Heroine

by Mindy McGinnis

  “He pregnant too?” I ask, mouth full of doughnut.

  “Nope, he’s dead.”

  “Shit,” I say, wiping my mouth. “Sorry.”

  “Overdosed.” Ed shakes his head. “I’ll tell you what the problem is, it’s that truck stop out at the interstate. Kids can go out there, get anything they want. Get stuff they don’t have any business with.”

  “What was it?” I ask. “Pills?”

  “Yep,” Ed says. “You believe that? When I was your age, you know what we did? We drank. These days . . .” He shakes his head again. “I don’t know, kiddo. It’s not good, understand me?”

  “Yep,” I agree.

  “And you know what else?”

  “No, Ed,” I say. “What else?”

  “Daisy—the lady cop?”

  “You know you can just say cop, Ed.”

  “Yeah, well, she told me they got a call from a mom the other day, all upset. Her kid was hanging out at the park after school and found a bunch of needles behind the dugout at the diamond.”

  Okay, now that actually does upset me.

  “People are shooting up at the park?”

  I haven’t played on that field since youth summer league, but I still don’t like the idea of dirty hypodermics lying where Lydia and I used to have spitting contests with sunflower seeds. The thought makes me shiver.

  “Terrible,” Ed says. “Why would anyone ever stick a needle in their arm?”

  “I don’t know, Ed,” I say, glancing at the clock as I throw back the rest of my coffee. “I’ve got to get to school.”

  “All right. You be careful out there.”

  Ed’s said this to me every Monday since I started coming in here, but today feels different. Maybe I’m being paranoid, taking it the wrong way since I’m on crutches and I don’t want him thinking about me as a hurt thing. Maybe it’s because there’s a couple white pills in my jacket pocket that are going to be in my stomach before lunch. Or maybe it’s because, as I’m leaving, I hear Ed mutter to himself, “I just don’t understand.”

  And maybe it’s because I’m starting to.

  Chapter Thirteen

  graduate: to mark with degrees; to divide into regular steps, grades, or intervals—or—to admit or elevate to a certain grade or degree

  School has never been easy for me.

  It’s never been my goal to be the prettiest girl, or the funniest girl, and definitely not the nicest girl in the room. But right now it sure would be great to be the smartest one.

  My conversation with Big Ed only served to remind me that while colleges have shown interest in me, nobody is going to give me a degree to play ball. It’ll be a mix of athletic ability and good grades that get me anywhere I’m going, and I’ve been set pretty far back on both of those things by the accident.

  As Carolina likes to remind me, it sucks to suck.

  What sucks right now is that I’ve got to write out definitions for twenty different words I don’t know the meaning of, plus finish Lord of the Flies, and I’ve got one study hall period to do it in. Time is against me, and I’m not at my sharpest thanks to the double shot of Oxy I just did in the bathroom.

  I let out a long sigh and shake my head, hoping to clear it. If I’m not careful I’ll slide back down into sleep and be late to English, which isn’t going to get me any closer to a better GPA. I’m thinking about the fact that I can’t fall asleep when my head hits my chest and I jump, knocking over my crutches and attracting the attention of everyone in the room.

  A freshman named Nikki comes running over to help, propping them against my desk. I know she plays basketball and made varsity, something that Lydia and the Bellas weren’t quite sure what to think of, until they saw her box out. Apparently she knocked the overbearing assistant coach on her ass, and immediately became everyone’s best friend. Rumor is she plays softball, too.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  “Fine,” I say, stifling a yawn. “Just tired and . . .” I gesture toward the pile of books in front of me.

  “No time for naps?” she finishes for me.

  “Nope.”

  She pulls a chair over and sits across from me, sifting through my pile to pull out Lord of the Flies.

  “This isn’t so bad,” she says. “Worth reading.”

  “Maybe,” I agree. “But I’ve got to decide between that or vocab, and the clock’s ticking.”

  “You don’t have to decide between shit,” she says, surprising me. “You do your vocab. I’ll read to you.”

