Heroine(58)

“I do,” Josie insists, digging into her pockets. “You might have blown it at your house but I’ve got my ass covered here.”

“Josie—”

“Try Edith again,” she says, shoving some bills into my hands. “Her electric bill is due next week and she’s strapped.”

“She won’t sell her own stash,” I argue, but Josie shakes her head.

“She might love her kickers, but she likes having the heat on even more.”

I look down at the money in my hands. “And after that?”

Josie is about to say something, but shakes her head when I hear a woman calling for her from inside. “Get going,” Josie says, “or I’ll have to introduce you and make you stay longer than either of us wants you to be here.”

“I’m going to puke in like five minutes,” I tell her.

“I see that,” she agrees, forcefully grabbing my shoulders and spinning me around to face my car. “Later.”

I make it to Edith’s without getting sick all over myself, but she’s about as happy to see me as Josie was.

“Neighbors,” she hisses when I come to the back door, but her mood improves when she sees the wad of cash in my hands.

“I don’t have much,” Edith warns me, motioning for me to sit at the kitchen table as she heads back to the bedroom. Apparently I’m only granted access to the living room when Josie is with me. I feel so bad I don’t care, and I rest my forehead against her table while I wait, shudders passing through my body. I never bothered to count Josie’s money, and when Edith puts a brown bag in front of me I push the whole wad to her without even checking to see what’s inside.

I need to get it in my system fast, but Josie has all the needles, so I chew up two 40s and wash them down at Edith’s sink, hoping I’m somewhere near respectable when I get home, which needs to happen fast so Mom doesn’t wonder where I’ve been.

I can hear Mom’s shower running when I get in the door, so I take the opportunity to head upstairs and start my own. What dirt I have on me from the game slides off with the sweat, and a little bit of balance returns as I stand under the hot water. I’ve still got nothing in my stomach but pills, so I yank on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie to raid the fridge, wet hair hanging down my back.

Mom’s waiting for me at the counter, a glass of wine in front of her along with a catalog for mail-order chocolates that I’m pretty sure she dug out of the recycling—which means that she’s trying really hard to look casual. I cross to the fridge, taking my time gathering up the stuff to make a sandwich, putting on my own show.

“How you feeling?” she asks.

“Better,” I tell her. “Think I caught a little something.”

“C’mere,” Mom says, holding out her palm. I walk into it, wishing that I felt like this was purely out of caring, and not a test of some sort. “You’re a little warm,” she admits, pulling away and wiping her hand dry on her robe. I bite into my sandwich so that I don’t have to reply.

Mom turns a page of the catalog to a section that’s all sugar-free candy. I chew. Neither one of us speaks. She’s moved on to organic stuff and I’m halfway through my ham and cheese before she tries again.

“You really scared me today, Mickey,” she says, softly.

“I know,” I tell her. “I’m sorry.”

And I am. I’m sorry that I collapsed on the field and I’m sorry that I yelled at my friends today and I’m sorry that I put Josie in a bad spot and I’m sorry that Edith has to balance being in pain with paying her bills. I’m sorry about all those things. But mostly I feel sorry for myself, and I’m sorry for being me at the same time, which gets my already fuzzy head mixed up even more.

I finish eating and rinse off my plate, heading for the stairs to save us both from this awkward semi-conversation. I’m halfway up the steps when I glance down to see that Mom isn’t looking at the catalog anymore, she’s just staring at where I was standing, her face unreadable.

“I love you, Mom,” I say.

She glances up. “I love you too, Mickey,” she says, and I get a smile. It’s a real one that cracks the blank mask from a second ago, and seems to wash away that little pucker of concern that was forming between her eyebrows.

I really, really need to make sure I don’t fuck this up.

I’ve got a text from Carolina, asking if I know what the English assignment is. I shoot her back the answer, followed by, How’s the arm?

She answers right away. Better. How’s whatever’s wrong with you?

Better, I tell her, knowing that if I try to defend myself like I did today at lunch anything I say could end up screen-capped and part of a conversation that I’m not in on.

It’s a shitty way to feel, but it’s a shitty thing to do, too.

You know you can talk to me, Carolina texts.

And that’s the thing, yeah, I probably could. But Carolina is a straight shooter, and I don’t just mean she throws strikes right up the pipe. I can’t say for sure what she’d do if I came clean to her, but I doubt it ends with her skipping practices to come to rehab meetings with me, and after that conversation at the Galarza dinner table I’m pretty sure there’d be no asopao in my future, either.

I type out my go-to response—I’m fine—then erase it. Maybe not answering her at all would make my point better than anything. I’m looking for the right words, weighing options and even scrolling through emojis to see if there’s one for convincing people you’re not an addict when a text comes through from Josie.