Page 93 of Ecstasy
“You want to get dinner tonight?” Kylie asks me.
No.For a long moment, I contemplate saying it. I contemplate telling her to go fuck herself. But instead, what comes out of my mouth is, “Yeah, that’d be great.”
I need to do something tonight and getting high probably isn’t ideal. My boundaries are all blurred and the schedule that I clung to in order to make sure I wasn’t really an addict is all fucked up. Maybe dinner with Kylie will be enlightening. Maybe I’ll find a way to absorb some of her perfection. Maybe I’ll scream at her and ask her why the fuck she’s talking to Alex.
Maybe I just won’t feel fucking alone.
“Really?” she asks me, startled. Like she expected me to say no.
Fair, I guess. I smile at her, trying to make myself feel it. Trying to make it real. “Really.”
* * *
I shovelthe peas from the can around on my plate, listening to Kylie talk about her mom. I don’t have much of an appetite for conversation or for dinner, and I keep looking down the hall to my right, to my closed bedroom door. I found a new bottle of cough syrup in a shoebox. I must’ve hidden it from myself because post-rehab Zara is smart.
And as soon as I make it through this dinner, I’m going to chug it.
Fuck Kylie and fuck Alex. It somehow feels better, spiting her right under her nose instead of yelling at her.
I smile and nod at Kylie as she keeps talking, but she furrows her dark brows and I quickly realize this isn’t a part of the conversation I should be smiling and nodding at.
I look down at my plate, frowning at the porkchop she cooked. It looks good enough, but my mouth is dry, and I know chewing it will be like trying to force down ash. I need to lay off the fucking Adderall.
“Anyway,” Kylie continues after she wipes her mouth with a napkin and then sets it back in her lap—yep, perfect, that girl—“they’re going to have to sell their house.” She picks up her fork and knife, slices off another bite of meat but of course she doesn’t put it in her mouth yet because she’s still talking, and Kylie Jones doesn’t talk with a mouthful of food.
“She’s having trouble getting around without a cane. The pain is getting a little much, too, so her doctor prescribed her some…” She trails off and I look up at her, wondering why.
She looks kind of apologetic, lowering her eyes and shaking her head. “Sorry,” she says a little awkwardly.
“For what?” I ask, confused, scraping my fork against my plate, jostling some peas around.
Kylie blows out a breath, looking past my shoulder. “About the, you know, my mom’s pain medication, I didn’t mean to…” She can’t get a full sentence out and I have no idea what she’s fucking talking about.
Until I do.
My face flushes red, but I think its second-hand embarrassment for her. I’m glad in that moment that I don’t have food in my mouth because if I did, I might’ve choked on it.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I say, shaking my head, a bite to my tone. “You think that talking about your mom’s prescription pain pills will, what exactly? Make me salivate and I’ll lose my shit?” I laugh, sitting back in the rickety chair that’s half in the kitchen and half in the living room. I drop my fork with a clatter. “It doesn’t work that way, Kylie.”
I see her squirm in her chair, taking the porkchop into her mouth and chewing furiously. Her olive skin is flushed pink.
Good. I hope she is fucking embarrassed.
I swallow, take a sip of water from my glass and set it back on the table, trying to keep my hands from shaking, from anger or too much Adderall, I’m not sure.
Meanwhile, I could hear a fucking marijuana leaf drop in here, it’s grown so quiet.
“Look Kylie, your parents’ house is safe and shit.” I shrug. “I promise not to go up inside and rob the place, all right? Downers aren’t really my thing anyway.”
I watch her finish chewing her food, then she sets down her fork, hands in her lap, over her napkin. She arches a brow. “Really?” She seems very surprised by that statement. I take in her pigtails, smooth skin, and the pink cardigan she’s wearing—even though it’s technically still summer for another day, and definitely still hot outside—and realize that as much as she might know about the technical aspect of drugs from her pre-pharm work, she probably doesn’t know shit about drug abuse. The heart of it, anyway.
Alex picked the wrong girl to spy on me because fuck the science.
Addicts are not fucking thinking about the science when they snort their first line or inject their first bag.
“I thought your mom said naloxone saved your life—”
“It was a precaution,” I interrupt, waving her concern away. “I wouldn’t have died.” I clench my fists on the table and look down at my full plate. “At least, I don’t think I would have,” I mutter to my peas. “Anyway, thatwas an exception, which is probably why the Oxy hit me so hard anyway. I did Xanax sometimes, but that’s about it when it comes to downers.”
