Wheels In Motion Ch. 04

I stared at her, and for a moment, felt that I had to make her understand that I didn't think less of her because of her job, that I didn't feel she was beneath me. I opened my mouth to do just that, but then a bell rang in my head, a crystal-clear note that brought me back to reality and I gave myself a shake.

"No, you know what? Fuck you! If you really felt all this, the right thing to do was to tell me, not cheat on me! You can't turn this around and make me the bad guy here!"

Her face went pale as she realized no matter how valid her points, she was the one in the wrong, right here and now.

"I... look, Addie, I'm... I'm..."

"What?!" I snapped impatiently.

"I'm sorry I hurt you."

"Forget it, Viv. You thought we wouldn't work out? Well, you've made sure of that tonight. Don't ever call me again!" I turned on my heel and stalked away from her.

~~ Tenleytown, Washington DC, August ~~

ADDISON

The buzz from the building intercom surprised me. I looked up from my jigsaw puzzle and saw it was after nine o'clock. Who could be at my door at this time of night on a Tuesday? I reluctantly got up and walked to the panel by my door.

I pushed the button. "Yes?" I said.

"It's Amber, let me in." I heard through the intercom.

I blinked, and suppressed the urge to snap at her. Instead, I held down the button to let her in the building, unlocked my door and pulled it open a fraction of an inch, then sat back down and resumed searching the pile for the last two edge pieces I needed.

I didn't look up when I heard her open the door.

"Hey," she said, closing the door behind her.

"Want some wine?" I asked, then made a small exclamation of pleasure as I found an edge piece and snapped it into place.

"No, thanks," she said, walking around my breakfast bar and standing in my kitchen across from me. She looked down and kicked the recycle bin with her foot. It gave a loud collection of glass clinks. "I'd be amazed if you had any left," she said, "Are you buying in bulk now?"

"Look, if you're here to get all up in my face, can we just assume you did and that I'm properly chastised so we can call it a night? I'm busy."

"I can see that," she said, sourly. "Big happenings in the puzzle world." She picked up the box cover and looked at the picture of a pile of sleeping kittens in a basket. "Five hundred pieces. Pretty ambitious."

"It keeps my mind busy. Something I need right now." I took a drink of my Shiraz and was surprised it was the last swallow in the glass. I sighed and got up to walk around into my kitchen, but when I reached for the half empty bottle, Amber snatched it off the counter before I could pick it up and held it away from me.

"We're a little old for keep-away," I said wearily.

"Is this all you do now? Go to work, come home, get blasted on cheap Trader Joe's wine, and do kitten puzzles?"

"No, in fact, I'm planning on watching some TV before bed. How is this any of your business?"

"When was the last time you left your apartment for anything but work? You've turned down invitations from Nora and me at least four times in the last month!"

"Why would you..." I grumbled and shook my head. "You know all I'd do is sit around moping and ruining your good time, right?"

"We're worried about you, dummy! Since the whole shit show with Viv, you just sit in your apartment by yourself. It's not good for you!"

I sighed again. She was right. Other than work, and trips to the grocery I hadn't gone out in over a month. I'd spent a lot of time browsing new apartments online, thinking maybe I should get away from the memories of me and Viv, but that would just be running away again and that hadn't worked out so well for me when things had blown up with Liz.

"I'm just... not ready, okay?"

"Not ready for what? We're not asking you to go on a blind date or sign up for Tinder or Her. We just want you to go to dinner with us and maybe talk! You have to stop just stewing and start getting your life back together!"

"I said I'm not ready and I'm not, okay? It's the first time I've ever been cheated on and Liz really hurt me!" Amber stared at me for so long that I snapped, "What?!"

"You mean Viv. Viv really hurt you."

"That's what I said." I leaned forward and grabbed the wine bottle out of her hand to refill my glass.

"No, it isn't. You said 'Liz really hurt me'."

"That's ridiculous. Why would I say Liz hurt me?"

"Jesus Christ, you are still hung up on her. You're not hiding out in your apartment because Viv cheated on you. You're hanging out here because you're still in love with Liz and your distraction broke up with you.

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. What are you, a fucking armchair psychologist now?" I took a big gulp of wine.

"I'm in law enforcement. Reading people is part of what I do."

