Heroine(71)
“Yeah, you’re a good customer. And we gotta keep you well. Last game of the season next week, right?”
“Right,” I say, heart lifting. “You follow us?”
“I follow you,” Patrick says. “There’s a weird kind of pride in it for me.”
“Huh,” I say, curling the balloons in my fist.
His phone goes off, and he glances down. “Let me know what you need, when you need it,” he says. “Catch you later, Catalan.”
He leaves and I go upstairs, feeling oddly accomplished. I just did a whole drug deal on my own. My dealer even fronted me the stuff. Patrick’s right, there is a weird sort of pride involved in it, and I imagine him following my stats in the newspaper. It sends its own sort of warmth through me, a pleasant precursor before the needle goes in.
I get a text from Josie before I nod off. Her mom’s been suspicious lately, and she thinks she’s been going through her phone. She deleted Patrick’s last text with his new contact info, and needs his working number. I send it to her, pleased that I have it and she doesn’t. I tell her he’s close by because he was just at my place and she doesn’t answer, and that makes me smile because her being jealous of me is something that would never happen in any situation except this one.
Mom comes home and sticks her head in my door to whisper good night. I’m with it just enough to answer, watching as the sliver of light fades into nothing at all as she closes the door and goes back downstairs. It’s pitch-black and perfect in my room, an uninterrupted space for me to be whatever I want to be in the blank canvas of my mind.
My phone goes off, the screen bright and jarring.
It’s a group message with the Bellas, Lydia, and Carolina, something about wearing our jerseys to school before the last game next week, and maybe even painting our faces too. Lydia says no, Coach would never be okay with that. Left says she would be if we wash it off before the game. Right says she’s in if Center is. Carolina loops Nikki into the conversation.
A text from Luther comes in a few minutes later, asking me if I want to come over and watch some ESPN. I do, kind of, but there’s no way I can drive and I don’t want Luther to know that I’m using outside of Edith’s. That thought makes me feel bad, and I don’t want to feel bad.
I want to feel good.
I turn my phone off.
Chapter Forty-Seven
catastrophe: an event producing a subversion of the order or system of things; a final event, usually of a calamitous or disastrous nature
Coach busts our asses all week.
She keeps saying now is not the time to congratulate ourselves. We can’t claim we’re undefeated until we’ve stared down the last opponent. Mattix says that in the regular season each game is a battle determining who gets to walk into the war of the tournament wearing conference champion patches on their uniforms, and a better rating for tournament bracket placing. If we want that to be us, we’ve got to earn it, and our last game will be the proving ground.
After the pep talk on Friday I’m feeling good. We all walk out of the locker room with set faces, determined to make it happen tomorrow morning. Left has forgiven me for bobbling the play at home last week and Coach assured me I’m starting, but if I lose my edge I won’t be finishing the game. I nod, knowing she’s right. I almost blew our record for everyone. That won’t be happening again.
Patrick’s stuff is consistent in quality, and I’ve taken copious notes so that I know exactly how much I can have, and when I can have it. My tolerance has risen, so I’ve had to adjust to shooting up the day before a game instead of two days before. I’ll give myself a nice dose tonight, sweeping away the soreness of a grueling practice, the lingering pain in my hip, and the sting on my inner thigh where I missed a curveball from Carolina. Like, I didn’t even get the glove on it.
It hit right on the meat of my leg and dropped dead in front of me. I gritted my teeth and acted like it just clipped me, but the entire inside of my thigh is purple, and I get to carry the stitches that I was admiring so much with me for a while. They’re imprinted on my leg, little indentations that I could feel if it didn’t hurt so bad just to touch the skin, the broken vessels all around them spiraling outward like fireworks.
The leg itself is swollen and I’m wondering if it wouldn’t hurt to give myself a little more of a boost than normal as I drive home. As soon as I think it I feel the ache in my joints, my body choosing the pain of withdrawal to goad me into giving it what it wants. I check my box when I get in my room to see if I’ve got enough to buy myself a buffer for tomorrow’s big game.
I don’t.
Mostly because I am the world’s biggest idiot and I fucked up and my blood pressure skyrockets and I can feel the pulse beating in my neck as I look at the mess that I’ve made. I didn’t screw the lid onto my water tight enough last time, and I didn’t tie off my balloons either. There’s a puddle of shit where my heroin is supposed to be and I don’t know if it’s salvageable.
I grab my whole kit and run to the bathroom, leaning over the counter, face close to the opened balloon. The light in here is way better and I’m using the end of my spoon to scrape together what I can from inside the balloon when Mom yells up the staircase.
“Mickey? You home?”
I kick the bathroom door shut. It’s instinctive and stupid and suspicious as hell, but it’s the only reaction my body allows for. I’m standing there with a heroin-caked spoon in one hand and a shoebox full of needles and there’s no way to make this better.