BooksBarbecue
Back Thin Skin Save as PDF
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Cast of Characters
  7. Part One
  8. One
  9. Two
  10. Three
  11. Four
  12. Five
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Fifteen
  23. Sixteen
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Part Two
  28. Twenty
  29. Twenty-one
  30. Twenty-two
  31. Twenty-three
  32. Twenty-four
  33. Twenty-five
  34. Twenty-six
  35. Twenty-seven
  36. Twenty-eight
  37. Twenty-nine
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-one
  40. Thirty-two
  41. Thirty-three
  42. Thirty-four
  43. Thirty-five
  44. Thirty-six
  45. Thirty-seven
  46. Thirty-eight
  47. Thirty-nine
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-one
  50. Forty-two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-four
  53. Forty-five
  54. Forty-six
  55. A note on the Author

Then I went back to meet Ruby, pulling from my pocket the cigarettes I had had all along. She acted like she didn’t give a fuck. She had her eyes closed as the girl filed her nails. She used their bathroom to wash off her crazy face. Then she went right out and bought herself a new sweater. She put on a great show, had us go out for margaritas, laughed about what had happened. I kept repeating, “Fuck ’em!” because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She said she wanted to go back to her apartment, but I made her stay with me that night. She slept in my bed with me. I cried a little onto her shoulder blade after she went to sleep. I tried really hard not to but I couldn’t help it. She woke up and put her arms around me and I guess we drifted off that way.

Twenty-eight

image
Thank you

Rachel was … sweet to me. I can admit now that I was wasted when I bumped into her at Prada. I didn’t know who the hell she was. I could barely remember who Scott was. The Sebastian thing was long over. Aslan didn’t give a fuck. He was put off by the aura of despair that surrounded me like a force field, protecting others but not me. My heart was aching, and my belief is that when things are bad, it’s better to make them worse. I just wanted to rip my heart out, throw it on the sidewalk, and stamp, stamp, stamp, until it smooshed like a water bug. I wanted to hear it squelch. If I was going to self-destruct, I wanted to watch it happen along with everyone else.

So I had been walking about thirty blocks through New York City, kicking my heart in front of me. It was snowing and of course I was crying. I was gone when she found me. It seemed so ridiculous to me that she was going on about Scott, who I never ever gave a fuck about, when I was thinking about Sebastian and how badly I’d screwed myself by letting him go. But I guess she gave a fuck about Scott. And over the course of the week I stayed with her, it started to flood back. I felt like shit. I felt like shit for what I had done to her. And I also felt physically awful. I was coming off months of Percocet, Xanax, and Valium. She weaned me off it without even meaning to. When I could see clearly I knew I wanted to be more like her. And when I could see very, very clearly, I saw through her. I saw that she was every bit as lonely as I was.