"Well then, I'd appreciate it if you'd go read someone else besides me. I'm not up for this right now."

"You need help. I think you need to see someone.

"I'm not ready to date!" I snorted.

"Not a date, you drunk nitwit! You need to see a therapist! You're losing it. You can't go on like this much longer before it's going to start affecting your job or your health. Or both. If it hasn't already."

I looked down at the floor, but said nothing.

"I'm really worried about you," she said, quietly.

"I'll be fine." My voice was a hoarse rasp. I felt a tear drip off the end of my nose and I turned away from her. "Can you please just go? I can't do this tonight."

"Addie, I-"

"Please... Please go," I whispered.

"Okay. I'll go tonight, but we're not done. I'm going to keep coming back and keep asking you to go out with us. I'm going to stay on your shit, girl, because this isn't healthy. Okay?"

"Fine."

She hugged me from behind then walked around the counter towards the door.

"I love you, Addison. You're my friend and I miss you," she said. Then she slipped out and shut the door behind her.

I started to take a drink but stopped with the glass halfway to my mouth. I looked down at it for a moment, then threw the whole glass into the sink, shattering it and splashing dark red wine all over the counter. Then I slid down to the floor, my back against the cabinet.

I have no idea how long I sat there crying.

~~ George Washington Hospital, Washington DC, August ~~

LIZ

"Hey Liz, there's someone up front who wants to talk to you."

I looked up from the computer where I was typing patient notes next to the nurse's station.

"Who is it? Family of a patient?" I asked Angel.

"No, some lady. Says her name's McLeod. Looks like a fed to me."

"A G-Woman? The fuzz? A secret agent?" I joked.

"Well I think she's wearing a gun, so I hope so," he answered, not laughing with me.

That stopped me cold. Firearms were expressly prohibited in the hospital. You could only carry them if you were law enforcement.

"Okay, I'll handle it. Cover for me for a bit?"

"You got it, Doc."

I headed to the reception area to see a tall woman dressed very much like a fed. She had on a black pantsuit, with a white dress shirt under it and sensible, flat leather shoes. She was standing in the middle of the waiting room, watching CNN on the TV mounted to the wall of the lounge. She had curly, red hair. I looked her over as she reached up to tighten her ponytail, and her suit jacket opened wider. I saw she was wearing a pistol on her hip.

"Can I help you?" I asked, as I rolled up to her.

She turned and looked down at me. "Liz Charles?"

"Before I answer that I'd like to see some official ID. We don't allow firearms in here," I said, in a quiet but serious voice.

She glanced down at her holster, then pulled her jacket over her gun with one hand while reaching into her breast pocket and pulling out a small leather folder with the other. She flipped it open and handed it to me. Amber McLeod, Special Agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The ID and badge looked real enough to my untrained eyes. I handed it back to her.

"Okay, yes, I'm Dr. Charles. What can I do for you?"

"Well, it's, um... not official business, it's personal." She looked around, suddenly and obviously uncomfortable.

My eyes widened as I suddenly made the connection. Amber. Red hair. ATF agent.

"You're Addison's friend, aren't you!" I said, loudly. Addison had told me a few stories about her, but I hadn't met her.

"Yes," she made a shushing motion with her hand. "Yes, I am. She doesn't know I'm here. Can we, like, go somewhere and talk?

"S-u-u-u-r-e," I said, drawing out the word. "Let me tell the staff I'm taking a break," I turned my chair around and saw Angel, Kat and Jimmy all clumped together at reception, pretending (poorly) to be looking at something on the receptionist's computer.

I rolled over to them. "You guys are about as subtle as a car crash," I said.

"What does she want?" Kat asked, breathless with curiosity.

"She's investigating nunya," I said. "Angel do I have time to step out for ten minutes?"

"Sure thing, Doc. I'll cover for you."

I made a finger gun at him. "I'll bring you a caramel latte when I come back. It's your turn after all."

Kat made a jealous face.

As I turned to go, Jimmy asked "What's nunya?"

"Nunya bidness!" Kat and Angel said in unison. They laughed as I wheeled past Agent Amber and said, "Well c'mon, let's roll."

We found a table at the Starbucks out in front of the hospital. I'd ordered my usual venti flat white, extra shot, and Angel's latte.

