Heroine

by Mindy McGinnis

  I keep my stuff in the box for my cleats, which still carries the scent of leather and has that little package of silica gel clearly labeled Do Not Eat inside. It rests next to my spoon and lighter, along with a roll of clean needles, a syringe, and a little bag of cotton balls.

  And of course, the balloons.

  This time I have one red and one yellow one. Last week Josie gave me a blue one at Edith’s, along with a wink. Edith hasn’t mentioned her buddy with the hookup again, apparently happy to let us shoot up anybody’s heroin as long as we do it at her house. The fact that Josie must be buying when she’s not with us makes me wonder if she’s using without us, too, but I can’t say much since I’m sporting three holes in my calf no one knows about but me.

  On the weekend I’ve got a real reason to celebrate. After Monday’s game, two different D3 scouts approached me, and I had solid offers from both schools by Friday. Those colleges can’t give me money in exchange for playing a sport, but they can ask me to play, and give me enough academic scholarships to make tuition manageable. Luckily, I’ve been able to keep my GPA in a place where they can do that without raising too many eyebrows.

  But it wasn’t easy. None of it has been. So tonight, I reward myself.

  I clean a spot on my bicep and give myself a bump more than usual. Mom’s not home. I can get high, chase that feeling I remember all the way back from the hospital after the accident.

  When we were little in gym class I always loved rope days, when we’d file in to find that Mrs. Mancetti had unhooked the big ropes from the side of the wall and put mats underneath them. She always gave us a choice: we could climb to the top, or sit on the big knot at the bottom and she would swing us. Three pushes were all we got, but I reveled in every second, hair flying back from my face, classmates looking up as I flew past them, then back again.

  Then Mrs. Mancetti would grab the tail of the rope and my momentum would be gone, the rush of wind taken from me, my hair flat against my head, my feet back on the ground, returned to the same plane as the other kids, relegated to normality.

  Right now there’s no one to grab the rope, no one to take the rush away from me. So I load a little extra in the syringe, and I go far, far higher than everyone else.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  interference: the act of coming into collision, being in opposition, or clashing

  “Mickey and Luther sitting in a tree,” Big Ed sings at me as soon as I walk through the doors on Monday.

  “Seriously?” I say, and hold up a finger in warning before he can start the next verse.

  “Sorry, had to do it,” he says, in a tone that tells me he has no regrets. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Thought maybe you were . . . busy.”

  “I have been, but not with Luther. We’re not even at the K-I-S-S-I-N-G part, so don’t go debating what sport our kids will be better at just yet.”

  “Fair enough,” Ed says, sliding coffee—he adds a doughnut—to me. “Heard you signed with Vencella.”

  “I did,” I tell him, the happiness of it followed quickly by fear, the smallest of dips in my stomach. It first happened when the coach called me to let me know how thrilled she was I’d chosen their school, then passed along information about summer camps, and freshman move-in day.

  I put them in my phone, with exclamation points. I have to be clean by then.

  It’s my new plan, a hard cutoff date for when the heroin stops being a fallback. The season is blowing past me, and if I can just see this through, I’ll have the entire summer to dial back my usage and get my shit together.

  “Well, congratulations, kiddo,” Ed says. “Playing D3 is no small potatoes, and Vencella’s a good school.”

  “Yep,” I say, in agreement, but my mind is elsewhere. Right now getting my shit together consists of trying to not get any in my pants. “Use your bathroom, Ed?”

  “You know the way.”

  I do, but something entirely new greets me when I open the door. Ed’s bathroom is flooded in a strange light, and when I look up at the bare bulb in the ceiling, I see that it’s blue. I do my thing, wash up, and inspect my reflection in this new environment.

  “What’s up with the bathroom, Ed?” I ask.

  “That’s for the junkies,” he says, flipping a towel over his shoulder. “They started doing it up at the truck stop when a guy OD’d in their bathroom last week. I don’t need anybody dying in my place.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “How’s it stop them?”

  “Can’t see their veins under blue lights,” Ed says, confident in what he’s been told.

