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Max shoved the girl off his lap and turned to the side. He opened up one of those boxes that was meant to hold fishing lures and started rummaging around in it. There were all kinds of baggies and needles inside. He had everything I needed.
Tyrannosaurus’s Tackle Box, I thought to myself.
My hand clenched at my side involuntarily, and I had to swallow a lump in my throat.
The chick with the dead eyes watched me as I pointed out everything I needed, and Max named a price. I swallowed, handed him most of the rent money, and walked away with a fresh needle and a rock of brown heroin. I shoved them deep into my jacket pocket as I walked slowly back down the street. I passed other junkies, hookers, pimps, and dirty cops without giving them a second glance as I made my way back to my apartment.
My apartment.
Not ours.
Not even the apartment anymore.
Just mine.
Inside, I went straight for my dresser. I pulled out the long-unopened box stowed away in the back behind the jeans and opened it. I pulled out the slender rubber tube and a charred spoon. Dropping the box on the floor, I headed to the kitchen and laid everything out on the table. Images of mashed potatoes and casseroles and shit peppered the back of my head as I got set up, reminding myself over and over again why I had to do this. I couldn’t survive this way. I just couldn’t. I wasn’t about to try to fool myself into thinking that I could.
It was amazing how second nature it was as I grabbed everything I neede
d. I filled a small bowl with warm water and grabbed one of the porn mags that had been hiding, forgotten, under the couch since last summer. I tore out one of the pages from the middle and laid it flat on the table. I ripped the plastic off the needle and put it off to the side. Max had the good stuff—the easy stuff—so once it was crushed into powder on top of the magazine paper, I only needed to mix it with a little water in the cap of my rig to get it to dissolve. It was only a couple of minutes before I had the needle prepared.
“Still a fucking pro,” I muttered to myself.
I sat still for a moment, then shook my head and wrapped my arm with a bit of tubing Max had given me. My veins were easily accessible now, though I remembered a time when they had collapsed and I had to shoot up through my leg. I tapped the inner part of my arm a couple of times, but that was more from habit than necessity.
Habit. That was kind of funny.
I clenched my fist twice as I prepared both my arm and my mind. There was a voice screaming in the back of my head that I hadn’t done it yet. As long as I hadn’t shoved the rig into my arm and pushed the plunger, I hadn’t done it yet.
I paused, bit down on my lip, and let thoughts of Tria rush over me.
Memories came in waves without any kind of order to them. I remembered the first day she moved in and what a fucking mess the place was. I thought about how she helped Krazy Katie attach cigarette packs to her wall and how we all went grocery shopping together. I remembered how Tria looked when she dug around in that huge fucking purse trying to find her lip gloss.
A weird sound came out of my throat.
“Can’t do this,” I whispered.
There was sweat on my forehead and the back of my neck as I took a deep breath and positioned the point of the needle on top of the vein. My muscles tensed, my mind screamed, and the memory of Tria’s scent as I held her in bed sent me over the edge. All I had to do was push it in and inject it.
So easy.
As long as I didn’t do it, I was still clean.
But it was so, so easy to do it. Once it was done, I wouldn’t feel like this anymore.
I wouldn’t feel anything.
There was a slight popping sound as I broke through the skin, then another as I broke through the vein. The edge of my thumb tapped the plunger back, and bright red filled the end of the tube. With the verification that I had hit the vein properly, I slowly pushed the plunger down. I let out the breath I had been holding as I ripped off the tubing and slid the needle out of my skin. There was a little blood but not much.
Apparently I hadn’t lost my touch.
Submerging the end of the needle into the bowl of water, I pulled back on the syringe to clean it out. By the time I had set everything down on the table again, the flood hit me.
Heavy warmth spread through my limbs, and I let myself slide off the chair and walk slowly over to the couch because the bed was just a little too far away. My skin tingled slightly, and I felt my mouth turn up into a smile. I wasn’t even sure why I had been feeling like shit just a few minutes ago. Now everything was perfectly fine again.
The world that was previously pulling me down now pulled me into a cozy embrace of soft light and perfect warmth. I wasn’t too hot or too cold, and I had a vague recollection of my mother calling me to wake up and get ready for school. I had been wrapped tightly in the blankets of my bed with sleep still covering my brain, far too comfortable and sleepy to listen to her.
I had been late to school, but it didn’t matter.
