We burst through the door, and I stumble across the cold floor. The next thing I know, I’m sitting on a toilet in a stall with Paige standing in front of me. She checks my watch to read my heart rate.
“Oh… fuck!”
That’s not good.
She tosses my wrist aside then digs through the pockets of my overcoat. She pulls out the Xanax and shoves a handful of pills in my mouth, which feels cottony. I chomp down. The tablets dissolve under my tongue.
“Breathe. Swallow. Breathe,” she says in soothing tones. It’s good advice, but I’m distracted by the pills. They taste funny. Different. And it takes me a moment to realize that Paige’s hands are covered in blood.
“Are you okay?” I grab her hands, inspecting them.
“I’m fine! You’re the one who’s shot.”
Thank God.
It hurts all over. I lower my head again and finally notice my feet. Bloody footprints lead from outside the bathroom right up to me. As I sit, a small pool of blood is forming under me. From my feet. From my shoulder.
My head is spinning. My heart is racing. This could be very, very bad.
I try holding my head as if that could stop the dizzying effect. My right arm dangles limply at my side, and when I try to lift it, nothing happens. Why won’t my arm move?
“Do you want me to call 911?” a woman’s voice asks.
“No!” Paige calls then calmly adds, “We’re fine.” She turns back to me, reconsidering. “Do you want me to call 911?”
I shake my head, still trying to breathe and calm myself down. If Dudley emerges at a hospital, it could be worse. I don’t want to do anything but focus on calming myself down.
I pull out my phone and say two words. “Father Ramon.”
Paige searches through my phone. “Okay, I’ll call him. Stay calm.” She opens my coat with her free hand. “Jesus, Darcy. You’re bleeding a lot.”
“Yeah. And my arm doesn’t work anymore.”
Paige looks down at my limp arm. “Shit!”
She backs away and disappears from my view while I stay in the stall. “Father Ramon? It’s Paige.” My eyes start to close, and I listen to the conversation. “She’s been shot, and I need—yes. Where? You sure? We can be there in fifteen minutes.”
Bam! A loud bang rings out in the bathroom. My eyes open wide. I’m worried it’s a gunshot. I hear it two more times—a sound like someone is hitting a metal object. With one more bang, a metal plate clatters on the floor and slides to where I can see it, along with a dozen other small white objects.
Paige crawls into view and picks up a fistful of pads. She pulls open my coat, opens my blouse, and applies pressure to my shoulder. I howl in pain. My good arm swings, and I slap the stall divider. The metal crumples under my palm, collapsing into a misshapen dent. A woman screams from the other side, and a toilet flushes.
Paige jumps back, a look of panic on her face. I know what she thinks this means. She thinks Dudley’s coming.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, trying to take deep breaths. This doesn’t feel like a normal episode. Something is different.
She looks at me, not quite satisfied.
“Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame,” I mutter through gritted teeth.
“I’m getting us a car,” she says. “Just try to stay calm. Go to your happy place.” She taps on her phone, opening a rideshare app.
I start thinking about what Ramon said. It’s not Dudley—it’s me. I try to find something to focus on to stay calm. To stay in control. Kittens. Blue skies. Long walks on the beach. Ben & Jerry’s. Four milligrams of Xanax with an old-fashioned chaser. David.
David?
I have no idea why his name pops in my head, but I go with it. David sitting on my couch. David with his buttoned shirt tucked into his stupid jeans and his half-tied tie. David and I walking on the beach. Under blue skies. With Ben & Jerry’s. And kittens.
“Darcy…?” Paige’s voice is a muffled whisper in the distance.
I sit on the toilet while a gaggle of aspiring trophy wives stare at me, and I bleed from a gunshot wound into a wad of tampons, chewing on a fistful of benzodiazepines, dreaming about David, hoping a demon doesn’t emerge to kill everyone in sight.
I realize there’s now a hole in the collar of my coat. And it’s got blood all over it. I poke my finger in it and wonder which brand of stain fighter might help and whether I should sew or patch up the hole. On top of being shot, I’m now mad about the one outfit I own that Paige actually likes. If only my high school guidance counselor could see me now.
“Darcy?”
“Hello?” My head wobbles. I feel drunk.
“Darcy!” shouts Paige. I focus for only a second before my head droops. “Jesus you’ve lost a lot of blood. Darcy!” I snap out of it and look at her. “Car’s here.”
She hoists me up and wraps my good arm around her. We stumble out of the stall. I’m woozy, but I can make out the faint shapes that stare at us as we make our way to the dining room. This is so embarrassing.
When we get outside, I’m surprised at how dark it is. I’ve lost all sense of time. How long were we in there?
She opens the rear door and dumps me into a silver Prius.
Why does everyone have a Prius?
I can’t keep my eyes open, but I hear the driver ask, “Holy shit, is she all right?”
“Just drive!” Paige tells him.
My cheek rests against the cool glass as the driver zips through the streets of Downtown Los Angeles. I look up and stare at the concrete towers with their tiny rectangles of illuminated windows converging into points in the sky. I close my
