Heroine(68)
Carolina shuts her trunk and I lean against my car and we look at each other for a second. It’s late enough into the spring that it’s warm even though it’s almost dark out. Moths flitter around the lights in the parking lot, out of control, bashing themselves senseless.
“Three games left,” she says.
I open my mouth to say “yeah” or “I know” or “crazy, right?” or something else stupid and instead I start crying. I don’t know if it’s the beginning of withdrawal or the fact that Carolina got streaks put in her hair without inviting me to go along or that stupid blank space under my car. I’m crying and I can’t quit and Carolina crosses over to me but stops a little short, like maybe she was going to hug me and then thought better of it.
It’s weird and uncomfortable and I have never been these things with her. A moth makes a miscalculation and ends up swooping into Carolina’s hair. The tension is broken by a lot of screaming and hopping around and eventually I pick through her mane and assure her it’s gone, and we both ignore the fact that I started crying for no reason.
I drive home sad.
But I go to bed happy.
Mom insists on coming with me to the doctor’s office. I’m still really mellow in the morning so I’m okay with it, and don’t even correct her when she keeps calling it my “moment of truth.” If I did have one such moment, it was probably last week when I ended up facedown on the plate, mesmerized by a softball and overwhelmed by a mix of heroin, Benadryl, and Red Bull. That was ugly, but there was nothing dishonest about it.
We stop for coffee and doughnuts and have to wait forever in the drive-through because it’s Saturday. Mom’s thumbs keep tapping on the wheel and I’m trying to sort through all the bumper stickers on the car in front of us when she says, “I feel like we haven’t talked much lately.”
She’s not wrong. Part of managing my heroin habit is keeping my door closed.
“I’ve got a lot going on,” I tell her.
“Yes, I get that,” she says, handing over my coffee when we finally get to the window. “But you know you can talk to me, right?”
I do know. I know I can talk to Carolina, too. That last, unanswered text from her assuring me of that very thing has been pushed down toward the bottom of my messages, bumped by updates from Josie with Patrick’s ever-changing number, and a few from Luther when he needed a ride to Edith’s. There are a couple from him asking if I want to hang out, just me and him. I evade him with half lies about homework and being exhausted.
“Yes, Mom,” I say, sounding bored. “But I’m fine.”
Right now, I really am. It’s hard to be anything else when you’ve still got a decent dose in you.
“Okay,” she sighs. We drink our coffee, carefully popping our lids and blowing on it at a red light. I drink mine too fast, burning my tongue and the roof of my mouth. My tongue is fuzzy as I check in, my voice a little scratchy when I answer the few questions Mom tries to ask in the waiting room.
Even if I had something to say it’s too hard to talk in here. All the parents trying to get through the week without taking off work have dragged their kids in on a Saturday morning. There are snotty noses and fevered cheeks everywhere and if I get out of here without contracting something it’ll be a miracle. We’ve got Ridgeville on Monday and all my pistons have to be firing for that game.
“Mickey Catalan?”
I follow the nurse and Mom tails me through the halls. I am weighed, and I watch carefully as she taps something into her laptop, her face unreadable. My blood pressure is a little low—no surprise—and again the nurse makes a note in the laptop. I play with the cuffs of my long-sleeve shirt, trying to remember where all my bruises are at the moment.
A tech comes in to walk me down to the lab, and I leave Mom behind when I go to change into the little gown with blue and teal triangles all over it. It doesn’t cover much, and there’s no mirror in here to see if the holes in the back of my knee are healed, or if the vein I blew last week on my bicep is showing. I twist my head around to get a better idea, pulling something in my neck only to determine it’s not showing, and I go to sit next to Mom on an uncomfortable chair, my tongue swollen and burnt in my mouth, my neck tight.
Another tech comes to get me and I walk down to the X-ray room with her, glad that Mom can’t follow. I’m too aware of my skin, how the back of my gown slides up when I hop onto the table, tense as the tech positions me just right. She’s not looking for bruises though; all her concerns are with my bones, almost as if she’s looking straight through me and I don’t even have skin at all.
I’m fine with that.
The familiar warning to hold still comes, along with a series of buzzes and a metallic taste in my mouth. I get to put my clothes back on and we’re sent to a room to wait for Dr. Ferriman, where I see that someone has scratched an eye off one of the smiling teddy bears.
Mom keeps messing with her purse and I’m dangling my legs from the table, kicking them and letting them swing back so that my toes connect with the crossbars underneath, filling the room with a tiny ding every second or so. Dr. Ferriman finally shows up with a yellow folder under his armpit and a big smile on his face.
“Mickey,” he says, giving my name a congratulatory edge, and Mom perks up immediately.
“Good news?” she asks.