Hours later, I’m awoken by the sensation of someone drawing out from beneath me. My cheek hits the warm mattress where Lorenzo was laying just a moment ago. He’s sitting up on the side of the bed, head and shoulders bowed.
“Do you remember anything about last night?” I ask.
He groans and scrubs his hands over his face. “Yeah. No. What did I do?”
“You picked a fight in the bounty bar.”
“Oh, Jesus. Acid must be pissed as fuck.”
I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed until I’m sitting next to him. “He is. They all are.”
“Great, just great.” He takes a deep breath and peers at me as if trying to focus on something a long, long way off. “Did I say anything else last night?”
I bet your dick is pretty, too. “You talk so much shit when you’re drunk.”
“You’re mad at me.” He fumbles around on his nightstand and then feels on the floor by his feet.
“I’m not mad at you, I’m worried that…” I realize what he’s looking for and anger races through me. Is he fucking serious? “Don’t bother looking. I threw all your vodka out.”
Lorenzo freezes, and then sits up, both hands clenched on the mattress. I stare at his tangled hair and the dark smudges under his eyes. I remember what Salvatore told me he said after Sienna was killed.
Fuck off. Let me kill myself in peace.
If he doesn’t do it himself or provoke a bounty hunter down at Strife to put a bullet in him, the alcohol will finish him off. I don’t want to watch another person I love slowly poison themselves to death.
“Do you even remember what you promised me last night?”
Lorenzo gets to his feet and crosses the room, standing by the wall with his arms crossed tightly over his chest and his fingers tucked into his underarms.
“Do you?”
He shrugs, not meeting my eyes. He can’t look at me.
Can’t touch me.
Can’t stand to be near me.
“You told me you weren’t going to drink anymore,” I say, raising my voice. “You begged me not to leave. You used to be so strong, but you’ve just given up.”
I’m shouting now, and he winces, but there’s so much more I want to say. Everything I’m not saying is screaming in my head.
You make me think you want me. You only ever touch me when you’re blackout drunk. I just want my friend back. I hope and I fucking hope you’re getting past this and then in the morning you treat me like I’ve got the plague.
I’m not doing this anymore.
I can’t watch you kill yourself when I love you so much.
I HATE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH.
I shoot to my feet and grab him by his T-shirt and shove him against the wall, my teeth bared, my chest heaving. Even hungover Lorenzo is stronger than me and a better fighter and he could crush me like a bug, but he doesn’t fight back. His body is limp against the wall and his head hangs down.
I shout at the top of my lungs, “I had to watch Amalia fade away before my eyes on smack, and now my best friend is drinking himself to death. I can’t do this again; do you hear me? Ask me to help you while you’re sober. Fucking ask me. Right now.”
His lips are pressed stubbornly closed. His gaze is fixed on a spot past my chest like he can’t see me. Like I’m not even here.
I count a whole sixty seconds in my head, and then I let him go with a shove. “Fuck you. I’ve had enough.”
I storm out of his apartment and try to slam the front door behind me, but it’s still loose on its hinges from when I broke it down six months ago in a vain effort to stop him from watching the video of Sienna being tortured to death.
I slam it with my foot and yell, “And fix your front door.”
Without Lorenzo, life is quiet.
I hate it.
I hate myself. We did this to him. We let him take those flash drives and fill his head with nightmares. I want my old friend back, just as he was. The skinny, blond teenager, smiling with a cut lip and blood dribbling down his chin, eyes so bright and dancing with mischief. An older, stoic but patient Lorenzo who sat crossed-legged next to my sweating, vomiting sister on the many occasions she tried to go cold turkey. She cried in his lap and apologized for all the horrible things her body was doing. And he just gently wiped her face with a cloth and murmured to her softly, You’re all right. It’s okay. We’re not going anywhere.
His eyes would meet mine, and for just a moment, gratitude would blaze in my heart, louder than the overwhelming misery that my twin was suffering like this.
And sometimes, on days with peach-colored sunsets or on black velvet nights encrusted with stars, his eyes would latch onto mine and a spark would kindle in their depths. A flicker of heat, there and gone before I could capture it.
Now, his eyes are dead.
Slumped on the sofa, I flick through television channels. The news is broadcasting one of the mayor’s rallies. He’s standing at the podium with his familiar black and gold branding all around him. There’s a beautiful woman standing just behind him, hand in hand with a pretty blonde girl aged nine or ten. The girl’s solemn blue eyes are fixed on the mayor. This will be his wife and daughter, I presume.
Mayor Romano launches into his speech. “Too long, organized crime has been allowed to flourish in Cold—”
I roll my eyes and switch the television off. A moment later, Lorenzo’s name lights up my phone. He surely isn’t blackout drunk on a Wednesday—not yet, anyway—and so I answer it. “What do you want?”
“Hello to you, too. What are you doing on Saturday night?”
He’s not slurring. Makes a change. On Saturday night I imagine Acid will be calling me to drag his drunk ass out of Strife. I can’t wait. “Why?”
“I’m throwing a house party.”
A house party. I blast him for his drunken bullshit and he invites me to a house party. “What do you have to celebrate?”
“Will you come?”
“Will you be drinking?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you,” I snarl, and hang up. No apology, no explanation, no asking for my help. Nothing that I actually want from him.
On Saturday morning, I get a text from Lorenzo with an address and a time. Seven o’clock at a residential address in western Coldlake. I frown. It’s a house, not an apartment. Lorenzo bought a house? I shrug it off and throw my phone aside. That asshole can do what he likes. I need time off from his bullshit.
But when evening rolls around, curiosity is gnawing at me. I call Acid and his phone rings and rings before he finally picks up.
“Yo.” He speaks over pounding music and loud voices. It sounds like Strife is busy already.
“Have you seen Lorenzo lately?”
“Yeah, yesterday. Maybe the day before. He was down here meeting with Zag over some bounty.”
“Was he drinking?”
“For once he fucking wasn’t.”
I stare across the room, sunk in thought.
“Is that all? I’ve got four deep at the bar.”
“Have you seen him drunk since the last time I came to Strife?”
“No. And I better not ever again, or I’ll have a few fucking things to say to the Coldlake Syndicate.” Acid hangs up.