Vein Fire (10 page)

CHAPTER  13

Rabbit  Hole

Hannah woke up with thistles under her skin. Her sleep was restless. She dreamt a green ribbon snake kept coiling around her body, making her writhe and sigh. Two hours before her alarm went off, she climbed out of bed and went to her bathroom medicine cabinet. She dumped two Percocets into her palm, swallowed them, turned the sink faucet on, stuck her mouth into the warm running water, and drank.

She expected this might happen. There was a summer when she had four surgeries on her legs. First the pills made her itch, and then they made her want, and finally, need.

Despite hiding under her blankets, she couldn’t sleep. Her eyes were squeezed into little slits like a house with its shutters closed in anticipation of a tornado. Hannah was her own storm. Matt’s rejection made her want to cut herself, but she didn’t have the energy.

It was a divulgence to allow her thoughts to linger on Matt, and what his fingers felt like on her skin, but it was like a distant memory, fogged by drugs, with snippets barely blowing in the winds of her mind.

Hannah thought she loved Matt once, before the cinder block. She always believed that if he would love her back, she’d be the wanted one, and the worthy one. Too much of her time was spent thinking about what had happened and there was only one logical explanation: she deserved it. She was ugly, fat, mouthy, and a nuisance. Like the rats in the neighbor’s barn which swelled from the smorgasbord of the oat bin, she needed clubbed.

Because she was, by most standards, a tall girl, she had grown into her weight by her late teens. Her mother said she had lost her baby fat, but Hannah knew it had more to do with the meals she vomited into the toilet. She wasn’t bulimic, but she didn’t always think she deserved the food she had eaten. In fact, there wasn’t anything Hannah thought she deserved—even life. She found herself to be completely and utterly disposable.

The stress of work loomed and wouldn’t allow her to fall back to sleep. She worried if Donna knew. Maybe Bob had told her, or maybe she’d read the guilt on Hannah’s face. Hannah wondered how she could keep her job if Donna found out. She’d be too embarrassed to work there, and they worked so closely together that it would be bad—very bad.

Hannah knew it was her fault.
HerFault, HerFault, HerFault
. She could have said ‘no’, but she didn’t. Skye wiggled under the covers with Hannah. She sighed. No matter what, the sun would still rise and the sun would still set. Even though the idea appealed to her, she couldn’t hide in her apartment forever.

Unexpectedly, it dawned—the familiar sparkle from the pain killers. Her cells relaxed and she felt relief. Only two pills had done it—not too bad and she knew she could wean herself off of it like she had done before. Since she was in control of her own stash, it would be easier this time. There was nothing worse than having a mother dole your pills out to you and chide you for the missing ones. Addiction was easier when you played alone. Besides, this wasn’t a full blown addiction, just a little scratch.

Her thoughts were like mud on shoes, leaving clumps and tracks as they paced in her head. She recognized they were the sick thoughts—ones she had which weren’t ‘well’ or ‘normal’. In the sparkle, she played with them anyway:

What if she really did become an addict? Would Matt like her more? And Marcus, with his hand down her panties, plunging a long finger inside of her—would he want her as well? Maybe it would be fun—just for a little while—to see if it made her confident. She could be the girl at the party who danced on the coffee table while everyone watched—the girl everyone wanted. But the scars—remembering the scars furrowed her brow. Nothing hid them but long pants or leggings. And the ones on her arms—how her sleeves would inch up when she stretched her arm out to pass money at windows of drive-thru restaurants and the cashier would pause to look down at the slashes in her skin, and then take the money. It was almost a guarantee.

Hiding things was as much of a coping mechanism for Hannah as cutting was. Emotions were things which needed to be stuffed down until she choked on them. The only person she could relax and expose them to was herself. Being alone brought her comfort, just as cutting and abusing her medicine did. She didn’t mind not having friends, she was used to it. Close relationships brought questions Hannah didn’t want to answer. Part of her was like the person she had invented in high school—the better version of herself—the Hannah who lived to her potential. When she was alone, she could feel like the better Hannah was able to emerge. She would turn the music up and dance, make faces at herself in the mirror, and wear the short, sleeveless dresses she kept hidden in the back of her closet. As crazy as she was, even Hannah knew that underneath the dysfunction was someone so happy, they could fly.

*

It was easier for Hannah to go to work high than not. Donna was all smiles and squeals when she saw her. She hugged Hannah, but Hannah didn’t hug back. She was frozen from the numbness of being high, somewhat lost in the particles of the moment.

Donna pulled back. “What’s the matter, hon?”

“Don’t mind me, I’m still sick. And my knee is bothering me today, so I took a few Percs and I think I might have overdone it.”

“Aww, it’s a slow day—perfect for your first day back. You’ll be fine.”

