Scars from a Memoir (9 page)

“You're a stupid bitch,” I said.

Mark looked at me. “We done here?”

“We are now.”

Roger pointed at me. “You better watch your back!” Sada wrapped her hands around his arm and pulled him away.

“I'm parked around the corner,” Mark said. “I'll give you a lift home.”

I thanked him as soon as he put the key in the ignition. Not just for giving me a ride home but for helping me out with Sada and Roger. I'd been hesitant to take Al's job with Mark being a link to my past. I had just wanted to move on, but every night when I got in bed and closed my eyes, I remembered what happened the night my brother got killed. I realized my future would always be intertwined with my past. I couldn't fight it. I wasn't going to anymore.

“Who's that guy Sada was talking about? What was his name…Asher?”

“He's just someone I've been hanging out with.”

“Aren't you supposed to wait a year before you start dating?”

“That's what they teach us in rehab, but Asher and I aren't dating.”

“But Sada said—”

“Sada has no idea what she's talking about.”

“Is Asher an addict too?”

I shook my head. “There's something I need to ask you,” I said.

“You know you can talk to me about anything.”

I looked at him. His eyes seemed so genuine, like he was really trying to help. How could I ruin that by asking him why he'd tried to take advantage of me at the bar that night, all those years ago? No, it had been worse than that. Even understanding my addiction, Mark had used it against me, offering to give me my dope back if I had sex with him. I hadn't forgotten. I needed to talk to him about it, but was this really the right time?

We were only a few blocks from my place when Sunshine's sign caught my attention. She was sitting in front of an apartment building rather than her usual doorway, with her sign resting in her lap. Her head wasn't slumped forward, but her face didn't look right. As Mark's car came to a complete stop, I said, “I'll be right back.”

I jumped out of the car and ran to Sunshine as fast as I could. When I got to her side, foam was coming out of her mouth. Her lips were blue.

“Sunshine?” I slapped her face. “Sunshine, wake up!”

I remembered someone telling me not to let an addict slip further into their nod. You had to get them up and move them around to increase their pulse, or blood pressure, or something like that.

I put her arm around my shoulder and lifted her to her feet. The people passing by didn't stop or volunteer to help. I was on my own. She was dead weight but couldn't have been more than eighty pounds. Her toes dragged as I hauled her down the sidewalk, and I shook her face and hands. She started to slowly come back, opening her eyes and talking gibberish. Her feet began to move, and she took small steps.

“Who is she? And is she OK?” Mark asked, out of breath.

“Nicole?” Sunshine's question sounded more like a moan.

“Help me get her to the blanket,” I said.

Mark took her arm off my shoulder and picked her up, setting her down on her gray blanket.

Sunshine's eyes fully opened, and she glanced between Mark and me. “What the hell happened?”

I sat in front of her and took a deep breath. “You OD'd. You probably would have died if we hadn't been driving by.”

“Isn't that something,” she said, drool slipping out of her mouth.

“That's all you have to say?” Mark said

“You should've let me die.”

Before placing her arm in my lap, I flipped it over. It was covered with track marks, some so deep they looked infected. My scars weren't any prettier, but she could overcome hers, too. “You deserve more than this.”

“It's too late for me.”

“It's never too late,” Mark said.

“Do you want me to get you some help?” I asked.

“I can't do it,” she said. “I won't make it in rehab.”

“Do you want help?” I asked.

She rested her elbows on her knees and covered her face with her fingers. She sat like that for a few minutes and then her hands dropped. “I want it.”

“Stay here,” I said to the both of them. I walked to the end of the block and called Tiffany. As an employee of the rehab center, she'd know who to talk to about getting Sunshine admitted. After I told Tiffany the whole story, she said she'd call me right back.

Sunshine and Mark were smoking cigarettes when I returned. He handed me the pack and I lit one up. Just as I fired up my second
one, the phone rang. Tiffany said they had a bed, but it wasn't in the detox wing. Sunshine would have to detox in one of the main wings, which meant they would assign her a nurse to help her get through withdrawal. And her being dope sick would really piss off her roommate. I told her that didn't matter as long as they could admit her tonight. She said to get there as fast as we could.

