This Broken Road

by A. M. Henry

  Derek was never subtle.

  I tried to casually run a hand through my hair, realizing it must have looked filthy. I wiped the corner of my eye and tried to remember how long I’d had that eye makeup on. I was pretty good at making three-day-old eye makeup look freshly-applied, but sometimes… sometimes you just forget.

  I gave Derek what I thought was a normal smile. “You know me,” I said. “Slack off until it’s time for finals, then memorize the whole textbook.”

  He raised an eyebrow. Took a breath. Looked across the cafeteria, out the windows, and then back at me. “You know you can tell me. You know, if… if something’s wrong,” he said.

  Everything was wrong. But I couldn’t tell him. Because I didn’t think anything was wrong.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You want to grab something to eat after school?” Derek asked.

  After school, Jason and I planned to hit up everyone we knew for either heroin or oxy. Our regular supplier had hit another dry spell, and the guy we had used as a backup had ripped us off and vanished. We were out fifty bucks each and down to the very last of our supply, which meant rationing what we had left.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I’m doing something with Jason. Maybe tomorrow?”

  *

  Trust me, I know all the clichés. Half of them are bullshit they feed you in the D.A.R.E. program just to scare you away. The other half you won’t know until it’s too late.

  Jason’s friend, Rick once told me that even after quitting for two years, just the sight of cocaine made him feel like he desperately needed a bathroom. I thought he was kidding. Now, the sight of a bag of heroin or a crushed up pill makes me gag, and feel like I can’t stop gagging. You could make a line out of Pixy Stix and I would still gag. We used to think of it as a joke. Jason would catch me gagging or I would catch him, and we’d laugh about it.

  You really would steal from your own grandmother to score your next high. Or from your mother. Father. Sisters. Friends. Friends of your parents. I picked everyone’s pockets, dug through bedside tables and piggy banks, jewelry boxes and wallets. I offered to do laundry every week because Dad and Casey are notorious for leaving money in their pockets.

  I stole gold necklaces and rings from my sisters—stuff our parents and grandparents gave them—and sold them for much less than they were worth.

  I once considered prostitution. How bad could it be? Not street corner prostitution. I’d work the truck stops, which everyone knows are safer. Just get high beforehand to make it all seem fine.

  It became a ritual, one we enjoyed almost as much as the high itself. Into Jason’s room, shut the door, get the cigar box from the bookshelf. Put the big square mirror on the table. Place the two little pills on the crumpled dollar bill, fold it in half, crush and grind. The dollar bills we used weren’t fit for circulation anymore—all shiny and blurred from crushing so many pills. Tap the powder onto the mirror, use a credit card to crush any crumbs. Cut the powder into neat little lines. Up our noses it went, through a four-inch length of plastic drinking straw.

  No one snorts drugs through dollar bills. Too much of it gets stuck on the money, which means less up your nostrils.

  One line, a burn, a gag, and a calm sense of contentment.

  Two lines. Three. You like the burn now. And everything is wonderful.

  We didn’t become addicts overnight. It took months. Several months of just getting high for an afternoon or an evening, just for fun. It never occurred to us that we had a problem.

  January—New Year’s party at… some guy’s house, a month before the accident. We drank and smoked and snorted for nearly a full twenty-four hours. We ran out of oxy during the night, but one of Jason’s friends loaned us an 80 mg pill. I loved those ones—when you crushed them, they still had a hint of the sweet, perfumey scent of opium.

  Jason drove us back to his house. No one home, so we settled in the living room. He and his mom had left a mess of clutter all over the table and the floor. While I prepped the coffee table, Jason took the pill out of his pocket.

  And dropped it.

  And it vanished.

  We spent more than half an hour scouring the couch and the carpet, rooting through every piece of trash and clutter until we found it. At some point I called him a fucking idiot and he called me a greedy bitch.

  Soul mates.

