Heroine(84)

Chapter Fifty-Five


bittersweet: a feeling of happiness accompanied by regret They win state.

There is a parade and a bonfire even though it’s eighty degrees out. I imagine the team sitting on straw bales and throwing candy at everyone as they’re hauled through town on a flatbed trailer, most people throwing the candy right back at them. Last year when we won regionals Bella Left said we should throw out condoms instead and those probably wouldn’t get thrown back, and her mom was mortified.

They’re on the front of the newspaper and Carolina even gets a spot on the local news, talking about the free ride she got into college. The news reporter makes sure to mention that three other members of the team will be playing at the college level—Lydia Zoloff, as well as Bella Carter and Bella Graham. I will never get used to hearing their last names.

Nobody mentions Mickey Catalan.

A month later I’m off methadone and Devra is making me take morning runs with her, before the sun is too hot. She says the heroin blew the dopamine receptors in my brain, which is why nothing is interesting anymore and it’s almost impossible for me to be happy. Just like weaning off the drugs, now I have to build up my natural dopamine levels so that small things like seeing a puppy or watching a funny movie will feel good again.

I know better than anyone that exercise is a natural high, so I agree to go with her, shaking off the stiffness of my hip at seven in the morning when Devra shows up on the doorstep, looking perky in a bright-pink shirt.

She looks cute as hell, but she can’t run for shit.

I beat her to the park and she waves at me from half a mile back, walking, arms above her head so she can get her breath. I’m sitting on a bench stretching my leg when someone comes up behind me.

“Hey,” Carolina says.

She’s strong and tan in an electric-blue tank that shows off her muscles.

“Hey,” I say back, shading my eyes against the sun, all too aware that I look pale and sickly next to her.

“Can I sit down?” she asks.

“Sure,” I say. She does, but not too close. “I saw you on the news,” I tell her.

“Yeah, that was pretty cool.” She scuffs the toe of her shoe against the concrete. In the distance, Devra’s pink shirt comes closer.

“Can I ask you something?” Carolina says.

“Yeah, anything.” I’ve been answering intensely personal questions from so many people that nothing bothers me anymore.

“Why?”

Except maybe that one.

“What do you mean, why?” There’s an edge in my tone, defensiveness I didn’t mean to put there.

“I hurt too, you know,” Carolina says, her voice lifting in response. “My arm was busted all to hell, and I went through therapy and took Oxy just like you did. But I listened when my prescription ran out and Mom and Dad said no more. I spent the winter scared shitless that I wasn’t going to be able to throw all season and I’d lose my scholarship, but I didn’t jam a needle in my arm. I didn’t lie to my friends. I didn’t fuck myself up. So why did you? Why you and not me?”

It’s a hard question, one that gets passed around in group sessions and sticks in my head at night, while I lie staring at the ceiling, thinking about heroin. I’ve asked myself and we’ve asked each other and our parents have blamed themselves and our therapists have tried harder and our doctors have written articles.

What it boils down to is simple, and terrifying.

“I don’t know,” I tell Carolina.

Her face twists. She doesn’t like the answer any more than I do.

Devra is at the edge of the park now and she waves at me. I wave back to let her know I’m okay, but when I turn to say more to Carolina she’s gone. I watch her ponytail sway between her shoulder blades as she walks away from me.

I still had things to say, and I could call her back and give it a shot. Try to find the words—in any language—to tell her that I fucked everything up between us and that I know it. That she’s the best friend I’ve ever had and I set her aside for something that almost killed me. But even those words don’t feel like enough, and I can’t get them out anyway. They’re too stuck inside, tangles of guilt not letting them escape.

So I stand silently, and watch her go.

Maybe in ten years we can go to our reunion and I’ll have a better answer than I don’t know. Maybe she’ll have seen someone else she loves go through it and realize it wasn’t entirely in my control. Maybe I’ll be a decade clean and know more by then and I’ll have the words to explain it. Maybe she won’t even come to the reunion. Maybe I’ll relapse and be dead.

I don’t know.





Chapter Fifty-Six


renew: to make new again; to restore to freshness, perfection, or vigor; to give new life to; to rejuvenate Leaves are falling, and I decide to go for a walk when I get home from my first class at the branch, a nutrition class that should transfer easily if I decide to take Vencella up on the scholarship that still stands and finish my physical education degree.

I’m allowed to drive myself places now, and I have a phone. Mom has the passcode to open it and I know she checks my location occasionally because last week she texted me asking if everything was okay when I stopped to get gas without alerting her ahead of time. It’s annoying, and sometimes we fight about it. Mostly though, I get it. Trust has to be earned, and I’m trying.