  “Are you serious?” I haven’t had anyone read to me since Dad put away “The Night Before Christmas” on December 24 when I was in fifth grade.

  “I . . .” Nikki suddenly doesn’t look quite as confident. “I mean, yeah. If you want.”

  I glance at the clock. “Yes,” I tell her. “I want.”

  We’re deep into chapter seven, me half listening to her while my pencil scratches out definitions, when the bell goes off. Nikki dog-ears a page and hands the book to me while I jam everything else into my backpack.

  “Just FYI, Piggy dies,” she tells me.

  I take the battered copy, years of other people’s thumbprints marking the edges. “Good tip.”

  Nikki and I part ways in the hall as I head to English, my head mostly turning over a different problem altogether from English class. I’ve got to figure out how to space the Oxy I’ve got left in order to get through the day and get to sleep at night. Jamming up my leg on the ice did not do me any favors, and I remember just as I get to the door of the English room—I’ve got physical therapy after school.

  Down the hall, Carolina gives Aaron a quick peck and dashes to class before the tardy bell rings, holding the door for me.

  “Ready for the quiz?” she asks, slightly breathless.

  “Can you believe Piggy died?” I ask.

  “Aww . . . ,” Carolina says, pushing my hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear. “My girl read a book.”

  I’m headed out to my car, picking my way around ice patches and analyzing every inch in front of me, when I hear Aaron yelling my name.

  “Yo, Mick! Wait up.”

  I reach my car and rest against it, envying Aaron’s easy movements as he jogs across the parking lot to me.

  “Hey,” he says, a touch out of breath.

  “Better get in shape before baseball,” I warn him. “Carolina could outrun you right now.”

  “You might be able to outrun me right now,” he admits.

  “Doubt it,” I say, kicking my crutches where they rest beside me. “So what’s up?”

  Aaron and I are close enough to fist-bump and for him to shorten my name, but it doesn’t go much beyond that. I can’t think of a good reason for him to run me down after school.

  “How’s Carolina seem to you?” he asks

  It’s a weird question, and I’m immediately on the defensive, searching his face for some indication of what he’s asking me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, physically,” he says. “I watched you guys lifting the other day.”

  “And?”

  He runs his hands through his hair, knocking some snowflakes loose. “I don’t know, I just think she’s pushing too hard. She curled ten more pounds with you than she did with me.”

  Okay, I get it now.

  “So you want me to babysit her? C’mon, nobody tells Carolina Galarza what to do.”

  “Not babysit her,” he says. “Maybe just . . . don’t encourage her so much.”

  “Don’t encourage her?” I repeat. “Don’t encourage my friend to recover?”

  “Not . . . God—that’s not what I meant,” Aaron says. The words aren’t coming out right, and he’s frustrated. Normally I would sympathize.

  Not right now.

  “Just don’t push her, I guess,” he says.

  “I’m not pushing anybody but myself,” I tell him.

  “That’s bullshit and you know it, Catalan. She’s not going to let yo
u show her up. She’ll match you in the weight room, even if she shouldn’t.”

  “Whatever, man,” I say, opening my car door and tossing my crutches inside. “Carolina’s not stupid.”

  “I didn’t say she was,” Aaron argues as I get in, raising his voice to be heard over the engine as I start the car. “Carolina’s not stupid, but she is in pain.”

  “That’s not my fault,” I snap at him.

  “It’s not?”

  I stop moving, hands frozen on the steering wheel. We’re not talking about lifting anymore, or adding weight that we’re not prepared for. We’re talking about ice on the road and wheels in the air, my blood on the ground and Carolina’s voice as she calls for me. I snap the engine off.

  “Are you serious?” I ask Aaron. “Do you blame me for that?”

  I’m waiting for him to back off, an apologetic retrieval of words he didn’t mean to say. That doesn’t happen. Instead he jams his hands in his pockets, eyes not meeting mine. My throat tightens.

  “Does she?”

  “Look, I’m not . . . just take it easy on the weights. That’s all I wanted to say.” Aaron shuts my door, the conversation having gone somewhere he never wanted it to.

