Chapter Text
Spring 2001
Time has been different lately. Those days between the game and his rescue, the ones Adam spent bleeding and drinking from a leak in the wall and pacing until he couldn’t do anything but sleep anymore, were interrupted by a barrage of searing light when a team of armed investigators pried open the doors. It was nothing and then everything at once. Movement and noise. New pain he didn’t know he could feel, fast and constant. For the next two weeks, at least one person, sometimes as many as a dozen, stayed in the hospital room with him at any given moment.
Then nothing again.
He’s back at his shithole apartment most of the time now. The neighbor with the cat’s lease ended, so he doesn’t even have a reason to go out and buy milk.
His body’s in a constant state of just stepping off an escalator. When he’s standing still, he can still feel his ghost phasing forward. He has to lock his knees and lean back to keep the inertia from bowling him over.
He never thought of his life as slow before, but now that he’s experienced fast, he realizes he’s spent 27 years crawling.
Adam has learned that the best medicine for this kind of motion sickness is getting very, very baked and watching TV movies.
A knock on the door interrupts his ritual and forces him to unfurl all his limbs. Standing is a risk that he takes.
“Hello,” says Lawrence when he opens the door.
Adam braces himself against the entryway. “Uh,” he says.
Lawrence seems tanner than the last time he saw him, almost a month ago. He’s probably not, though. This is probably just what he looks like when he has all his blood. His posture is as perfect as it gets for a guy on crutches.
“I’m sorry to drop by unannounced like this. I tried to call ahead, but your number’s wrong in the police records.” Lawrence’s eyes pinch with polite embarrassment.
Adam remembers this about him, how he’s very good at making his expressions polite and also another thing. Even his exasperation was polite. He wonders if that’s something Lawrence had to practice at, or if it’s an age thing, or a rich person thing.
Whatever the case, Adam’s polite expressions haven’t grown in yet. The adjectives he gets described with only run the gamut between “snot-nosed” and “shit-eating.” He doesn’t know what the confusion on his face looks like, but it doesn’t feel polite.
“Oh, yeah. It’s not wrong. I disconnected my landline.”
“Ah.” Lawrence waits to see if there’s more information. Adam doesn’t offer any. He perseveres: “I hope you don’t mind, I peeked at your patient file to find your address. I figure that makes us even.” Another expectant pause. “Since you know where I live.”
“Yeah,” Adam agrees.
“Um, this was rubber-banded to your doorknob.” He presents a red envelope with the words EVICTION NOTICE stamped on the front.
Adam accepts it and tosses it inside with the others. It’s a good thing he’s stoned, or this might be embarrassing. “Probably meant for a neighbor.”
This time Lawrence’s polite expression is pitying.
“How’s your wife doing?” Adam asks to make him feel bad.
His tactic fails, because Lawrence smiles fondly. “As well as she can be. Great, actually. All of us are doing great. It’s an adjustment, of course, and it’s been hard on us, but tragedies really do bring people together.”
Adam wouldn’t buy it if he didn’t sound so damn sincere. “How about Diana?”
“She’s a tough cookie, that one. We were worried she’d be traumatized, of course, but now that Alison and I aren’t fighting anymore, the only thing she seems to be scared of is how much attention she’s being smothered with.”
“That’s great, Larry,” Adam says flatly.
He nods, so full of the kind of happiness that comes from relief, it makes his face round. It’s hard to be annoyed at someone so earnest.
“May I come in?” Lawrence asks when it becomes clear that Adam isn’t going to invite him of his own volition.
Adam glances behind him. “No, not really.”
“Not really?”
“I’m right in the middle of something, actually.”
“I’ll only be a moment,” Lawrence implores. “I’d just rather not talk out in the hall.”
There’s no stopping it. Adam turns around and walks back into his apartment, biting his tongue to keep from saying something about not expecting guests. That’s obvious enough from the laundry pile extending to the living room.
“I’m moving,” he says right after he thinks it, because he can’t go another second without making an excuse. “The cops took a bunch of shit and moved everything else around when they were here, so it’s taking a while to get it all boxed up.”
Lawrence appears torn between looking at the jars of chemicals from the scrapped darkroom and the Popeye rolling tray occupied by a single monstrously fat joint. “They weren’t done looking at it by the time you were discharged from the hospital?”
“I had a lot of photos.”
“My family was held hostage at my home, and it was only a crime scene a few days,” Lawrence continues.