  “Huh,” I say, and try to pay him for the doughnut. He doesn’t let me, but that’s not why I’m smiling when I walk out.

  Any user worth a damn can find their veins by feel.

  I might have front-loaded a little too much.

  Thursday morning I’m still high when my alarm goes off. I make an assessment in the mirror. It’s hard to tell if my pupils are still a little pinned because of the light in the bathroom or if I actually look as fucked up as I feel. I try flicking the lights on and off, but my pupils don’t change size.

  I’m considering not going to school when I get a text from Coach. Game with Baldwin Union moved to TODAY 4:30 @ HOME

  It’s quickly followed by a message from Carolina, sent to the Bellas, me, and Lydia. Uniform NOT CLEAN. Sorry if you’re downwind.

  Then one from Lydia: It’s Center’s shorts I’m more worried about.

  Dammit, that squat was last month, Lydia. Let it go.

  You’re the one that let it go.

  They go on like that, back and forth. I mute my phone and do a quick Google search, learning that if I take some Benadryl it should dilate my pupils. The downside is I’m going to be lagging through school, but hopefully my eyes will be normal by the time the Benadryl wears off and I’ll be awake enough to play a ball game.

  I have no idea on dosage so I take three Benadryl and put on sunglasses before heading out the door. It’s bright enough outside to justify it, so I keep them on all the way to my locker, not sliding them off until I have to, and then sharing a casual glance with the girl next to me to see if she reacts.

  She doesn’t. I must look okay.

  The Benadryl hits me in second period. It’s like a wall, but one built entirely out of feathers. My head dips into my chest and I jerk awake when the bell rings. I duck into the bathroom before study hall. I don’t look high, but I don’t exactly look right either. I don’t know if a doctor could say what is going on at a glance, but you definitely don’t need a degree to tell that something is. I walk into study hall and Nikki immediately moves her books and tells me to put my head down.

  “Take a nap,” she says, as if she’s prescribing me something. I obey, nodding off immediately and not waking up until she shakes me forty-five minutes later. Nikki follows me out into the hallway, staying tight to my left side.

  “You want a Red Bull?” she asks.

  I make a face. Lydia sometimes downs a can before a game if she’s not feeling any energy. I’ve never been a fan. But I’ve never tried to play high either.

  “Sure,” I say, following Nikki to her locker.

  There’s still enough heroin in me that I feel it, an effervescent warmth radiating from my center. It’s an intense calm, one that won’t let me worry too much about the game, or even if people notice that I’m off. Every time I check up on myself in the bathroom it’s more of an assessment than anything, data for my arsenal of cover-my-ass moves as I determine whether the Benadryl did its job.

  It did. My pupils look fine, but everything is in slow motion, and I misjudge the distance from my hand to my water bottle at lunch.

  “Shit, Catalan,” Bella Right says, jumping up as the spill cascades over the edge of the table, just missing her lap.

  “Sorry,” I say as Lydia runs to get paper towels.

  “What’s with that?” Carolina asks when I’m on the floor, cleaning up my mess.

  “Peopl
e spill things,” I snap.

  “No, that,” she says, tilting her head toward the Red Bull waiting for me next to my lunch tray.

  “Took some cold medicine. Need something to get me moving,” I tell her.

  “’Kay,” she says. “But that stuff can eff you up. Don’t wait until right before the game to slam it.”

  She’s not kidding.

  I down it after sixth period, and ten minutes later I’m a twitchy mess. My right eyelid won’t stop and I feel like my skin is going to shake right off my body. I’m tapping my pen so much in English that Mr. Duncaphel takes it away from me, so I start moving my legs instead, hitting one knee with the other and then bringing it back again. But the energy doesn’t go to my core. There, I’m still a little slow, very meditative. The caffeine is all surface, waking up my body but not my mind.