  Somewhere I never expected.

  “You are doing amazing, Mickey. That’s awesome. You look so strong.” Kyleigh is a sunburst of positivity behind me as I make my way through the parallel bars. I am flying, there’s no doubt. I wouldn’t be surprised if she yells at me that I’m beautiful and a genius, too.

  Even Jolene doesn’t have anything negative to say, I’m doing so well. I’m at the end of the bars in a couple minutes, and pivot for the return journey without a pause. Last month they had to both hold me up when I turned, one of them wiping tears off my face while the other moved my leg for me.

  “You are on fire,” Kyleigh yells.

  At the moment, no, I’m actually not. I definitely was, right after school. I made it out to my car with a straight face but I was running on fumes; every molecule of air that my hip moved through felt like a needle going straight down into bone. I dug into the center console of my car for an old Doritos bag, and the pills tucked in the corner. I took two because I knew Mom was meeting me and I didn’t want to upset her by collapsing into a pile of inability before my session even started.

  This is the best rehab place in three counties, and Mom and Dad are paying through the nose for it, insurance only covering so much. If I have to wander into the gray area of appropriate use of my medication in order to make this appointment worthwhile, then I’ll do it. The look on Mom’s face when my hour is up is more than worth it. She looks the way she does right after she gets home from delivering a baby, like something new just happened in the world and she was a part of it.

  I’m not something new. I’m just trying to get back to my old self.

  Which, Jolene informs me, I’m way closer to than anyone expected at this point.

  “You’re ahead of where I thought you’d be,” she says, handing me a paper cup of water while I do my cooldown stretches. “At your first appointment, I wouldn’t have expected you to be able to do more than a toe touch to the ground at the beginning of February. But you’re bearing weight on your heel. You’ve been doing all your exercises at home?”

  I nod, too tired for words.

  “Every night,” Mom says.

  Jolene puts both her hands on my shoulders, crouching down in front of me. “Your recovery is a testament to what hard work can do.”

  “Can I graduate to putting weight on it regularly?”

  She glances at her clipboard, but I don’t need a calendar to know what I’m asking. If she’ll let me move on to putting half my weight on it with crutches, I’ll be a full two weeks ahead of recovery schedule.

  “That’s a lot, Mickey,” she says. “But if you can do it without too much pain some of the time, I would say it’s okay.”

  “Awesome,” I say.

  “Some of the time,” she repeats. “I know you want to be ready for your season in time, and it is feasible. But right now I’m happy that you can walk. You should be, too.”

  “I am,” I tell her. And it’s true.

  But it’s not enough.

  Mom’s still beaming as we leave therapy, her pride overflowing into a pizza stop. I convince her to let me walk into the restaurant without the crutches, and even though it’s slow, I do it. Then I ease into the booth without holding on to the tabletop for balance, just to show her I can. She reaches across the table for my hands.

  “Mickey, I can’t even say what I thought when I first saw your X-rays. They were—”

  “Bad,” I finish for her. “I know.”

  “To see what you did today . . . honey, I’m so proud.”

  She’s so proud that the waiter has to ask her if she’s okay, while she wipes away tears, explaining that she’s happy, and yes, everything is okay.

  It’s not, not yet. But it’s going to be. I’m going to make it that way. Because I realized when I saw her face light up at therapy that this isn’t just about my pain.

  Every time I pop a pill I’m doing it so that Mom has a kid she can be proud of, something good to focus on with Dad’s second family on the way. I’m doing it so that I can be behind the plate for Carolina when our senior season starts, showing the OSU scout she’s still got what it takes. I’m doing it so that she and I can go on with our lives like that night never happened, like I wasn’t behind the wheel in a car that landed upside down in a ditch. I’m doing it so that my teammates aren’t exchanging worried looks when I limp past them in the hallway. Yeah, I manage to tell myself as I sink my teeth into a bread stick, I’m not taking Oxy because it makes me feel good.

  I’m taking it for other people.

