Chapter 6: Coming Off

"Then we'll both be busy," I said.

I picked up my bag and walked out of morning report in the middle of it.

Nobody stopped me.

The quiet resident from the end of the table caught up with me at the elevator.

She pressed the button for me without a word and went back inside.

Tate stopped everything that week.

No more testosterone. No more cortisone. He threw the rest of his vials into the sharps bin at the practice facility in front of two trainers.

For three days he said he felt fine.

On the fourth night Gemma's phone rang while we were watching TV, and it was him, asking for me because mine was dead.

"Hey," he said. "Weird question."

"Go."

"Is it normal to sweat through two shirts sitting on a couch?"

I was in my car in four minutes.

His condo in the Third Ward was the top floor of an old warehouse, brick walls and big windows over the river.

He opened the door in a soaked gray T-shirt with his jaw clenched.

"I threw a remote," he said. "At the TV. Because it was on the wrong channel."

The remote was in three pieces on the floor.

I put my hand on his forehead. He was hot and clammy at once.

"Your body just lost the thing it was running on. Your own system isn't back yet. You're going to feel like garbage for a while."

"How long's a while?"

"Days. Maybe weeks."

He sat down hard on the couch.

"I wanted to put my fist through the window over a remote, Lainey."

"Then don't. Drink this."

I found him a dry shirt and put a cold cloth on his neck, and he swore at it.

At two he was lying on the rug with his good arm over his eyes.

"Talk to me," he said. "Anything. I can't be in my own head."

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