Her only stipulation about this meeting is that it be somewhere “public”.

I’m inching along in the Mustang, hopefully sticking at least partially to the directions she gave me. I'm trying to reach a small café near the Department of Justice building (which I can’t believe is smack dab in the middle of Fishermen’s Wharf), wondering which of us she doesn’t trust alone with the other.

It’s my habit in meetings to get there first so I can choose where I'm seated and I can lean back and peruse at my leisure while the other person arrives.

People give lots of clues away when they don’t know they’re being watched with intent. A person’s stride and stance; the way they grip their bag or clutch at their purse; whether they hide their eyes behind shades or choose to squint into the sun; if their feet are bare before swinging out of their vehicle; the way they approach a building or a group of people, head up or down and the position of the shoulders and hands; all these things we do every day without thinking give us away to anyone who sits and watches.

I find a parking space after ten minutes of looking and I’m cruising at a fast stride, head up, arms swinging, the very best of the ‘do-not-even-think-about-fucking-with-me’ walks down the sidewalk when my Hink Meter tells me someone is staring at me.

Instinctively I slow and start scanning for them, eyes sliding left and right behind my shades while my brain leaps around in startled bursts of electric paranoia. It isn’t inconceivable Massey has someone watching me although I’ve done such a dubious job at anything resembling real police work he ought to be lulled into what I hope will prove to be a false sense of security. I’m feeling positively apprehensive until I realize the stare is directed at me from the brunette sprawled legs out and arms crossed, eyes concealed by sunglasses, in the shade of a table umbrella directly ahead of me.

 Exstead, unfortunately, is also a cop and I’ve taken longer arriving than she mainly due to my not being able to read my own goddamn hand-writing and this time I am the one being perused. Damn.

I pause on the other side of the low wire fencing they’ve strung around the place and try to make sense of what is going on in my head and my body at that moment. My heart is racing, my pulse is doing some version of Fleetwood Mac's ‘Tusk’ and I feel patently… glad.

I’m dizzy with it, with the sheer emotion of whatever it is which happens to me when I see her and I feel my mouth turning up at the corners in a wide and goofy grin without volition.  She’s still for a moment and then I see a finger twitch and she snorts a little and grins back.

“Are you drunk?” she asks me and I shake my head as I step over the fence to the consternation of a waiter who hurries over, brows puckered and then addresses Jinny in a remarkable soprano voice which causes me to do a brief double-take and reassessment; he is a she.

“Everything okay here, Jinx?” she asks and appears ready to bounce me back out over the fence until thankfully Jinny laughs and waves her off.

“Nah, she’s cool, Ruby. Friend of mine.”

The look I get now is dubious; eyebrow lifted and scornful as I am measured and definitely found wanting. I’m also informed that there is a perfectly good route into the ‘beverage garden’ through the front door of the café itself. However, since I am a friend of Inspector Exstead’s and already in the Beverage Garden she will be happy to serve a drink to me. What would I care for?

Alrighty then. Gotcha. Loud and real fucking clear there, Ruby.

I pause and look at Jinny’s glass on the table and of course she knows exactly what I’m doing and shrugs.

“Water. But you get whatever you want. Doesn’t bother me.”

“Really?” I ask, intrigued and she snorts again and shakes her head.

“No, but I keep thinking if I say it enough it’ll be true.”

“Ooooh, is that AA humor?” I slide into the chair across from her and she cuts her eyes at me and inclines her head in Ruby’s direction.

“Bring her a Bock. Shiner if you’ve got it.”

“Or a Michelob version. Amber’s fine if you don’t carry Shiner,” I put in and after one last pointed stare in my direction which is an obvious abbreviation of Magda’s if you touch one hair on her head…’Ruby departs on a mission for beer.

Jinny stays facing forward and I have to lean towards her with my elbows on the little table, rocking it, to get her to look at me.

“Hey,” I say and she sighs slightly and turns, gathering her legs and finally looking at least in my general direction. Of course the black shades prevent me from seeing her eyes and I chew my lip for a moment and then reach across and remove them.

She blinks at me, startled. One corner of her mouth lifts slightly and I have to make myself not jump as I feel her cool fingers brush my temples as she does the same to me.

“Only fair,” she tells me and I breathlessly nod an agreement.

She’s pale; there are dark circles beneath her eyes and lines around her mouth I don’t think were there before.

I did that, I think, I put those there.

