Before I Let You Go(66)

I am proud of my sister. I put the phone away and I smile at Daisy.

“Well, well,” I whisper. “Your momma might just surprise us all.”





28


ANNIE


Luke,

I loved Todd, but I didn’t love any of the boyfriends who came after him. Todd was a different breed from the type I was eventually drawn to. He was quiet and considerate and intellectual.

And he hurt me. A lot. So I suppose it made sense that I stayed well away from men like Todd after that.

Lincoln was a football player with a terrible attitude toward women and a fairly heavy weed habit. I didn’t feel much of anything for Lincoln, but the sex was pretty good, and he was always invited to great parties. When Lincoln moved on to a cheerleader he met at an away game, I moved quickly on to Owen, who was a moody, angsty philosophy student who was crazy-obsessed with existentialism.

By the time I was in my third year, I’d burned through housemates as quickly as I burned through boyfriends. I came to the conclusion that my apartment-sharing attempts were doomed if other, inevitably bitchy women were involved, so I moved into Owen’s studio. He was on a mission to find meaning in experience—and so every day seemed to bring some new quest for novelty. First it was bio-hacking his body to experience “health,” then it was starving himself to understand “true hunger,” and then finally he decided he would give in to any impulse to drink or get high and see what that felt like, too.

I’d been smoking a lot of weed that year, but Owen was into some darker shit—a little bit of coke every now and again, MDMA before parties sometimes, a low dose of speed when he was studying for exams. Then, just so he could say he’d done it, he snorted heroin one night when we were home alone. There was no reason for it—he just liked to try things. And I’d already had quite a bit to drink and I thought to myself, well, why the hell not?

It burned when it went into my nostrils. I was dizzy—I stumbled and then fell into the couch. Owen had gone just before me, and he was sitting at the table, his eyes wide.

“What do you think?” he asked me, and I stared at him. There was no rush and no euphoria—there never has been for me when I snort. Instead, I felt myself sinking into a simple, blissful sense of contentment and well-being. I felt no less sober than I had before I took it—my mind was actually clearer somehow, as if all of the roadblocks had been dissolved by the drug and suddenly I could see that everything really was right with the world after all. I liked it, and I figured I’d probably do it again one day—but I was certainly not clamoring for more after that first bump. Instead, I felt like Owen and I had a pleasant but somewhat wasted evening on heroin—and truthfully, I wondered what all of the fuss was about.

Owen must have wondered, too, because he came home with some friends from class a few days later with more and told me that they’d decided to inject it. Just once, he told me, so they could compare the high with the one they’d had from snorting. Even after everything else I’d been playing around with that year, the idea of IV heroin disgusted me.

“It’s for junkies,” I scoffed at him. “You’re a fucking idiot, Owen.”

What do you make of that, Luke? I was horrified the first time my boyfriend told me he was going to try smack. Me, with all of these self-esteem issues you keep telling me I have, I thought I was too good to shoot dope. Actually, I was so furious with him for taking his stupid experiments one step too far that I went out of the apartment while they did it. I didn’t even want to watch.

When I came home, Owen’s friends were gone. He had fallen asleep in a puddle of his own vomit on the couch. I checked his pulse, satisfied myself that he was fine and went to bed.

The next day, all Owen could talk about was the rush.

“Annie, you have to try it with me.”

“Fuck off, Owen.”

“Come on, babe. It was incredible. The high was everything they say it is—the most intense euphoria—bliss that you can’t even imagine. You’re a million fucking miles away from your problems. It’s what life would be like if you weren’t already fucked up by it, you know? It will blow your fucking mind. I’ll get some more and we’ll shoot it tonight, okay?”

I rolled my eyes at him and went to class. One thing he’d said fascinated me. What I hated about being sober—what I still hate about it—is the way that your pain and your confusion are right at your nose all of the time. Being drunk or stoned is like taking a holiday from all of the shit and the pain—and what Owen described sounded like a holiday to another planet. So, that night, I watched as he clumsily cooked the smack. He insisted I sit on the couch, which I thought was a revolting idea. It still smelled of his vomit.

“I’ll just do it at the table,” I protested, and he shook his head.

“You’re going to want to lie down, babe.”

So I sat on the couch, and I was careful to place myself in just the right spot to avoid the still-damp vomit stain, and then I let him stick a needle into my arm. I was holding my breath—excited and terrified—and then Owen pulled the plunger back, and I watched my blood draw up into the barrel.

“What are you doing?” I gasped.

“I’m making sure it’s in the vein. Don’t want to waste it,” Owen said, then his face set in a fierce scowl as he pushed the plunger down.