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There was an audible pause over the phone. "You’re just out partying? With who?"
Ryan’s voice cut through. "I am going to kill him."
"Do you know how worried we’ve been?" Kassie demanded. "I’m losing my fucking marbles over here, ripping my hair out. June, Zariah, and I drove back from Oklahoma, feeling great, just to find Ryan and King freaking the fuck out. You disappeared! Why the fuck did you disappear?! Do you know what time it is?!"
I rubbed the back of my head. "I’m not with anybody."
"What do you mean you’re not with anybody?"
Zariah sounded mystified. "I can’t understand a word he’s saying."
"Hold on, guys, give me a second." There was a kind of shuffling over the phone and Kassie’s voice came over crystal clear. "Adam, where are you? How drunk are you? Can you give the phone to somebody?" There was another sound over the phone and her voice was muffled. "I think he’s hurt. Let’s go—come on." The phone shifted up again. "Adam, are you okay?"
Am I okay?
"No."
"Oh." Kassie’s surprise disappeared in an instant. "Okay, we’re coming. Where are you? We’ll pick you up."
I dropped the bottle. "I don’t know."
"Adam, give me a street or a neighborhood," Ryan told me over the phone. The anger was gone from him too.
"I don’t know where I’m at."
"Ask him where’s the last place he went!" Zariah tried to say but I didn’t have an answer for her either.
"I don’t know."
Staring off to the empty street in front of me, with my cracked phone to my ear, I had a sudden realization.
I didn’t want to do this anymore.
Everything I did up to this led to this exact point, alone and drunk on some boulevard, with my friends having to collect me because I couldn’t remember where I’d been. I didn’t want to be this person anymore.
"Adam!" Kassie’s shout jolted me out of my thoughts. "Wake up!"
"What?"
"Don’t fall asleep!"
"Stay awake," Zariah snapped. "Give me the phone, I’ll find him. Adam tell me anything about where you’re at. Marrs Manwhore, give me something!"
"Zariah, I don’t want to be this person anymore."
"That’s fucking fine! You can be a juggling kangaroo if you want! But after we pick you up!"
105
Adam
More Of A Puppet Than Anything
I rubbed my eyes. Where was I? That was the question of the hour. I stretched back on the parking bumper and stared at the glowing neon sign. “Uh…there’s a bear…it’s a tattoo place.”
“A tattoo parlor?” Kassie repeated, dumbfounded. “Oh my god, Ryan. Step on it.”
“I don’t know where we’re going.”
