Page 94 of Ecstasy
I click my jaw, thinking about the upper I did today to make it through this dinner. Double my usual dose because my usual dose isn’t fucking working. I know what that means. I know I need to taper off, take something else in the meantime, let my tolerance die down. But Kylie wanted this dinner and I didn’t want to drown myself in cough syrup yet—shit, guess that’s a downer, too.
I don’t mention it.
“So, what did you like to do?” Kylie asks me, her hands still in her lap. Surprising me, she doesn’t sound the least bit judgmental.
I wonder if she’s asking for Alex’s sake. I wonder if they’ve been texting behind my back. I wonder when I’m going to confront him about that shit. I wonder if I have a right to, considering what I’m doing.
Whatever. Hopefully she will report back. Hopefully it’ll keep him up all night, thinking about me still doing all of this shit.
“Uppers. Adderall, Vyvanse. Ecstasy. Cocaine, every now and then, but that was seriously addicting.” I laugh, because it sounds funny, coming from an addict. It’s true though. Coke just hits different. “Shit that made me more social.”
There’s silence that stretches between us for a moment, and I hope she feels awkward, but to be honest, it doesn’t seem like she does.
It kind of seems like my roommate is just absorbing this admission I gave her, and I’m waiting to see what she’s going to do with it as I stare down at my ripped jeans, my hands twisted together.
“So, you don’t really like going to parties, then?” Her tone is light, curious.
I shrug, swallow down a sudden lump in my throat that makes me want to get up, put my dishes away, and run to my room. “I do, but just not the way I usually am.” I realize that doesn’t make much sense, so I clear my throat and add, “I’m lame without drugs.” I look up and meet her gaze. “I’m awkward and shit so I take—took—things to get pumped up. To want to be around people. Otherwise, I’d just sit in my room all day and stare at the ceiling.” Like I’ve basically been doing for the past three days.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have ever met a guy like Alex Cardi, star football player and hot jock. Otherwise, I would’ve never had the balls to let Eli fuck with me. I would’ve never had anyone in my life.
I wouldn’t have done anything like that if I was just…me.
I would have even fewer friends than I do now.
I’d be a fucking hermit.
Kylie is regarding me with an interesting mix of detachment and sympathy. It’s like she’s trying to figure me out through a clinical context, but she also feels something for me because unlike myself, she’s not a shell of a human being.
“I don’t think you’re awkward,” she finally settles on, picking up her fork and knife again, glancing at the small piece of porkchop left on her plate.
That’s because I’m still on drugs.But I’m not trying to be taken out of school again or have my funds cut off from Momorhave Alex beat down our door, so I just manage a half-smile and say, “Thanks.”
She sighs, a lock of her shiny black hair fluttering as she does, and then she drops her utensils on the table and pierces me with her big brown eyes.
I feel my stomach jump into my throat.Does she know? Is this dinner just a big trick for her to drop a bomb? To tell me any second my mom is going to walk through that door and drag me out of here? Or maybe Alex? Maybe this is what it all comes down to.
Fuck.
I force myself to sit still. But if Mom comes in here, I will run the fuck out and I will live on the streets before I go back to rehab and become a freak again.
No fucking way.
“I’m kind of weird too,” Kylie finally says, and I just stare at her, my mouth falling open. Her face flushes pink again, and she shrugs, hands flat on the table as she sits up a little straighter. She’s like eight inches shorter than me but she looks pretty damn regal like that, as if she’s just owning who she is. “I actually take an antidepressant,” she admits. “Have for years.”
I get the sense she doesn’t tell everyone this and for some reason—maybe because I just assumed she didn’t have any secrets worth hiding—I’m hanging onto her every word.
“I was always withdrawn,” she continues, looking down at her hands. “My teachers thought I was just shy.” She laughs a little, but there’s no humor in it. “And smart.” She shakes her head ruefully. “Shy and smart.” She smiles at me when she lifts her head, but it’s a bitter kind of smile. “My parents, faithful churchgoers and kind of oblivious tolife,”she throws up her hand with that last word, “just enrolled me in more after-school programs. Placed me in ‘gifted’ classes.” She says gifted like it’s a disease. “It just made things worse because then I was forced to interact more, and I hated it.”
Ah. She’s an introvert.The thought is startling, because of the amount of times she’s come into my room without asking. I wonder how much strength that took, even if she was doing it on Alex’s orders. Maybe it wasn’t just Alex.
Maybe she actually gives a damn.
Maybe I’m hoping for too much.
“Anyway, when I was taking so many classes my freshman year that I had to get special permission to have that many credit hours—not to mention I was in the pre-pharm club, leading a remedial biology group and helping out one of my professors with her night class—I just had a breakdown.”
I blink at her, stunned.
