Page 11 of Lawton

After a long moment, she looked up. When our eyes met, I held my breath and waited. The years fell away, and there she was – the girl I'd been dreaming about, right here within arm's reach.

Any minute now, she'd make the connection.

I waited.

For nothing.

On her face, there was no sign of recognition. She had no idea who I was – well, except for an orgy-loving druggie who ran around barefoot. Between that and the mall-cop thing, I was batting what? A negative four-thousand?

Again, she glanced at my feet. Her eyebrows furrowed.

"Yeah," I said. "I own shoes. Surprised?"

She glanced up. "No." Her tone was stiff with a country club accent. "Of course not."

The tone threw me. She sounded nothing like the girl I remembered. The girl I remembered was warm and funny. This girl? She had a stick up her ass so thick, it was a miracle she could walk at all.

She glanced at her friend.

I waited. For what, I didn't know.

As if taking some hint, the friend gave a small wave in my direction. "Hi. I'm Erika, and you are –?"

A dumb-shit. That's who. Screw this. I heard myself mutter, "Just the neighbor guy."

I stepped around them and kept on going. Behind me, I heard the dog going nuts, too late to do any good.

I made a sound of disgust. Forget the dog.

Forget her.

The way it looked, I should've done that years ago.

Sammy had told me. Turns out, I should've listened.

Chapter 7

It was maybe a couple days after the beat-down – five years and a lifetime ago.

Lying in that cheap hotel room, I battled the brain-fog, wondering what the hell they'd been giving me. Drugs, obviously. But what kind? Pain-killers? Maybe laced with something else?

I wouldn’t know, because I'd never been a fan. The way I saw it, I'd rather hurt like hell than be too messed up to know my ass from my elbow. But as I lay there on that lumpy mattress, the drugs kept coming, whether I wanted them or not – injected by force, thanks to Sammy, Trick, and the shifty-eyed guy who claimed to be a doctor.

My eyes were shut, but my mind was working. Slower than normal? Yeah. But faster than the day before. That was something, right? Tomorrow, I decided, I'd make a break for it.

Sammy's voice broke through the mist. "The girl. Who was she?"

Slowly, I opened my eyes. Sammy was slouched in the chair beside the bed. He was chomping down a sub-sandwich while flicking through channels using the TV remote.

Through the fog, I heard myself mumble, "What?"

"The girl," he said again. "The rich chick. You know her?"

I squinted up at him. I didn't know any rich girls. Never had. Probably never would. It wasn't like I hung with that kind of crowd.

I looked past Sammy to study the windows. They were covered in ugly brown curtains that looked thick enough to stand on their own. Was it day or night? Night, probably. But I couldn't be sure.

Trick was gone, and so was the doctor.