Heroine

by Mindy McGinnis

  I’m thinking of that group message I saw on Carolina’s phone the other night, right after my dad called to tell Mom his new wife thinks I’ve got a problem. I wonder if that text conversation got longer afterward, and what my supposed best friend shared with almost the entire starting lineup.

  “Why would you need to defend yourself?” Bella Left asks, eyeing me. “We’re not accusing you of anything.”

  I don’t answer, because I sure as hell feel like that’s exactly what just happened. As I dump most of my lunch in the trash along with the nearly full water bottle, Nikki comes up behind me, clapping a hand on my back. It’s not hard, but it’s enough to rattle my shoulder blades, my skin so sensitive it feels like her fingers just went straight through to my spine.

  “Don’t touch me,” I say, louder than I intended to, gaining the attention of everyone nearby.

  “Whoa, hey . . . ,” Nikki says, stepping back when I spin around. Her eyes roam my face for a moment. I must look about the same as I feel, judging by her reaction. “Mickey . . . are you okay?”

  “Yeah, of course she is,” Bella Left says sarcastically as she appears at my side, scraping her own tray into the trash. “She’s Mickey Catalan.”

  I speed out of the parking lot after school, anxious to get to Josie’s and back. If I’m late for warm-up, Coach will rip me a new one, and the way my body aches, it might feel literal. I throw a few more Advil back, along with another Imodium. My guts are under control, but I’ve hardly got enough spit for everything to make the journey to my stomach. Spots swim in my vision when I get out of the car at Josie’s, a wave of dizziness washing over me.

  I’ve been dehydrated before, and doing it to myself on purpose is straight up idiotic. I’m walking a fine line between passing out because I’m not drinking, or being drenched in sweat because I’m going through withdrawal. Either way, it’s not going to look good to the half of the team that already suspects something, and might make the other half start to wonder. Not to mention Mom.

  Shit.

  Josie answers the door immediately, talking as soon as she opens it. I follow her through the house when she motions to me, sucking on a Diet Coke as we head up to her room. My mouth waters at the sight of it, or would, if I had enough spit.

  “So,” she says, “remember what my sister said about graduating?”

  “To heroin, yeah. No way,” I tell her.

  “I know, I know.” Josie rolls her eyes. “You’ve got this whole, ‘but I’m not a druggie’ thing going on.”

  “Yeah,” I tell her flatly. “Because I’m not.”

  “Right, and heroin is bad. I get it,” Josie says, leading me into her room, where she flops onto a king-size bed and kicks off her designer shoes. “But you’re already doing heroin, you know that, right?”

  “What?” I settle at the foot of the bed. Even as tall as I am, I have to boost myself up onto it.

  “Oxy is basically heroin, babe,” Josie says. “I looked into it.”

  “Like you read a Wikipedia article?”

  “Uh, excuse me, no,” she snipes at me, producing a notebook. She flips it open so that I can see what looks like chemistry notes.

  “This is the molecular structure of heroin,” Josie says, pointing to a hand-drawn diagram, layers of notes in her bubbly handwriting alongside it. “And this . . .”

  She turns the page.

  “. . . is the molecular structure of Oxy.” Josie flips back to the first one. “See any difference?”

  “I . . . no?”

  “That a question or a statement?”

  I glance at my phone. “Look, I’ve got to be dressed and on the field in—”

  “Fine, instead of leading you to knowledge I’ll spoon-feed you. Look, Oxy is basically synthetic heroin, just in a pill form. The only difference between them is the delivery system.”

  “Also one is illegal and one is not,” I contradict her.

  “Uh, you really think the way we’ve been using Oxy is okay? We’re not taking our own pills; we’re buying other people’s. And that is illegal.”

  “My doctor wrote me a prescription—”

  “For Oxy,” Josie interrupts, “which is heroin. Then your prescription ran out and you found someone who would fill it. You’re basically already doing heroin, Mick. You’re even using a needle.”

  “Once,” I correct her. “I have used a needle.”

