Heroine(52)

“She could have come to me,” Mom says. “I could have talked to her about her options. Did you tell her that?”

I shake my head, my throat still full of the taste of Oxy. “She didn’t want to talk. She just needed it done. She’ll lose her scholarship if she can’t play, and she can’t play if she’s . . .”

I don’t say the word pregnant, because it would make this a real lie, not an insinuation. And maybe it’s not even that much of a lie, really. For all I know Carolina could be pregnant.

“She couldn’t go to her parents about it,” I go on more confidently, because that part is certainly true. “You know how they are.”

“Yes,” Mom says, rolling the pill bottle in her hand. “I do.”

“So . . .” I let the word drift, hoping more will come. Amazingly, they do, welling up from the depths, fed by the last dripping remnants from my head. “So she asked me for the money.”

“The boy involved helped as well, I would hope?”

“I don’t know, Mom. I didn’t ask questions. She asked for help and I gave it. She’s my best friend.”

Fuck. Listen to me. How can I sound righteous while lying through my teeth?

“Right.” She squeezes the bottle, wanting to believe me. My name on the label smears under her sweaty palms. “What about my wedding ring?”

“I don’t know,” I say again, shrugging. “When’s the last time you saw it?”

“January twenty-fourth,” she answers quietly, and I close my eyes against the clench of my stomach, guilt crimping the lining into a tight ball.

“Mom, I . . .”

“It’s . . . okay, Mickey,” she says, closing her eyes tight. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Mom’s okay, and I’m okay, and we sit there crying on my bed, the space between us measured only in inches.

But neither of us crosses it.





Chapter Thirty-Three


sidekick: someone associated with another, but not as an equal

Luther picks me up a few hours later, coming into the house and doing the whole meet-your-mom thing. I’m flustered as I introduce him, but Mom isn’t listening too intently, anyway. I think she’s mentally measuring Luther’s shoulders and wondering about his delivery.

I’ve got to adjust the passenger seat when I get in his car; my knees are touching the dashboard.

“Who was the last person in here?” I ask, panic gripping me at the thought that it was some tiny cheerleader.

“My little sister,” Luther says, and my relief tells me just how much the answer mattered.

We’ve got a couple hours’ drive ahead of us to the stadium, and the same nagging voice that warned me I wouldn’t have anything to say to Josie without the assistance of Oxy is whispering in my ear again. I throw back the one pill I’ve got left—courtesy of Luther—when he stops at a gas station to fill up.

We’re not too far out of town and Luther attracts people the second he’s out of the car. I overhear most of his conversation with a guy at the pump about Baylor’s ill-fated tournament run—triple overtime in their division title game when a kid from the opposing team threw up a Hail Mary three-pointer that went in. There was heated debate about whether he’d released before or after the buzzer, but the refs had already made a run for the locker room. Big Ed told me they had to be escorted out by security to ensure their safety.

That story gets replayed by the pump while I’m scrolling through my phone, attracting another guy, who glances into the car and sees me. There’s a flash of recognition on both our parts when I realize it’s Bella Left’s dad. We give each other waves and I know it’s going to be all over the county that Luther Drake and Mickey Catalan were hanging out.

Luther knocks on the window, asks me if I want anything. I ask him to grab me a water and he goes inside to pay. Judging by the arm movements of the cashier, another basketball story is being told. By the time Luther makes it back out to the car I’m feeling pretty good, my blood warm and my limbs loose.

“Sorry,” he says, handing me the water. “You know how it is.”

I do know how it is, and being with someone else who gets that too is awesome.

“Thanks for the water,” I tell him. “Looked like a pretty interesting conversation in there.”

“Ha,” Luther says, pulling back out onto the highway. “Everybody likes to talk about me breaking the backboard over at West Union.”

“I heard about that,” I tell him. “You even impressed Big Ed.”

“Big Ed?” he asks, and I think it’s possible I detect a hint of the unease I felt before, when I wondered who had been in his passenger seat.

“Yeah, Big Ed. He owns the market in town.”

“I’ve been in there,” Luther says. “He’s not that big.”

“I’m sure no one seems big to you,” I tell him, and he shakes his head.

“No, not really. It’s gotta be the same for you, though, right? I mean, who seems big to you?”

“You,” I tell him honestly.

And he smiles.

We’re far enough away from home that nobody looks at us twice as we find our seats in the stadium, beyond the curious glances that Luther’s height attracts. We settle in, and I’m content to be watching a sport—even if it is basketball and I don’t know anyone on the court. Luther is friends with a few of the guys playing because he did a summer camp at their college. He points them out and I nod, only partly interested.