“You look tired,” I say and then realize it’s been out loud and wish I could bite it back.

She laughs though and shrugs a little, one black leathered shoulder jerking slightly.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t look so hot the day after your OD'd either, Sunshine.”

I lift an eyebrow and take that in silently and she watches me, waiting to see what I’ll respond with.

I might as well play the card. It’s the one she’s stacked the deck for anyway, isn’t it?

 “Two different things entirely.”

“Uh huh,” she drawls and waits until Ruby has plunked my Amber Bock down and departed after yet another calculated warning glare in my direction. 

“So you think downing 1800 milligrams of Vicodin with vodka is just a nice way to get a little nap?”

I take a sip of beer and spend an inordinate amount of time arranging my napkins.

“Remember when they used to salt the napkin so the beer wouldn’t stick to the glass?” I ask brightly. “I really miss that. It’s just so chintzy now.”

“Ah, the good old days,” she responds dryly and then slides immediately back on topic.

 “Look at me,” she orders and when I do she lowers her voice and says calmly, ”You’re not fooling anybody, Cooper.”

I lift my brows and smile as I shrug. “I wasn’t aware I was trying to fool anyone.”

“Really? Then you are possibly even more fucked up than I thought.”

I freeze and glance up to see if she meant that.

She did, indeed.

She’s gazing at me, eyes level and wide open, waiting to see how I’ll take it. There are two spots of bright and hectic color in her cheeks and her lips are parted slightly, her pupils dilated because she anticipates that I will be angry and react with violence. After all, I have been known to do so. Recently.

There was a time when I would have, without a second’s consideration. A time when I would have put the table over on top of her, carefully removing my beer first, and then stalked off before the cops arrived. 

I can feel my face go white with rage; my heart booms with such a rush of furious adrenaline I feel stoned for a moment. I cannot fuck this up though. She’s earned the right to take these shots so I will just sit here and let her take them. And smile.

“Oh, don’t do that,” she says, her voice sharp. “You look like you’re going to vomit.”

So much for smiling.

“Let’s skip this part, alright? Let’s cut straight to the part about why I needed to talk to you.” My voice shakes. I’m not sure if it’s so much anger as it is hurt that she thinks this of me but in either event I can’t afford to explore that right now.

Focus, Finn.

“You can skip wherever you want but this is why I agreed to meet you.” Her voice is low pitched but very clear and very firm.

I shake my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have to tell you about some stuff“

“Fine,” she cuts me off with a sharp move of her hand. “But I get to go first.”

I shake my head and put it into my hand and peer at her through my fingers.

“Jinny, do you not understand how important this is?” I ask and I’m stunned at how soft my voice is and then the next moment I am as equally astounded at how near a torrential outbreak of tears I am at her reply.

“Yeah.” She leans forward, eyes bright and steady on mine. “I do understand how important this is. Do you?”

Oh fuck. I am on dangerously treacherous ground now. I am two seconds from total nuclear melt down and I can’t seem to remember what I should be trying to tell her any more.  For a moment I think she’s going to actually reach over and touch my face and when her hand lifts and moves I jerk back in my chair, then sit there shaking miserably with the effort it takes to not cry.

She pulls the hand back and I see it clench into a tight fist before she puts it in her pocket and then clears her throat as Ruby hovers, shaking her head no when asked if we need anything.

“Cooper,” she says, her voice very quiet.

“No,” I grit out, shaking my head, refusing to look at her as I fight the tears back. “Let me get this back under control and I’ll be fine. I have major shit to tell you.”

“You’re not fine. You won’t be fine just because you don’t boohoo right now. Look at me. I’m not going to touch you, for fuck’s sake.”

I look up then and dash wetness off my face with the heels of my hands.

“That is not it. Not like you mean. That is so not it.”

She makes a very ugly noise through her nose.

“Uh huh. Right.”

“No,” I say vehemently, managing to look at her as I get rid of the last of the tears. “It’s not. Not how you think, not the way you mean it. It’s nothing to do with you being gay or what happened between us. I wanted that. I’m the one that followed you, remember? It’s not about me struggling with some latent lesbian phobia, Jinny. I’ve never given a shit about crap like that.”

She waits silently, brows lifted, mouth twisted because she doesn’t believe me. She’s already come to her own conclusions. She’s been judge and jury and reached a verdict.

