Demon Night

Cole’s, and if anyone couldn’t stay straight and clean, they could take a walk.”
    “So you reckoned that when you said you had been lying to him, that was it.”
    “Yes.” But instead, Old Matthew had ended their conversation by telling her that she’d have a place if she ever made her way back. “And I still don’t know why he took me on in the first place. You know what I did to his restaurant, right? Running that car through it?”
    Ethan’s nod was slow. “That I do.”
    “There was insurance to cover the damage…but Cole’s was his baby . The one thing that was really his. And he told me that the night I went in—and that it made him crazy to think that a spoiled rich white girl could be so stupid, and so careless.” She offered Ethan a wry smile. “We weren’t rich, but the rest of it was correct.”
    He returned her smile before adjusting his seat, bringing her in close against his side. “So I take it you hadn’t ever thought of yourself in those terms before.”
    She shook her head with a self-deprecatory laugh. “I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, actually—and I was numb. Jane had just given me her ultimatum, and I was doing what she’d asked, but I was still reeling from it. And whenever I’d thought of the accident, it was always about me losing my voice. And whenever Jane talked about that night—which wasn’t often—it was to remind me that our dad had just flown me out to Seattle so that he could tell us he was dying. Like she thought it excused what I’d done…and in those years after I got out of Mission Creek and before I began working for Old Matthew, I was happy to rationalize everything, take any excuse. When the truth is, I would have been drunk that night anyway.”
    She stopped. The story had begun coming out smoothly—pouring out of her—but now Ethan was silent. She didn’t want to look up at him, see his reaction, but she forced herself.
    Her stomach knotted tight when she met his heavy frown. She tried to smile, wasn’t sure that she managed it. “It’s not a pretty picture, is it?”
    “No, it ain’t,” he said. “But it’s also an old one, and I’ve done worse, so it don’t matter much to me. But I’m afraid you lost me, Charlie. Why’d you go see Old Matthew, and what’s this about an ultimatum?”
    “Oh.” She reordered her thoughts, brought in the dangling threads. “Well, after Mission Creek, I moved in with Jane—and was pretty much leeching off of her. I had jobs, but they never lasted long, and a few boyfriends, but I didn’t really care if they stayed or went. Because Jane was there, and she was so easy to lean on.” She looked down at her hands. “And it wasn’t all bad; Jane and I have always gotten along great. And after so many years apart—and after what she’d gone through taking care of Dad while I was in Mission Creek—I think we really needed each other. But she pulled herself together…and there I was, taking a lot more than I was giving. Not just money, but needing her to tell me I was worth something, because I was having a hard time finding it myself.”
    She paused, wondering if Ethan would say anything. But he only smoothed his hand over her hair, and she took it as a signal to continue.
    “And it was around that time that Jane finished up her research at UW and published her paper, and then didn’t get any of the credit for it. But although I knew she was struggling with something, because she talked about it a lot, I also wasn’t really listening to her. But I think now that was part of it—why she just gave up on me. Or snapped, rather. And the stuff she found in my room was what pushed her over.”
    “What’d she find?”
    Charlie laid her cheek against his chest, stared out into the desert. “Cocaine. And the funny thing is, it wasn’t mine. Well, not funny , but…but…it starts with an ‘I.’”
    Ethan began shaking with laughter, though he didn’t make a sound.
    “Anyway,” she said, “maybe not funny, just stupid. I wasn’t into anything that hard, but in another year or two, the way I was going, I might have been. And although I didn’t bring it in, the guy I was with did, so it was the same thing.” She turned her head to look up at him, and was thankful that he didn’t seem upset at the mention of another man. “He was actually kind of a nice guy. And he wrote the worst lyrics I’ve ever read, all about dark, deep emotions, though he didn’t seem too upset when I