Long inhale, slow exhale. “Right now, I’m just taking it all in. Rest assured, we’ll get everything sorted out. What’s important is that you’re home, safe. Let’s just start from there.”

Al had once told me the only difference between building a tree house and a thousand-acre resort is time. Pragmatic, Al.

The coffee was waking me up, clearing the cobwebs from my hangover. And I realized that I stank. The mixture of fear sweat, body odor, and whatever sewer water had been in that drainage culvert. “Fair enough,” I said. It wasn’t what I had wanted to hear, but it was the best I was going to get. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Al offered a sheepish grin. “I was going to suggest that. You smell like roadkill.”

I flipped him off and it felt good. Felt normal. Like I was regaining control. I went back to my bedroom and undressed. I would be incinerating these clothes. Walked naked to the shower and got it steaming hot. So hot it hurt, which is what I wanted. I wanted to feel pain. I needed purification. I wanted to punish myself, even though I knew this situation wasn’t entirely my fault. Right then, it felt like it was. Felt just like all the other times I’d done something completely fucked up during a night of partying – that guilty sensation programmed into my psyche like a Pavlovian response.

I would have preferred to bathe in bleach instead of the organic glop Cassie buys from the hippy health store. I needed more than green tea extract to scrub this grime off my skin. But whatever. That’s Cassie’s thing. Won’t kill roaches, fucking loves spiders. All our indoor plants are fake because she can’t stand the thought of placing live flowers in a vase and watching them die. Considers it sadistic. I thought she was ridiculous at first, but her logic has a way of asserting itself over time. She likens house pets to prisoners, and that’s where I draw the line. I’d probably bitch more about the baking soda toothpaste if I weren’t too lazy to go to the store. Colgate, that’s my great compromise.

I could have stayed in the shower for an hour or more had I not heard Al call for me from the living room. Not quite panicked, but definitely concerned. Which grated my frayed nerves. I quickly rinsed and wrapped myself in a towel, dripping water as I hurried back toward the living room.

“Yeah, what is it?”