Page 37 of Tin God
Tenzin shrugged. “It happens. War. Accidents. Fire.” She glanced at Brigid. “If you’re looking for some grand purpose, you won’t find it.”
“That’s just depressin’.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” Tenzin held up a small paper crane and set it on the coffee table. “Be useful. Allow yourself to be bored. Take pleasure in small things, Brigid Connor.”
“I was shite at being bored.”
“Is that why you took drugs?”
Brigid’s eyes went wide. “No.”
Tenzin looked up. “Then why did you take them?”
“Because drugs made me feel amazin’ instead of shite.”
Tenzin nodded. “That’s very logical.”
“It is, isn’t it? If heroin was free, I would have been high all the time. People hate hearing that, but it’s the truth. I loved it.” Her mouth started to water. “I was so fuckin’ happy when I was high.”
Tenzin tore off another piece of paper. “Heroin is like opium?”
“Yeah.”
Tenzin nodded again. “I’ve seen humans on opium. They look like idiots to me, but they seem very happy.”
“You don’t care what ya look like. If you feel that good, you don’t care if people think ya look like an idiot. You don’t care about anythin’.” The bitter tang sat in the back of her throat. “That’s why I stopped. Not because it was gonna kill me—well, it did kill me—or because I felt horrible on it. I didn’t. I felt great. I quit because it made me a shite person.”
“Because you didn’t care about anything?”
“Yep. Not my family. Not other people. Nuthin’.”
Tenzin pouted as she stared at the paper in her hands. “That’s true. You should care about things.” She methodically folded another paper crane. “Perhaps you care too much about everything now because at one point you were very selfish and cared only about dulling your pain.”
She’d never thought about that. “Yeah, maybe.”
“You cannot carry the weight of the world or it will break you.” Tenzin finished another crane, then tore out another paper. “You asked me how I live forever.”
“Yes.”
“I live forever because I do not focus on the past or the future. I focus on the now. I have a very close circle of people I care about, and I care deeply about them. Also, I do not live alone.”
“Ever?”
“No, I have lived alone in the past, and I know it is not good for me. Even in the half a century that I was silent in our world—before Stephen and Benjamin—I had Nima with me.” Tenzin looked up. “Stephen was my first mate. He woke me from silence. Then I met Benjamin.”
“And you weren’t alone.”
“I can be alone, but as I said, it’s not good for me.” Tenzin looked around the room. “You shouldn’t have left your mate. You’re like me. Being alone isn’t good for you.”
“I’m not like you.” Brigid’s voice was rough.
“In some ways you are.”
“You left Ben.”
Tenzin shrugged. “Only because I know he’ll find me.”
Brigid didn’t want Ben to come. She didn’t want him in Zasha’s cross fire. That was the whole reason she’d left Carwyn.