Page 51 of In the Stars

“Anytime you want.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Wesley. Anything for you.”

NINETEEN

WESLEY

“Can’t waitto get back home. Need something good to take the edge off,” Vic said, scratching and rubbing at his arms.

“Me too. Fuck, the studio session was long as fuck.”

Vic grins at me. “Yeah, but we got the fucking deal! I still can’t believe it. Being around high-tech systems to record our music? I never would have thought four poor bastards like us would make it.”

He’s right. I figured we would play small clubs and maybe score some local gigs that paid for our drugs—if not drugs, then booze to celebrate a good show.

Like me, Vic had a fucked-up childhood. Mom ran out, Dad used him as a punching bag. He got into drugs to escape like I did. But unlike me, his dad didn’t do anything else but beat his ass every other day. He didn’t get taken advantage of, so I never told him, Kas, or Mitch everything.

That’s a secret I’ll never tell a soul.

I throw my arm around his shoulder, eager to get home so we can get high. “Me either, man. We’re living the fucking dream.”

When we get inside, I immediately pull out the pills and coke I have stashed between the springs of our mattress. We all share a small one-bedroom apartment, Mitch and Kas sharing the room while me and Vic sleep on a mattress in the living room. We didn’t have much money to afford anything else.

Vic clicks on the television and turns it to one of those channels that plays music all day and cranks up the volume. I come back to the table with our supplies and separate the coke into lines as Vic sings softly beside me.

He could have been the lead singer, but he said he never wanted to be that much in the spotlight. I shouldn’t like it, but after not having attention for more than half of my life, I eat that shit up when the spotlight is on me.

Once the lines of cocaine are separated, Vic hands me a cut straw, and I snort a line, groaning in pleasure when it hits my system. I pass him the straw as I relax into the chair. The high is good, wiping my brain and letting me see the lyrics of the song for the track we were laying down today.

“Fuck, I got it!” I exclaim, rising from my chair. “We gotta drop the rhythm guitar, and you have to sync your vocals with mine. That’s the only way it’ll work.”

Vic snorts a line and tips his head back, eyes closed tight. When he’s sure he won’t waste his high from sneezing, he looks over at me thoughtfully. Or as thoughtful as he can get while we’re polluted. “I like it. Let’s try it out.”

At the top of our lungs, we sing the song, jumping on the bed and playing air guitar. To my intoxicated ears, we don’t sound half bad. I’m eager to return to the studio to test out the theory when I’m not so fucked up.

We go back and forth, finishing the drugs we have until we’re fucking exhausted and the high has our limbs thrumming but tiredness dragging us down.

I swallow the last pill and lean back in the chair. “Fuck. We need to score more before tomorrow,” I say. I want to climb under the blankets and crash and worry about scoring our next high in the morning.

“I got us covered,” Vic slurs and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a baggie of brownish powder that I recognize as heroin, a needle, and a lighter.

Heroin has always been a hard no from me. My mom and Perry used it as much as they could, which is why she had to sell herself so often—because they always needed that high. I told myself I would never use it. I would never turn out like my mom.

“The fuck is this shit?” I ask, gesturing to the paraphernalia in his hands. “No needles. You know that.”

He makes a pssh noise. “You’re fucking tatted from head to toe. You don’t mind needles.”

“Yeah, for tattoos. But I’m not shooting shit into my veins. And you’re not either. Fucking get rid of that shit. We can score pills or some weed, but that’s it. Got it?”

Vic looks at me for a few seconds, his pupils dilating. Finally, he shrugs and puts the stuff back into his pocket. “Whatever. I’ll get rid of it tomorrow. I’m too tired to move right now.”

I blow out a sigh of relief, glad he sees things my way. “Fucker!” I push him in the arm, but I’m so tired it has no effect on him. “You almost blew my high.” I chuckle as I get to my feet and walk over to the bed, collapsing on the hard surface. “Wake me in like three days. After those studio sessions and that stupid fucking cardio workout for breath control, I’m exhausted.”

“So am I. I’ll join you in a bit. I just have to….”

I didn’t hear the rest of what Vic had to do because I was asleep between one beat and the next.

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