Heroine(49)

“Awww . . . cute,” Jadine says, looking at the table. “You’re snorting.” I flip the copy of Prevention over on top of the lines reflexively, but she only laughs.

“I’m not giving you my keys,” Josie says indignantly, arms crossed.

“Yeah, you are. And I need the car that goes with those keys,” Jadine says.

“You’re so full of shit,” Josie shoots back, but I can see how the tears that had started to subside when the guys left are welling again.

“No, but I’m going to be in deep shit if anybody sees my car after I took out that mailbox. We stuck it in Brad’s garage and he said he can bang out the dents, but I’ve got to get back to campus and he wasn’t exactly hot on me driving that far.”

“You shouldn’t be driving at all, sweetheart,” Edith says from her chair, the endearment falling somewhere short of kind. “Mailbox won’t be the last thing you hit tonight if you keep going.”

“So call the cops on me, Edes,” Jadine says, drawing out her little sister’s nickname for Edith. “Just make sure you clean up those lines on the coffee table first.”

Edith makes a noise in the back of her throat, but turns away from the conversation.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Jadine says to Josie, impatient. “It’ll take me two hours to get back and Kappa Sig is doing a toga party tonight.”

“It’s my car. Mom bought it for me,” Josie insists.

“She bought me one too, and I fucked it up. So now I need yours,” Jadine says, stepping closer to Josie. Close enough to see the sweat beading along her hairline. Close enough to spot the quiver in her breath.

I wish I’d done that line before Josie’s phone rang. That silk thread running up my nose and into my brain would have helped me find words to say to Jadine, to this girl who looks the way a girl should, the way I don’t. But the line is on the table, not in my brain, so as usual I don’t know what to say or do, how to act or even how to stand. Jadine has sucked all the air out of the room, but I’m not the only one gasping for breath.

I’ve never seen Josie this way, and I don’t just mean going through withdrawal. She’s smaller than usual, shrunken in the presence of her sister. The first time I saw Josie I thought she was bright and shiny, the best example of femininity I’d ever seen. But next to Jadine I notice that she’s begun to bite her nails, and that her hair has split ends.

I wonder if this is how Josie sees herself when she’s around Jadine, too.

I wonder if Jadine knows it.

I think she does, just by the way she moves around her little sister, a cat messing with a mouse. But a cat will eventually pounce, instinct taking over in the end. Jadine is more interested in playing.

“It’s my car,” Josie says again.

“Annnddd . . . these are my pills,” Jadine says, pulling a bottle from her purse. “Wanna trade?”

Josie perks up. Edith turns in her chair.

“I don’t have a whole lot left, but I can show you how to make it count,” Jadine says, shaking the bottle like that makes it more attractive, as if Josie is a baby and she has a rattle.

“Done,” Josie says, handing over her keys and swiping the bottle from Jadine’s hand before she can change her mind. “You can take me home tomorrow, right, Mickey?”

“Yep. Yes,” I say, suddenly with more words than I need.

“’Kay,” Jadine says, curling her fingers around the keys. “Grab a bottle of water from the fridge and I’ll show you how adults do drugs.”

I go, to save Josie what little bit of pride she might have left. I reach past part of a meat loaf wrapped in foil and what looks like leftovers from the potatoes Edith made us almost a month ago, butter and grease heavily congealed on top

“Got it,” I say, going back to the living room. “Now wh—”

I stop cold. Jadine is pulling needles out of her purse. They’re on a roll like lottery tickets, and sealed in paper like a Band-Aid. It looks sterile and proper, like we’re playing doctor or something. But this isn’t a hospital, and Jadine is no nurse. Josie has gone white, but she does what her sister says, mixing the Oxy I already crushed with water, then filling a syringe.

“Okay, so,” Jadine says, as she flicks the syringe. “This is actually really simple. Look at my arm.”

She holds it out, thin and white, her veins easy to spot when she makes a fist. She tells us how to find a good vein, how to make sure it won’t roll, how to tell if you’re in it or not.

“Who’s first?” she asks, needle in hand.

Josie and I look at each other, and Jadine laughs.

“Look, kids, all the needle does is take out the middleman. The Oxy goes straight into your bloodstream; you don’t have to wait for it to get absorbed.”

It’s pure logic, not taking into account the wicked edge of the needle, the slant of the tip and the drop of Oxy-infused water glimmering there. Jadine doesn’t mention the tearing of our skin when it goes in, or the hole left behind from where we crossed that line.

Jadine glances at her phone. “I got to go, guys. Either I help you out or you fumble around poking each other after I leave.”

That does it for me, as I imagine Josie’s shaky hands or Edith’s soft, unfamiliar ones having a go at the inside of my elbow. At least Jadine knows what she’s doing. I roll up my sleeve and do as she says, making a fist, then watching as she finds a vein. She shows us how to pull back on the syringe so we see the blood flowing into the water, proof that we’ve hit a vein.