All four pill bottles fell out and bounced onto the carpet behind me.
Oh, shit.
Dex’s face crumpled in horror first. Then stealthily switched to pure, visceral anger. You wouldn’t like Dex when he’s angry.
“What the fuck are you doing!?” he cried out and lunged toward me, grabbing my arm roughly and snatching the book out my hands. He pushed me over until I fell butt-first onto the bed and scooped up the pill bottles from the floor.
“I didn’t mean to-”
He straightened up, clutching his pills to his dark grey T-shirt, his eyes wild. “What, are you fucking snooping through my stuff?!”
I got off the bed and squared up against him, not about to be intimidated. “I wasn’t snooping through your fucking stuff, you idiot! I was looking through your stupid books; how the hell was I supposed to know you’ve got fucking drugs hidden in them? What the fuck is that about?”
“Never mind,” he sneered, and turned to leave the room with his precious cargo. I grabbed his forearm and dug my nails into his bare flesh, my turn to be rough.
He stopped and looked at the arm in surprise, then at me. “Ow! Let go of me, you wench.”
“You fucking tell me why you’re hiding prescription meds in a book!”
“It’s none of your business, Perry!”
“It’s totally my business. I’m your partner. We’ve been through this, Dex, I mean, come on. I need to know what the fuck you’re on. I was fine with your whole bipolar thing or whatever the hell is wrong with you, but why the hell do you need four different medicines from three different doctors and why the fuck are you hiding it in a hollowed-out book?!”
He jerked slightly, taken aback. He eyed my arm again, more calmly this time, and I removed my nails from his arm. They left crescent indents but hadn’t broken the skin. Finally he looked at me.
“Why are you so mad?”
“Because!” I yelled. I peered at the doorway, where Fat Rabbit was watching us. The dog was shaking. I closed my eyes, took back my hand and let out a deep breath. “Because, I just am. I feel so unprepared about this whole mental institute thing, you haven’t given me anything to go on…”
“There’s a thing called Google, you know. You could look up Riverside yourself. I don’t have to do everything for you.”
I opened my eyes and shook my head. “That’s not the point. It’s because you’re being so evasive about this whole thing, about the fact that you were in an institute yourself. And you’re not talking to me about it.”
Dex threw his head back in exasperation. “Oh my God. Did it ever occur to you, Perry, that maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to talk about what happened to me in there? It’s a fucking mental institute. You have no fucking idea what that means.”
Guilt kicked at me from inside. “OK, you’re right, I don’t. I just want to…”
“Want to what?” he challenged, looking me deep in the eyes.
“I want you to trust me.”
“But I do trust you,” he said quietly.
“Then tell me about these,” I said, pointing at the pills he was still clutching to his chest with one arm.
“Some other time.”
“No, now.”
“No,” he argued. He put his free hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “It’s a long story and Jenn’s going to come back here any minute.”
“OK, well at least tell me why you’re hiding them in a book. Hiding them from your girlfriend.”
He sighed. I was being stubborn, but then again so was he. He picked up the book from the bed, opened the cover and placed the bottles inside. He put the book back on the shelf along with the other books I had been flipping through, sat down on the bed and made me sit down beside him.
“OK,” he said quietly, and leaned his head toward mine, our faces close. “I hide them in there because Jenn doesn’t know I’m on medication…still.”
“Still? So she knew at one point?”
“Yes.”
“And she thought you got better, or..?”
“Yes.”
“And did you?”
He scratched at his sideburn and gave me a sideways glance before carefully saying, “In a way.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s hard to explain. And no, I don’t have time to explain it now. But the point is, Jenn doesn’t know I’m on meds, certainly doesn’t know I’m taking this many different kinds, and to answer your question before you ask it, no, she doesn’t know I was in a mental institute.”
“How can you just lie to her like that?”
He shrugged. “It’s easy. And I’m not lying, I’m just omitting some stuff.”
“Would you tell her the truth if she asked?”
I watched him carefully. He pursed his lips, thinking it over. He better not think about lying to me.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he finally said. “I would lie. Because the past is the past and it doesn’t concern her in any way.”
“But it concerns you, so by default it should concern her.”
“You’d think that…”
I looked down at my hands and started playing with my nails. “It concerns me.”
“I know it does,” he said gently. “But you’re different, Perry. You’re very, very different. That’s why I…”
He stopped himself.
“What?” I prodded.
His lips twitched. “That’s why I’m glad you’re my partner.”
“Oh.”
I looked around the room, at the posters on the walls and the rock photos and the guitars and the weird books. None of this made any sense to me.
“How did you two even start going out?” I asked, thinking out loud, not really wanting an answer.
He shrugged again and wiped his chin quickly. “Honestly? She was hot, good in bed, and a bit of a bitch.”
Ouch. I could see he was telling the truth. It was a very guy thing to say, but it still stung. I covered it up, though, and raised my brow at him.
“Was a bit of a bitch?”
He smiled, sucked in his lip again, but didn’t say anything.
“Sorry,” I apologized, though I wasn’t really sorry.
“It’s deserved, kiddo,” he said and patted me lightly on the back. “I’m sorry she’s so prickly with you. Don’t take anything she says or does seriously, OK?”
That was way easier said than done. But I gave him a small smile back and told him that his secret was safe with me. I was good at keeping them.