Rachel’s polite introductions

She stands with a false sense of purpose, and when my eyes first lay on her in the waning sun, I think she is a ghost. She is a lanky waif figure that looked like she would disappear in a stiff breeze. She is wrapped in tattered gray. The ratty fabric of her too old hoodie hangs off her weak shoulders that she squares. Her head is tilted back so she can look down her nose at me just when I am at my lowest.

This is just when I am coming down, and Kate has come home.

                “My dear pusher. How are you feeling?” She asks me with little concern rimmed across her bright blue eyes, and my throat is far too parched and far too scratchy to give her an adequate reply.

                Now would be as good a time as any to mention the person, place and thing. You should know Kate as an old friend of mine, standing tight muscled with her arms tensely shoved into the pockets of her jeans. Her whole five foot seven form engulfed in orange gold light. She looks like a still shot movie poster perfected by the sun that was setting on one of the worst days of my life since I came to California.

                “Kate now is not the time.” Left hand immediately goes to my head trying to squint away the pain soaking through brain tissue. My throat sounds rough coated in hot tar and finally her eyes settle fully on me. My insecurities are my undoing and I know she is looking at my ragged hair, the baggy pajama bottoms as black as pitch that are torn and threadbare. A white trash wife beater that lives up to its name is draped on my long torso. To top off my pitiful image was my bare feet and my shiver from the cold. The salt sea air was picking up from the low tide as night settles in.

                She opts to say nothing about how I look and shoves her way into my hovel like home.

                Like all old friends, I knew her look. The dim pretty and dazed look tells me why she is here, for a bit of my product, but the tight jaw tells me more.  I think I am bound to suffer like a beast of burden on this one because Kate is about to tell me all about Ashley in her roundabout way.