  I hid the fighting from my memory. Left it underneath the veil of anxiety that caused it in the first place. Whenever we were running out, whenever we came down from a two-day binge, we hated each other. Hated everyone and everything. No patience, no sympathy. Just a desperate, panicked need.

  “You’re so useless.”

  “You’re a shallow fucking whore.”

  “You’re just a piece of white trash.”

  “You’re just a stupid junkie.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Slut.”

  “Scumbag.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Pig.”

  And worse.

  Maybe I remember him through rose-colored glasses. Maybe he was never the wonderful Jason I insisted he was.

  “I don’t think that’s true.” Dr. Allen gives me her concerned smile. “Couples fight. And you two were under the stress of an addiction. I don’t doubt you had some nasty arguments. But I can tell that you genuinely cared for him. When we love someone, we have to take the bad with the good.”

  I remain silent, thinking about everything she said. I wish things didn’t have to be so complicated.

  “Have you ever considered,” says Dr. Allen, “going to a support group?”

  “You mean like Narcotics Anonymous?”

  “Yes, or something similar. It might help to talk to other people who are going through the same things as you.”

  I never considered that. Mainly because my parents would have forbidden it. Am I strong enough for that? Strong enough to listen to other people talk about their addictions, and maybe watch some of them slip back into it? What if I fall back into the darkness?

  “I don’t know…”

  “Don’t feel pressured,” Dr. Allen says. “Why don’t you take a week to think it over? I’ll get some information on local groups, and if you want to do it, then we can discuss it next week.”

  *

  I don’t even think about it; I just start walking. It takes just under half an hour to reach St. Stephen’s Cemetery from the high school, most of the way cutting through farms and woods. After dredging up all those awful memories yesterday, I feel like I need to visit him.

  I know it’s just a stone in the ground marking the location of a box full of dust and bones. I know Jason isn’t really there, but he’s gone and I need him right now and this is as good as it gets.

  I find the grave immediately, my eyes focused only on the ground until I reach the place where he is. I feel jarred and it takes me a moment to realize why—someone left a fresh bouquet of white roses on the grave. I look up and scan the graveyard. Just at the edge of the cemetery’s iron fence that faces the street, I see a guy getting into an old brown station wagon. He glances back just before he shuts the driver side door, and my heart stops for second.

  Brady—Jason’s brother. At least it sure looks like him. I don’t think I know anyone else under the age of 60 who drives a 1970’s Dodge Aspen station wagon with peeling wood paneling on its sides. Jason loved that car. One of the few times he ever talked about his brother was to complain that Brady left with the Aspen and not the Oldsmobile.

  I feel like I forgot about Brady’s existence until just now. We were friendly in grade school, when Rachel and I shared a bus route with Brady and Jason. But beyond that, I only saw him maybe two or three times after Jason and I started dating. He had already moved out of their mother’s house by then.

  I throw the hood of my jacket over my head and turn away, hoping I hid my face before Brady has a chance to recognize me. Thinking about Jason right here in the ground and me alive and well and Brady coming all
this way to put flowers on his grave… I feel that lump in my chest, like I swallowed a big rock and it got lodged right under my ribs. That feeling that I shouldn’t be here, that everything bad that happened was my fault. That feeling that I should have died in the accident.

  I forgot why I walked here. Now I just want to get away.

  31.

  “Oh awesome, it’s a Cabot episode.”

  “If there was a ‘Name that SVU Episode in Two Seconds or Less’ competition, I’m pretty sure you’d be a gold medalist.” Ryan sits on the far side of the room, so he can’t see the television.

  “It’s like the only decent thing on TV,” I say in my defense.

  His mother comes running into the room when the opening music starts and sits down next to me on the sofa. “What did I miss?”

  “Someone was raped, murdered, and/or molested,” says Ryan.

  “It’s a Cabot episode,” I say.

  “Oh, good. Those were the best ones.”