"Okay, let's have it," I said, diving right in, "why is Addison's gun-toting Special Agent friend coming to see me?"

She toyed with the straw in her large iced coffee with cream, extra sugar. I waited patiently for her to start.

"I'm not sure talking to you is the best idea, to tell you the truth, but Addison isn't doing very well lately. I think it's because of you, and I wanted you to know."

I stared at her, then let out a short bark of laughter. "She's not doing well? Why is that my problem? She bailed out of our friendship, not me."

"I know, I know, but Addison is five kinds of messed up right now. She never leaves her apartment except for work anymore. I think she's drinking alone most nights. I've asked her to see a therapist or do something, but I can't get through to her."

"What about her girlfriend? Viv, isn't it?" I knew very well the woman's name was Vivian Esparza. I hadn't been able to forget a single detail of seeing them together in the E.R.

Amber's mouth twisted in displeasure. "They've been history for over a month."

I blinked. "They broke up?"

"They were never together," she said. "Not really. They started off as friends with benefits. Addison was using her to try and get over you, but she would never admit that, not even to herself. Then around the time of the Metro crash, Addison started trying to push Viv into a serious relationship." She looked at my face and quickly added, "No one who knew them both thought it was a good idea. Addison was in denial that they were a bad match, and it blew up in her face. She was out with me and my partner, and we saw Viv with another woman."

"Ouch..." I winced

"Yeah, no shit. Viv tried to point out they had never agreed to be exclusive, which was a weasley little cop-out, but whatever. Addison told her to never call her again and since then she's been sitting under a black cloud in her apartment."

We sat in silence for a moment.

"Well, that sucks for Addison but, again, this isn't my problem. Why are you here?" I finally said.

"I'm not sure, to tell the truth. Addison told me you're straight, so I'm not here to try and, I don't know... fix you up with her or anything."

"Okay... so why are you here?" I asked again.

"I just... I think she needs to talk to you, to work through what happened between you two. I don't think she's going to be able to let it go as things stand. You two got so close, so fast. I've known her for years, but she came to depend on you as a friend more than she ever has with me and it only took you a couple months."

"If she needs to talk to me then she should reach out. It's not like I blocked her."

Amber sighed and stood up. "You're right. It should be her problem and her responsibility to reach out, but she won't. She's in a downward spiral. I think maybe she needs to at least talk to you, but she's too fucking terrified to do it. Honestly, I don't know what's what. I'm just here because I hoped you still cared about her as a friend and thought you'd want to know she's not doing well. At all."

"Well... okay. Thanks, I guess..."

"No problem. Just so you know, if you tell her I came to talk to you she might never speak to me again. I don't care, though, because I don't think I'm going to get through to her any other way." After a pause, she added, "It was nice to meet you."

"It was nice to..." I started to say, but she'd already walked out the door without looking back.

I sat lost in thought. She'd broken up with Vivian. She was still hung up on me. She was terrified to talk to me. She was hurting.

I was still hurting. But was I hurting just because I was mad at how she ditched me, or because I was hung up on her?

I didn't know, but goddamnit I was going to find out.

~~ Tenleytown, Washington DC, September ~~

My stomach was churning with butterflies as if I was at the starting line of my first Army Ten-Miler again. It had taken me two weeks after talking to Amber to screw up my courage for this. I was sitting in front of Addison's apartment building. It was hot and I was grateful for the two large shade trees in the front yard sheltering me from the cruelly blazing late summer sun.

I had known where she lived since we'd first started hanging out. When she'd first texted me her personal contact info it had included her street address and apartment number, but I'd never been inside her place.

Her apartment was an older building, one of the squat brick two-story models with four apartments on each floor that had sprung up all over DC during the Cold War and the buildup of the infamous industrial-military complex. She lived on the second floor, and since her building had no elevator we'd always just hung out at my condo instead.

I'd done a little covert work to set up this confrontation. Through Kat, I'd had Megan ask a friend of hers in Lampedo's DC office to text her when Addison left work, and then Megan had called to let me know that she was on her way home. She'd left the office a half-hour ago. If my toes could tap, my knee would have been bouncing.