“Maybe they did mine after yours,” Adam defends for no reason.
Lawrence gives up and follows Adam’s lead in sitting on a couch cushion that doesn’t have boxes stacked onto it. He leans his crutches beside him.
“Your new foot in the mail?” Adam nods to what’s left of the leg.
“They won’t fit me for a prosthetic until it’s completely healed.” Lawrence brushes a hand over his pant leg, which is neatly tucked under his knee so no sign of bandage shows.
“Does it hurt?” Adam asks.
“No. Itches like a mother, though.”
That almost makes Adam smile. “Oh, they must have given you the really good shit, then.”
“If there’s a circumstance deserving of better shit, I don’t want to know what it is.”
“Fuck you, man. I’m jealous! I took a bullet and all I got was a prescription for extra-strength Tylenol,” Adam says. “And half a Valium so I wouldn’t bite any doctors when they wheeled me to the car.”
“I’m sure you also got a tetanus shot,” Lawrence says consolingly.
“They didn’t even ask me permission before they did it, either. If I said no they probably would’ve gotten me in the neck with a blowdart.” Adam laughs. “I’ve got six pill bottles in my cabinet and none of them make me more fun.”
“Would you like me to write you a scrip?”
“Really?”
“No.” Lawrence grins. Huh. It looks like his gamut runs up to shit-eating, too.
“Fuck you, man,” Adam repeats, mirroring his grin. “Why’d you drive all the way out here, if not to drop drugs on my doorstep like the pizza delivery man?”
Lawrence’s smile fades some. “You don’t want to do more small talk first? We haven’t even mentioned the weather.”
“That good, huh?”
“It’s not bad, but you won’t like it,” Lawrence warns.
“You’re really selling me.”
“We never finished our conversation in the hospital,” he prompts.
This makes Adam’s ribs cold and his throat tight. “What conversation?”
“Um. Can you mute that?” Lawrence nods to the TV, where Chevy Chase is hanging off the side of his house. Adam passes him the remote. “I visited you. A few days after they found you,” Lawrence says carefully.
“Oh, when I was catatonic? Or was it when I was fresh out of surgery whacked out on anesthesia? Yeah, it’s all coming back to me now.”
“You don’t remember.” Lawrence sounds disappointed.
Adam shakes his head. Not remembering things makes him prickle with anxiety these days. “The doctors didn’t say I had a non-family visit.”
“No, I suppose I didn’t log it.” Off the look Adam gives him, he continues, “I wasn’t allowed to see you, even supervised, so I had to sneak in.”
“They don’t let wild gunmen visit the people they shot?” Adam asks, and regrets it. The guilt on Lawrence’s face doesn’t make him feel any better. “I would’ve let you in, if they’d asked me,” he adds lamely.
“And I would’ve left if you asked me,” Lawrence clarifies. “But I wanted to make sure you were okay. No one would even tell me if you made it. And you wanted to talk.”
That’s probably true. Adam doesn’t remember much about the first week after. He’d been in and out of consciousness, then once he regained some strength, words were still beyond him. The infections melting his brain, probably. They couldn’t get his full name to find an emergency contact until his fever had broken, which meant no one knew Adam was there until a few days before he was discharged.
In all the hours he and Lawrence had been trapped together, he’d somehow failed to tell him his last name. Nevermind if they’d needed to identify his body.
“What did we talk about?”
“You hadn’t told anyone what happened, because you thought it was your fault. It was really… eating you up.” All of a sudden, Lawrence is using this clinical-empathy voice that makes Adam’s skin crawl.
“That’s not true. That’s fucking dumb,” Adam says.
“Not the game,” Lawrence says gently. “Zep.”
Adam looks back at the TV. “I told the cops when they brought me in for questioning later. They charged me, but didn’t arrest me, so I guess it got dropped. Or, I don’t know, maybe the paddy wagon’s in the shop.”
“You won’t be charged. It was defense, and I testified as much. You didn’t do anything wrong legally.”
“Legally,” Adam says. Chevy Chase is getting electrocuted. Even though it’s muted, he can hear the sound that would be playing in his head, in his teeth.
Lawrence seems awfully weighed down for a guy who didn’t murder anyone. “I hate to think that you’ve spent all this time on your own, not talking about it with anyone, self-flagellating.”
“Well, I get shy about self-flagellating with other people around,” Adam says.
