monorail tracks, one hand on the shift, the other holding the joint and the wheel. “No offense Perry, but you do not look cool enough to ride a motorbike.”

I’d actually heard the opposite. That I looked cool enough, but didn’t act cool enough. Same difference, I guess.

“None taken,” I said as nonchalantly as possible and looked out the window. Dex had been right about Rebecca being rough around the edges. I wondered if agreeing to lunch was a mistake. If she was going to end up being someone just like Jenn, I was in for a hellish time.

“I know just the place, anyway, and it’s close by,” she said.

Whatever, I thought. Then I remembered Dex slipping me the fifty note.

“Oh,” I said and pulled it out of my pocket. I waved it in the air. “Dex said for me to give this to you; he said you’d know what it was for.”

She eyed it without turning her head. She had unnaturally thick and long lashes. She laughed. “Oh, he’s run out all ready? I suppose he’s not taking quitting too lightly.”

I squinted at her, not understanding.

“Just hold onto it for now,” she said and flipped on the radio with her hand. “Come Together” was on. I rolled my eyes. This album was freaking following me everywhere.

I stuck the bill back in my pocket and soon we were pulling up into a metered parking space in the middle of downtown.

“Look at this luck,” she said. When she had finished parking, she pulled out the ashtray and put the joint out in it. I was relieved we didn’t have to go far. It always made me nervous when people smoked pot and drove at the same time. Probably because when I was a teenager that’s why my parents took my old car away. Had a little mishap with the cherry tree in our front lawn.