Heroine(20)

“That means you need to increase your dosage,” Josie says, eyeing me from across Edith’s table. She’s wearing an expensive winter coat, long hair artfully hanging over one shoulder, new nails tapping away at her phone while she talks. She sounds so confident and looks so well kept that I feel like I’m getting advice from a medical professional. Josie slips her phone back into her pocket, and there’s a prolonged silence.

“Where do you go to school?” I finally ask her.

“Baylor Springs,” she says, then yells toward the hallway. “Edes, what’s the holdup?”

Edith answers but it’s unintelligible, her words lost as the furnace kicks on. “Jesus,” Josie complains, pulling off her coat. “She probably forgot the combination to the safe. We’ll be here all day.”

“Safe?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Josie says. “You really think she’s just got Oxy lying around with a bunch of junkies walking in and out?”

“I’m not a junkie,” I say, too fast.

“Right,” Josie says. “Tell yourself whatever, but if you want to stay happy you’ll need to up your milligrams. You’ve built up a tolerance to the 30s.”

“What do you take?” I ask her.

“Right now I’m popping two 80s twice a day.”

She takes way more than I do, and she looks like all her shit is together. If I did two 80s I’d be dead to the world, floating on my bed and high as hell. But Josie drove here, and doesn’t fumble with her phone or have to search for words when she speaks. Me, I’m still working on putting together complete sentences in social situations when I’m one hundred percent sober.

“What do you think I should do?” I ask her.

“I’d say go to 40s, but that’s not much of a bump. Buy a bunch of 60s too. Edith tell you about chewing them?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” Josie nods, reaching into her pocket and silencing her phone when it goes off again. I’m weirdly pleased that she’s interested enough in me to ignore her phone. She rests her chin on her palm, perfect nails tapping against her cheek.

“You wanna hang out?”

“Sure,” I say reflexively, like I’ve been picked first for dodgeball. I was always picked first for dodgeball, but I was never invited to the popular girls’ birthday parties. That’s what it feels like now, like I’m being acknowledged as a girl by this much better specimen of our kind.

“Cool,” Josie says again, sliding my phone out from under my hand. She dials herself from my phone, then pushes it back across the table. “That’s me,” she says.

I glance down at her number on my recent calls list, then add her, pausing for a second. “Um . . . what’s your last name?”

“Addison,” she says, going through the same action on her phone. “What’s yours?”

“Catalan.”

Edith comes back with our brown bags, Josie’s noticeably bulgier than mine. I went so far as to open the piggy bank I forgot I had, and took all the loose change down to the coin machine at the grocery store. I dumped everything into it, every penny I’d ever found in the halls, every nickel old Mr. Henderson had given me for each weed I’d pulled in his flower bed when I was just a kid. My childhood sounded loud, going into that machine.

Half of me is waiting for Josie to notice that I’m only getting a 40 off Edith and offer to help me out, the other half is ashamed of myself for wanting that. But her phone goes off yet again, and this time she answers it, not seeing my pitifully slim payment. My own phone vibrates under my hand, and Edith looks pathetically between the two of us.

“Off so soon? I’ve got a pie in—”

“Sorry, Edes,” Josie says, yanking on her coat and taking her pill bag. “I’ve got to bounce.”

I glance down at my phone, where a text from Dad has come in:

Baby on the way!

It’s got a string of happy faces and hearts next to it. It’s also part of a group text that Mom is included in. Geez.

“Yeah, I’ve got to go, too,” I tell Edith, who is clearly hurt that we aren’t staying for snacks. “I’ll be back,” I reassure her.

The shit thing is, it’s true.





Chapter Fifteen


addict: one who devotes themselves habitually, especially to a substance

Dad’s second wife may not be my favorite person, but I feel sorry for anybody pushing a baby out of their vagina. Dad comes out to the waiting room every so often to give us updates on how Devra is doing. Mom practices her polite smiles in between his visits, but eight hours later she’s asking pointed questions, and not in her ex-wife voice, either. She’s talking to Dad like a doctor.

“Is something wrong?” I ask, once Dad has disappeared back behind the double doors that separate the waiting room from the women in labor.

“No,” Mom says brightly, smile back in place. “It can take a while with the first one.”

I watch her carefully, familiar with every line on her face and where they’re supposed to be when everything is fine. That’s not where they’re currently located.

“But?” I push.

“But I’m watching the staff. They may look calm to you but it’s all a front. They’re all wearing oh shit faces.” Mom blows out all her air with the admission, her bangs flowing with the updraft.