Authors: Allie Brennan
“How was the first solo meeting, kiddo?” She says, pushing me back gently so she can see my face. I’d forgotten about the meeting.
Today sucked.
I want to cry. That’s not really saying much, I usually want to cry. I’m a cryer.
“Good. Georgina stole my hat and Marybeth hated my cookies.” I smile through watery eyes and Nan laughs. Her laugh is so full of everything that makes Nan, Nan. Pure light and energy.
“That sounds about right,” she says.
I swing my legs up onto the couch and she wraps her arms around me. I have never cared that I am sixteen and shouldn’t be cuddling with my grandmother. I will cuddle her any chance I get.
“So,” she continues to stroke my hair, “what’s wrong?”
She’s good.
My eyes do fill with tears this time.
“I almost had three panic attacks today. It’s just so hard. I can’t do this, Nan. I’m avoiding everyone. School starts tomorrow and I’m having nightmares about it. I don’t want to be anywhere near Deacon. Everything is just falling apart.”
I’m breathing heavily. Trembling everywhere. My skin feels hot but freezing at the same time. The shadows snake their way into my mind and I’m tired. I’m too tired to fight so I let the panic take me. Fragments of thoughts and flashes of visions crash around in my brain while waves of energy cause my body to rock back and forth. I let the panic suffocate me. It doesn’t make any sense. The visions, fears, panic. It never makes any sense.
I’m only vaguely aware when Nan places her strong hands on either side of my face and touches her nose to mine, something she’s done since I was a child. It takes me awhile but I find my way to her. My eyes dart back and forth until I see her. My gaze locks onto hers and my thoughts instantly slow. I take a deep breath and try to rein them in.
The snowball effect of the panic is the hardest to overcome but when I look into Nan’s eyes her power gives me strength. She’s the one who took me off the zombie meds, she’s the one who believes I can over come the attacks on my own. I’m not so sure it’s true but it doesn’t matter now, anyway.
The attacks are getting worse. Mom wants me back on meds. I just don’t have the heart to tell Nan.
The attack takes so much out of me I don’t have the strength to hold myself up. I sink down and rest my head on her lap.
“Why does this happen to me?” I ask quietly even though I know she doesn’t know.
There is no trauma in my past, no abuse. My parents would have to pay attention to me in order to abuse me. I’ve been to so many doctors and none of them know why. First it was depression, then panic disorder and now it’s obsessive-compulsive disorder and mild agoraphobia. I don’t even know what any of that means. Apparently the doctors don’t either. At least they’ve never explained it to me in a way that makes sense to me.
“Because this is the way you are. You’re wired this way and there’s no reason why you can’t learn to control them.” She strokes my hair.
“I just want them to go away. I hate them so much.”
She shushes me.
“Just rest for awhile, darling. You’ve had a long day.”
My eyes flutter. It’s hard to keep them open. My body feels three times heavier.
“How are
you
feeling, Nan?” I turn to her. She won’t return my gaze.
“Oh, I’m fine. You have a nap, then I’ll make you a nice dinner. I’ll call your mother and tell her you’ll stay with me tonight.”
She reaches to the end of the couch and pulls a wool blanket up to my chin. I’m just too tired to question her. I know something is wrong.
Nan’s as bad a liar as I am.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lachlan
I slide silently out of Gram’s house sometime around midnight and push my motorbike out of the garage. I push it almost half a block before I dare to start it.
Rawlins’ words bounce around in my head about what Gram did for me. Taking full legal responsibility like that. Guilt bubbles at a full rolling boil under my skin. This is no way to pay her back. I glance down at my phone again, a new text that simply said
408 10th Ave.
That’s the pick up. I growl low in my throat, wishing I could tell them to shove it. Especially now that I know what Gram did.
But I owe just as much to these guys.
This is really fucked up.
Ask for help once and this is what I get. A gig as a drug runner for the biggest dealer in town. Yeah, they say it’s the last time. They’ve been saying that for weeks, but once I turn 18, I can’t run anymore.
I shove the phone in my pocket and swing a leg over my bike. Revving the engine, the bike lurches forward.
