Read Heartland Junk (Part II): Sanctuary for Free Online Page B

ass over here, lady! I've got a bottle of '06 shiraz with your name on it." Rivet laughed and beckoned.
                  The skinny woman didn't twitch a muscle, just kept staring. Behind us, a woman's low voice said mournfully, "To the children, our only future now."
                  I reeled, bumping into Jennie and spilling my wine. She spun as well and accidentally smacked Rivet in the jaw with her elbow. The three of us had stepped forward while calling out to Abby, leaving Theo a few steps back. He looked at all of us in surprise, a fresh Oreo halfway to his mouth.
                  "What?"
                  "What did you say?" I asked.
                  "Nuthin."
                  "Some trick, changing your voice around like that." Rivet barked a brief, dour laugh. "You're something else, kid." He drained his glass and stepped over to the counter to refill it.
                  The slosh of pouring wine was deafening, and I realized that the music had stopped. Jennie must have realized it, too, because she skipped to the kitchen table and flipped the cassette around and mashed play. While the bouncy intro of "Margaritaville" chased away the stifling silence, I caught a glimpse of Abby again far away in the living room. She relaxed against the sofa back and I swear, for the specter of a moment, a flickering smile played across her lips, and then Rivet had me by the arm and twirling across the kitchen floor, crooning, " ...wastiiing away again in Margaritaville, searchin' for myyy lost shaker of salt... "
                  I woke up on the living room couch under a load of bricks, head heavier than two-ton rebar and stomach doing somersaults. Shoving the blanketed weight off, I staggered to the bathroom and heaved before I remembered that the toilets didn't flush, then sat there for a good five minutes staring at the pink goop sticking to the porcelain until the white tile walls stopped spinning around me and the morning light stopped trying to claw out my eyes and I remembered who had been under the blankets with me on the couch.
                  "Shit."
                  I slammed the toilet lid down and forced myself not to crawl all the way back to the living room. When I got there, I shook three white pills from the ever-present orange landfill on the coffee table, swallowed them, and stared for another five minutes at the lumpy shape on the couch.
                  "Shit."
                  What was I going to tell Rivet? How had this even happened? The last thing I remembered was dancing with Jennie in the living room, "Margaritaville" on the fourth or fifth hundred repeat, stumbling over the empty wine bottles littering the kitchen floor, while Rivet taught Theo and an impassive Abby how to pretend to pull their thumbs off using their other thumb.
                  And then this. Shit. After Rivet and I had finally gotten over our bullshit spat and begun acting like friends again, I fucking slept with Jennie.
                  "God damnit, Ray. You shithead."
                  I looked up at Jennie standing in the angle between the foyer and hallway entrances. Her hair was mussed to shit and she was rubbing her eyes with the palm of her hand.
                  "You!" I exclaimed.
                  "Of course me, who the hell else?" Jennie began picking through the prescription bottles.
                  "Then who..." I pointed to the couch.
                  "Abby, you asshole. We were dancing, and all of a sudden you came and sat beside her and wouldn't stop talking. Real one-sided conversation, I gotta say." Jennie huffed. I breathed a sigh of relief, which seemed to annoy Jennie even more. She stomped out of the room. Why was she mad? Did she fight with Rivet?
                  The Vicodin I'd taken was