Embracing You, Embracing Me (28 page)

I had caught him off guard and he spun
around at the sound of my voice. “No… uh… yeah, it’s just something for my
back,” he stammered. But I had never seen him falter before and instantly knew
that he was being dishonest. I marched toward him and brashly reached into his
pockets. “What was that stuff?” I demanded.

He made a half-hearted attempt to fend me
off, but already looked resigned to the inevitable confrontation that was
hunting him down. I reached into his front jeans pocket and fished out his
money clip, a receipt, and a small bottle of pills.

Holding up the tiny bottle, my voice
pitched an accusatory tone. “What the hell is this?” Then without waiting for
an explanation I turned the bottle and examined its label.

Nico sighed, “They’re just mini tabs. They
have pseudo-ephedrine in them. I take them to keep me going when I get too
tired.” His expression was neutral, his tone weary.

I felt a flux of mixed emotions and
wrestled with them simultaneously; a mix of surprise, confusion and then a
slowly evolving irritation as I thought over our current scenario. “I know
exactly what they are. They’re a mild version of speed.” My tone was defiant,
challenging him to lie to me. Isn’t this what I had been waiting for- the other
shoe to drop?

Nico brushed off my comment with a shrug.
“Don’t be so dramatic, you can buy these things over the counter, at any
mini-mart. It’s like taking a bunch of caffeine.” He went to move past me, but
I grabbed him by the arm. I wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easy.

He looked down at my hand clutching his
shirt, with a bemused expression. His attempt at dropping the subject had
failed. “Look, Roshell, I don’t think that this is the time or place for you to
cause a major scene with a bunch of melodramatic antics,” he quipped.

His dismissive, patronizing tone set me on
edge. I swiftly dropped my hand from his arm, and drew in my posture. My chin
jutted out defiantly and my next declaration was through clenched teeth. “Fine.
Have it your way.” I stomped past him and into the living room, packed with
guests.

Internally, I was fuming to the point that
I was actually surprised there wasn’t steam flaring from my nostrils. Still, I
kept my cool and maintained a casual conversation with Stacie and Becca. I
couldn’t believe that I had just discovered that Nico was popping pseudo-ephedrine
as if they were Pezz candies.

Legal or not, everyone knew that the small
pills were often abused as a mild form of speed. Once ingested they would speed
up your heart rate, giving you an incredible amount of jacked up energy. When
abused, they could cause heart problems, including heart attack, panic attack,
breathing problems and a vast amount of other drug related side effects.

No matter how much Nico wanted to pretend
that it was no big deal, I knew exactly how bad they were, and in my mind,
drugs were drugs, no matter their disguise.

Then as if that was enough, he had tried to
make it out like I was over-reacting and being a drama queen. What he was
really doing-was turning it back on me, hoping the distraction would cause me
to doubt my motives and therefore take the attention off of him.

It was an obvious tactic and I refused to
succumb to it. The only thing that I could agree with was that the party was
not the place to address it, so I put on a happy face and carried on with being
a congenial party guest.

I kept an eye on him from a distance over
the next hour as he blended into the party.

NICO:
Some jerk that I didn’t recognize showed up carrying a sixpack of
beer under his arm and Roshell rushed over, clearly excited to see him.

eHe
He was of medium height but fairly stocky. When he wrapped his arms
around Roshell in a much too friendly manner, I instantly disliked him. She had
gone from furious with me, to beaming with pleasure while she chatted his ear
off.

Jealous? No. Yeah. Maybe. Doesn’t matter.
I’m putting a stop to it regardless.

Nico stepped up next to me and wrapped a
possessive arm around my shoulder. “Hey, Roshell, who’s your friend?” he asked.

I recognized the typical male jealousy and
territorial behavior, and simply shrugged Nico’s arm off. “Matt, this is Nico.
Nico, this is Matt. We were very good friends my senior year, when I first
moved up to Washington. He moved away and joined the job corps for a year, so I
haven’t seen him in a long time,” I explained.

The intended meaning, which was that we
were only friends, was thick in my statement but I had to only look at the way
Nico was all but foaming at the mouth to know that he wasn’t easily convinced.

He reached out his hand and greeted Matt,
just as our host for the evening came bounding in. She grabbed Matt by the
hand, dragging him into the living room and presenting him to the crowd of
people that he hadn’t seen in a year.

As Matt begrudgingly left my side, Nico
glanced at me. His voice was tight. “Look, I want to get out of here. You can
come or you can stay, but I’m leaving.”

I could hear the angry undertones that he
was trying to mask, and knew that I had a choice to make: I could either stay,
and watch him walk out the door without me, which would probably dissolve any
further chances of our relationship developing, or I could go with him and we
could hash out the issues that were bubbling under the surface, waiting to
explode.

“Let me get my coat,” I answered as I
accepted the challenge.

The drive to his apartment was silent, and
the air was heavy with the words left unsaid.

When Nico pulled into the apartment parking
lot, I finally broke the silence, no longer able to keep my anger contained.
“You know, you have a lot of nerve, putting on the jealous boyfriend act, and
making it out like I was doing something wrong, when you’re the one I caught popping
pills tonight,” I huffed.

Nico didn’t even acknowledge my comment; he
simply crashed the gearstick into park, and marched out of the truck, slamming
the door behind him. Instead of opening my door, he stomped to his front stoop,
and unlocked the front door, leaving it cracked open, for me to find my own way
inside.

I sat in the cab of the pickup, fuming for
another minute, my chest heaving in anger before I opened my door and followed
him into his apartment.

He was in the kitchen, chugging a glass of
water, when I stepped in and closed the door behind me. “Is that more of your
pills?” I accused nastily.