The back tire skids along the pavement because, like everything else in my life, I push the gas a little too hard.
~
I pick up at 10th Ave all the time, so I know exactly where to go. Routine.
I slow the bike as I reach the old wooden house and pull into the cracking driveway. There’s a six-foot tall fence around the yard to keep the neighbors in the dark about what goes down in this place.
I ring the bell on the outside of the fence. On the second floor of the house someone pulls the curtain, flooding the front yard with yellow light. I’m plunged back into darkness as the person comes down to let me in.
So far, everything’s just as it always is. Next he’ll let me in, I’ll go through a check, get the package and get the address of the drop off. Basic runner duties.
Don’t tell the runner anything. The less I know the harder it is for the cops to trace it back.
The fence gate swings open and I’m face to face with Garrett. He sticks his hand out and I take it. He pulls me into his chest then lets go, which is like a guy equivalent of a hug, I guess. I don’t do physical contact.
“I was hoping it’d be you, Lannie.” Garrett’s eyes are shadowed and one of them is black. His cheeks are sunken, not from the drugs though, it’s natural for him. His smile is forced and I’m sure he only likes me because I keep my mouth shut and always turn down the cut of dope I’m entitled to as the runner. I quit that shit for Gram. It’s a stipulation of me being released into her care. Rehab at sixteen. Support meetings. Fun.
I step into the yard and the gate closes behind me. Garrett drapes his arm around my shoulder, or tries to, as we walk up the front steps. I’m about a foot taller than he is. I shake him off easily, without seeming like an asshole. But I am an asshole, so he doesn’t notice.
“You want a hit, kid?” Garrett points to a small square mirror with a line of cocaine and a blade on it laying on a small table in the entrance.
“Nah, man. I’m good,” I say and lean against the doorway into the disaster of living room.
He smiles. He knew I would turn it down.
“Just wait there. I’ll be back with the package.”
He’s gone only a few moments when a pair of boney arms slide around my waist. I recognize the arms. They’ve been around me more than once. I grab her wrists and gently remove them.
“Violet, not now,” I say like a mother talking to her child. When did I become this guy? I never turn down sex. Again, maybe not entirely true, but I never used to turn down sex from Violet. It’s always sex with Violet.
I turn to face her, and I’m reminded of why I turn her down now.
Memories of the once beautiful and voluptuous Violet flood my body. I remember when the drugs made her wild and spontaneous. When we would get high and the sex was crazy amazing. Partying with Violet was one way I could escape the pain. She was great at making me forget. Being older than me, she was my first and definitely my best.
She presses her body into mine and my hands slide down her shoulders as I gently push her away. I wished she was the old Violet. I could use a dose of the old Violet right now.
The new Violet makes my chest constrict and digs at my conscience.
Drugs dominate the new Violet, making her frail and desperate. She’s lost all her curves and all the softness that made her amazing to touch. Her eyes are faded, lifeless. She seems already dead at nineteen, only a shell of who she used to be. Now she clings to anyone who can give her her next fix and she comes back here to Garrett, to me, when she needs money or when she gets kicked out of her house.
What terrifies me most about the New Violet is that I was right there with her. Controlled by the quest to numb out. To stop feeling. I could be this right now.
I think of Gram.
Violet doesn’t respond to me when I turn her in the direction of the living room. She just wanders away. I no longer have what she wants. An escape. Violet slinks into an oversized chair and it almost swallows her, her boney arms hang limply at her sides. I realize she’s not on coke, the way her jaw hangs open and her eyes won’t focus are sure signs of heroin. Shit, I don’t want to be part of this anymore.
Garrett comes bounding down the stairs and I almost punch him in the face, making his other eye black. I stop my twitching hand by curling my fingers into my palm.
Whatever happened to just smoking a joint in your parent’s basement?
“What’s your problem, man?” Garrett sees through my anger, which isn’t hard to do. I’m not exactly subtle about it. My criminal record is proof of that.
