“Josh, how did you know I’d be here?” Josh sat down on the dirt next to me, his pants already stained by the grease and filth of the warehouse floor.
“Because this is the place I brought you when we were in high school. The first place you used a gun. This is where you found some kind of peace. After what happened with Clint, I just thought you would somehow gravitate here, like you needed to be somewhere that gave you time out, even if it was for such a short period. Places like this one stick with you when times get rough, although I didn’t think I’d find you with a gun pointed to your head. Why would you even consider...” Josh trailed off, not even wanting to complete the rest of the sentence.
“It was just a thought Josh. Nothing more. I would never have pulled the trigger.” Josh studied me closely, probably wondering if what I said was true.
“How did you lose your Dad’s men?” His eyes looking behind us, like he expected them to burst in at any moment.
“It’s not that hard. I could always lose them if I wanted to.” That was true. As much as I hated the constant watch of my Dad’s men, it also made me feel safe too. I also knew it was something I couldn’t change about my Dad, and had to accept his ways or be forced to accept them. But some of his men weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, and were on occasion, sloppy and stupid. Escaping their watch was easy if you knew how. I had a lot of practice giving them the slip when I was with Samuel.
“Norah about what happened...” Josh tried to bring up the truth or dare party and Clint, but I quickly shut it down.
“I don’t want to talk about it Josh!” Josh moved closer to me, trying to be comforting and understanding.
“OK, I get it, you don’t want to talk, but what are you going to do now? Are you going back to your apartment?”
I stiffened at that idea. “Fuck no! I can’t go back to living with Clint, and there is certainly no way I’m living with my Dad again.” I hadn’t thought about where I would go after this. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I didn’t know what my next move should be. Perhaps I should leave New York, take Tess up on that offer of Europe.
“Stay with me.” Josh broke my train of thought.
“What?” I said, shocked by his suggestion.
“Stay with me until you figure out your living arrangements. C’mon Norah, I insist.”
Stay with Josh? In his apartment, just the two of us?
What were my options? I wasn’t going back to Clint’s place, or my Dad’s, and the ticket Tess had given me was somewhere in my apartment, and I couldn’t think of anything else.
I shrugged my shoulders. “OK Josh.”
Josh let out a relieved sigh. “Wow, that was easier than I thought.”
We got up off the ground and I stared at Josh. “Well, I guess I should know a good thing when it’s staring me in the face.”
Things got weirdly quiet between us. Did I mean to imply something else? It certainly sounded that way. I shuffled my feet as I waited for Josh to say something. Anything.
“You should do what you came here to do first, Norah.”
“Huh?” I wasn’t really sure what I had come to do. I looked at the Glock on the ground and remembered how I put it to my head. Surely Josh wasn’t referring to that.
“Get it out of your system. The pain, the anger, the hurt.” Josh reached down and picked up my Glock and put it in my hand, aiming it at one of the windows along the roof. “It will help. It has always helped you,” he said, and stepped away from me.
I understood now. It felt like the first time Josh had brought me to this warehouse and planted a gun in my hand. Firing the gun was the first time in a long while I got some kind of peace from the constant screaming in my head. Josh had found a way to help me vent, and I wasn’t hurting myself or anyone else.
I started firing my gun, over and over, bullet after bullet, round after round, into all the corners and cracks of the warehouse. Josh just stood behind me and waited patiently for me to finish. By my final round I was breathing hard