Heroine(77)

“Three?” The number and the coroner’s code takes what wind she has left right out of her, all of it adding up to one thing. I’m alive. They’re not.

“Mickey!” She screams my name like it’s tearing her throat open, the most painful combination of letters she’s ever spoken.

“Why not you?” She’s screaming. “Why couldn’t it be you? She was going to go to school and get out of here and do something with herself. She was a beautiful girl and a good girl and a smart girl.”

“And a junkie!” I yell back, anger erupting. “She was a fucking junkie.”

“So are you!” Edith screams.

“SO ARE YOU!” I shoot back.

“She never liked the needle,” Edith babbles. “I had to do it for her that first time. She wouldn’t have even tried it if it wasn’t for you.”

“Bullshit, that’s bullshit.” I seethe. “It was Josie’s idea—”

“Josie would never—”

“She did, Edith!” I yell. “She sure as shit did.”

“No,” Edith insists, rearranging the world so that everything is the way she likes it—beautiful, golden Josie the victim, me the blunderer who wandered into her life and ruined it. And maybe she’s not all wrong.

No, fuck that.

“Who gave her pills in the first place? Huh, Edes?”

“Shut your mouth. You shut your ugly mouth, you . . . you . . .”

“She was fucked the moment she met you,” I say, tears running down my face, and I don’t know if I’m talking to Edith or myself.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Edith snaps. “Don’t call me. Don’t talk to me and don’t call me. You’re . . . you’re dead to me.”

“Yeah, just like everybody else you ever knew,” I snap.

There’s a strangled gasp and she hangs up. I throw my phone and it cracks against the wall, screen splintering. I’m on the floor in a second, swiping my finger across the blank face, ignoring the scrape of broken glass. I hold down the power button, plug it in, shake it, beg it, throw it again.

Nothing works. It’s dead and I’m dying and I can’t even call Patrick and beg.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

It’s the middle of the night and I have nothing and I am nothing and every cell I have is exploding and sweat is pouring out of me and I’m shaking and I’m going to puke and shit myself at the same time.

Like Patrick said—I’m not dead.

I’m alive.

Hoo—fucking—ray.





Chapter Fifty-One


endgame: the final stage of an ongoing process

Every time the bus hits a pothole I think my intestines will slide out and pool around my spikes. No one else seems to notice. We’re all quiet this early in the morning, faces stuck to the windows. We’ll be a team the second the doors slide open, but right now, Coach wants us to think. She made us sit alone, no doubling up, and took our phones away, not commenting when I had none to surrender.

“Focus,” she’d said, standing like a sentinel at the front of the bus. “Focus on winning. Focus on being district champions.”

I’m focusing on not dying, which right now is a form of winning.

It’s a long ride to Dandridge and I’ve got plenty to think about, but misery has an iron grip on my mind and soon I’m not focused on winning or dying or anything other than how shitty I feel. My plan was to rely on Imodium again, but the dollar store wasn’t open that early and the credit card machine at the gas station was down. I had my change from the pizza, but it was barely enough to cover what I put in the tank of my car, let alone something to keep my own tank from emptying.

Sheer willpower has gotten me through many things; it can get me through this. I grit my teeth and grab my bag when the bus parks next to the field, digging deep to pull up my game face. I get through stretches and warm-ups, even though the slow jog to center field and back makes me very conscious of the liquid weight in my belly, last night’s pizza converted into something unrecognizable.

The Dandridge girls are trickling in by twos and threes, the sun shining impossibly bright off their windshields as they pull into the parking lot. I slide my shades on, flinching even at the little bit of pressure as they pinch above my ears. Every inch of skin I have is screaming, letting me know it exists and has nerve endings in it. I think of Derrick.

Then I don’t.

Somehow already the bleachers are full and the umpires are here, talking to each other and the coaches over home plate. Hands are shaken. Gear goes on. The Dandridge girls take the field and Coach still has enough faith in me that I’m batting cleanup. Carolina does her thing, lays down a bunt and beats the throw. I’m on deck, picking at the rubber grip of my bat, when I hear Dad’s voice, and Mom answering, hers pitched a little higher so she can be heard over a baby’s crying. Chad’s crying.

My little half-adopted-something-or-other brother and Devra sit nestled neatly in between Mom and Dad like they actually belong there, and somehow Mom is smiling and Chad’s little hand is wrapped around her finger and it’s like nobody in the bleachers has ever accused me of being an addict and they’re all friends again.

“Batter. Let’s have a batter.”