She swallows and blinks, presses her lips together, hands me the roll of gauze, the Neosporin, a bottle of peroxide, medical tape, a pair of scissors. I realize the Neosporin probably won’t do much good, so I set that aside. I take the towel I used to sop up the blood and hold it beneath my leg.
“Dump the peroxide on that bitch,” I say to her. “A whole bunch.”
She blanches. “Won’t that hurt?”
“Like a motherfucker. But it’s better than getting an infection. Do it quick.” I grit my teeth and watch. She twists the little white cap off the brown bottle, glances at me. I nod, and she pours peroxide over the wound. I can’t help a groan from escaping. “F-fffffuck that hurts. Goddamn.” I suck in a deep breath for courage. “All right, do it again.”
She’s near tears still, but she does it. And f**k me running, the raw agony is nearly unbearable. The wound bubbles crazily, and I dab at it with the corner of the towel.
“Once more.”
I can’t watch this time. I stare at Kylie instead, at the fall of her reddish-blonde hair draped in loose waves across one shoulder, her downcast electric eyes intent on my legs. Her T-shirt is tight and gray, her boobs round mountains that I want to explore with my hands and my mouth and my eyes. That thought doesn’t help, especially since I’m only in my boxers, and if I pop a woody, she’ll know. I go back to looking at her hair. Thick, lustrous, copper. Waves and waves, with a slight curling twist at the ends.
“You’re staring at me.” She caps the peroxide, and then looks at me.
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“I thought we were just friends.”
I cut a long ribbon of gauze, fold it over a few times, and then place it against the wound. “Wrap it.” I watch as she winds the gauze around my leg, passing the roll from hand to hand. “We are.”
“Then why are you staring at me like you could eat me?” She snips the bandage and tapes it in place, then sinks back to sit cross-legged.
“Because what’s right and what I want are not necessarily the same thing.” I point at a pair of loose cut-off khakis. “Can I have those?” She tosses me the frayed shorts and I slip them on, wiggling them past my hips.
Kylie’s frowning at my answer. “What about what I want?”
I button the khakis and draw the zipper up, then wiggle backward and reach into my bag for my cigarettes and lighter. “Same answer applies.” I light up and take a deep drag, closing my eyes as the bliss of a nicotine rush hits me. “What you want and what’s best for you are not the same thing. You just saw why. My life isn’t safe. I’m not safe.”
She crawls on the bed and sits next to me, watches me smoke. Her fingers slide against my palm, and she takes the filter from me, puts it to her lips, takes a small draw, holds in her mouth, and then inhales. She coughs a little, but not as bad as the first time. I watch her eyes dilate, and her head thumps against the wall as the dizziness of the rush hits her.
“Oh, shit. Wow. Now I see.” She blinks, hands the cigarette back.
I chuckle. “Yeah. No more for you, though.”
“Is it always like that?” She reaches for it, and I keep it out of her reach. “Come on, I want to try it again. Please?”
God, I’m gonna get her hooked. But, like a dick, I hand it to her anyway. “No. Once you’re used to it, you only get that feeling if it’s been, like, twelve hours or more since your last smoke.” I take it back and drag on it. “If you get addicted, there’ll be a lineup for who gets to kick my ass.”
“No, if I get addicted, it’ll be my fault, not yours.” She sees the open Band-Aid tin on the floor beside my bed and snags it, looks in. Pulls out the baggie, opens it, sniffs. “This is pot?”
I nod. “Yeah. That’s pot.”
“Are you gonna smoke it?”
“Not in front of you.”
She puts the bag back in the tin and sets it between us. “Why not?”
“Because that’s just one more reason why you and I being more than friends can’t happen. Drugs have no place in your life.”
“But they do yours?”
I sigh. “Yes, they do. If I amount to anything, it’ll be as part of a band. That’s it. I’ll be playing dive bars and shitty clubs, and I’ll get high in the alleys and do lines in the bathrooms, and eventually I’ll OD and that’ll be that.” I glance at her. “Is that the life you want?”
She runs her hand through her hair. “No. But you can be more than that, Oz. You could, if you wanted to. Your talent with math? You could do a lot of things with that. And you’re a good enough musician that you could be a hell of a lot more than some ass**le druggie snorting coke in dive bar bathrooms. You should want more for yourself than that, Oz. I want more for you than that.”
I shrug. “Yeah, well, I don’t.” Lies. That’s a dirty f**king lie. I do want more. Maybe not picket fences and a dog with a floppy ear and two little kids snotting on my jeans, but something better.
She rolls toward me, and her eyes are close, her breath on my cheek, her hand on my chest. “You don’t believe that. I can hear the lie in your voice, and I can see it in your eyes.”
I closed my eyes. “Maybe so. Doesn’t change the facts.”
“Yes, it does. There are no facts, not about your future. You make your future. You’re talented. You’re good-looking. You can do a lot of things, if you believe in yourself.”
I snort. “What is this, a ‘The More You Know’ commercial?”
“Yes, and I’m Sandra Bullock, so you know it’s gotta be true.”
I can’t help but laugh. “You’re way hotter than Sandra Bullock.” I pause for effect, and to consider whether I’ll regret saying this. “And Sandra Bullock is hot.”
“She’s older than our parents!” She laughs.
“So she’s hot for an older lady. And it’s parent, singular for me.” I say it without thinking; it just slips out.
This sobers up the conversation real f**king fast. “You’ve never known your dad?”
I shake my head side to side. “Nope. Never even seen a picture. Don’t know a single goddamn thing about the man.”
Kylie is bursting with questions, I can tell. “Your mom won’t tell you anything?”
I shrug. “No. It’s…a sore subject for her. She gets pissed off if I bring it up. He’s gone, and that’s all I need to know.” I sigh. “I think I’m named after him, but I’m not a hundred percent on that.”