  “Fine,” Josie admits. “But chemically, it’s the same drug. The way you’re getting it is illegal. You’ve got experience with the needle. The only difference is, it’s cheap.”

  “Cheap?” My ears perk up. With Mom already on the lookout for anything valuable coming up missing, I’m headed for a hard-core withdrawal in a day, at least.

  “Yeah, cheap,” Josie says, flipping another page to a column of numbers. “I talked to Jadine. Her guy said he can hook us up with someone here and we can get a balloon for maybe ten bucks or so.”

  “A balloon?”

  “Yeah, it’s like, an actual balloon, I guess. Except it’s full of heroin, not helium.”

  “Ha,” I say, when she’s clearly waiting for me to acknowledge the joke.

  “Anyway”—she waves away my lack of appreciation—“a balloon will have about a tenth of an ounce. Taking into account that pure heroin is about four times the strength of Oxy . . .”

  She flips to another page where she’s apparently made a flowchart. Her handwriting is beautiful, with swooping curls. It looks funny arranged in a tight table, numbers precisely aligned and calculated. I have no idea what I’m looking at.

  “So you’re, like . . . really smart.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Josie says. “Thanks for noticing.”

  “No, I mean . . .” What’s in her notebook goes beyond memorizing scanner codes and doing mental math while watching QVC. There are notes in the margins, scribbled questions to herself with arrows pointing to the answers she arrived at later, and a coffee spill marring one page.

  Josie sat over this, her mind mulling and working a problem until she found an answer, the same way I took an entire summer to figure out how to hit an inside pitch without popping up.

  “You’re going to college, right?”

  “Yep, pharmacy school. Mom’s all excited about me bringing home pens. That would be the part she focuses on. I guess a few years ago Viagra made some pens that look like a dick, and if you know the right people—”

  I look back at my phone.

  “Jos, I’ve got to go.”

  “Fine,” she says, snapping her notebook shut with frustration. “Short version: Jadine can hook us up with someone she knows who sells safe, potent stuff that will keep noobs like us really high for a long time way cheaper than Oxy.”

  “Huh,” I say.

  “Yeah.” Josie throws her arms up in the air. “Huh! Geez, Mickey. I spent all weekend running numbers and drawing chemical bonds and all you’re giving me is Huh?”

  “I don’t feel so hot,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, you look like shit,” she agrees. “How you gonna play a game?”

  “First step is being there,” I say, getting up off the bed and heading for the hall. The staircase is steep and winding. I have to actually use the handrail to get down, leaning on it as my head swims again. I’m at the front door when Josie yells down from the landing.

  “So you want me to call this guy or what?”

  As if on cue, my stomach flips, unhappy with its load of Imodium and Advil, plus the few bites of chicken sandwich. Sweat has started to bead on my lip as I open the door, welcoming the air that hits me.

  “Yes,” I yell back. “Do it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  collapse: a falling together suddenly, as of the sides of a hollow vessel—or—a sudden and complete failure; a breakdown

  I can’t take it.

  I stop at the gas station and guzzle down a bottle of water before I even pay, catching a mean side-eye from the clerk. I toss her a few dollars—trying hard not t
o think about the fact it’s the last bit of cash I have—and bust it back to the school. Sweat has already soaked through my bra by the time I hit the locker room, met not by my teammates but by their half-open gym bags, a busted ponytail holder on the floor, and the lingering smell of deodorant. I duck into the shower for as long as I think I can spare—about ninety seconds—to make it look like I’m wet, not sweating, and throw my uniform on.

  I’m tucking my jersey into the front of my pants as I jog out to the field to see that Carolina has paired off with Nikki to warm up. The Bellas pointedly ignore me when they come into the dugout while I’m unpacking my gear. I stick my bat into the holder, tuck my helmet under my usual spot on the bench, and am retying my spikes when Coach glances up from the book.

  “How’s the leg, Catalan?”

  “Good,” I say, tossing a shock of wet hair out of my face.

  “Good,” she replies, either not realizing that I didn’t warm up, or letting it slide. I’m guessing the first one.