“I am not afraid of you because of anything to do with your sexual orientation, Exstead. So just, I don’t know, deal with the fact that’s not it. What I’m absolutely terrified of is caring about or for anyone, period. The only person I have ever loved that loved me back is dead and he hasn’t even been dead a fucking year. I don’t have it in me to give anything to anyone, I don’t have enough of me for me.”

I can’t bring myself to say these things very loudly and so we are both unconsciously leaning towards one another over the small table. I see her face change expression, see it go from scornful and dismissive to regretful and pained.

“That’s what Kim said…” she begins and drifts off when I shake my head violently.
 
“No. No fucking way. I do not want your sympathy. I don’t want to hear it. Just--  just stop.”

I get my hands up and lay my fingers over my eyes and struggle for calm and control, two things I have never had an abundant supply of even in the best of moments.

Across from me she jerks at a sudden electronic chirp, then sighs and with a sheepish look withdraws her cell phone from her jacket pocket, flips it open and puts it to her ear.

“What? No. I’m fine. Yes, really. For fuck’s sake Mags! What do you think she’s going to do to me?”

Oh Christ. I’m such a dangerous creature her partner’s checking on her. I blow my nose on my chintzily unsalted napkin as the conversation across from me grows more heated and animated.

“Jesus! Magdalena, I told you I wanted to talk to her. What the fuck does it look like we’re doing?”

Wait a minute. What does it look like we’re doing?

No way. She surely didn’t. She couldn’t have.

I turn warily in my chair and squint in the weak sunlight as I scan the other tables on the patio and then movement behind a reflective pane of glass catches my eye.

Oh yes, she did indeed. Her back-up is seated in a booth inside with a clear field of vision to our table and shows every sign of tossing a full fledged, curly maned, hissy.

It’s almost funny. She brought back-up. Jesus.

It would be very dangerous right now to start laughing. I’m way too far out there at the moment. I can’t hold back a single howl of rather manic merriment though as I lean over and grab the phone out of Jinny’s hand and put it to my mouth as I turn and look at her through the window and wave.

“I’m getting soft,” I say into the receiver. “Didn’t even see you.”

She’s rigid with fury on the other side of the glass. Across from me Jinny looks mildly perturbed and warily amused.

“What you’re going to see is your ass busted up to your nose if you don’t give that phone back to--“

“Come out here,” I tell her, beckoning and then as she leaps to her feet I interject quickly, “Wait, wait, wait--  No! I don’t mean to kick my ass, for fuck’s sake. Just come out so I can give you something which I can’t seem to make Jinny take from me.”

“Well, if it’s more bullshit, you can just keep it!” she snaps and I can’t help it, I lose it and start giggling uncontrollably.

I’m pretty much helpless as I let Jinny take the phone back from me and I look up when the sun is blocked by a five foot nothing ninety seven pound mass of seething Hispanic indignation. She’s got both hands on her hips and one foot out, tapping away. Probably wishing it was on my head.

“Oh, fuck, this is just perfect!” I howl hysterically and then dig out one set of the seven disks. There’s a rubber band around them and I hold them out to Magda who glares down at me furiously and makes no move to take them from me.

“You have to,” I tell her, trying to calm myself and mopping my eyes clean of a different kind of tear. “You have to take these and guard them with your life because what is on them is going to save Jinny’s.”

I see her blink and pause and can feel the weight of Jinny’s attention shift also.  I don’t look at her but I can feel her eyes on me as I hold the little bundle up to her partner.

“You can’t show them to anyone or talk about them yet. You have to just sit on them for maybe three more days and then all hell is going to break loose.”

I have her full attention now. She doesn’t like me anymore than she did. But she’s listening.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jinny demands and Magda half turns towards her but never lifts her gaze from mine.

“Her life,” I reiterate and she nods and puts the disks inside the hand bag slung over her shoulder, still staring at me.

“You make copies?” she asks and I nod and at the slight twitch of the brow I reply.

“One set is on the way to Texas by air mail. To my Sergeant. Who is going to do the same thing I just asked of you. I’ve got another set to give McCafferty.”

She notices I said, “asked”. She nods slower and then glances at Jinny.

“Alright. You through talking?”

“No,” Jinny spits out furiously and now her hands swing up and plant themselves on her hips. I sigh and gulp as much of the beer as I can in one swallow and then stand.

It’s ridiculous how I tower over Magda at only five foot five inches yet she still manages to look as if she thinks she’s got me bested by a foot or more. She doesn’t step back either physically or with her stare and I’m the one who ends up inching away so as not to step on her.

