Heroine(76)

If I hadn’t ruined my last balloon.

If I hadn’t deleted that text with Patrick’s number.

If I hadn’t driven Josie to the truck stop.

If I hadn’t wrecked the car in the first place, shattering my hip and Carolina’s arm.

It’s one in the morning and this line of thinking is not doing me any favors as I pace in my room. I’ve got to be on a bus in five hours, headed to Dandridge. I’ve got to look rested and ready to go, not like a girl who was making time with her friends’ corpses the night before. Nobody even knows Josie and Derrick were my friends, except Edith.

Edith.

Fuck.

My stomach rolls, everything I ate for dinner anxious to make an exit, one way or another. I collapse onto my bed, hugging my middle as if I can coerce it all into settling. My joints ache as I curl into a ball, the pervasive pain back again. My hip feels like it has more nerve endings in it than any other spot on my body, every hole I ever punched through my skin alerting me to its existence.

I can’t play a game like this. My friends are dead and that sucks but like Patrick said—I’m not. I’m alive and if I’m going to get through tomorrow or the next day or the goddamn rest of my life I need something. I voluntarily pissed on my stash, and I’m sure as hell not going back to the truck stop because that shit killed everyone I know that uses.

Except Edith.

Shit, Edith again. I don’t want to think of her right now, dozed off in her chair, the blue light of the TV playing off her face, unaware that Josie is dead. I can’t imagine how she’ll react, what the blow will do to her. But what I can imagine is the hallway leading from the living room, where she’s probably sleeping right now, the bedroom it leads to, and the safe in the closet.

She might have Oxy. It might be enough to get me through the game. Urged on by the thought, my mind comes alive, reeling off scenarios that get me what I need. I can’t get out of the house again tonight, but if I leave early enough in the morning I could stop at her place first. But she said to chill because of the neighbor, so maybe I can talk her into meeting up somewhere. All I have on me is the change from the pizza and that’s not even enough to get a 20 off her but maybe she’ll be desperate enough with her cash flow drying up that she’ll go for it.

It’s flimsy, but it’s logic that puts something in my body other than agony. I’m calling her before I think about the time, unconcerned about waking her, or if I sound unhinged. Even Josie and Derrick and Luther are gone from my thoughts, past tense. I’m in the present and all I can think of is myself, and what I need.

“Hello? Mickey?” She’s groggy and off, her tongue thick with sleep and—if I’m not mistaken—a little bit of Oxy.

“Edes, hey,” I say, using Josie’s affectionate name. “You selling?”

I hear her sit up in her chair, the soft sounds of the television in the background barely audible, an ecstatic woman trying to sell me jewelry.

“What time is it?” she asks.

“I don’t need it now,” I tell her, trying to sound reassuring while not answering the question. “I just need to know what you’ve got.”

She’s quiet again, and I hear her fumbling for the remote, QVC mercifully muted a few seconds later.

“You can’t come here,” she says. “Mr.—”

“Yeah, I know. Josie told me all about that.” I say it like she’s still alive, like I expect to talk to her again someday. “But I could meet you somewhere in the morning.”

“Hold on,” Edith says, and I hear the foot of her recliner flip down, the springs grinding together. I know the process so well, can picture her rocking back and forth a little to build up momentum to get out of the chair, leaning against the wall for support as her bad knee resists straightening out. She’s out of breath when she brings the phone to her mouth again.

“Done with the needle?”

No. God, no. Not ever.

“Yes,” I say.

“It’s dirty,” Edith says, and I hear the indistinct hum of the police scanner in the kitchen as she passes it. “I told Josie—”

She cuts off, my friend’s name a dead thing in her mouth.

“Edith?” I ask. “Edes?”

She doesn’t answer, but I can hear the scanner clearly now, like Edith either leaned down next to it or turned the volume up.

7300 to 45 . . . Go ahead 7300 . . . report to 2500 Baylor Hill Drive . . .

“Josie?” Edith says.

“No—” I say, the only word I can come up with.

“That’s Josie’s address,” she says. “Mickey . . . Mickey . . .”

She’s saying my name now, like I’m supposed to make it okay. Like I can fix everything.

. . . possible 16, 29 en route . . .

They’re calling the squad, but I can tell them they don’t need to be in a hurry. Because it’s too late and it doesn’t matter anymore and goddammit Edith is falling apart, her breath coming in huge gasps.

“Josie? Is it Josie? What happened? What’s a sixteen?” she asks.

I hear a thump like Edith just hit the ground and I swear to God if she has a heart attack right now I’ve got to get the combination for the safe out of her before she dies.

45 to 7300 . . . Go ahead 45 . . . Call in a 16f . . . three victims . . .