  The bus from Peckinah pulls into the lot, girls spilling out to eye us as they take their dugout. This game will be no contest and we all know it. Peckinah hasn’t beat us since perms were in style, but that doesn’t mean they can stop trying, since we’re in the same county league. I wonder what their coach says to them in the locker room . . . Let’s just get this over with? Try not to get killed?

  The bleachers are filling up and Mom spots me, her eyebrows coming together in a question when she sees my wet hair. I wave, but ignore it when she beckons me to come over, instead bending down to strap on my shin guards. Black dots swirl in my vision when I straighten up, and I stagger a bit. Lydia immediately reaches out to steady me, but she doesn’t make eye contact or ask if I’m okay.

  I get through two innings without much problem. I’m sweating like a pig, but it’s the first hot day of the year and I’m wearing ten pounds of gear, so no surprise there. I allow myself a little bit more water, wincing as it hits my nearly empty stomach. Dehydration isn’t my only problem. Getting pissed off and throwing away my lunch was stupid for a lot of reasons, but right now the most important one is that my body is burning energy with no fuel in my gut.

  We’re up 5–0 by the beginning of the third and I feel a little wobbly in the knees when I crouch to take Carolina’s first pitch. We still haven’t talked using words, just pitch calls and the occasional irritation from her when she shakes off a signal of mine she doesn’t like. Pretty soon I realize her face isn’t crunched together because she’s pissed at me, and she’s not refusing to throw the fastball just out of spite.

  Carolina’s hurting.

  The first batter gets a double off her, and she walks the second—something almost unheard of. I call time and go to the mound, carrying the ball with me instead of throwing it. The infielders move to come in, but I wave them off. This is best kept between the two of us.

  “How bad?” I ask.

  “Not good” is all she gives me.

  I roll the ball in my palm, thinking. “Top of the order coming up,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “Want me to tell Coach to warm up the relief pitcher?”

  Carolina snags the ball out of my hand. “Want me to tell Coach to put Nikki in the catching gear?”

  It’s as straight of an answer as I’m going to get—if you’re fine, I’m fine.

  “Fair enough,” I say, flipping my mask back down and reclaiming my spot behind the plate.

  I don’t know the name of their leadoff batter because Peckinah doesn’t have the kind of players whose stats you pay attention to, but I do know she struck out the first time she was up, and judging by the explosion of breath that came with that last swing and a miss, she’s pretty pissed about it.

  She still looks it as she settles into the box, kicking dirt back on me and holding her palm out to Carolina to keep her in check. It’s the kind of batter I hate, so I signal to Carolina to throw one inside to back her up a bit, and there’s a bit of a smile on my friend’s face when she nods in agreement.

  Carolina goes into her motion, a fluid move that somehow turns a softball into a missile. I’ve seen it so many times it’s almost my own, so I can spot it when something isn’t right. Timing off by a fraction, releasing just a little too soon, the ball sails into me with no spin, hardly any speed, and right in the middle. It’s an easy kill and the batter knows it, snapping her bat around fast and sending the ball right back where it came from.

  Right back at Carolina.

  She’s not ready, not fully there in the moment. Pain does that to a person, superseding anything except its own feedback, and Carolina’s brain has too many signals coming at her right now to process what she’s got to do. I’m already on my feet and ready to run to the mound, fully expecting my friend to catch it in the teeth. Somehow, she gets her glove up, deflecting the shot but not catching it, the ball clipping the end of the webbing to hit her right in the elbow.

  The crowd makes a noise, a collective intake of breath from both sides, an acknowledgment of how damn much that had to hurt. Lydia dashes to where the ball is lying, dead, and tries to make the throw to first, but too late. Carolina is on her knees, face white, teeth gouging into her bottom lip.

  “Time,” I call, throwing off my mask and shouting back over my shoulder to the ump as I run to my friend, Coach closing in from the sidelines. We reach her at the same moment, but Carolina waves off help, coming to her feet just as I waver a little on mine, the sprint not doing me any favors.