“Well, gosh, this has just been so much fun girls, but I’ve got work to do, so adios.”

I’ve managed to get at least two feet away when I’m caught by the elbow and spun around by an irate Jinny Exstead.

“We’re not through here, Cooper!” she exclaims exasperatedly.

“Um, well, I think we are.” My voice is pleasant and jovial.

“No, we’re not. Sit your ass back down.”

I’m about to politely protest when Magda pipes in with something which makes the blood leave my head in a swooning drop of pressure.

“Want me to tell Legaspi to come out, Jin?”

“What?!” I hiss in absolute horror and lift my disbelieving round eyes to Jinny’s suddenly red and abashed face.

“Oh Jesus fucking Christ, Jinny! Tell me you wouldn’t do that to me!”

She at least has the good grace to appear chagrined.

“She wants to talk to you, Cooper. I thought we’d talk first, me and you and then maybe you and her...“

“Fuck!”  I wail at the top of my lungs, drawing several disapproving stares from diners and Ruby lowers her brows into a horizontal line of righteousness and begins stomping towards me.

“Jinny!” I spit out, “How could you do this to me?!”

She and Magda both speak at once.

“It’s not always about you--“

“You’ve got to talk to her, you can’t just leave it like it is--“

“But don’t you think I should have been at least, I don’t know… consulted?” I demand.

I’m looking wildly around to spot her.

“Jesus! It’s like a fucking goddamn ambush, Jinny,” I rage. “First you bring back-up, now you’ve got shrinks attending--”

“And Weaver.” Magda pipes up, in far too cheerful a voice. I glare at her and she grins happily. She’s loving every moment of my discomfort.  “Legaspi’s probably got Weaver with her.”

 Oh, fuck me. I might live through Legaspi but I’ll seriously implode if faced with a grim, white-faced and disgusted Weaver.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” I sputter furiously. “What’s next? You got my mother stashed around here someplace?”

“Oh good idea!” Magda sings delightedly. “Can I call her?”

 “Stop it, Mags,” Jinny growls and sends a look of such unmitigated fury her direction she by all rights should have ducked. Being impervious, Magda just shrugs it off, grinning back.

“Calm down, Cooper,” Jinny says to me in what is obviously intended to be a soothing tone but which only pisses me off more.

“Calm down?” I repeat incredulously. “You’ve invited your partner and Legaspi here to fucking ambush me and you’ve got the nerve to tell me to calm down?”

“It’s not like that,” she tells me, her voice slow and measured. She lifts her hands as if to pacify a skittish animal. “It’s not an ambush.”
 
“No? Well, it sure as hell feels like one!” I bellow and in the brief interim which follows, the manager, who has been drawn out by the noise and has taken a position near Ruby on the edge of our little party, chooses to step in and inform the three of us that if we do not immediately lower our volume he will be calling the police.

All three of us instantly spin towards him and flash our respective badges then stand glaring at him with our heads to one side, waiting.

“My mistake,” he says smoothly. “Could I ask that you please lower your volume anyway?”

“No problem,” I snap. “Since I’m leaving.”

“Cooper, please--“ Jinny begins and then cuts off abruptly with such a distinct change in facial expression that I spin around and of course find myself looking up at Legaspi.

Her smile is what absolutely floors me. I don’t think I’d be so politely inclined to beam at someone who had put my wrist in the day-glow yellow brace she sports. It falters slightly as I stare at her but then quirks upwards at the corners as she speaks.

“The olive tree was a nice touch,” she says calmly. “We planted it in back so we won’t have to hire guards when it actually starts bearing.”

I blink and find myself faltering along on the bumpy road of Southern etiquette which demands I acknowledge the thank you couched in that statement, then I realize I’m being suckered into hanging around for whatever they’ve got planned and I step back from her and nod.

“Great. Good. Glad to hear it.”

“You probably feel a little invaded right now. I realize this is sort of a shock.”

I manage to subdue what might have been a rowdy bout of hysterical laughter and merely smile in some inane fashion at this statement. I am oh-so-polite. And is she finished?

Nope.

She hesitates for a second as if choosing her words carefully. The blue eyes look dark and troubled for a moment. And then, “I wanted Kerry to come with me and talk to you but she refused…”

I nod. Of course she did. Once you’re banished there’s no going back. People like Weaver don’t look back for me. They don’t give out second chances.