“You know, he tortured my family,” Lawrence says. “We haven’t let Diana out of our sight, so we didn’t have the chance to discuss what happened in detail until yesterday, but Alison told me as much.”
There’s a long silence where Adam guesses he’s supposed to agree.
“It wasn’t part of his game to enjoy it.”
“Okay,” says Adam.
“You heard his tape, right?” Adam nods. “The police played it for me. He knew where we were, and where Jigsaw was. He worked at the hospital, for chrissake, he could’ve gone to the police and gotten the antidote himself! He chose—”
His eyes burn. “We can’t… I can’t do the ‘he deserved it’ thing. It sounds—”
Lawrence shakes his head. “It’s not the same.”
“Okay.”
“You saved my life. If you hadn’t done what you did, I would have died.”
“Okay.”
“It’s important to me that you know.”
Adam holds out his hand, and Lawrence obediently reaches forward to take it. Adam blinks and withdraws. “The remote,” he mumbles. Lawrence passes it over with urgency, now studying the screen.
They watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation unmuted.
Lawrence doesn’t last two minutes. “This is terrible.”
“You didn’t see it from the beginning. You can’t make a fair judgment,” he argues even though he agrees.
Adam hears a scoff. “It’s not because I’m having trouble keeping up.”
“You don’t understand nuance,” he responds. “You said we didn’t finish our conversation. What else did we talk about? At the hospital?”
Lawrence looks over at him, then back at the TV. “It was just that.”
Adam closes his eyes and focuses on getting his pulse to be less loud. “You were right.”
“I was?”
“About me not liking that conversation.”
It’s clear Lawrence feels some kind of responsibility for him, and is also supremely uncomfortable with people unreceptive to getting claimed as a dependent. That tracks for a guy whose bedside manner was so bad only a torture room could redeem him.
“I should be going,” Lawrence says, setting about gathering his crutches.
“No.” Adam’s surprised to hear the protest came from him. He doesn’t want to talk about guilt, or feelings, or it , but god if it isn’t a relief to talk to someone who doesn’t have to ask any questions. “If you leave before the ending, you’ll be haunted by not knowing the rest of your life.”
Lawrence pauses. “They do National Lampoon marathons, like, once a week.”
“Not with my commentary,” Adam says. “Besides, we haven’t even talked about the weather yet.”
Lawrence settles back into his seat. “If you don’t say how humid it is, how will I know?”
———
Next time, Adam opens the door before Lawrence can knock. The “no entry” sign taped over the apartment number made Lawrence think he wouldn’t.
“Hi. You haven’t moved,” he says.
Adam glances back at the notice on the door. “Not for lack of trying. What’s up, man?”
The black shirt he’s wearing fits tight across his chest, and he’s got something shiny in his hair.
“Are you going out?” Lawrence asks.
“There’s this bar nearby I’ve been drinking at for years. I didn’t want to go back until I was fully recovered, but, y’know.” Adam shrugs. “I decided I’ll live if I can’t raise both arms above my head for the macarena.”
Lawrence confesses, “I’m still dreading my next limbo.”
“As if you’ve ever participated in a limbo,” Adam sneers. “So what’s up?”
“Hm?”
“Why are you here?”
“Oh, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d say hi,” Lawrence says. “Which I did. So I’ll leave you to it.”
Adam looks at him dubiously. “You wanna come with?”
The invitation surprises Lawrence. “I don’t really drink.”
“Even better. You can drive.” Adam opens his door again to grab a jacket off the hook inside and presses toward the stairwell while he wrestles it on. Lawrence is helpless to follow.
“I usually just walk, but it’s about a mile and it looks like it might rain.” He turns to Lawrence and cups a hand around his mouth conspiratorially. “I’m checking off small talk.”
Lawrence feels himself smile. “You’ll have to bear with me for a minute. I’m slower descending stairs than climbing them.”
“God, I always forget. You’re too good with those crutches. Here.” Adam stands on Lawrence’s injured side and loops an arm around his back, prepared to support his weight. He’s warm, and this close he smells a little boozy.
“Is this helpful?” he asks when he’s guided him down a dozen steps.
“Not really,” Lawrence says with a quirk to his lips. “It’s kind of an additional obstacle.”
Adam lets him go. “Dude! Why didn’t you stop me, then?”
“You were trying so hard,” Lawrence laughs.
