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Ever since Tasha hit the stage again, they’ve become good patrons of the arts, sitting in theaters on Sunday afternoons and watching an array of student choreography and attempts at filmmaking. Sometimes James impressed. Sometimes he’s not. Mostly he just feels for the kids who get less-than-packed houses for their debut works.
Tasha hasn’t danced since the last and, well, only ill-fated performance. She blames the rolled ankle, but James knows there’s something deeper there that she’s not quite ready to face. But no matter. It gives her time to get a jump start on homework before James and Steve make it back to the apartment to join her.
That’s what Steve says, anyway. James actually scoffed the first time he said it, knowing full well that Tasha will get a jump start on just about anything but. She’s always been one of those kids who could ace tests without trying, if only she bothered to turn them in. She’s gotten better about it since moving in with the boys, mostly because James rescues her finished papers from the printer tray and tucks them in her backpack for her.
“Hey, we’re home,” Steve calls to the seemingly empty apartment when they arrive home from today’s viewing of Swan Lake. “It was good. You should’ve come.” Never mind the fact that Tasha had made vomiting sounds into her coffee when Steve suggested it this morning. “It was weird. Nobody had on shoes.”
“Huh?” A similarly shoeless redheaded creature stirs from where her grey sweats camouflage her into the couch cushions. “You can’t do Swan Lake without shoes.” Tasha titters in slow motion, then brings her hand up to cover her mouth when it becomes a yawn.
“You can when it’s contemporary.” Steve seems proud of himself for remembering the term, even though it’s still wrong.
“Modern,” James corrects, giving Steve’s shoulder a squeeze as if thanking him for trying. “Kind of Límon-ish?”
“Huh,” Tasha says again, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “I guess that style’s kind of… flappy.” She laughs at herself and almost collapses again.
Steve looks confused, but James just shakes his head. Tasha’s too smart to leave out a bottle or any other evidence and too guarded to tell him what she’s taken if he asks. Instead he bites his lip and inquires, “How much?” as he crosses the living room and flops down at her side.
“I don’t know. Not too much.” Tasha’s eyes slowly focus to meet James, then slide toward crossed again.
It’s an outright lie and they both know it, but James still whispers, “Right.” He tries again. “How long you been sleepy?” He does the math in his head. There’s no way she could be this out of it unless she’d doped up before he and Steve left. James curses himself for not seeing the signs.
Tasha shrugs. Of course she does. She doesn’t care.
She is trembly, though. And looks like she’s about to cry. Maybe throw up. James knows he can’t leave her like this, so he grunts, “Alright. Move,” and uses his chin and one knee to direct her toward the corner of the sofa.
Tasha goes grudgingly, crawling down the cushions on all fours before dropping dramatically with her head on a throw pillow. James sits beside her and reaches over to feel her cheek with the backs of his fingers. She’s not running a fever, he already knows, but it gives him a good chance to take in the blown pupils and red-rimmed eyes, the dry flaky lips, and the spray of rusty freckles that suddenly appear dark against her pale nose.
“Get off me.” Tasha flails at him with a weak backhand, then falls onto her elbows practically in James’s lap.
“Sure,” James says, lifting his hand and ignoring the irony. He reaches down for where his laptop is stowed beneath the coffee table and opens it on his knees. “I’m just gonna work on this for a while…”
“Yeah, you do that…”
“Always having the last word,” James teases her. He ruffles her hair and settles in to work, typing with his right hand and counterbalancing the keyboard with his left. Sometimes he wishes the prosthetic would do more, like allow independent finger movements, but today he’s too preoccupied to care. Actually, it’s probably better he take a long time with this assignment, if only to give Tasha an excuse not to stand up.
It’s obvious the girl needs to sleep, and within a few minutes she’s breathing in a slow, measured rhythm.
“What do you think she got into?” Steve asks, taking a seat in the armchair across the room.
“Who knows?” James shrugs. “I clean out the stash under the bathroom sink once a week or so, but that doesn’t seem to slow her down.”
“… M’ not slow…” Tasha mumbles, shifting her head onto James’s thigh and burying her face in the crook of his elbow. Her knees appear against his body on the other side, her torso completing the horseshoe around his back.
“No one said you were,” James reassures her, then looks back to Steve, who’s scoffing as he opens a book. “Honestly, I don’t. Robitussin, maybe? Or your cheap-ass beer?”
They share a smile, then Steve goes serious again. “You want me to get rid of it?”
“No,” James says quickly. “You’re an adult. You do what you want.” He sighs. “And, you know, so is she.”
“Thas’ right…” One of Tasha’s hands smacks the center of James’s keyboard, sending an explosion of V’s and G’s across the center of his screen.
“Thanks, Tash,” James murmurs, actively deciding not to roll his eyes. “I ‘precciate it.”
“Just wanted to get your attention,” she slurs in response.
“And why’s that?” James is only half listening; he expects gibberish. What he gets instead is, “Feel sick.”
“Ok, come on.” James practically throws his laptop and slides out from underneath Tasha, struggling to get a hold on her limp yet somehow also wiggly body.
“I can take her,” Steve offers, already out of his seat as well.
“Nah, why don’t you go make tea,” James suggests. “You’re good at that.”
“Sure, ok.” Steve gives a sad laugh. “I’ll leave you to deal with the hard part.”
James shakes his head, but he’s already halfway down the hall. Good thing, too, because Tasha’s starting to buck convulsively in his arms. “Almost there, hold up,” he warns, hoping it comes out as a reassurance instead of a command.
He clumsily folds her down on her knees in front of the toilet, glad for once that somebody’s left the seat up. “Alright,” James says, sweeping Tasha’s curls back from her face as he moves the prosthetic in circles between her shoulder blades. “Go for it.
Tasha heaves, but inhales too quickly and winds up hacking.
“Hey, slow down. I didn’t mean that.” James turns the movement from soothing to percussive.
“Fuck you,” Tasha chokes. She spits and looks up at him with one watery eye, then turns back to the toilet as something red and gunky starts to spill from her lips.
“The hell?” James looks over the lip of the toilet, at first thinking it’s blood he’s seeing. It’s too red, though. And too clear. It only takes him a second to realize it is, in fact, the Robitussin. And from the smell he can tell it’s cut with something like sour mix and grain alcohol. “I thought sizzurp was kid stuff.”
“It is,” Tasha says, her voice echoing against the sides of the toilet bowl. “I make the grown-up version. And you don’t have any jolly ranchers.”
“I wonder why?” James replies sarcastically. “You know I don’t do shit to be mean or oppressive or whatever. You do what you want. Just, for the love of Christ, be safe, why don’t ya? Don’t mix shit like that. Especially not when you’re home alone.”
“So you would’ve let me?” Tasha sits up and rakes her trembling hand across her mouth.
“I…” James bites his lip. He can’t say it. He just can’t. “I… I couldn’t have stopped you.”
“Tea!” The door creaks open behind James, and Steve steps in, cradling a mug between his hands.
“Right. Good.” James is glad for the distraction. “Caffeinated?” He looks at Tasha. “I don’t want you going to sleep just yet.”
“The fuck am I supposed to do, then?” Tasha does her best pitiful face.
“Mmmm…” James considers. “Edit my paper?”
“Stoned?”
“Would you do it sober?” James grins.
Tasha laughs and covers her mouth to contain a soft burp. “Nope.”
“Well, come on then.” He helps Tasha to her feet and shoves the tea at her. “I’m not carrying you again.”
“You trust me with hot liquids?”
“Hey, I’m about to trust you with my History midterm.” James raises his eyebrows. “Don’t blow it.”
Tasha finally returns his smile. “Pretty sure I already did.”