I hung up the phone and looked at Mark. “Can you drive us?”

“Right now?” Sunshine asked. “I need one more hit first.”

I reached for her hand. “Your last one almost killed you.”

“Then I'm not going,” she said, yanking her fingers out of my grip.

“You're going,” I said.

“Not unless I can shoot up. I need to say good-bye.”

I couldn't get needles in prison, so I'd snorted a bag of dope the night before I was released and then went to rehab in the morning. It was a final good-bye, like Sunshine said.

“Fine. One last nod.”

“Wait, what? You can't be serious,” Mark said.

“If that's what it takes to get her to come with us, I'm dead serious. It's better than the alternative.” I acknowledged Sunshine. Her head was drooping, and white foam had dried on her dirty cheeks.

Mark's eyes told me he wanted to argue, but he nodded and said, “You're right.”

“Do you have some, or do we need to stop?” I asked.

She tapped her bag. “Got just enough.”

My hands started to feel numb; I squeezed my fingers into fists. My mouth watered.

“I can't…” I swallowed. “Mark, I can't be with her when she does it.”

Mark helped Sunshine to her feet. He folded up her blanket and slung her bag over his shoulder. “What's your phone number?” I gave it to him, and he put it in his phone. “I'll call you when she's done.” They both walked to his car.

I leaned against the apartment building and pictured Sunshine in the backseat. I'd shot up with her so many times that I knew her routine. She'd take the packets of dope from her purse and then a bottle of water, spoon, needle, cotton ball, and lighter, and put it all on the seat next to her. She'd dump the packets onto the spoon and add in a little water. The lighter would heat it, and she'd drop in the
cotton ball once the mixture was hot. The tip of the needle would suck up the liquid, and while she looked for a vein, she'd put the chamber between her lips. Her fingers would tap different spots on her arm. When she found one, she'd slide the tip into her skin and pull back on the plunger to make sure she'd hit a vein, and blood would trickle into the chamber. The rush would set in as soon as the needle was empty.

The packets of powder, the nod, and the rush were all so close. Its flavor was on my tongue; its euphoria was in my veins. I turned in the opposite direction Mark had taken Sunshine, and my feet began to move. I couldn't stop them. I didn't want to.

As I got to the corner, only a block from the train station, Claire's voice echoed in my head. She was telling me to turn around.
Damn
, I thought. I was so close; I couldn't turn back. The best high of my life was waiting for me in Roxbury. I hadn't used in so long that the rush would blow my mind. I wanted to cross the street, but there were too many cars. I reached up and pushed the button on the light post, again and again, as if pushing it repeatedly would make the light change faster.

The light turned yellow, and as I stepped onto the crosswalk, a glimmer caught my eye: the ring Claire's son had given to me when she died. It fit perfectly on my finger, just like it had on hers. Her comforting voice kept repeating, “Turn around.”

Claire had been my invisible roommate while I was in prison. I had never spoken to her—I only listened—but I was talking to her now. I asked her to keep me strong and to help me fight the urges. She told me I was sober, and that's all she had ever wanted. That I had fought too hard to relapse. Horns honked, and reality came rushing back to me. My heart was thumping in my chest. Angry drivers flipped me off as I stepped back onto the sidewalk. Claire's voice had turned me around. When I'd put another block between the train station and me, Claire's voice told me she was proud.

My phone rang.

“I'm on the corner of Commercial and Hanover Street,” Mark said.

My feet began to move again. “I'll be there in a second.”

“Are you OK?”

“I think so,” I said. “Thanks…you know, for doing that for me…and for everything today.”

“I'm always here for you.”

Just as I climbed in the backseat, Sunshine's chin was beginning to droop. “Come here,” I said, guiding her head onto my lap. She curled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

I ran my fingers through her blonde hair. Her locks smelled like smoke and felt like they'd been soaked in olive oil. Her jeans were full of holes, and her brown, sleeveless shirt was stained. When she had to throw up, I grabbed a plastic grocery bag off the floor and held it for her. She wasn't dope sick; the rush was just too much sometimes.