Adam shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and hurries to the bottom to get out of the way. He must already be tipsy from pregaming, because his ears are tinted pink.
“I didn’t want to discourage your kind gesture!” Lawrence protests when he catches up, patting Adam on the back.
“Next time, you’re on your own. Even if you have to crawl,” Adam sniffs, but his face is bright. “Now where’s your car?”
Adam’s directions aren’t great, and parking is a nightmare at this hour, but they do arrive at the right location. It’s more of a club than a bar, to Lawrence’s definition — the music is loud and bassy enough to feel in your bones, and there are more people dancing than sitting — but Adam relaxes right into the crowd and makes a beeline for the bar.
“Stanheight!” greets the barkeep, a beautiful black woman with dark makeup and an undercut. She folds up the counter by the register to drag Adam into a hug.
“Stanheight!” he returns as she kisses him on the cheek.
“You wish,” she laughs. “Which shoulder is it?” Adam taps his right shoulder, and she abruptly shoves him by his left and returns to her station. Adam stumbles onto the barstool across from her, grinning.
“I’ve been trying to get Holly to take my last name since ‘99,” Adam says to Lawrence as she gets out two pint glasses.
“How are you gonna make an honest woman out of me if you don’t even support my career?” Holly asks.
“Please. I support your career like nobody else.”
“That’s true. Everybody else here pays for drinks.” Holly pours two beers from the tap and slides them over.
She leans forward, then, and pats the side of Adam’s face so hard it could almost be a slap. “I’m glad you’re okay, man.” She nudges the other beer to Lawrence, then, and acknowledges him for the first time. “You, too. Saw you on the news. You two trauma-bonded or what?”
That isn’t how that term is used. Lawrence looks back at his only ally, wide-eyed.
Adam takes over for him for another turn until he finds his footing. “Yeah, we’re blood brothers. Inseparable. I’d show you our secret handshake, but you know the thing about secrets,” Adam says. He points between them. “Lawrence, Holly. Holly, Lawrence.”
Lawrence bravely offers a hand to be shaken, and Holly accepts it with enthusiasm. “Thanks for not killing Adam,” she says with gravity.
“You’re welcome,” Lawrence says, struggling to maintain eye contact.
“I’m just saying, if I’d been in your shoes? Dead before the tapes finished playing.”
“Alright,” Adam interrupts, which is good because Lawrence probably would have said something about how he wasn’t wearing shoes at the time. “Don’t you have a job to do?”
“You wouldn’t know anything about it. Later, boys.” Holly flicks Adam’s forehead and turns to help another customer.
Lawrence feels like every ounce of social grace has been sapped from him. “She seems nice.”
“Oh, she’s the worst. It’ll be a spring wedding.” Adam starts in on his beer, surveying the crowd. Lawrence takes a sip and surveys it with him. He hasn’t been a beer guy in a decade at least, but he can tell Holly served them middle-shelf at least.
The indoors is cramped and dedicated to a few booths and tables, occupied by small groups and handsy couples. While he’s looking, two flush-faced women stand and make their uncoordinated way outside, hand in hand.
The spacious back patio has a partial stage with a DJ, a dance floor, and blue and pink lights that don’t remind Lawrence of any club he’s ever been in. It’s not fully dark out yet, but there are already dozens of drunk people jumping and swaying to the beat in a sweaty throng. Seated on the edge of the stage by the DJ booth, a drag queen smokes a cigarette and scrolls on her phone, clearly on a break.
“Have you brought me to a gay bar?” Lawrence asks when he’s done sufficient observation.
“Huh?” It seems he’s interrupted Adam in the middle of making significant eye contact with someone outside. “No, it’s just a bar.”
“There are a lot of gay people here,” Lawrence feels the need to explain. He’d feel bad if Adam didn’t know.
“It’s the only cool bar in this city, of course there are gay people here. That doesn’t make it a gay bar,” Adam argues. “Do they not have gay people at your cigar lounges?”
Lawrence plans to dignify that with a response, but Adam continues, “Don’t be a Republican, Larry. Now be quiet, it’s working.”
“What’s working?” Lawrence looks up and sees a man take up the empty seat between them.
“I thought you looked familiar,” the stranger says. He has a bit of an accent Lawrence can’t place. “Adam, right? I can’t even imagine.”
“You must recognize me from my televised bank heist,” Adam says.
