#Book 1 - Page 35 (2/2)

“And you barely know me,” he continued, not hearing me. “You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, and I convinced you this would be a fanf.u.c.kingtastic idea. You almost died tonight. You could have died.”

I straightened up and leaned closer to him. “You almost died too.”

Dex shook his head. “I just didn’t realize what we were up against. I’m sorry for making you go up those stairs. I know you wanted nothing more than to get out of there, and I should have let you. And then I should have followed you.”

“If I really wanted to, I could have gotten past you.”

“I just...f.u.c.k. We should have never gone back there.”

“Well, we did. And we both decided that. Remember?”

Dex didn’t look convinced but he didn’t protest either. He fell silent and his mouth was firmly set.

“I’m afraid to ask what happened to you,” he finally said.

I was afraid to answer. I didn’t want to recall any of it, even though it was very fresh in my head, as well as on my throat. But I couldn’t keep it all inside either. If I did, you could bet I would need Dex’s pills very soon. Which reminded me, I wanted to ask him about that, but how on earth do you bring up something so personal? By the way, rumor has it that you’re a psycho?

And so I told Dex exactly what happened in full detail. From the rubber boots Old Roddy was wearing to hearing Dex’s voice when I was being hung out the window to what he had said before I leaped out of the building.

“ ‘She told me you would listen and that you would come. I’ve been waiting for another like you.’ That’s what he said. I don’t know who ‘she’ is but the only thing that makes sense, if you can call it that, is that he was talking about the lady. Creepy Clown Lady.”

Dex didn’t say anything, so I attempted to lighten the mood. “And then I gave a fantastic one-liner along the lines of ‘The only thing you’re getting is death’.”

He didn’t even crack a smile. I wondered when I would see that perpetual smirk again. I was starting to prefer that Dex to this gravely serious one.

“And that’s what happened,” I added, hoping he would say something.

He chewed on his lip for a second before saying “You say that so casually, like this happens to you every weekend.”

“Well, it kind of has.”

He shot me a look that made me shrink back a little. “I’m taking this seriously, Perry. I wish you would too.”

“Well, I’m sorry I use humor to get through tough situations. This whole f.u.c.king situation is absurd, and I don’t even know how I am supposed to process what just happened, let alone feel it. It’s just so impossible. It doesn’t feel real, and in all honesty, how can it be real? It can’t. It just can’t. It can’t, it can’t, it can’t, it can’t, it can’t, it can’t…” I started laughing at the absurdity of it all. A loud, howling laugh that shook my face and caused tears to run down it.

A few wires in my brain began to snap. One by one, I could feel my thoughts unraveling as the face of Old Roddy came back, the feeling of my head going through gla.s.s, the stickiness of the kelp tentacles, the cold water as it drowned my lungs.

Snap, snap, snap.

My emotions were in an out-of-control funnel; my thoughts circled from reality to reality. I kept laughing and laughing and laughing until Dex pulled the car over to the side of the road. He put it in park and flicked on the interior light.

“Perry?” he said cautiously. He moved his hand over towards my knee.

I whacked it off impulsively and cackled, “Who’s the crazy one now? You or me?”

Dex frowned, looking utterly lost. I couldn’t blame him. I had completely lost control.

“Shhhh, it’s OK,” he whispered and reached for me again. I didn’t hit him this time, though I suddenly had this strong urge to punch him in the face. His eyes widened for a second as if he knew what I was thinking.

“Perry, calm down.”

“Calm down?” I spat out. “Calm down? You’re the psychotic one, Dex. Better give me one of your pills then.”

He pursed his lips, frown line deepening.

“That’s right!” I exclaimed. “I know what Olanzapine is! When were you going to tell me that I was pairing up with a schizo?”

I know what I said was mean, but I didn’t care. I laughed away the guilt. I felt this huge surge of energy, like trapped tormenting emotions rising up from my belly. If I stopped laughing, I would probably start screaming.

He took in what I said without a fuss. It was like he didn’t hear me.

Instead he turned to face me and moved in closer until his face was right up in mine. I watched him in slow motion. I saw his eyes turn from a flat brown shade to a vivid, sparkling mahogany. His pupils contracted, turning into tiny p.r.i.c.ks of black. They turned mean. Very mean.

“Hey!” he screamed so loudly that my ears felt numb. I could feel tiny droplets of his spit fall on my cheek. The impact of his voice literally stopped my heart. “Get a hold of yourself!”

I don’t know if you’ve ever had someone scream right in your face, but let me tell you it’s the most terrifying experience. In one action, I felt like I experienced all of the rage that I imagined tore Dex inside. And it was directed at me.

I stopped laughing. I stopped breathing. I stopped blinking. I stopped moving. Full stop.

Dex continued to look at me, eyes boring through mine, with so much power and so much hate it made my stomach queasy. Then he exhaled and looked down. When he looked back up, his eyes were full of apology and remorse again.

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