  Chapter Fourteen

  tolerance: the power or capacity of enduring—or—the power acquired by some persons of bearing doses of medicine that in ordinary cases would prove injurious or fatal

  While I might be able to convince myself that I’m taking OxyContin for other people, it’s still my money paying for it. And right now, I don’t have much.

  I’m back at Edith’s, somewhere I told myself I wouldn’t be. But with physical therapy going so well and softball conditioning starting in a month, I have to prioritize. Just thinking about running the two miles that Coach Mattix asks out of us during training makes me dig my fingers into my hip, punishing the injury that has sidelined my former confident self.

  I dig, feeling the screws, but the pain isn’t near what it was last week after therapy. The Oxy is making sure of that. I’ve figured out that two can get me through the day, and if I chew them up before bed, two will send me right to sleep, taking care of my nights. But today the familiar echo of pain began snaking shadowy fingers out from my hip right after lunch, something I’d been able to keep at bay until at least after dinner with two 30s.

  “That means you need to increase your dosage,” Josie says, eyeing me from across Edith’s table. She’s wearing an expensive winter coat, long hair artfully hanging over one shoulder, new nails tapping away at her phone while she talks. She sounds so confident and looks so well kept that I feel like I’m getting advice from a medical professional. Josie slips her phone back into her pocket, and there’s a prolonged silence.

  “Where do you go to school?” I finally ask her.

  “Baylor Springs,” she says, then yells toward the hallway. “Edes, what’s the holdup?”

  Edith answers but it’s unintelligible, her words lost as the furnace kicks on. “Jesus,” Josie complains, pulling off her coat. “She probably forgot the combination to the safe. We’ll be here all day.”

  “Safe?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Josie says. “You really think she’s just got Oxy lying around with a bunch of junkies walking in and out?”

  “I’m not a junkie,” I say, too fast.

  “Right,” Josie says. “Tell yourself whatever, but if you want to stay happy you’ll need to up your milligrams. You’ve
built up a tolerance to the 30s.”

  “What do you take?” I ask her.

  “Right now I’m popping two 80s twice a day.”

  She takes way more than I do, and she looks like all her shit is together. If I did two 80s I’d be dead to the world, floating on my bed and high as hell. But Josie drove here, and doesn’t fumble with her phone or have to search for words when she speaks. Me, I’m still working on putting together complete sentences in social situations when I’m one hundred percent sober.

  “What do you think I should do?” I ask her.

  “I’d say go to 40s, but that’s not much of a bump. Buy a bunch of 60s too. Edith tell you about chewing them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool.” Josie nods, reaching into her pocket and silencing her phone when it goes off again. I’m weirdly pleased that she’s interested enough in me to ignore her phone. She rests her chin on her palm, perfect nails tapping against her cheek.

  “You wanna hang out?”

  “Sure,” I say reflexively, like I’ve been picked first for dodgeball. I was always picked first for dodgeball, but I was never invited to the popular girls’ birthday parties. That’s what it feels like now, like I’m being acknowledged as a girl by this much better specimen of our kind.

  “Cool,” Josie says again, sliding my phone out from under my hand. She dials herself from my phone, then pushes it back across the table. “That’s me,” she says.

  I glance down at her number on my recent calls list, then add her, pausing for a second. “Um . . . what’s your last name?”

  “Addison,” she says, going through the same action on her phone. “What’s yours?”

  “Catalan.”

  Edith comes back with our brown bags, Josie’s noticeably bulgier than mine. I went so far as to open the piggy bank I forgot I had, and took all the loose change down to the coin machine at the grocery store. I dumped everything into it, every penny I’d ever found in the halls, every nickel old Mr. Henderson had given me for each weed I’d pulled in his flower bed when I was just a kid. My childhood sounded loud, going into that machine.

  Half of me is waiting for Josie to notice that I’m only getting a 40 off Edith and offer to help me out, the other half is ashamed of myself for wanting that. But her phone goes off yet again, and this time she answers it, not seeing my pitifully slim payment. My own phone vibrates under my hand, and Edith looks pathetically between the two of us.