  I change in the bathroom stall in the locker room, checking my arm before I decide whether to wear long sleeves under my jersey. My injection sites are mostly healed and the bruises are pretty much gone, but the one on my bicep extends just a touch below the edge of my sleeve. I leave it, taking the risk in order to parade the inside of my arm and hope that alleviates any lingering doubts my teammates might have.

  The Red Bull has worn off slightly by the time the Baldwin Union bus shows up, and our bleachers are filling. Nikki still has to help me hook the line of clasps on my shin guards because my hands are shaky.

  “You’ve got this, Catalan,” she says, slapping the top of my catcher’s helmet. The sound reverberates inside my head, and I can still hear it as I make my way to the plate. I’m moving slow, which happens when you’re wearing gear, but Carolina spots the difference in my gait. There’s a tiny frown on her face as I warm her up, the ball moving fast again, her arm in a better place.

  “On fire,” I call to her when I toss the ball back, but she doesn’t answer, only wings another one at me like she’s trying to send a message. Maybe she is. Maybe she knows the threat of being hit in the face by one of Carolina Galarza’s fastballs is more of an incentive to perk the fuck up than Red Bull.

  The caffeine did its job, but I’m crashing by the third inning and I keep zoning out on weird things. An oddly colored stone amid all the white gravel surrounding the dugout. The little pile of chalk resting beside third base where Coach dumped too much when she was lining the field. A little kid on the other team’s side, stacking his blocks as high as he can until they fall.

  I still had enough jolt in me to get a double my first time at bat, but when the lineup comes back around I’m a mess. I strike out, my swing so far behind the pitch that Mattix raises her hands in the air from where she’s coaching third, like what the hell?

  “You’re all right, Mickey,” a familiar voice calls from the stands and my stomach bottoms out.

  Dad is here, seriously?

  I don’t look back as I head into the dugout, tearing off my batting helmet and ignoring the commiserating slaps on the back from my teammates. People strike out, it happens. Even great hitters go down against a good pitcher, and Baldwin Union’s isn’t exactly throwing cookies.

  I put my shin guards on and have pulled the chest protector over my head when I notice that the kid from Baldwin Union has the biggest tower yet going, nearly as tall as he is. He’s balancing on tiptoes, reaching up to cap it all off with a red wooden triangle when Bella Left shoves me in the back. “You taking the field or what?”

  “Shit,” I mutter, seeing that somehow we ended an inning and started the next one without me noticing.

  “Get it together, Catalan,” Coach says under her breath as I jog past, face guard dangling from my fingers.

  Carolina and I get through the first two batters easily. One goes down looking, the next grounding out. I’ve settled into my crouch, the embarrassment of Coach reprimanding me fading, like it doesn’t really matter. Usually Coach looks at me sideways and I mull over it for three days, wondering what I did wrong. Right now, I know exactly what I’m doing wrong, but I can’t dig up the energy to care.

  I’m thinking about that when Carolina throws her next pitch, the curveball I signaled her for. It spins, red stitches still bright against the white leather because not many people have put a bat on it today. It’s a beautiful thing, capturing my attention and drawing me in. I reach for it, conscious once again of the power it has over me, the never-ending draw of this sport.

  There’s a crunch and a thud, an exclamation from the crowd.

  My glove is lying on the plate, ball nestled neatly inside. I don’t know why it’s not on my hand, or why I’m facedown in the dirt either. The ump is waving his arms above me, calling timeout, and the batter from Baldwin Union is on the ground with me, apologizing.

  I have no idea what just happened.

  Mattix comes running, as does the Baldwin Union coach, who gathers up her batter and walks her down to first base, telling her it wasn’t her fault.

  “That’s interference, Coach,” the ump says to Mattix, and she nods, her mouth a tight line. I’m sitting up now and Carolina has joined the growing crowd at the plate. She yanks the helmet off my head, straight up instead of back, catching my earlobes and pulling hair as it goes.

  “What the hell, Mickey?” she asks, voice low and face down in mine.

  I meet her eyes, unsure. “What happened?”