“Nothing, dude. Just check me so I can get out of here.” I spread my arms and legs. Garrett runs his hands along the length of my body making sure I don’t have weapons or wires. He sticks his hands in my pockets, pulling my phone out to make sure it’s not recording anything. He reaches under my t-shirt and pats his hand up to my chest and around to my back to make sure I’m not ‘wearing’ then traces up my neck and around my ears. I just stare straight ahead. I’ve been searched so many times by cops and guards and social workers, I’m good at blocking it out.
Technically, Garret is supposed to do this right when I walk in the door, but he knows I’m cool.
He presses the brown package into my chest and opens the front door.
“I hear your probation is up.” He grabs my shoulder, “We’ll be sorry to see you go, man. I’ve never seen anyone able to run while on probation and not get caught.”
He laughs. I nod to him and leave without saying goodbye. I have no response. I’m the best and I hate myself for it.
The text comes before I even reach my bike.
754 Vista Court. Over the fence. DO NOT go to the door.
I pull the phone closer to my face. My eyebrows burrow together as I read the address again. Vista court is the rich end. I’ve never done a run there before. The rich use a middleman so us lowly runners don’t know who they are. But I guess if I’m just throwing it over the fence.
I glare the entire way to Vista Court, get lost twice and almost turn around and leave. Every street is named Vista something and every house looks the damn same. What is it with these people?
Finally, I find the house and throw the package over the fence. It’s weird, throwing it in the yard, but I don’t question it.
One, it’s my job to
not
know. Two, I really don’t care.
~
The air is hot and stuffy. The house doesn’t have air conditioning and all I hear is the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the ceiling fan but it does nothing to stop the sweat from pouring off my face. I’m crouched against the wall in the far corner of our tiny living room clutching my arm. The sweat from my fingers stings the open wound. My small body is tucked behind the couch. I’m crying. Shaking. There is vomit on my t-shirt. I don’t know if it’s mine. Sometimes it hurts so bad I throw up.
I hear his voice and my heart slams against my ribs.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. The ceiling fan spins, swirling the dusty air.
“Where is he?” he’s mad. He’s been drinking that brown stuff. His voice only sounds like that after he drinks the brown stuff.
I push further into the crack. Maybe he won’t reach me. He doesn’t try as hard when he’s wobbly.
I lift my hand to look at the burn on my skin.
Smoke fills my nostrils. It hurts. The smell makes my stomach flop. The scent of burning skin.
Stronger. The pain, the smell. I want it to stop.
I press my palm on my nose but it won’t go away. The smoke still lingers.
I just want it to go away.
I rock back and forth. I cry harder. The smoke gets thicker.
~
My eyes spring open as the smell of burning eggs and cheese overpower my senses. I’m leaning on my hand on Gram’s vinyl countertop and must have fallen asleep.
I run to the stove through the smoke and grab the pan off the burner. It burns my hand and I drop the pan with a clatter and shake my hand.
Gram is standing in the doorway in her nightgown and robe, smiling. She hands me a dish towel and I use that to lift the pan.
“Sorry, Gram, only slightly burnt this time.” I shrug and begin to dish out the eggs onto a plate. I shake the lingering dream from my mind. It’s been awhile since I dreamt of him.
We eat in silence but Gram keeps glancing up at me and her eyes darken only for a moment before she smiles, and I smile back. Silence is very unlike Gram, she’s a woman who speaks her mind and it makes me nervous how quiet she is.
I move around the kitchen cleaning up breakfast but she’s always watching. It’s unnerving so I leave the dishes and get ready for school.
I have a quick shower and a smell of all the T-shirts on my floor to see which one’s the cleanest, settling on plain white. I don’t let Gram into my room, or wash my clothes. She does enough for me already. I have no idea how to pay her back so I make sure I don’t let her do anymore than she has to.
Gram holds a backpack out as I make my way to the front door. Grabbing it, I shake my head and toss it into the corner of the front closet. I don’t do school work so no need for a backpack.
I push my feet into my sneakers without undoing the laces and Gram clears her throat. I walk over and give her a quick one-armed hug and kiss her forehead, like I do every morning.