Pippa is the most unbearable person on the face of the planet. I literally want to shoot her in the face. I drove my car to her apartment last night, thought better of leaving it anywhere near her building, drove it eight blocks away in an underground parking lot, and then walked a mile in the pouring rain to turn up on her doorstep at midnight, soaked to the bone.
“Ridden hard and put up wet, I see,” is what she’d said to me. Those were the first words she chose to speak when seeing me for the first time after I’ve been shot at, threatened? faced off with a horde of Mexican gang members, and then confronted with the harsh reality that my sister is now some motorcycle club president’s old lady. I guess I shouldn’t expect much else from her, realistically. I did tell her I was sitting on a beach drinking mai tais in Hawaii. Her grim mood as she let me into her apartment last night indicated that she was more than a little pissed that I hadn’t asked her along. Her mood doesn’t seem to have improved with a good night’s rest, either.
“I’m assuming Lacey will be accompanied by your good friend Mr. Mayfair this morning?” She stirs at her tea so viciously that it’s a surprise any of the liquid remains inside the cup.
“Probably. Which is why I’m going to make sure I’m not.”
“What’s the matter with you? I thought you liked this guy? What happened to the whole, what if I don’t want anyone else crap you were texting me two nights ago?”
Of course she would bring that up. The truth is…since Zeth drove me away from my sister back in the hospital, away from my parents’ place, and back into my old life, I’ve wanted…I’ve wanted my old life. The whole thing. All of it. The boring, mundane routine of going to work, eating, sleeping, going back to work. I can hardly lie to myself; of course I know that I’m developing ridiculously strong feelings for a man who can surely be nothing but bad news for me, but for a moment, just a couple of days, it would be nice to feel like my largest concern in life is deciphering the other doctors’ handwriting so I can make sure I don’t double dose any of the patients.
“Just because I don’t want anyone else doesn’t mean that I do want him, Pip. Not in the way you’re thinking, anyway.” I cram toast into my mouth, trying to cut the conversation short. Pippa’s not the sort of person to let a full mouth get in the way of a confrontation, though. And that’s what this is: a confrontation. She’s been itching to have this out with me for a while now, I just know it.
“Remember that time when you asked me for Valium and I wrote you a script? No questions asked?” she asks quietly. It feels like the blood in my veins has just turned to ice water. Do I remember that? Do I remember clasping hold of that bottle in my fist and staring at it for a full hour before I had to leave my house and travel across Seattle, houses and buildings whipping past me in a blur, as I journeyed to meet Zeth for the first time?
“Ah, yeah. Of course.” The memory is seared like a brand inside my brain. The moment changed me forever. Pippa doesn’t know this, though. Or she shouldn’t. That she’s even mentioning it now seems to be hitting a little close to home. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I wasn’t worried about you then, Sloane. You were asking me for under-the-table meds, really strong, addictive ones, and you were acting like a fucking crazy person at the time, too. And yet the whole time I was never worried about you. Not enough to demand to know what was going on in your life. You were stressed out over your sister. We had Boards. Whatever. I knew all of that and I didn’t wanna give you a hard time. So instead I gave you the script, and I never said another word about it. But now, it’s like…I feel like this guy is ten times worse for you than taking a bunch of Valium. Even if you were addicted, I would still think this guy is worse for you than the drugs.”