Smoke Me.

Chapter 55: Crestfallen

AN: This is it. The last chapter. Oh my god. Ha-ha. Well, I want to thank everyone for reading and commenting. I really loved writing this fanfic, and especially, reading the comments. I have always wanted to finish fanfic, and books in general. But since I'll concentrate on an original book after this, (though this fanfic is quite ...original too, just a bit, lol) I want to thank everyone for making this so special for me. I might post a chapter with (hopefully) non-plot stuff happening in the future, but I will not promise a thing. I don't know if I will ever make a continuation. All I know is that it took me more than a year to finish it so the book is probably going to take longer. That being said, I will keep checking the comments and I really want to post a fun chapter here and there when I'll miss it too much. But that might happen in months. Sorry about that. But thank you, Smokers, from the bottom of my heart for reaching the end with me. Which is this:

'I want to go. Fuck, I am wasting time. Why do I even care? Why did she actually help? Why did I let her help?!'

We had to wait for too long. And day four was reaching its end with me patting disinfectant on Roxy's wound.

I fell asleep and when I woke up, it was already morning. I am surprised I didn't have a heart attack when I saw the sun shining.

No matter how much time had passed, no matter how much I paced through the wet streets, this one sentence she said had me stuck inside the fences: "They will probably kill me in your absence."
I wasn't sure if that was only her paranoia speaking or mine. But I did somehow manage to wait for Doctor Steiner to do his thing in the back of the cleaners' van. When I saw her passed out, I thought she had died, but then Doctor Steiner told me he's given her a concerning number of painkillers and that he's also given V a bag of pills she'll have to take later.

It turned out that the wound was not that deep and that as long as it didn't get infected, she was out of any danger. Information that she was yet to learn since the morphine shot he had to use to keep her still to disinfect and stitch up the wound has knocked her out.

A part of me was calmer, although I couldn't pinpoint why. And another part of me was checking the clock every five seconds.

'Do I leave V at my house? Or do I go to Johnny's house first? If he's not there, then I have no other lead anyway.'

I kept envisioning all the possible scenarios, the mistakes that could happen, and the problems that we could encounter. But the one thing that I concluded mattered most was time. Or the lack thereof.

V hid his face under the hood of his jacket and avoided making eye contact with the doctor for some reason. Even when the woman was drugged out of her mind and sleeping in the back seat, and he was on the seat next to me, he refused to uncross his arms.

When we could finally leave, it was the middle of the day and I didn't want to hear what other trauma he's had that made doctors the villains.

"How do we get there?" He asked me.

"I'll drive."
He turned towards me; arms still crossed. A boxy smile emerged coupled with furrowed brows.

"You already got your driving license?"
"No. Did you?"

I asked as I put on the seatbelt, rotated the key, and half-floored the pedal.

"Of course not. But then how are you going to drive?"
"I know how to drive. I just have never bothered to get the test."
"Why not?!"
"You know how expensive it is to own a car? You don't need to drive it at all and you'd still have to pay for it to collect dust."

V extended his left hand in front of me as if that'd barricade me from the wheel that could still move with or without his arm hovering above it.

"It doesn't matter if you get a car or not! You should've gotten the license...hey, stop it. This is not funny! The police will..."
"How will they know? Is it written on my forehead that I don't have a stupid piece of paper?"
"No. But what if they stop us for a routine checkup?"
"They won't if you won't look like I am holding you hostage."
V has been biting his nails as I started driving out of the neighborhood. Although he waved and wished the guy that was in charge of opening and closing the big gate, a good day with way too much enthusiasm, I didn't point it out. Assuming, he probably did that to keep his attention so he wouldn't realize that the person who was driving before isn't the same person who was driving now.