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“Yeah.” Rachel’s rubbing her nose in a way that tells me they’ve already sampled the goods. “Your ban finished three years ago. Why didn’t you come back?”
It’s hard to breathe, packed in here with the bodies and the music and the memories. “I don’t know.”
Alek shakes his head. “You piece of shit. You don’t know?”
“You can’t talk to him when he’s like this.” Brushing off her pink romper, Katrina stands up and gestures to Alek, who drags a bag of pills from his pocket.
I don’t think I want to be high. But I can’t make my mouth say the words, because anything has to be better than going through this sober.
Katrina opens the bag and straddles my lap, resting her hand on my chest. She wrinkles her nose. “God, you’re, like, wasting away.”
Her fingers land lightly on my chin.
The rules. No one touches me. I don’t—
“Open up, baby. Don’t pretend you don’t want it.”
I stick out my tongue, and she puts the pill on it. I probably should have asked what it was. Too late. She prods her finger into my mouth to make sure I swallow, so I stick my tongue out again to show her.
Yeah, America’s best and brightest young team of stars was fucked up one way and down the other. We were like an incestuous little den of stoned vipers. The press would have shit themselves. Oprah would have taken back her invitation.
“Did you know I was here?” I ask her, studying her blue eyes.
She laughs, chasing a couple of pills down her own tongue with my rejected beer before she stands up. “I forgot how paranoid you are. You remember how Coach always takes us somewhere before a big competition? Bribing us to do our training. Of course we didn’t know you were here.”
Alek examines me. “He’s paranoid because you have to watch your back when you’re a fucking cheat.”
“I didn’t cheat you out of anything.” My awareness starts to fragment, like I’m thinking double instead of seeing it. “You swam like a quadruple amputee during the games.”
Katrina giggles. “Youdid.”
“You didn’t even place,” he snaps. He turns and grabs a big handful of my side, making me jump. “I bet you think you could come back any time and Dad would throw me aside in favor of you. Even in this condition.”
“I really don’t.” I meet his eyes, willing him to remember the long, long path we've walked together. Something like guilt flashes across his face, but it twists into cruelty.
“Why don’t you ask him?” Every nerve in my body screams as he pulls out his phone and opens his father’s contact. I haven’t spoken to Coach since the day he testified against me in front of a committee of the US Anti-Doping Agency. Our eyes met across the room. Then he turned his back and walked away. If I ever saw him again, I’m scared of what I might do to myself.
“Wait.” My voice sounds weak.
He ignores me, getting on his knees by the table and frowning in concentration as he arranges a line of coke down the phone screen, right across the call button. “Here.” His eyes dance with malice as he holds it out. “They have good stuff in Naples; try it.”
“God, Alek, you’re such an asshole.” Kat’s mouth tips up a little at the corner. My blood’s in the water, and they’re all sharks.
I may not know better than to take pills I don’t recognize, but I do know not to mix them with coke. Unfortunately, no one’s here to stop me. The rug scratches my knees as I kneel next to Alek. He puts a steadying hand on my back. “Ready?”
“Go, go, go,” Rachel chants unsteadily, and some idiots in the rest of the room pick it up without any idea what they’re cheering for.
The shit burns, and there’s a lot of it. But when I tip my head back, it’s all gone and the phone is not dialing the ghost of Victor’s past. Danger in his thin smile, Alek takes his phone back and wipes it on his jeans. And now that it’s way too late, it finally sinks in that I’ve broken all my rules and I’m about to be helpless in a very unsafe place.
“I’ll be right back.” Trying not to touch anyone, I stumble through the room into a shitty little half bath that probably has roaches sleeping in the mold behind the toilet.
I lean over the sink and stare at my red eyes in the mirror, trying to count how long I have until the drugs switch my brain off, wondering if I’ve burned the only bridge I have left.
Perching on the edge of the toilet, I fumble through my phone, trying to Google the number of the hotel. It's hard to read when the letters rearrange themselves every time I blink, but the picture looks right.
“Regale Naples.Come posso aiutarla?”
Why is he saying words that aren’t words?I slide a hand down my face. “Huh?”