Nico banged the glass down on the counter,
and marched into the living room with a deadly look on his face. “You wanna go
a few rounds about this with me, Roshell? Fine, let’s do this.” No one had ever
confronted me in such a manner before but I was ready, years worth of rage
bubbling to the surface.

I moved slightly forward meeting his
challenge. “Fine, I want to know why you take those drugs. And I want you to
know that if you want to be with me, I won’t tolerate it. I have a child to
think about,” I exclaimed in a no- nonsense tone with my finger jutted in the
air, emphasizing my announcement.

Nico crossed his arms over his chest in a
manner that stated that he was not one to be told what to do. He was a man that
answered to no- one. “Look, Roshell, I take them because I have been burning
the candle at both ends and they help me keep going. I have been putting in
twelve to fourteen hour days since I was promoted to manager of the I.T
department at the casino. You would think that after putting in days like that,
I would fall into bed every night exhausted and sleep like a baby, but I don’t.
My mind doesn’t shut off. I lie there and go through the day’s events and
problems over and over again and I’m lucky if I fall asleep by three or four in
the morning.

“I get up and do it all over again the next
day and by noon I’m exhausted and can’t think straight. My job is extremely
stressful and requires me to be able to problem solve any technical issue that
comes my way in a timely fashion so that gaming and revenue isn’t impacted. I
take them only when I am really tired and need to get through the rest of the
day.”

I listened and though I understood what he
was saying, I was still adamant that pills were not the answer. “You know what
I think? I think that there are lots of people with stressful jobs and insomnia
that manage without popping ephedrine.

“My job may not be as stressful and
demanding as yours, but I bust my ass doing it. Then I go home and take care of
my daughter and our home. I’m completely exhausted. I know what it’s like to be
up with a sick baby all night, and then have to go to work the next day.

“I have been a single parent for over a
year now, and don’t know of many other jobs that are as self-sacrificing, so
don’t tell me about being tired. I’m not the one to have a pity party to about
how hard life is. You take drugs and your excuse as to why, is nothing more
than a pathetic cop out.” I couldn’t believe that I had just spoken to him in
such a manner and was shocked, but refused to budge on my position.

Something dangerous flickered over his
features then he clenched his jaw. He’d apparently never had anyone be so
forthright in their opinions and expectations. It seemed to me, from our
discussions about his past relationships, that he purposely chose to date girls
with meeker personalities. He filled his life with work and drinking with the
guys, and the girls had only the scraps of what was left of his free time.
Well, hell with that! I wasn’t quiet or meek and was damned if I was going to
change for him!

Nico was silent as he processed my emphatic
retort before responding. “You have a lot of nerve, flirting around with some
guy right in front of my face, and then coming into my apartment and telling me
that I’m copping out of my responsibilities,” he bellowed.

“I wasn’t flirting with him you jerk. We
used to be very good friends and I hadn’t seen him in a year. Besides I know
that this is just some lame attempt to detract from the real situation here,” I
yelled back and it felt good.

At this point, he was standing so close
that I had to tip up my chin to continue to look him in the face. He was
looming over me, and as our anger escalated with our argument, he kept stepping
in closer, forcing me to slowly back up, until my back was pressed up against
the front door. I started to feel claustrophobic and scared as his anger
intensified, but refused to show him that I was feeling intimidated. Through
clenched teeth, I said, “Get out of my face right now, Nico. I don’t appreciate
this macho asshole display of yours. You’re just like every other man who wants
to throw his weight around.”

Nico eased back only slightly. “What the
hell do you know about a real man, Roshell? You never even knew your father,
your ex-husband is a twenty-one-year old child, and the one other man in your
life shot himself in the head.”

NICO:
Whoa, I went way too far on that one! I knew the minute that the
words flew out of my mouth that I had stooped to all time low proportions,
hitting below the belt.

Before I could even think, my body was
reacting. My fist landed high on his left cheekbone, just under his eye.

He stepped back, stunned, his expression
flat as he taunted me, “Is that all you got?”

NICO:
Fuck! I can’t believe she punched me.

I’ve been slapped once years ago, but never
has a chick just straight-up punched me in the face.

I couldn’t decide if I wanted to put her
over my knee and spank her or if I wanted to laugh and cheer her on for giving
me what I had obviously deserved.

I stepped back and covered my mouth in
shock, mortified that I had actually punched him. I hadn’t hit anyone since my
junior year in high school when I had scrapped on the bus with my arch enemy,
Stephanie.

I couldn’t believe that I had let my anger
get the best of me and actually resorted to violence. Though I was still
stinking mad, I felt ashamed. “I’m so sorry that I hit you, I can’t believe
that I did that. I don’t usually do that sort of thing,” my tone became
defensive, “but you deserved it! If you hadn’t been bullying me, I wouldn’t
have freaked out like that.”

Nico was looking at me through his good right
eye as his left eye was clamped shut and continued to water. I startled when he
began to, softly chuckle. “You’re right. I had that one coming. I hit below the
belt and I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry, Roshell,” he said as he pressed his palm
to his eye.

I wasn’t sure exactly how to handle his
sudden shift in mood and merely stood there, frozen in place, processing the
little scene we had created since entering the apartment.

Nico shuffled over to the couch where he
slowly lowered himself down, leaned back and closed his eyes. “Come over here.
Sit by me, please.”

I marched to the kitchen and pulled out an
ice pack before joining him on the couch. I gently placed the ice to the
already purplish shiner that was forming just under his left eye. “I really am
sorry. Whenever, anyone gets in my face like that, it just brings up some old
baggage for me and I react. I promise that I won’t ever do that again,” I said
pathetically.