  “What happened?” she repeats. “You reached for the damn ball, stuck your arm out like you’re a first baseman or something. Batter took a crack at it, got you instead.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  Coach gets me to my feet, and there’s scattered, confused applause from the bleachers. This is the second time they’ve seen me on the ground this year for no good reason.

  “Oh?” Carolina echoes, any concern for me now overridden with irritation. She’s about to say more, but Coach sends her back to the mound.

  “Let’s go, Catalan,” she says, keeping an arm around my waist. Coach gets me into the dugout and strips the gear off me wordlessly, handing it over to Nikki. Mattix waits until the inning starts again and no one is paying attention to us and then checks my hand.

  It’s swelling, but I don’t think anything is broken. A dark bruise is already starting across the fine bones on the back, but I can move all my fingers and manage not to yelp when Coach gives it a squeeze. She crouches in front of me, somehow intimidating even when she’s the one looking up.

  “Mickey,” she says. “I don’t know what’s going on with you.”

  I open my mouth to explain about Benadryl and Red Bull, how beautiful a softball can be when you haven’t really looked at one in a while. She doesn’t give me a chance to speak.

  “But figure it the fuck out,” she says.

  Coach walks away from me. I don’t play the rest of the game. Nikki does well catching for Carolina and the two of them are laughing by the fifth inning, all concern for me evaporated. It’s a close game, and I’m forgotten, everyone else lining the fence and yelling, their voices echoing in the dugout, bouncing off the cinder-block walls.

  I don’t join them, instead icing my hand and watching the melt accumulate in a puddle around my feet. Dad comes to talk to me, a definite violation of Coach’s rules about family in the dugout. He’s digging me into deeper shit than I’m already in so I say very little to him, and he walks away looking more worried than he did when he came over.

  I don’t let it bother me. Try not to care about the backs of my teammates, their jersey numbers lined up in front of me, missing my own. I don’t think about Nikki doing a more than okay job of filling in for me, the absolute disappointment on Coach’s face, or the concern on Dad’s.

  I don’t have to care about these things because I’ve got a trapdoor out of reality, a button I can push that will take me somewhere that none of it matters. As soon as I get home there’s a box under my bed that will take away what everyone thinks and how they all feel about me right now.

  Even me.

  Especially me.

  Chapter Forty-Fo
ur

  healed: sound or whole; cured of a disease, wound, or other derangement; restored to soundness or health

  When you’ve been seriously injured no one lets you forget it. Not your parents, your friends, your coaches, and definitely not receptionists at doctors’ offices. I get a text reminder about my last checkup as we’re unloading equipment from the bus after an away game that I made it through without falling over or getting hit by anything.

  “Shit,” I say under my breath, thumbing away the text.

  “Booty call cancel?” Carolina asks. She’s in a good mood because she struck out the first nine batters against Franklintown.

  “More like I’ve got a definite date with some radiation,” I tell her, hoisting my bag over my shoulder as we cross the parking lot to our cars.

  “X-ray?”

  “Yeah, last one. I hope,” I say as I throw my stuff in the trunk. The school let us have senior parking spaces, and we could paint them however we wanted if we paid fifteen bucks. Carolina and I bought side-by-side spots and stenciled in our team record from freshman year on, leaving an area blank for this season. That’s in my spot, and we never got around to filling it in, not even the first win. After spending a whole week of the summer on our hands and knees on boiling blacktop, neither one of us has even mentioned it to each other. Right now my bumper hangs over that part, our neglect neatly hidden.

  Carolina shuts her trunk and I lean against my car and we look at each other for a second. It’s late enough into the spring that it’s warm even though it’s almost dark out. Moths flitter around the lights in the parking lot, out of control, bashing themselves senseless.

  “Three games left,” she says.

  I open my mouth to say “yeah” or “I know” or “crazy, right?” or something else stupid and instead I start crying. I don’t know if it’s the beginning of withdrawal or the fact that Carolina got streaks put in her hair without inviting me to go along or that stupid blank space under my car. I’m crying and I can’t quit and Carolina crosses over to me but stops a little short, like maybe she was going to hug me and then thought better of it.