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can make up for his time away by giving me
things. My BMW for one and free access to his credit cards.
    “Let’s get you cleaned
up,” he says. I point him toward the upstairs guest bathroom, where we keep a
first aid kit. I pull out the antiseptic ointments and bandages and set them on
the marble counter.
    “Let me.” He takes the
gauze pads from my hand but hesitates when he sees the ten different bottles of
cleaners on the counter.
    “Wash your hands
first,” I demand.
    He pumps the soap in
his hands and rinses them off before holding them up for my inspection.
    “Wonderful, now use the
saline solution in the squirt bottle.” I hold my hand out over the sink for
him.
    “Like this?” He squirts
it over the scratches on my hand.
    “Try and make sure the
gravel is gone.” He spends a few more moments cleaning my hand before looking
up at me.
    “I think I got it from
here,” he says, drying my hand with some gauze. He finishes by using the liquid
bandage. “Sometimes my dad would come home all beat up after a drunken bar
fight and I’d have to clean him up so Mom didn’t find out about it.”
    When I pull my hand
away, I’m not sure what to say. I knew his Dad used to get violent which makes
me happy that Mischa hardly drinks. Violet, on the other hand, won’t stay away
from the stuff.
    “Thank you.”
    “It was partly my fault
anyway. You were trying to get me to back down.”
    I stroke his cheek with
the back of my hand. “I didn’t want to see you get hurt.”
    He licks his lips. “He
wouldn’t have hurt me.”
    “I know, but I invited
you to have fun.”
    He puts his hand on
mine and kisses the back of it. “It’s okay. I really didn’t feel like a party
anyway.”
    “Miss your parents?”
    He chuckles. “No, not
exactly. I’d just rather be hanging out with you, that’s all.”
    “Me?” I whisper. We’re
friends, but I didn’t think I was the first person he’d choose to hang out
with.
    “So don’t take this the
wrong way, but I used to think you were as fleeting and careless as Violet, but
you aren’t like her other friends. You act like you care, and when I see people
pushing you around like that damn cop yesterday. It pisses me off.”
    “I seriously thought he
was going to kill me.” I mean it as a joke, but we both know it isn’t. The cop
had no right to hit me and put a gun in my face. I touch the bump on my temple,
now covered by a pound of makeup and lean forward, trying to steady my
ever-increasing breath. Panic takes over as I remember what it felt like. I
believed those were going to be my final moments.
    “Calm down, Cody.” He
wraps his arms around me and kisses the top of my head. I wince as he bumps my
bruise. “You in pain? Do your parents have any good drugs?”
      “Um…my dad is a doctor. So probably?”
    I’m lying. My mom keeps
a whole pharmacy locked in her medicine cabinet. She takes everything for
stress, nerves, anxiety. It’s no wonder she hasn’t gotten caught yet.
    “Where?”
    I point to the room
across the hallway, the master suite.
    Mischa jumps off the
bed and heads straight for my parent’s room. He goes into the adjoining
bathroom while I sit on the flowered comforter. I hear him struggling with the
lock before he comes back with a few bottles.
    “Valium.” He singsongs
the word like he’s just found candy. He opens the bottle and dumps a few blue
pills in his hand. “These will help you forget.”
    “No, thanks. I draw the
line at pot.”
    He places a few in my
hand and gives me a wide-toothed grin. “I’ll stay with you. Make sure nothing
happens.”
    Everything that’s
happened. The drug bust, the party, my aching body, I want to forget it all. Maybe
this will help.
    He counts out ten and
closes the bottle. “If you snort them, it’ll be more fun.”
    “No, thank you. My Nona
made me sit through too many Dateline specials as a kid.”
    “What are you scared
of? You drink.”
    I scoff. “I drink to
loosen up.”
    He