Re: Marvel: Cris & Sam
Crack. He knew crack. Kiss a girl after she pulled the pipe from her lips, and yours would burn and feel numb, that impossible, small vibration feeling, like oversensation giving way to nothing. Cris knew the smell of it, and it came off of Sam's skin rank, along with the musk of sweat and sex, caught up in light waves of runaway hair, and he knew the story of it. It was familiar enough in his line of work. And, he shoulda known. She was staying in a shelter and there were only so many ways to pay for product. She'd brought up her preferred way when Cris had admitted to dealing, and he shoulda known. But, he didn't see it coming. He knew addicts, but he didn't see it coming until he could smell it on her and he was holding her right there.
He didn't let her go. She asked him to, and he didn't.
It would be another notch against him. He denied her the things she wanted—when she'd wanted to run before, when she needed a place from Neil, anything, and he just couldn't let it go. Couldn't let her go. Inevitably, she would resent him for it. She would tell him he was just another guy who thought he knew what was best for her without listening—he remembered those conversations, the things she'd shared with him about other people, until, it seemed, he became one of their number, and then he was just pressure. Stay here, don't go, do this, call me that, don't talk to him, give me a chance, mami, don't go, don't go. ¡No te vayas! She didn't want it, him, whatever, and when traffic started looking better and better,—it had happened to Sofia, hadn't it?
Cris got this wasn't just about him. He was prideful, but he wasn't a narcissist. It was the feeling of being something everyone had to take care of, find a place for. It was the way Neil had handled (or not) finding her a place and her equating his reluctance and shitty location with her own value, perceived by him, and Cris reacting to that, and Louis pushing as always, and who knew what Russ had said, and Joey, and Micah, and everything, and—okay, okay, okay. Yeah. He got that.—But not even Cris could deny a pattern when he saw one. One girl leaping in front of a train, another preferring wartime, and this, and he knew he could be suffocating.
He knew he reminded her of Al, the kinda guy who wouldn't let het out the door. The old guy she was promised to too young. He was jealous where Neil wasn't. He cared that she slept only with him, where Neil didn't. He wasn't freedom. He was the hands on her as her heart beat frenzied and he was the arms that kept her still until she went limp against him.
His body twitched and jumped, too amped, adrenaline and panic.
His fingers felt for her pockets and he wrenched that glass pipe out. It was one violent movement, a burst of energy. He smashed it onto the concrete in front of them, the backspray too small to bother with, the slivers that would work themselves beneath their skin and itch later, and he was trying hard to breathe, even when Sam went quiet.
They needed to go. Cris had seen the light of a phone glancing and they had to go. But, his legs didn't want to work just then, still all shivers, and he just tucked Sam's head under his chin, hand cupping over her ear as he pressed her there. The abrupt stop of movement had jarred him too and it went quiet, like the first moments after your car comes to a stop after rolling over in an accident, and Cris was too tense. He had to do something. He just didn't know what. Something. Something.—It was a bad idea, but he did it anyway. Like he used to when he was a kid—a last bolt, a jerk of his neck back as hard as he could and the awful slam-smack of his skull on that impossible granite, until his scalp split, dented and bruised and blood matting fast with black hair. Que vio estrellas and he knew what he looked like. Out of control. Insane.