Free Vein Fire by Lucia Adams

did. It was stupid and I can’t tell you I’m sorry enough.”
    “It’s cool. It’s in the past. Forgive and forget—or whatever people say.”
    “It’s just, as fucked up as I am, there’s a lot worse out there. Normal people like you don’t usually get one crazy motherfucker in their life, much less two, so we gotta keep Jared away from you.”
    “Hey, I don’t mind crazy. It’s not like I’m the picture of sanity.”
    “Yeah—I noticed the scars,” he exhaled smoke from his cigarette. “Maybe one day you’ll tell me about them.”
    “Yeah, sometime,” Hannah paused, “but I don’t want you to worry about me, I can take care of myself.” Matt didn’t respond. Of course he knew she couldn’t take care of herself.
    “Okay, it’s zani time.” Matt lowered his head and snorted the bigger of the two lines. “Next,” he laughed with a big guffaw as he raised his head from the coffee table. He handed the rolled up twenty to Hannah. She moved around to the end of the table and knelt down. She was slow to inhale the powdery line, but smiled when she raised her head. That’s a beautiful sight , Matt thought.
    “Nice,” she said, but then she lost her balance and slid off of her feet, onto the floor. “Whoa!”
    “Shit goes right to your brain, huh?”
    “Yeah, maybe I should slow down.”
    “Yeah, maybe. Let’s do shots.”
    Hannah crawled to the couch and drank the shot Matt poured for her. She slouched back into the couch. “Damn, I feel nice. How about you?”
    “I’m all right. I’m a fucking beast. I can do this shit all night and still walk straight.”
    “I can’t. I can barely keep my eyes open.”
    “You can barely keep your eyes open?” Matt leaned into Hannah and they both laughed as she lightly pushed him away. He leaned back in, ignoring her as she tried to push him away again, and he kissed her.
    “Matt, stop. We didn’t even talk about this.”
    “What’s there to talk about?”
    “I don’t know. It’s just that I—I can’t remember if we did anything last night.”
    “What does last night got to do with tonight?”
    Hannah stopped in the middle of her next word and giggled, “You’re right. Nothing.” She continued to giggle as Matt leaned in for another kiss. She let him kiss her, but then she pulled away, “DRINK! Time for another drink.”
    “Okay, okay. I see how you are.”
“What does that mean?”
    “Nothing, you got me all worked up and then you leave me hard with nothing but my hand.”
    “I’m sorry. It’s just that this whole situation is kinda fucked up.”
    Kinda fucked up? You don’t know the half of it.
    Matt didn’t talk; he made two lines on the coffee table while Hannah poured them two more drinks. He hurried up and snorted the smaller of the two lines.
    “That whole thing?” Hannah pointed to the long, thick powdery line. “How much is that? An entire pill?”
    “It’s cool—you can handle it.”
    Hannah didn’t argue anymore, she snorted the line, but this time like a pro.
    “Oh-my-fucking-God, YES! That feels good.”
    “Yeah, it’s sweet. How about we watch some television?”
    “Okay.” Hannah staggered back to the couch and fell onto it. “I’m soooo fucked up.”
    “Nothing wrong with that.” Matt intently watched the television while he flipped through channels. After a while, Hannah’s heavy eyes remained partially open, even though she was softly snoring. Matt knew she was asleep by the way her head bent at the neck at such an uncomfortable angle. Lightweight. He watched some rerun for half an hour before he picked her arm up and let it drop down onto her body. Yep, sleeping-fucking-beauty.
    He wasn’t slow or even careful this time. He didn’t bother to redress h er, or even cover her up. He returned the Jäger to the cabinet and washed both of their glasses. He dumped a few of the Xanax into his hand and pocketed them before he tossed the bottle back into her purse. He unrolled the twenty and placed it