“Yeah, that was it,” the stranger nods in pretend-recognition. “I guess you probably don’t need me to buy you a drink, then.”
“I already have a drink.” Adam raises his half-empty beer.
“You don’t want something harder?”
“Oh, twist my arm. Vodka soda.”
The man stands and heads to a freer spot on the bar, trying and failing to get Holly’s attention.
“Hey, Stanheight!” Adam calls, then points to the guy and makes an OK sign with his fingers. Holly winks back.
Lawrence shifts over to the seat between him and Adam and bows his head. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” Adam wonders. “If you wanted a drink, you should’ve said so. I’m sure he’d buy you one, too, if you said you were there.”
“That guy’s not buying you drinks because you’re a Jigsaw survivor,” Lawrence hisses. He can’t believe he has to explain this. “He’s coming onto you.”
“Duh, dude.”
“Don’t you think it’s… It’s…” Lawrence searches for the words, moving his hands. “Morally dubious? To accept a drink from someone who thinks you’re interested?” This is so embarrassing. Just the proximity to the grift Adam is pulling is making him anxious. “It’s manipulative. You’re making him think he has a chance.”
Adam seems to find this perspective funny. “Well, never say never.”
The stranger returns with four glasses precariously balanced between several curled fingers, and waits for Lawrence to slide back to his seat. He hands Adam his vodka soda first, then passes out the three dressed shots. Lawrence is humbled to realize he’s received the ugly friend’s pity shot.
“I hope you don’t mind tequila,” says the stranger.
“We’re actually very close friends.”
The man plucks the lime from Adam’s glass and places it backward between his teeth, which makes Adam laugh. Lawrence doesn’t even see him brace himself; Adam licks the rim of his glass, knocks back his shot, then Lawrence’s shot, then sucks the lime from the guy’s mouth, no hitch.
He sets Lawrence’s empty shot glass back on the table and spits the rind into it. “You’re driving, so.”
The guy knocks his shot back, too, with a greater wince, and then brushes a hand down Adam’s back. “You wanna go somewhere quieter?”
Lawrence thinks he shouldn’t be able to bear to watch, but it’s like a car crash.
Adam tips his head sympathetically. “I promised my friend I’d show him a good time,” he says like it pains him, and the guy takes the hint.
“You are a bad person,” Lawrence says when he’s out of earshot.
Adam just smiles and chews on his straw.
“How can you pull a stunt like that off for fun, but you can’t tell a lie to literally save your life?” he has to ask.
“Art must come from passion,” Adam says. “Do you wanna dance?”
“You know I don’t.” Lawrence sighs, frustrated he’s gotten himself wound up over nothing. Inflexibility is one of his worst traits.
“Just being nice.” He stands to take off his leather jacket and leave it in his seat. “I’ll be back in a few.”
“What happened to showing me a good time?” Lawrence reminds him stonily.
“I’m showing you, but you won’t look!”
Adam scoops up his undeserved vodka soda and makes his way outside. Lawrence watches him pause at the edge of the crowd, bobbing and swaying with the music, then gradually weave into the center.
What he’s doing isn’t really dancing, strictly speaking, but neither is what anybody else is doing. It’s more like nodding and bending his knees. The drink he cradles against his chest is a good excuse to only raise up one arm.
Another man sidles up around his side to get his attention, and Adam’s face is unadulterated enthusiasm. He is a confusingly good actor when he wants to be. This guy is taller, a little older, and he wastes no time slinging an arm around Adam’s waist.
It’s another car crash. With nothing else to do, Lawrence sips at his warming beer and waits for the rejection.
Adam spins around and bends the arm he had raised so it draws the man forward against his back, face against his neck, and the hand that was at his waist moves naturally to Adam’s inner hip.
Lawrence turns all the way back to stare at the bar in mortification, face burning at how long it took him to catch up.
———
Adam’s new apartment is barely more than a studio, but he doesn’t have a need for a darkroom anymore and he doesn’t have a lot of stuff anyway. It’s remarkable how easy it is to downsize when you’re the one who has to move the boxes.
It’s not long after his move that he’s woken up first by a knock that he’s able to ignore, then by an urgent banging that he can’t. Adam knows he’s conquered PTSD when irritation comes before panic.
“Oh my god, what?” Adam snaps when he answers. “Oh.”
Lawrence takes a step back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d be waking you.”
