Too Late

Note: Carter’s real name is Luke, but Carter is his undercover name. For ease of reading, he will be referred to as Carter until Sloan learns his identity and begins referring to him as Luke. The same arrangement will be used for his partner, Ryan, whose undercover name is Dalton.

Carter is 25 years old. He graduated three years prior and has now returned to bust a drug ring with his partner, Dalton. Asa Jackson runs the drug ring. They expect the job to take less than two months.

Carter sits by a sleeping woman in Spanish class. She wakes, glares at him, and then asks him to wake her up when class ends. He wipes drool off her desk before giving her an energy drink.

Dalton texts, asking if he has gotten the name of the “hot piece of ass” (16). Carter notices a scar on her thumb. After they introduce themselves, he calls her mandona, which in Spanish means “bossy.”

In Spanish, she tells him to text Dalton that his class companion is beautiful. She calls him a perro (dog) and responds to a text. Class commences. She writes something frantically on a notebook. Carter sneaks a look and sees the sentence: “Trains and buses stole my shoes and now I have to eat raw squid” (21).

She explains that she likes to write random things when she’s bored. The objective is to see how random she can get without thinking. He asks how she can lose if she plays alone. She frowns and gives him the pen. He writes a line of similar nonsense, and she says he’s a natural. They stay after class and flirt. Finally, she insists on leaving first so he can watch her go. She looks back, and he gives her a thumbs up. Then he tells himself to focus. The stakes are too high to get distracted.

Sloan studies at the library and retraces her history. After two months at school, she moved in with Asa to avoid an eviction. Then two years passed. Soon it became obvious that he was selling drugs, and she left. She worried about her younger brother, Stephen. He had several challenging neurological conditions and was in a good care facility. Two weeks after Sloan left Asa, the home’s funding was canceled, forcing Stephen to move back in with their mother, whose substance use disorder has made her neglect her duties as a parent. Sloan returned to Asa and asked for help. He agreed, but he stopped hiding his lifestyle.

Now “every night is a party, and every party is [her] nightmare” (25). The home feels dangerous to Sloan. She loves Asa’s potential but knows that he won’t change. He’ll die or go to prison. She goes home and cleans because the house is empty for a change. She remembers the early good times in their relationship. Asa hugs her from behind and they kiss, which is rare outside of sex. Then he introduces her to a new business associate: Carter.

Asa spanks her, and Sloan is surprised to see hate in Carter’s eyes. She’s furious with herself for repeating her childhood. Her parents both had substance use disorders, and she has never wanted drugs in her life. She tells Asa that bringing in more business partners means they’re getting in deeper, not getting out of the lifestyle like he promised.

Asa squeezes her arms painfully—the first time he has hurt her in front of someone—and whispers that she shouldn’t embarrass him. He tells her to put on her red dress as Carter scowls. She remembers that the scar on her thumb is from her mother’s attempt to burn her with the car’s cigarette lighter.

Sloan wants to leave. She knows it will get worse, but she’s trapped. If she leaves, Stephen will suffer as well.

Carter has never hated someone like he hates Asa, and he’s annoyed that Dalton didn’t say Asa had a girlfriend. Asa casually says he’ll hurt Carter if he looks at Sloan the wrong way. Dalton enters, and they talk about the night’s party preparations when Asa goes upstairs. Carter notes that Dalton is excellent at undercover work because he doesn’t get emotionally involved. Carter can’t ever abandon people he cares about during their operations, and this one gives him a bad feeling.

For two hours, he meets people at the party. Four hours later, he takes a break in the bathroom. He remembers how pretty Sloan looked while vacuuming. She comes out of her bedroom in the dress. She is stunning, but Carter sees that she’s afraid and has been crying. When she asks why he’s there, he says she’s dating his reason. Sloan apologizes for flirting in class. He says it was harmless but immediately regrets it. He knows that harmless flirtations often lead to more. Dalton comes upstairs, slaps him lightly, and tells Carter not to mess this up.

