Page 137 of Life of the Party

“No, Mom! No, get out!” I screamed. But it was too late. The door was open. Mom looked confused at first when she found me leaning over the sink, my supplies scattered around me. Then she saw the needle sticking out of my arm, and she knew.

Her blue eyes opened in fright, her mouth dropped but no words came. She pointed at me in terror. “What are you doing?” Her voice, whisper thin at first, gradually gained back its strength. “Mackenzie, what are you doing to yourself?”

I didn’t know what to say. I had no excuse, no lie to tell. I stared at her, my dark eyes wide, like a deer caught in the headlights. I must have looked just as afraid as she did.

“Answer me, young lady!What are you doing to yourself?”

“Everything okay, Deb?” Dad’s voice floated up the hall, tight with concern.

“No, no, everything is not okay.” Mom’s voice started to shake; I recognized the noise. She was on the verge of tears.

“Mom, Mom, it’s okay.” I don’t know why I was saying that. I knew it wasn’t okay. I just wanted her to calm down.

“Get that thing out of your arm!” She demanded, grasping the needle from my numb fingertips and chucking it at the garbage. Her eyes were wild with despair as she looked at me, like she’d never seen me before. “Let me see you. Let me look at you.”

“Mom, don’t!” I tried to pry my arm from her grasp but her grip was surprisingly firm. She pushed the sleeve of my sweater up until all the skin was exposed. Her face went bone-white at the sight, at the clusters of tiny red dots that covered my skin. I felt the heat in my cheeks, the warm blush of shame that spread across my face.

I looked down at the floor.

“Mitch. Mitch, look. Just look at what she’s doing to herself.” Mom’s voice held horror now. My dad was there as well, taking in the awful sight.

I dared to look up at his face.

It was hard. Rigid, even. Colourless. He looked at me just as my mom had, like he’d never seen me before. Not before now. Now they knew my terrible secret.

I was addicted to heroin.

Yes, I knew it then. There was no more denying it, no justifying it, no excusing it. I was a heroin addict. And I couldn’t hide it anymore.

All the happiness from earlier slunk slowly from my being. Because all of it was a lie. All of it. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me feeling happiness, acceptance. I couldn’t feel happiness, not real happiness.

I couldn’t feel anything. Not anymore.

“This is what you’ve been doing with yourself?” Dad’s voice was weak; there was no strength within it, none of its usual gusto. I nodded. His features hardened even further, as if he was steeling himself for what he had to do next. He shut his eyes.

“Get out of my house.”

It took me a second. “…What?”

“Get out of my house. Do you hear me? I won’t have this…,” he didn’t even know what to call it, “I won’t have it in my house, Mackenzie.”

“Dad, I’m sorry, I have to…I get sick if I don’t.”

“I had no idea.” Mom gasped at my admission. “Oh, my baby, my baby…” She stood nearby, wringing her hands, tears in her eyes.

Dad’s jaw clenched. “Get out of my house!” he boomed suddenly. The harshness of his voice surprised me out of my stupor of shame, jolted me into action.

“I’m going!” I shouted back. Tears filled my eyes, blinding me, but somehow, I managed to collect my stuff, throwing my supplies into my bag and hastily zipping it up. I brushed past him and down the stairs, my arms around my stomach as it churned violently within me.

Grey was as pale as a ghost as I came back into the living room. I was out and out sobbing by then, tears streaming down my face. Nausea clutching at my stomach.

“Hey, hey, Mackenzie, you okay?” He stood and came to me, looking into my face. “Are you all right?”

I wondered what I looked like. Grey seemed really alarmed. “We’ve gotta go,” I answered through my tears. Marcy and Blake just stared, frozen in place, their eyes wide with confusion as they watched us. I wasn’t going to explain anything to them. They’d know soon enough. I grabbed the key to my car and the journal Marcy gave me. Grey found his coat in the hall closet and was back to me in an instant. He put an arm around my shoulders and helped me walk to the garage through the crippling pain.

“It’s okay, sugar. We’ll be home in no time.” His voice was oddly panicked as he helped me into the passenger seat of my car. I curled up into a ball in my seat, tighter than the fetal position, wrapping my arms around my knees and sobbing like my very heart was broken.

Because it had been, in a way. I didn’t know how to describe it, I still don’t know how exactly, but it was just like…complete betrayal. I’d been lying to myself the entire time. It was the closest I’d come to feeling like a part of our big-happy-family, and all of it was a lie. All the love, all the acceptance, all of it had been broken by my secret.

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