  “Carolina, are—Jesus, Mickey, what the hell happened to you?”

  “I’m f—” I try to talk but suddenly there’s too much strength required to force words out from between my teeth. I sit down hard, shin guards buckling and chest protector pushed up into my chin.

  “Mickey?”

  Carolina has followed me down to the ground, her arm cupped protectively in her glove. There are dots in my vision, and if they were white like snow instead of black this could almost be the night of the crash. Me crumpled, Carolina standing over me, both of us hurt. I clear my throat and spit, wiping a fresh wave of sweat from my brow.

  “You okay?” I ask her, strength returning now that I don’t have to stand.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay,” she says. “Just some ice, I’ll be fine.”

  Lydia and the third baseman get underneath each of my arms and get me to my feet, something the crowd applauds even though they have no idea why I went down in the first place. I make eye contact with Mom and give her a little wave as they escort me into the dugout, where I collapse on the bench, happy for once to see it. I’m surprised when Carolina plops next to me, close enough that our legs touch.

  “You’re both done, rest of the game,” Coach says, the brim of her hat almost touching our upturned faces. “I’m not crippling my starting lineup playing Peckinah. Nikki, get this gear on. Brit, you’re pitching.”

  Her face lights up, but Nikki is nice enough to apologize as she strips me of my gear, undoing the left leg as I work on the right.

  “I got it. You rest,” she says, with an even mix of concern and excitement in her voice.

  I let Nikki take my gear, leaning forward so she can pull the chest protector over my head. The helmet is still in the dirt halfway between home and the mound, where I left it. She runs onto the field, the relief pitcher by her side, both of them damn near giddy.

  “Shit,” Carolina says, her head sagging to rest on my shoulder, all the friction between us erased by shared misery and embarrassment.

  “Yeah,” I agree, closing my eyes. “Shit.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  pretend: to represent falsely; to put forward or offer as true or real something that is untrue or unreal

  I won’t hear the end of it if I go home looking anything less than better.

  I did a good job of bullshitting Mom in the dugout, telling her I didn’t have enough to eat and hadn’t been feeling so great to begin with—something Carolina actually backed me up on. Our
team won the game, but Carolina and I still felt like we’d lost something as we trudged into the locker room together, me clenching everything I’ve got shut, Carolina trying hard to hold her arm naturally, which is almost impossible to do when you’re thinking about it.

  I don’t know if my friend believed what she said in the dugout when she told Mom that I had a touch of stomach flu, but I can’t exactly stick around to ask her about it, either. What’s wrong with me needs fixed—now—and there’s only one person who can help me out.

  Josie was desperate enough to hand over her car to Jadine in order to score at Edith’s the other night, but seemed fine when I saw her before the game. The only way she had steady enough hands to redo her nails was if she’s got a stash at home. I won’t make it through the night without screaming, and I can’t count on Mom’s faith in me to stand up against that. I head over to Josie’s place, aware of the screws gouging into bone every time I shift gears.

  I don’t bother texting first, hoping that somehow the surprise of me showing up unannounced will jolt her into handing over some of her stash, enough to get me through to the weekend, at least. I’ve got no cash, nothing to give her except well-polished words . . . and those aren’t my strong suit. But need is stronger than pride, and I’m knocking on her door before I’ve put together anything close to a convincing argument.

  “Hey,” Josie says when she opens the door, looking me up and down in my uniform, the knees permanently dirtied. “What’s up?”

  “I need some of whatever you’ve got,” I tell her, squeezing the words off my dry tongue. “Please, Josie, my mom thinks something’s up and if I—”

  Josie motions for me to be quiet and steps out onto the porch, closing the front door behind her. “Yeah, well, I don’t need my mom on the same page as yours,” she snaps. “What the hell are you thinking, showing up here?”

  Stung, I step back. “You invited me!”

  “Not now I didn’t,” she says, through clenched teeth. “How’s it going to look if someone she’s never met before just drops in for a second to get something from me and then leaves?”