Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63282 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63282 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
At least I didn’t have a boner when I went to see Joe last week to get my supplies. I wouldn’t have been able to live that down.
Joe and I used to hang out quite a bit when we were in prison. He’d agreed not to let anyone know about our meeting, but if there was a good story in it—like me popping a random boner—he might change his mind and blab.
As I near the clinic, my heart thumps in my chest.
I’m actually doing this. This is breaking and entering. It’s serious shit.
It’s not like I was completely innocent before, but I’ve never stolen . . . although what I’m about to do probably doesn’t count as stealing, seeing as I got Peter’s express permission. He just never got the chance to give me a copy of the keys himself.
I shake my head to chase away the convoluted thoughts inside.
I shrug off my backpack and unzip the front compartment.
Act natural, I tell myself.
Me going into the clinic in the dead of the night probably looks normal to most people. I’m always with Sarah anyway.
Maybe she left a jacket, and she wanted me to come pick it up on my run. It’s possible. It’s probable. More likely, at least, than me breaking into a clinic that belongs to my late best friend.
As the keys jangle, I wonder if the streets have always been this silent at night. Not even the air is moving. It’s like time’s standing still.
It feels surreal.
As I walk into the clinic and turn on the lights, I get the deep sense that even though this place is familiar, it’s different tonight.
It could be because I’m carrying out the last wish of a dead man, or it could be because I’ve gone soft after too many years of living on the straight and narrow.
The fluorescent tube lights buzz as I try the keys one by one. I hurry, but all my guesses are wrong. It’s only when I get to the last key that the door finally opens for me.
It’s disheartening that I can’t even pick the right key out of five because soon I’ll have to identify a handful of bottles out of hundreds in there.
The door creaks. Stepping into the drug storage room, I grimace as the smell hits my nostrils. This room reeks exactly the way I expected it to. I feel like I’m sick in bed.
Once upon a time, though, this small closet would’ve felt like a massive candy store to me, stocked with all kinds of substances to make me feel whatever I want to feel. Life on demand.
I check my phone. No message from Sarah—perfect. My muscles relax. For some reason I worry she’s going to find out her keys are missing, although there’s no reason why she’d even be awake.
I scroll through the pictures on my phone until I find the one that Peter sent me a few months ago, probably about the same time he told Sarah not to come here.
It takes me a while, but Peter left me straightforward instructions, and I eventually find the right bottles.
I guess despite his issues, Peter still had a relatively clear mind at the time. Too bad he didn’t use it the right way.
I try not to judge Peter for what he did. Mortality was staring him right in the face and he did the only thing he knew to fight against the darkness that was closing in on him.
He lost the battle—not very gracefully—but I can’t say 100%, for sure, that I’d be able to do the right thing if I were in his position either. I mean, hell, I’ve done a lot of things wrong.
I open my bag and throw the the bottles inside.
It’d be a disaster if I get them mixed up with these ones, I think to myself as I take out identical bottles from another compartment.
Finally, I arrange the pill bottles I brought from home on the shelf.
I take a step back to check my work. The new bottles I got from Joe certainly blend in with the others.
I don’t think either Sarah or Brian or whatever the other vet’s name is would notice anything different about these bottles.
I was very careful to source the correct stuff. That’s why I had to wait this long to do this.
As I make my way back home, the sound of my running shoes hitting the ground fills my ears, but I feel like I’m running on air.
A big weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and I can stand tall again.
Finally, I don’t have to hide anything anymore. I can stop lying and sneaking around behind Sarah.
To be honest, that’s been getting harder and harder to do lately. I’m glad that’s over.
Now, with my task finally done, I have some space left in my brain to consider other things.