  Ryan gets up and leaves the room at the end of the opening titles. He hates SVU—thinks it’s too violent. I hear him out in the “formal” living room (the one no one uses because it stays too cold no matter how high they set the heat) untangling the Christmas lights his mother brought up from the basement.

  His mom was supposed to be going out.

  “So,” says Mrs. Reagan during the first bunch of commercials, “how are you doing, Angela?”

  Seems like a weird question. “Uhh… Okay, I guess?”

  “How’s the knee? I’ve noticed you still favor your other leg.” She gives me an apologetic smile and looks a lot like her son for a second. “Sorry. Ex-nurse. I tend to notice those things.”

  Stupid physical therapy exercises. I hate it when Casey is right.

  “I probably don’t do enough of the exercises,” I admit. “I’m lazy.”

  “I ran into your Dad a few days ago,” she continues. “He says you’ve really turned yourself around.”

  Dad made no mention of this.

  I feel like I don’t know her well enough to have this conversation. “Oh… Umm… thanks.” Then again, I’m the delinquent dating her son. I should feel grateful she’s being this nice.

  “My brother had some… issues,” Mrs. Reagan says. “In college. I know what a challenge it is.”

  Ryan never told me that.

  “It gets easier,” I say.

  “Like the saying goes, ‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger’.”

  “Really?” comes Ryan’s voice from the other room, dripping with sarcasm.

  Mrs. Reagan ignores him. “Connor’s a counselor now. A good one, apparently. He’s always getting published in psychology journals. He said experiencing it firsthand is what made him so good at his job. Have you ever thought about going into that field?”

  “Not really,” I reply. “I used to want to go to school for fashion design.”

  “I bet you’d be very good at that.”

  “Don’t encourage her,” says Ryan.

  I bite back my retort, as it might be inappropriate to say in front of his mother.

  “You’re lucky she puts up with you!” Mrs. Reagan shouts.

  I decide that I like Mrs. Reagan.

  *

  “I think I’m getting fat.”

  My clothes feel tighter. I know how scrawny I looked around the time of the accident and afterwards (heroin chic), so I don’t know how I feel about this. Seventeen years of listening to Mom talking about her diets and how fat she is if she goes over one hundred pounds has kind of skewed my idea of “fat.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Ryan—the voice of reason. “Finish your milkshake.”

  Something in his tone raises my suspicions. I give him The Glare.

  “Have you noticed,” says Ryan, “that when you gain weight, it goes straight to your boobs? And your hips. But mostly boobs.”

  That would explain some of my current wardrobe discomfort.

  “Do you remember what you did to me in the sixth grade?” I had almost forgotten that, but his comment brings it back.

  Puberty treated me even more cruelly than it treats most people. I was a skinny, gangly child, all elbows and knees. Until one day I woke up and I swear I had grown enormous breasts overnight.

  “I did a lot of things in sixth grade,” says Ryan.

  “The day we came back from Easter break,” I remind him, “I walked into Mrs. McGraw’s classroom and you stood up on your desk and announced to the class, ‘Guys check it out, Angela stuffs her bra!’”

  Ryan bursts out laughing. I remember he laughed about that for the rest of middle school, especially when all the girls in our class would follow me around school chanting, “Angela stuffs her bra!” They didn’t laugh as hard when freshman year rolled around and they started stuffing their bras to try and compete with my C cups.

  “That was classic,” says Ryan.

  “Hilarious.” I sip my cookies and cream milkshake and shift my 34 B bra, trying to make it feel less like a tourniquet. “I think I need new bras.”

  Ryan starts the car and throws it into reverse, backing out of the parking space before tearing out of the Quick Chek parking lot.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “To the mall. To acquire some bras.”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “I do. Which means I get to do the choosing.”

  “Pervert.”

  Ryan grins and drives faster.

  32.

  In seventh grade, Lauren Hart used to sleep over my house at least once a month, and I used to sleep over her house just as often. She used to be obsessed with becoming a teacher. She would assemble me and a bunch of stuffed animals and American Girl dolls at our “desks” and then teach us math and English on the little chalkboard she had in her basement.

