Heroine(28)

“Had?” I ask. “Helen’s dead?”

“Yep,” Josie says, unconcerned.

“Wait, what was Helen’s last name?”

“I don’t know,” Josie says, stretching her legs out to rest in my lap. I tap her foot a little harder than necessary.

“Did it start with a W?”

“Maybe, yeah. Why?”

“I think I have her walker,” I say. And Josie, who was almost asleep, bursts out laughing, kicking me a little in her convulsion. Enough to ping my hip and send a splinter of pain into the happy cocoon I formed around myself.

“To Helen,” Josie says, reaching for her glass, which still has a small pool of alcohol in it. “I can honestly say I miss her. She got 80s refilled, no questions asked.”

“So why again does Edith have everyone else’s meds?”

“A lot of them don’t actually need them, or don’t like using them. They just want to get out of the house, even if it is only going to the doctor again,” Josie says, settling back into the pillow fort she’s built for herself. “Medicaid pays for the prescription, Edith gives them half the street value in cash, drives them to their appointments, and takes them to McDonald’s after. Everybody gets drugs. Everybody makes money. Everybody eats french fries. Not a bad scam.”

“Guess not,” I have to agree as I get up to put the pills back in Edith’s purse. It’s the same one I remember from the parking lot at Dr. Ferriman’s, with the three blond kids staring out from the plastic slots on the sides.

“You could almost pass as her actual granddaughter,” I tell Josie when I sit back down. She moves her feet for me, then puts them back on my lap, as natural as can be. “Do you know them?”

“No,” Josie says, suddenly serious. “They’re dead.”

“What? No way.” I look back over at Edith’s purse, as if the posed, stolen moments of their small faces can argue in their own defense.

“House fire,” Josie says, her eyelids slipping shut. “Edith’s only son. His whole family. Poof. Gone.”

“Jesus,” I say quietly.

“Apparently he was not there,” Josie says, her voice somehow tight even as she slides into sleep. I let her go all the way under before I get up and go back to the purse, uncapping the bottle silently and going to the sink for a quick sip of water.

All my life people have told me how strong I am, like it’s the best thing I’ve got to offer. I know they mean it in all the ways—physically, emotionally, mentally—and I am. But I’m also tired, worn out from hurting and being expected to come out on top of everything—even a car crash. I’m exhausted in all the ways I’m supposed to be strong, so I take comfort in the last 20 as it wraps me up, warm and comforting, happy to be taken care of for once.

Sometimes it’s so damn nice to not have to be Mickey Catalan.





Chapter Twenty


lie: an intentional violation of truth; an untruth spoken with the intention to deceive

I wake up with my legs tangled in Josie’s, unsure where I am or why it’s so damn hard to wake up. I feel sluggish and heavy, everything in me insisting that it’s perfectly fine to go back to sleep. But my buzzing phone says otherwise, and I cringe when I see that I’ve missed two calls from my mom, and a text from Carolina that just says ?????

“Shit,” I say, sitting up too quickly. My head feels like it’s moving forward even when I know it’s stopped, and I stumble to my feet. I wish I had my crutches, or even Helen W., not because I’m in pain, but because my legs aren’t all the way awake. Or my brain isn’t. Or both.

Edith had put the blinds down last night, muttering something about nosy neighbors. I spread them with my fingers now, reeling back from the sunlight that’s so bright it’s painful.

“Shit,” I say again when I check the time.

It’s one in the afternoon, and I’m sure that my believable fib to Mom about spending the night at a friend’s just got stretched too far. Edith and Josie are both happily curled up with pillows and blankets, oblivious to my exit. I call Carolina and put her on speaker the second I’m behind the wheel, her voice rising accusatorily from my cup holder.

“Where are you even at right now?” she asks as soon as she picks up.

“I was at a friend’s,” I tell her, which isn’t exactly a lie.

“Your mom thought that friend was me,” Carolina says. “I covered for you, but you weren’t with the Bellas or Lydia either. I checked. So either you suddenly sprouted a social life or something’s up.”

“Maybe I did,” I snap. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yeah,” Carolina says flatly.

Fair enough.

“I was with a friend,” I insist. “She goes to Baylor Springs.”

“Fancy.”

“I met her in physical therapy.” I don’t think about the fact that the only thing Josie Addison is in danger of breaking is a nail.

“’Kay,” Carolina concedes. “But next time give your mom the details. I don’t want to lie to her again.”

“My bad,” I tell her.

“She cool?”

“My mom?”