It is firmly afternoon, and a weekday no less, but Adam’s dressed in socks and boxers and hasn’t yet finished patting his hair down.
Adam’s learned his lesson. Rather than belabor the hallway talk, he just turns around and lumbers back inside to make coffee. Lawrence dutifully closes the door behind him.
“You still haven’t plugged your phone back in,” he says by way of apology.
“I’ll give you my cell number,” Adam says, more focused on unsticking his eyelids from each other. Habit puppets his body around as he grabs the Folgers from under the sink and taps down a filter.
Lawrence looks around the room, probably noticing the low ceilings and cheap paint. “I apologize for being so flustered. When I knocked and you didn’t answer, I thought…”
Adam doesn’t need to hear what he thought. “I didn’t even notice, man. Doesn’t rank top three for most ‘flustered’ I’ve seen you.”
That gets a laugh. Today, Lawrence only has a cane to worry about. When he takes a seat on one of the two barstools, he has to use his hands to position his leg the way he wants it, but two shoes end up propped on the rungs beneath him.
“I had to ring your old building’s office a few times before I got your forwarding address.”
“Should I be concerned that a guy who tried to kill me is this persistent about finding out where I live?” Adam says through a yawn into the back of his hand. “I was couch-surfing for a while before I could afford the new place. Everywhere wanted three months up front on top of the deposit.”
“It’s nice,” Lawrence comments.
“Not hard to beat the old place,” Adam says, but doesn’t disagree. The last tenant was moving internationally and left all the furniture that was too expensive to ship. He’s got a TV stand made out of real wood now. Fuck, he’s got a bed frame. In a fit of inspiration for interior design, he’d even framed and hung up a few posters. Used a level and everything.
“You drink coffee?” Adam offers as he roots through the cabinet. All the clean mugs left are on the right side of the high shelf, and he has to ram his side against the fridge to reach them with his left arm. He gets his index finger hooked in the handles of two of them and whips back to look at Lawrence once he’s set them down, victorious.
“Not at four-thirty,” Lawrence says, debuting a new expression that Adam labels “offended rich cunt.”
“More for me,” Adam says. “You here to give me my housewarming gift?”
Lawrence’s gaze is still trained on Adam’s right arm, the one he’s not leaning on.
“I had another question, actually.”
“You sure do love unannounced, in-person questions.”
“Your landline— ” Lawrence starts to protest, but Adam waves him off with a crooked smile. “I’ll just be frank. I was curious if you had considered getting involved in therapy?”
Adam furrows his brow, still smiling. “Well, yeah. Of course. The doctors wouldn’t let me leave until they’d booked me half a year of appointments.”
Lawrence seems surprised by this. “That is a relief to hear. Forgive me, but you seem like the sort of person who might be resistant to it.”
“Hey, don’t get me wrong, it’s kicking my ass and I hate every minute of it,” Adam huffs. “Makes me feel like a little bitch on a good day. But even I have to admit it’s helping.”
Lawrence relaxes, propping his head up on a hand. “There’s no shame in that. I’ll admit I’ve been going, too.”
“Oh, yeah, fuck!” Adam nods. “Who do I think I’m complaining to? I’m sure it’s been way harder on you.”
Inexplicably, the “offended rich cunt” face resurfaces. “What makes you think that?”
“Because…? Uh, because…” Adam flounders. He lowers his voice, “of your leg? That you lopped off. Didn’t you have to learn how to walk again?” Lawrence hadn’t seemed put off when he asked about his foot before, but maybe something came up when he got fitted for his prosthetic and now he’s sensitive about it. It seems a little ridiculous that Adam of all people should have to tiptoe around it, though.
Lawrence still seems confused. “Yes, but you were alone in the dark with a dead body for nearly a week.”
Adam doesn’t see how that’s relevant. “But I was, like, walking around and stuff. I didn’t just sit there. My legs are fine.”
“Yeah. What?”
“Anyway, as fun as it’s been crying like a baby twice a week, I cancelled the rest of my sessions after the next one. I don’t have insurance and I’m basically over the hump, I think.”
“You’re.” Lawrence looks around desperately as if Adam’s new furniture might agree with him. “It’s been two months, Adam. You’re not ‘over the hump’ in two months.”
“Maybe you’re not. I know all the tricks now. It’s cheaper to just join a gym,” Adam maintains.
Lawrence’s laugh is a startled bark of sound, like he doesn’t know whether he’s supposed to be making it.