The next afternoon, Asa does cocaine with a woman Jess, who is Jon’s new girlfriend. He sends Jon away and tells Jess to remove her dress. As Jess gives Asa oral sex, Sloan knocks on the door. Asa pushes Jess into the closet. He lies and tells Sloan he went to class and then kisses the bruises on her arms. He thinks about how much he likes that he’s the only one who has had sex with her. He tells Sloan to shower so he can take her on a date.

Jess leaves the closet while Sloan showers. He covers her mouth, twists her arm behind her back, and tells her to leave because he has a date.

Sloan gets ready for class as she thinks about Carter. Asa left with Jon while she showered. Earlier, when Asa got home and got on top of her, she cried while they had sex, but he didn’t care, which made it feel as if it wasn’t sex at all: “I cried for the fact that I allow him to do what he does to me. I cried for the fact that I feel like I have no other choice. I cried for the fact that I’m still with him, despite the person he’s become” (44). She was looking forward to having a crush on Carter, but his inclusion in Asa’s circle has killed her fantasies. She has no intention of cheating, and Asa would kill Carter if it happened.

Carter sits by her in class even though she has chosen a different seat. She ignores him. He takes the hint and starts to leave when a guy approaches and angrily says he’s in his seat. Carter stands and tells him to find another seat. Sloan thinks the man might have autism, like Stephen.

When she tells Carter this, he apologizes, moves, and tells the guy he can have the seat, which Sloan loves. She thanks him once they’re in their original seats. Carter writes her a note asking why she didn’t want to sit by him. He apologizes and asks if he crossed a line. He also writes that he thinks she’s fun, which makes her smile. In response, she writes a line of nonsense. He laughs and responds with his own sentence, which contains the word “pizza.” Then he says he’s taking her for pizza after class. Sloan nervously agrees.

Carter can tell she’s nervous on the way to his car. He asks her to treat it casually, but they both know that they’re crossing a line. At his car, he doesn’t open her door for her, to make it feel less like a date, but the outing feels like a combination of Russian roulette and career suicide.

Sloan says she doesn’t have money, and he asks why she doesn’t ask Asa. Sloan says she’d rather starve than eat with dirty money. When Carter asks about her brother, she mentions another brother in the past tense but doesn’t elaborate. Carter squeezes her hand.

Before they go into the restaurant, she suggests a new game: They’ll say random things during lunch instead of writing them.

Asa asks Jon if he knows what’s at 1262 Ricker Road. His GPS tracker says Sloan is there. It’s the address of a restaurant. Asa says he’ll figure it out tonight and kill them both if she’s cheating on him.

Inside the restaurant, Sloan tries not to think about Asa as she remembers Carter’s touch. He asks why she’s staring at his hands and if she’s angry he held her hand. She says no, it didn’t make her mad, but doesn’t tell him she liked it.

Sloan orders a pizza and excuses herself to go to the restroom, where she curses Carter for being what Asa is not. She washes her hands to get rid of the feeling of Carter’s touch. When she sits again, he notices the bruises on her arms. These bruises make her feel branded. She gives Carter a list of things she doesn’t want him to do, including smiling, sitting by her, flirting with her, and buying her lunch. She hates that she’s being cruel, but she’s afraid for them both.

Carter asks if he should treat her like Asa does and says he’s surprised that she’s a doormat. Sloan retorts that she’s surprised that Carter deals drugs, before demanding that he take her back. Carter insists she eat first. Instead, she runs outside and hears his car beep as he unlocks it for her. However, he doesn’t follow her, so she sits in the car and tries to sleep.

Carter gets the food to go. He doesn’t understand how Sloan can simultaneously be so confident and fragile. He wishes he hadn’t called her a doormat. When he sees her in the car, he remembers that he couldn’t sleep after seeing her in the red dress. Now he finds her so attractive that he wonders if he’ll ever sleep again.

Sloan eats and drinks on the way back, but they don’t speak. When they get close, she says the lunch ruined her day. Carter apologizes, but she cuts him off. He says she needs to treat herself better and leave Asa, but Sloan says she has heard this identical apology too many times. The difference is that Carter’s words hurt her worse than anything Asa has done or said. He watches her get into her car and sob before he drives away, feeling helpless.