And what is so funny is how relieved I am. And yet how distraught.  

I sketch a salute at Magda and Jinny both and pivot around Legaspi and manage to get a whole yard or so from them before Legaspi’s raised voice slows me to a stop.

“I owe you an apology, Sgt. Finn. I’d appreciate it if you’d hear it out.”

I stare up at nothing, shaking my head and laughing at myself. The same person who has no problem resorting to violence in order to move someone can’t just walk away from a courteous attempt at conversation. And with the same person, no less. Why? Because it would be incredibly rude and ill bred.

Amazing the legacy of shit handed down.

I half turn back and address the air behind me, clearing my throat roughly first.

“Not necessary.”

When she speaks I’m startled she is so much closer and turn nervously, edging away from her.

“The thing about apologies is just how necessary they actually are… for both people. So I need to tell you this and it’d be nice if I didn’t have to chase you to do it.”

Oh shit. This I really can’t handle. And where are my sunglasses? God, I’ve left them on the table.  Not good.

“Really“ I begin, walking backwards but she, of course, is the tenacious Knuckles Legaspi in full shrink mode now and so she pursues me, steadily keeping her voice controlled but clear.

“There’s an actual psychological term for what I did. It’s called ‘transference’. I took a situation out of my past which was hurtful to me and I applied it to your present situation with Jinny--“

“This isn’t necessary. You don’t need to do--“

“ --just leapt to the conclusion you were refusing to deal with what had happened between you sexually--“

Oh, this is just great. She’s not going to stop. I wish I could get angry about it because then I might find it possible to not have a nervous breakdown in front of Ruby and her manager and twenty or so very interested patrons who have paused in their eating and drinking to listen raptly.

“--just assumed it was fear on your part and reluctance to admit you were uncomfortable with the stigma associated with lesbians, especially where you’re from--“

Everyone is definitely absorbed now. I laugh wildly and put a hand up to grip my nose and close my eyes, shaking my head. She’s just so fucking annoying! How in hell did Weaver get past this insidiously invasive, all-encompassing desire of Legaspi's to tell every human being how and when and where they must react, to actually fall in love with her?

Jinny is close on her heels and actually looking sympathetic, as well she should. 

“Fine. Accepted. No problem.” I tell her but is she done? Oh, no. Of course not.

“--and then I realized when I saw your face afterwards that it wasn’t about the sexual issue--“

Jinny clears her throat and in a low voice says, ”Kim, I think you should back off.”

“--so much as the trust and intimacy extended to someone after the death--“

She actually stops when someone shrieks and it takes me a moment to realize my throat feels as if I’ve been gargling glass because it was me.

She’s way too close now and looks far too concerned. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. The blue eyes are round and she’s honestly regretful.

I nod. I can’t breathe. I know I’m trying to because I can hear the awful sound I’m making, as if I’ve just run a mile at full out but there’s something terribly wrong because none of it’s getting through.

“Sit down before you faint,” she says softly and I shake off the hand lain on my shoulder. I don’t know if it’s Legaspi’s good one or Jinny’s.

“You’re hyper-ventilating, Cooper,” Jinny says, grabbing my upper arm and glaring at Legaspi reproachfully, “You just had to keep pushing, didn’t you?”

Hyper-ventilating? No way. The problem is I can’t get any air.

“I can’t breathe,” I announce in what sounds like a fascinated albeit horrified voice.

“You’re breathing,” Jinny assures me, “Just way too fast. Concentrate and slow it down before you pass out.”

This is like the mother of all meltdowns and of course it’s going down in public, with people staring at me enthralled as if watching television and in front of three of the people I most do not want to witness me lose it. 

I manage to gulp in the next few breaths slower and feel the dizziness retreat slightly and shake her hand off again. I’m amused to see even Magda looks concerned, although rather dubious and annoyed about it.

“I’m fine,” I say to basically the entire beverage garden at large. “Everything’s fine. Thanks for watching. Enjoy your meal.”

I manage to elude the hand Jinny flings out to try to catch me and step over a chain onto a walkway then duck in through a door marked exit only and find myself in the kitchen of the café where I am greeted by startled busboys and cooks.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I yell waving them off and irritably showing my badge and ID in one hand while swiping at my face with the other. “Fuck off.”

