Tell Me It's Real(47)
Manipulative bastard.
So, of course, when I finally told him he could go to sleep and stay asleep, he wasn’t tired. I listened to him bitch and moan on my couch about how much his back hurt and how much his ass hurt and, wow, wouldn’t it be nice if there was someone who would be willing to give him a massage? He’d sure like a massage, he said, to ease his sore muscles. He wondered aloud if there was anyone in his immediate vicinity who would be willing to provide such a massage; perhaps a certain individual feeling guilty about something? Perhaps that guilt extended from causing a certain accident to happen? It was entirely possible, he hypothesized, that should a person feel guilty about such an accident that caused injury, an easy atonement would be offering to give said injured person a rub down.
It took six minutes of me grinding my teeth before I got up and went into the kitchen, telling him I’d get him some more juice. While I did this, I also ground up two of the muscle relaxers into the juice and brought it out to him, not feeling guilty in the slightest (about the secret-drugging thing; I still felt like crap that he hit my car). I stood next to him as he drank it down, smacking his lips, telling me how much he loved pulp in orange juice.
It was twenty minutes later that I found out that, regardless of whatever else he was, Vince was a lightweight who got stoned very, very easily. We were sitting on the couch watching Animal Planet (“I could wrestle an alligator,” he told me confidently) when I felt eyes on me. I looked over at him and saw the loopiest grin on his face.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re awesome,” he said, a slight slur to his words. This time, the slur sounded real.
“Uh. Thanks?”
“You’re welcome. How come….” He got distracted by something on the ceiling. “Whoa.”
“Oh boy.”
He looked back at me, trying to widen his eyes. “You poisoned me!” he said, trying to be stern, but his lips kept quirking into a smile.
“I did not!” I said indignantly, even though I sort of did.
“You made me high!”
“You need to go to sleep.”
He tried to point a finger at me, but it kept going off in other directions, like he was trying to dance with one hand. “What’d you give me?” he asked, very interested in his hand. “Crack?”
“You think I gave you crack?”
“Maybe.”
“Is there anything about me that screams crack?”
He grinned as he swayed. “Your butt crack,” he whispered before dissolving into giggles.
“Oh Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “You are going to be so embarrassed when you wake up tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re giggling like a five-year-old girl.”
“I am not. I’m all man.”
“So you’ve tried to show me.”
“Hey,” he said
“Hey, what?”
“Why won’t you… oh, man, the room is like all twisty.”
I started to get a little concerned. For my couch. “Are you going to throw up?”
He shuddered. “I sure as shit hope not. I hate throwing up. I hate being sick. I hate being hurt. My back really hurts.” Now he started to pout. The effect was unnerving.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed.
“My bike’s all busted.”
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Maybe that bike had a special meaning. Maybe it belonged to my late grandfather and it’s the only piece of him I have left.”
Ouch. “Did it?”
“Did what? Your ceiling is pretty.”
“Did the bike belong to your late grandfather and is it the only piece of him you have left?”
He snorted. “What are you talking about? I got that bike from the bike shop over on Speedway. Can I tell you something?”
“You would anyway.”
He leaned toward me and almost fell off the couch. Once he righted himself, he said, “I like wearing your clothes. They smell like you.”
My face burned. “That’s… cool.”
Vince frowned. “How come you won’t go on a date with me? I’ll treat you so good. Better than anyone ever.”
I sighed. “Can we not talk about this now? It’s almost five. You should get some sleep.”
“Answer the question and I’ll go to sleep.”
“It just wouldn’t work, okay?”
He watched me for a moment. Then, quietly, “Is it because I’m not smart enough?”
I snapped my gaze to his. “What?”
He looked away. “I know I’m not the smartest person in the world,” he said, picking at a loose thread on my pajamas he wore. “My dad told me once that it’s a good thing I look like I do because it’s the only thing that’ll get me through life.”