“Didn’t want to worry me?” She sat forward. “Are you serious right now? Do you have any idea how much more worrying it is to see you zombie walking around and knowing something’s up, but not knowing what? You think that doesn’t worry me?”
“I was ashamed, all right?” I said, struggling to explain it to her, when I didn’t even like to think about it. Didn’t like what it said about me. “There never seemed to be enough of me to go around, and . . . and I felt like I needed it. Needed a crutch to get through the day, which other Pythias had only used in emergencies. It was embarrassing.”
“Other Pythias weren’t at war.”
“Some of them were.”
Tami scowled. “Different kind of war. They had baby wars. You got the granddaddy.”
“Still. I felt like a failure. And I couldn’t even handle it! I took it to make me stronger, but I got addicted almost immediately, and then I . . . I couldn’t give it up. It made everything just so much easier. I’d go from feeling like a limp dishrag to feeling like I could conquer the world—”
“When that stuff was only conquering you.”
I looked at my hands. “Yeah. And now . . .”
“What about now?”
I looked up, and all my resentment came crashing back. It wasn’t fair to Tami, I knew that, but she was the one doing this, making me face it. And right then, I almost hated her for it.
“I know what you’re thinking, all right?” I said bitterly. “I didn’t triumph over an addiction, I just substituted one for another. Because I’m weak, and I can’t handle it otherwise!”
“It?”
“My job, my schedule, my life! I need cheats and artificial help to get through the day because I’m not good enough. There, I said it! Are you happy? I can’t do this on my own!”
Tami didn’t say anything. She just looked at me for a long moment, to the point that it started to get uncomfortable. Not that any of this wasn’t.
Then she got up, and silently started stacking plates.
“Tami?” I said, after a minute.
No response.
“Tami, look, I didn’t mean to yell.”
Still nothing.
She hefted the massive tray and started to walk off with it, forcing me to shift in front of her, because she was walking fast. She stopped abruptly, and she didn’t look happy. In fact, she looked more pissed off than I’d seen her in a long time.
“Excuse me, madam. I have to go do some dishes.”
I didn’t move. “Why are you talking like that?” She sounded like that saleswoman in the spa.
“How else am I supposed to talk, madam?”
“Stop calling me that. Since when have you ever—”
“Since I was informed that I’m just the help. Not a friend, not a confidant, not a freaking life manager, whatever the hell that’s supposed to be. Just a glorified servant—”
“You are not!”
“Oh, but I must be. You just told me you suffered through a major addiction all on your own, and now you’re dealing with this . . . I don’t even know what to call it. But you’re doing it by yourself, too. I guess I’m not good enough to talk to, to lean on—”
“That’s not true. You know it’s—”
“Then why did you do it? Why shut me out?”
It was my turn not to say anything.