 I consternate more than one waiter and waitress as I emerge from the kitchen into the dining area but I ignore them and plow my way towards the exit onto a side street thankfully opposite the beverage garden. 
 
I’ve almost managed to convince myself that what I feel is anger except apparently the message is not getting through to the area of my brain in control of my tear ducts because they and my nose are doing a convincing job of weeping all over me. I bump off more than one shoulder as I make my way more or less blindly up the sidewalk and am addressed in several dialects and languages which I’m sure all translate into “asshole”.

I think I’ve got it made; I’m going to go up a block and cross the street, come back down and find the Mustang and I will spend the next few days holed up in the penthouse with my laptop waiting on S’Phear’s kludge to alert me we’re good to go. I won’t answer the phone; I won’t go to the door; I won’t reply to email. Fuck, I won’t even read email. I’ll sit there and wait this out and go home. How could she do that to me? Set me up like that? Jesus!

It is of course Magda who catches up to me.

She’s got a lot of body strength for such a little person. Then of course I’m not expecting it either.

The sidewalk suddenly tilts up as something slams into the center of my shoulders, then I’m spun around by the elbow and find myself sprawled out and bent over the hood of a vehicle.  Of course the alarm goes off. Of course the owner is nearby and runs out yelling.

“SFPD,” Magda snaps and flashes her badge at him and since this is San Francisco he could care less. He’s practically in tears staring at his paint job which is, as far as I can see and I’m quite close to it, faultless.

“I’ll sue,” he warns her. “I’ll sue in a heartbeat, don’t think I won’t.”

I’ve finally got a little air back in my lungs, enough to ask her over my shoulder, “What the fuck are you doing? And OW… little less thumb pressure okay?”

She grunts and stops twisting my hand up towards the center of my back.

“Jin said to get you. So I did.

“Yeah. Nice job. Ever heard of, ‘Hey! Stop! Wait!’?”

“Like you’d have paid attention.”

 “So you have me. Now what?”

“Stand up. And then we wait here for them.”

Them. Fuck.

I turn around and lift my hands and attempt my best Cooper Finn dazzle of a smile.

She grunts. “No way.”

“Just say you didn’t catch me.”

“I always catch anyone I chase,” she says derisively, glaring at me and peering back down the sidewalk. “Besides,” she adds,” she wants to talk to you and I think you guys need to talk.” 

That’s interesting.

“Yeah, well, I wanted to talk to her so I could warn her about the shit about to go down. She’s the one who drug you and Legaspi in on it.”

She turns on me, furious. “Look. Nobody drags me into doing anything for Jinny. She’s my partner. You know how that is.”

I blink. I know how that is. No. I knew how that was.

She’s looking at me, speculatively and then turns to gaze back down the street. “You alright?” she asks, but she doesn’t look at me as she asks it, which makes it much easier.

“I’m just dandy,“ I tell her and lean back against the car which sends the owner into hysterics and sets the alarm off again. Magda rolls her eyes at me and jerks her chin towards the building.

“Before he has a coronary over his cheap ass, one-coat paint job.”

“I heard that!” he exclaims, from inside the car where he’s resetting the alarm. “I’ll sue!”

“Sue whoever painted it!” she yells back without missing a beat and then slides her eyes sideways to meet mine. I find myself in the very odd position of giggling with someone who I know loathes me.

“So, what’s on these disks?” she asks me. 

I laugh and lean back against the warm bricks where nobody has a cow thinking I might dent or scratch them.

“Oh, no. You chase me down, you can just wait for the details. Just make sure you view it on a secure computer.”

“Uh huh,” she says and then waves at someone down the street.

Oh goody.

“Magda,” I say and when she looks at me I sigh and lift my hands again.

“C’mon. You hate me. You don’t give a shit if I talk to Jinny or not. I slide in here and go out the back and you say, oops.”

She shakes her head. “Nope. No can do. I don’t give a shit if you talk to her, you’re absolutely right. But I care if she talks to you because it’s important to her for some reason.”

Fuck.

I think I’m being deceptive but I’ve barely inched slightly to the left when Magda says without even looking at me, “You know, if you run I’m going to take you down and you are going to be so humiliated. You’re the one that broke her fucking arm. Stand up and take it. Stop being such a pathetic piece of shit.”

Now, if those aren’t words of pure wisdom. Just stand here and take it. I can stand here and nod and make noises when appropriate and barely know it’s happening. 

I can do that.


END OF TWENTY FOUR