  She was obsessed with American Girl dolls, too. She had like five or six of them, I think. I never really liked dolls (especially those freaky ones with the eyes that open and close), so I didn’t know when or why it became socially unacceptable for a girl to play with dolls.

  Apparently in eighth grade, it is socially unacceptable to play with dolls.

  I hadn’t meant it to be mean. On the bus ride home the first day of eighth grade, Madison Casale started talking about taking her younger cousins to the American Girl Store in New York City, and I mentioned Lauren’s ever-expanding collection.

  The next day, most of the girls in our grade laughed whenever Lauren walked into a room, whenever she spoke, or when she did anything at all really. The girls would whisper, huddled together in the cafeteria, pointing and staring at Lauren whenever she looked their way. This went on for a few days until, during lunch one day, Madison and her friends approached the table where I sat with Lauren and Derek, mocking smiles on all of their faces.

  “Hey, Lauren,” Madison said. “Do you really still play with dolls?”

  They all burst into malicious cackles and walked away, not waiting for an answer.

  Madison’s family moved to one of the Carolinas right before Thanksgiving that year. I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason Lauren didn’t remain a social pariah for the rest of eighth grade. She threw out her dolls and threw all of her efforts into trying to look and act older, which somehow made her the new leader of the It Girls. She stopped speaking to me and all her new friends gave me the silent treatment, too. I guess because Lauren told them to.

  For the first time in… forever, I’m actually looking forward to Christmas break. School’s getting really annoying.

  I keep a lookout for their feet now, so for the moment, Lauren and her friends have stopped trying to trip me in the hallways. My hip still hurts from last Thursday’s sprawl outside of Mr. Harmon’s classroom. I want to go back to physical therapy just so I can send Lauren all of the bills.

  In first period English, Harper and Kate have taken to sitting in front of me so I can hear them talking about me. No matter where I sit, they follow. I’ve give
n up and sit all the way in the back, so they have to struggle a little harder to pay attention to Mr. Sweeney.

  Today, they smirk at my outfit, whispering and laughing behind their hands. I catch the words “freak” and “skank.” I think what bothers me the most is that they actually think I give a shit.

  I space out for most of the class and barely register what Mr. Sweeney talks about. But then I notice Harper doing that stupid stretch she always does to show off her long, luxurious, dark-chocolate hair—the slow raising of her arms behind her back, then straightening both arms upwards to lift her hair above her head before she lets is cascade back down again.

  And her hair cascades down all over my desk.

  I have a thing with other people’s hair. I don’t know why, I just do. It grosses me out. It led to multiple fights growing up when my sisters left their nasty wads of hair in the shower.

  Harper doesn’t move. Her hair remains fanned out all over my desk. I almost spit on it, but then instead I quietly take my Spanish and Algebra textbooks out of my bag and place them on top of her long, shining locks. I add my Chemistry textbook. For good measure, I lean forward and cross my arms over my books, putting as much weight on them as I can.

  It’s worth the nearly four minutes I have to wait for Harper to sit up straight. She sits up quickly, but she doesn’t get far because she almost gets scalped by a hundred pounds of textbooks.

  She shrieks out an, “OWWOHMYGOD,” and everyone turns to stare at her. By then, I’m leaning back in my chair and staring at Harper with the same WTF expression as everyone else, trying so hard not to laugh I think I just broke a rib.

  “Harper, is everything alright?” Mr. Sweeney asks.

  Harper starts to sputter some kind of response and turns to glare at me. I give her the kind of concerned frown that people usually save for the mentally ill. She turns back around and mumbles, “I’m fine,” and Mr. Sweeney goes back to discussing Kafka.

  I’ll probably pay for that.

  33.

  Halfway through seventh period Spanish, the intercom buzzes and the muffled voice of Vice Principal Van Holst says, “Angela Lillegard, please come to the guidance office.”