Just when I was about to decide she'd gone out somewhere, rather than coming straight home, I spotted her slowly walking down the sidewalk from the direction of the Metro. She was lost in thought, her head down, looking at the sidewalk under her feet.

She was dressed as I always pictured her in my mind, like the night we'd met. She wore a smart looking, light wool business pants suit and silk blouse. She was carrying her suit jacket over one arm and her briefcase and a cloth Trader Joe's shopping bag in her other hand. I said nothing to draw her attention, simply waited in my wheelchair, blocking the sidewalk up to her building's door. It was so jarring to see her dreadlocks gone. Her fine, straight hair made her look like a Valkyrie in a suit. Had her eyebrows always been such a pale blonde and I just hadn't noticed? Her eyes had dark circles under them. It also looked like she hadn't slept in a week.

She nearly ran into me before her peripheral vision told her someone was blocking her path and her head jerked up.

"Liz! What the f--... What are you doing here?"

I wanted to smile. I didn't. Instead I just evenly met her gaze. "I thought it was time we talked... about what happened between us. Don't you?"

"No, Liz, I don't want to talk about it." She hadn't moved an inch from where she'd stopped.

"'Well, it kind of seems to me like you left a whole lotta shit unresolved between us when you just walked away from me like that. Seems to me we both probably have some issues because of it."

"I've fucked up enough already. Go home, Liz." She finally shook herself out of her daze and stepped on the grass to walk around me to the front step.

"Are you fucking serious?" I said, spinning my chair to follow her. "You can't stop for one minute and tell me what's going on in your head? How can you just--"

"I can't," she said as she opened the door with her keys. "I'm sorry. Goodbye."

"Addison!" She let the door swing shut behind her. The click of the lock sounded like a gun being cocked and pointed at me. I watched her through the glass of the door as she started up the stairs. "Addison! Goddamnit, Addison!" She vanished out of sight.

I couldn't believe she was being so stubborn...

I rolled my chair forward, popped a wheelie and landed my front wheels up onto the low patio in front of the door. Giving my back wheels a powerful shove forward, I levered my chair all the way onto the stoop. There was a small panel with eight buttons. The button marked 203 had a label that said Wagner next to it.

I reached up and pressed the button, hearing the accompanying faint buzz through the brick wall. No answer. I pressed it over and over, then leaned on it for a solid minute.

Nothing.

I couldn't have made myself leave if I wanted to. I just sat there, fuming and staring at the door, willing her to come back down. Five minutes passed. Then ten.

I was looking around on the ground for pebbles I could throw at the windows above me when I caught movement inside the building out of the corner of my eye. I eagerly sat up in my chair, but it turned out not to be her. Instead it was a man pushing a bicycle. He got a little tangled up trying to hold the door and guide his bike at the same time, so when he pushed the door open, I grabbed the handle and held it open for him while he got his bike outside.

"Thanks," was all he said. He clearly didn't care much about security, as he jumped on his bike and pedaled away without so much as a look back.

I wheeled inside and looked up the stairs. They were old. The well-worn, wooden treads looked slick with age

Fuck it, I thought. I rolled my chair next to the steps, locked the brakes on my wheels and slid off onto the first step. I held onto the railing with one hand and put my other palm flat on the step, then levered myself up onto the next one. Then I reached up higher on the railing and repeated the motion. Then again. And again. My heels were banging limply against the wood with each step I ascended and I was sure I'd have some pretty good bruises there tomorrow, not that I'd feel them. By the time I reached the top and looked down the steep stairway at my chair sitting empty by itself below me, I decided this was just about the stupidest thing I'd ever done. But I wasn't about to turn back now.

The two doors at the top of the steps were 201 and 202. Of course. I could see two other doors down the hall toward the front of the building. I flopped onto my stomach and started high-crawling down the hallway. The motion came easily to me after all the practice I had during basic training. I'd been able to use my legs to help push then, but it had been in loose sand; on the hardwood of the floor I didn't need my legs. It was trivial to crawl with my elbows the length of the hallway. 203 was on the left and I propped myself up into a sitting position against the near wall and pounded on the door with my fist. I waited maybe five seconds then pounded again. Another five seconds. Then I just kept pounding until the door flew open.

"What?!" Then she did the most satisfying doubletake in history. "Liz, what the hell?! What are you doing?! How did you--"