I could smell heroin in her bile. The scent was a mix of kid vitamins and vinegar, and it used to be the only fragrance my nose craved. The taste trumped that of all my favorite foods. The feeling was like a fleece blanket and a campfire on the coldest night. It wrapped me in a cocoon and wouldn't let anything else inside. I was free to explore the depths of each dream, the tingling of my muscles, and the sparks shooting from each nerve.

“Where do I turn?” Mark asked.

I blinked a few times to clear my vision. “At the next light.”

He pulled down the street and into the front parking lot. I slid out from under Sunshine's head and knocked on the front door. The secretary smiled and held up a finger. By the time Mark had pulled her out of the backseat, a tech was coming out with a wheelchair. He set her on the seat and put her feet on the pads.

“I'll come see you when they allow visitors,” I said.

Her pupils were the size of sand, and the whites of her eyes were bloodshot. Her lids were getting heavy; her hands gripped the side rails.

“Hang in there,” I said. “I know you can do it.”

Mark and I watched the tech's back as he wheeled Sunshine into the building. He moved past the front and turned down the hallway.

“I'll pray for her,” Mark said.

“That's all we can do.”

-9-

MY CELL PHONE RANG just as Mark and I crossed the Tobin Bridge to the city. The clock on the dashboard showed seven. I'd forgotten that I'd sent Asher a text to meet me an hour early. When I answered, I told him I was running late and would be there soon.

“Was that Asher?” Mark asked.

I nodded.

“You guys hanging out tonight?”

I didn't want to be rude and turn up the radio, but I didn't feel like talking. This was the first time I'd had any quiet all day, and I really needed the silence. With everything that had happened with Sunshine, the fight with Roger and Sada seemed like days ago. Sunshine shooting up in the seat behind me, however, was fresh in my mind. I could still hear Claire's voice echoing in my head, stopping me from relapsing. And it made me shudder.

“Nicole?”

I sighed. “Yes, we're hanging out.”

I needed to go to another meeting. Asher could walk me there and hang out at a coffee shop until it was over.

“He was friends with your brother?”

“His older brother dated mine, so yes.”

“Does he have good intentions?”

“Does it matter? I told you; we're not even dating.”

Was that true? I didn't know what was true anymore. I wasn't strong enough to fight off heroin on my own. If I wasn't at work or at a meeting, I was with Asher. I used to spend as much time with Eric, until he died from an overdose. But Eric was just my best friend; we never kissed. Things with Asher were different.

As I directed Mark to my apartment, he stayed silent, staring out the windshield. His lips were pursed. He must not have liked my answer. But what did he want from me? He had tried to take advantage of me, and if Asher hadn't been sitting on the front steps of my building with his arms crossed and his heels tapping the pavement, I'd have confronted Mark about it.

“Is it all right if I call you tomorrow?” Mark asked.

“I guess that's fine.” I shut the door and turned toward Asher. Mark's car pulled away from the curb, but Asher didn't move.

“So that's Mark?” Asher asked.

“How do you know—”

“Sada told me you got her fired and gave her a black eye. Why would you do that?”

“
What
?” I remembered the bruise around Sada's eye. She really was trying to get him to break up with me. “I didn't touch her, and I definitely didn't give her—”

“So you and Mark weren't hanging all over each other when you left the café?”

“We did leave the café together, but it's not what you think.”

“I'm thinking a lot of things right now. None of them are good.”

I stood in front of him, but he wouldn't look at me. “Let me explain.” I crouched down and put my hands on his knees. “Sada doesn't want us together. Once she found out I was a junkie, I wasn't good enough. She has it out for me.”

He stepped over me. “Maybe you have it out for her.”

“You believe her?”

“She's never lied to me.”

“And I have?” I stood and pushed past him, looking over my shoulder. “After everything I've told you, I sure as hell wouldn't start lying now.”

“Where are you going?”

“To a meeting,” I shouted.

I didn't stop walking until I got to the small basement where our meetings were held. I was twenty minutes late, but no one cared. I had come.

Everyone sat in a circle, and I found a space between Ashley and Diem. I slid over a chair and squeezed between them, listening until it was my turn to speak. When one of the vets called on me, I took a
deep breath and explained how I'd run into Sunshine twice over the last month. How I'd found her today, overdosing in front of an apartment building, and how I took her to rehab.