Reaper's Touch

Lucas: Stranger

"Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do stitched with its color."
- W.S. Merwin

Lucas had never brought a girl back to Marcus's place, which must have been why his cousin looked so surprised when he walked in with Isabella, the girl he'd just met at the tattoo shop.

"Are you Nora?" Marcus asked curiously, turning off the TV.

"Who?" Isabella asked, glancing at Lucas.

"No one," Lucas murmured. Then to Marcus he said, "This is Isabella."

"Oh," Marcus said. "Um... okay. Nice to meet you."

"We're gonna hang out in my room," Lucas said, already tugging Isabella in the direction of the hallway.

"Who's that?" Isabella asked once they were inside Lucas's messy bedroom.

"My cousin, Marcus."

"No, the chick he mentioned."

"Oh, her? My ex," Lucas said dismissively.

Isabella smiled and plopped down onto Lucas's unmade bed.

"So play me something," she said, nodding at his guitar, which was propped against the open closet door.

"What do you wanna hear?" Lucas asked.

"Whatever. You like Post Malone?"

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "That guy? No. I like metal."

"Like Breaking Benjamin?" Isabella asked.

"They're a good band, but that's not metal. That's hard rock," Lucas said.

"So what's metal?"

"Metallica, Megadeath, Amon Amarth, Periphery, Born of Osiris?"

Isabella looked at him blankly.

"Something a little easier then. Slipknot?" he said hopefully.

She just shrugged.

"Okay. Not your thing. That's cool," Lucas said.

"I like pop. Ariana Grande. Taylor Swift. You know," she explained.

"Uh huh."

Isabella sighed and looked around Lucas's room.

"Sorry it's messy. It's been a long week," Lucas said, seeing where she was looking.

"No biggie. Does your cousin care if we smoke?" Isabella asked. She opened her purse and pulled out a small bag of weed.

"I care," Lucas said.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I'm a drug addict in recovery. I can't do that shit," Lucas said, feeling annoyed.

Isabella's eyes grew wide. "But you're, like, only eighteen."

"So?"

"So how do you even know you're a drug addict at eighteen?"

"When you overdose and almost die," Lucas said flatly.

"On what?"

"Heroin and fentanyl."

"Fentanyl? Well that was just stupid. Of course you're gonna die on that shit. But everyone parties when they're young. You can be a drug addict when you're thirty," she said dismissively.

"I'm one now, and if you don't put that shit away and show some respect for what I'm saying, you need to leave," Lucas said.

Isabella rolled her eyes but put the weed away. Then she smiled and patted the bed beside her. Lucas sat down. The scent of her jasmine perfume was overwhelming, and he felt like he couldn't breathe. It had smelled so good before, but now it turned his stomach.