I'm Addicted to the Thrill

I watched him drink and rolled my eyes. I felt like I’m trying to get through to my cousin or my brother even. He sat back down and drank his beer. I felt like screaming at him. This was pointless. I stood up and placed my hand on Patrick’s shoulder. He looked up at me before shrugging my hand off. I sighed and walked away from him. There was no reason for me to try talking to him anymore. He was just going to make me say things that I didn’t mean to say.

Niki stopped me in the living room and motioned for Madi to come over to me. I could tell that this wasn’t going to be pleasant. Jonathan walked past us to the kitchen to go see Patrick. I would much rather not have him in the room since I had a feeling that he wasn’t too fond of me at the moment. Corey came over to the group of us and wrapped his arms around Madi. I smiled at the two of them then looked at Niki wondering what this was all about.

“You might want to just put some space between you and him until, well, until he calms down,” said Corey.

He was versed in dealing with his teammate. Corey wasn’t one who I knew well, but I was growing fond of him. He gave me a pat on the shoulder then excused himself as there was a knock at the door. More of the team was showing up, and I realized that this wasn’t my place to be. The team was there to relax and have fun, and my presence wasn’t going to be so helpful if Patrick was involved.

“Well, my car is probably fixed, and you all have things to do. I’ll show myself out,” I told them. I waved at the players I had met like Sharpie, Seabs, and Duncan. I pushed past the people still standing in front of the door ignoring the confused looks that I was getting.

Niki followed me out to the car and stopped me before I got in. She leaned against the hood crossing her arms. I raised an eyebrow staring at her. She had already seemed like the type who would get involved after I had heard the argument with Anna and when she had been the one who had called me. I sighed and looked at her.

“You’re missing whatever that is,” I said motioning to the house.

“Dani, I’m gonna come over tonight, and we’re going to talk. I like you so far, and Patty’s a handful, so I understand you’re that,” she said making the same motion to me as I had at the house. I laughed and got into the car as Niki walked away. Well, if I got anything out of this, I was hoping I could at least get a friend.

I shook my head on the way home calling Hope to ask her if she had heard from the car place. I had called the mechanic two days before, and he told me it would be done today, so I trusted him. Hope waited for me at the curb and got to direct me to a place I had been before. I was surprised at her lack of trust for my directional skills. She didn’t seem to realize I could learn my way around.

“So, Patrick Kane?” she asked me.

I glared at her when we stopped at the light. Hope knew I didn’t want to talk about it. Earlier had made that clear. She wasn’t catching the hint that I wanted to keep my relationship to Patrick a secret and out of my head. Silence had made this worse as she just started talking about her time home alone. She told me about a call she made for a class hamster, and I just stared at her.

“Please stop talking. I have a headache, and hamsters are disgusting,” I snapped. She kept quiet the rest of the way.

We got to the mechanic’s shop, and she left me as I got my own little car. The Camry had served me well up until now, and I hoped that it was going to last a lot longer. I threw my phone into the passenger’s seat going through the CDs in the changer. I shrugged leaving it on the Beach Boys’ Sound of Summer album. It wasn’t summer, and I hadn’t listened to the Beach Boys for a long time.

As the phone rang in the seat beside me, I looked at it wondering what was going on. I wanted to leave my phone alone for the rest of my life after all that had happened. It was Patrick. Drunk-dialing never made my list of things I wanted to put up with, but I couldn’t help but answer it.

“Dani, I’m sorry,” he slurred.

“Tell me that sober,” I said before hanging up on him.

I sat in my car and cried. It wasn’t sadness but just the overwhelming emotion that had come from the day that forced me to shed a few tears. I wished I had never shown up at Jonathan’s house, and I didn’t want to think about the morning I had with Patrick. I drove to the apartment building still just reeling from the day that I had had with only a few moments of peace here and there. Nothing was going to make this day any worse than it already had been. I was fairly certain that nothing could make my day any better either though.

I parked in the garage for the building and went up to the apartment. Hope left a message on the fridge saying she would be at her boyfriend’s house for the night since I ‘seemed like I wanted nothing to do with her.’ Perhaps she was more insightful then I had pinned her for.

I sat on the couch flipping channels when there was a knock on the door. Niki told me she would be coming over, but I hadn’t thought about it since she said it. I opened the door and forced a smile for her. This could be painful, but I didn’t feel like fighting it.

“People kept asking me about you earlier,” said Niki. I figured that people would. That wasn’t something I was going to get used to, but it was going to happen.

“Oh? Were the curious as to why I left Patrick drinking away his sorrows?” I asked her. I cringed at the bitterness in my voice. She didn’t deserve that from me. In fact, she really just deserved to be treating a lot better when it came to me.

Niki rolled her eyes and walked into the apartment. We could try to get along better, and I was going to put forth an effort. I just felt guilty about all of what had happened earlier since she had to deal with drunken Patrick Kane. That probably wasn’t going to be a fun thing for her to put up with.

We watched old reruns on TV switching to HBO when we saw a movie that was interesting. I was glad that my roommate had spent her money on the cable channels to keep from going insane herself. This was just better. Jonathan called Niki around midnight, so she excused herself to the kitchen. I don’t think she realized that I could hear her still.

“What do you want me to keep her from seeing?” asked Niki. I wondered if I was the person to be kept from seeing anything. Jonathan must have been telling her something that she didn’t want to hear because she gasped. “I can’t not tell her, Jonny. … No, she can’t hear me. … Can you stop him? … He already left? … Yeah, I’ll make sure she doesn’t find out.”

I kept my eyes on the TV but turned down the volume. I wasn’t sure this was something I wanted to really be listening to. As Niki started to come back, I turned the volume up and laughed at something that was supposedly funny on the screen. She took the remote and turned off the television.

“How much do you like Pat?” inquired Niki. “I know it’s a weird question, but I don’t want you to be the last to know something.”

“I like him more at some points, but today, I wasn’t his biggest fan,” I told her. She sighed. This wasn’t going to be something I wanted to hear.

“He went to the club with Jonny and the boys, and, well, in true P. Kane fashion, he left with some random girl,” she told me. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

The way he had been in the past was still how he was. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Patrick had been upset that I wouldn’t do anything with him that morning, so he went out to find some other girl. I looked at Niki and tried to keep from crying. I was upset with him earlier, but this was more than I could handle.

“I want nothing to do with him anymore,” I told her. She nodded. There was nothing more that I could want from Patrick T. Kane.