Adam adds, “If I can convince the front desk girl to give me a massage, it’s basically the same thing,” and that’s the tipping point.
“I’m not talking about physical therapy, I’m talking about therapy therapy,” Lawrence snaps, having put it together now. “Trauma counseling. Psychiatry, maybe.”
“Ohhhh,” says Adam. That does make more sense. “Nah.”
The coffeemaker emits a wretched beep that means Adam gets to turn away from the incredulity wafting off Lawrence. He pours it into both mugs, just because it was such a triumph to get them out, and dresses his with cream from the fridge.
“‘Nah’ to one in particular or ‘nah’ to this subject?” Lawrence demands.
Adam thinks about his options. Drinks some of his coffee. The first sip is always basically milk because he doesn’t bother to stir it. “Nah to the subject,” he decides.
“If it’s because you don’t know where to start, I’m very good with recommendations,” Lawrence starts.
“No,” Adam interrupts, voice thick. He has to tip his head back to keep the half-mouthful of coffee from dribbling out. “It’s because I’m good.”
“You’re good.”
He actually swallows. “I’m, like, fine.”
“It’s a quarter to 5 and you just woke up,” Lawrence deadpans.
“I work nights,” Adam defends.
Dumbstruck, Lawrence says, “No you do not. You are not seriously still taking cash to follow people around. What’s wrong with you?”
“No, dumbass. My camera’s lost to the eternal void of due process, anyway, along with my baseball bat and my favorite boots. I’m just the night shift at a production facility,” Adam explains, miffed at the insinuation. “I go in at 7:30 and get home right around sunrise. So actually, being awake right now makes me a go-getter.”
“A production facility?”
“There’s one big factory on the edge of town that makes all the ice cream for all the local chains. I show up and smack Oreos with a rolling pin or whatever for 10 hours and then I leave.” Adam can’t make himself sound belabored about it, really. “It’s actually a great gig — set hours, walking distance, and the guys on the night shift have good taste in music. Plus they turn their heads when I swipe gummy bears.”
Lawrence is nodding, but doesn’t look happy about it. “The hours must be rough.”
“I mean, I’ve worked nights the past few years. It would be harder to switch back to human schedule. All my friends have the circadian rhythms of raccoons, anyway.”
Adam would be lying if he said the hours weren’t a benefit. Now he gets to go to a bright, bustling factory and chat with new acquaintances over menial tasks instead of hyperventilating on a dark walk home. His tiny windows don’t get much natural light, but it’s easier to sleep just knowing the sun’s out.
“Pay well?” Lawrence asks.
“Bizarrely well,” Adam says. “They give me all the hours I want, and night shift gets hazard pay. I added it up the other day and I’ll have my medical bills paid off in, like, less than four years.”
Lawrence doesn’t seem as impressed by this. “You must be working yourself to death, though.”
“It’s a lot of time, but hey. What the hell else am I doing?” Adam shrugs. “You sure you don’t want any coffee?”
“No, thank you,” says Lawrence, gears turning. “How can you sleep during the day?”
“It’s easier than sleeping at night, actually.”
“Were you having nightmares? Night terrors?” Lawrence looks visibly relieved to learn something is wrong. “Don’t you—”
“Dude, why do you want me to be miserable so bad?” he asks, exasperated.
“I don’t want you to be miserable.” Adam gives him a doubtful look as he sips at the second mug. “I just want you to realize if you are miserable.”
He rolls his eyes. “Look, it’s nice that it took a near-death, come-to-Jesus moment for you to love your wife. I’m happy for you, for real. But playing a torture game didn’t exactly help my credit score.”
He dumps the rest of the coffee and starts rinsing the mugs. Lawrence just watches.
“I don’t have a marriage to repair. What I have is a shitload of bills to pay, and I found a job that’ll do it, and it doesn’t even make me wanna off myself. I eat two meals a day, I shower, and next week, I’ll have a gym membership. I’m fine.”
Lawrence murmurs, “I wouldn’t be fine. I’m not fine, and I didn’t go through half of what you did.”
“You’re also not half as scrappy.”
Lawrence laughs and stands to fish a business card out of his wallet. “Look, I’m leaving you a colleague’s number, for my own conscience. Use it or don’t.”
“It’s going in the trash as soon as you’re gone,” Adam warns.
“At least recycle it.”