Hannah was fine. A fucking crippled monkey could do her job. Hannah laughed at the thought, for she
was
a crippled monkey. She was so high that she had to go through the bother of reciting the alphabet in her head so she could find her place: abcdefG! G for Gariety, Robert and his unpaid water bill. Next was abcdefghiJ! For Jameson, Catherine and her application for a choice handicap parking spot right in front of her house.

Filing wasn’t serious business—just a well-used system which the members of city council kept insisting would be transferred to computerized documents in the near future. Until then, Hannah weathered paper cuts and sore fingers.

At lunchtime, Donna said she wanted to walk across the street to a café for a sandwich. Hannah declined lunching with her. Instead, she had apple juice from the vending machine upstairs and two more Percocets. Before her lunch break was over, Hannah had the sudden desire to ride the elevator to the top floor and back. The elevator rocked and jolted as if it was as old as the building. Hannah liked the way her red shoes looked on the black and white checkered floor tile inside the elevator. She concentrated on them so much that she forgot to notice the particular ding which signified she had reached the top floor. Because of this, she rode the elevator three more times to the top before she got the ride just right: alone in the elevator, and feeling the burp the elevator made when it hit the top floor.

The ride made her happy. She bounced to a song in her head as she made her way back to her work space. Donna was already there waiting. She had a tuna sandwich for lunch and the smell had followed her back. It made Hannah nauseated, so Donna tried to rectify it by sucking on a breath mint. Nothing could have been worse than the smell of tuna, except for peppermint tuna. After twenty minutes, Hannah vomited her apple juice into the trash can.

“Gosh, you aren’t pregnant, are you?” Donna asked.

Hannah froze—the expression
—absent from her face as she calculated when and with who she last had sex. Luckily, it was easy to remember. She hadn’t had sex in awhile, except for Matt; she had only been passing out blow jobs liberally, and it was too soon for her to be experiencing pregnancy symptoms from fucking Matt.

Hannah and Donna worked in silence for the rest of the afternoon. Hannah dealt with Donna’s tuna smell, and Donna dealt with Hannah’s regurgitated apple juice smell. They were twins of disgust which went un-discussed.

After work, Hannah went to Matt’s house. She stood, pathetically, on his porch, knocking over and over again, but he didn’t answer. She thought he’d be home because after work was a prime time to sell, but she stood there for twenty minutes before she felt ridiculous enough to leave.

She stopped by her house, let Skye out, and then took him with her to drive to her parents’ home. Skye needed time in their yard, and she knew her sister would enjoy playing with him. She decided to pass by Matt’s house, again, in case he came home from work.

She carried Skye to the porch, and only knocked once before Matt swung the door open.

“Hey, c’mon in.”

Hannah stepped through the door and saw a girl sitting on Matt’s floor, near the coffee table, tearing aluminum foil into pieces. She had long, straight, strawberry-blonde hair and a body as thin and flat as an ironing board.
She’s cute.

Hannah set Skye down and she ran over to the girl. The girl exclaimed and started petting Skye, who enjoyed the attention a little too much.

“Hi,” the girls said simultaneously.

Hannah nodded in the girl’s direction, “That’s Skye and I’m Hannah.”

“Ohmygod,” the girl laughed. “My name is Hannah too.”

“It is?”

“Yeah, funny that.”

It didn’t look like a typical drug deal; the girl looked too comfortable and she was preparing to smoke up.

“We were going to blaze one, do you wanna join us?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, sure.” Hannah walked to the couch and sat down. She immediately stood up and looked at her hand. “Shit, did you spill something? I sat in something wet.”

Hannah number two bit her lip and smiled. She looked at Matt and they both started laughing. “Um…sorry, that was from us, earlier.”

Us?

“You might want to go and wash your hands,” Matt said.

Hannah looked at her palm. Her heart was racing and her cheeks were flushed. She hurried and walked into the kitchen to wash her hands before they could see her starting to cry.

She stood at the sink, panting and trying to calm down. A small scrub brush on the sink’s ledge would serve—she squirted dish soap on it. Hanah tried to scour the thoughts away. She inhaled until her lungs were bursting as she scrubbed several layers of skin from the tops of her hands. It was her punishment—punishment for being stupid, and punishment for not being the one Matt chose.

He fucked her—while she was awake.
Hannah blinked the tears back and focused on her hands.

It was a lengthy hand washing session, by anyone’s measure, and by the time Hannah reentered the living room, they were already smoking the heroin. She didn’t want to sit on the couch again, so she sat on the floor next to the other Hannah.

Matt passed her the straw and held the lighter’s flame under the foil.

Four, three, two, one…it was almost all gone—the bad things—facing Donna, vomiting the apple juice, and Hannah number two; they all disappeared with each scant of smoke which she sucked up the straw. She didn’t even pause when she realized Matt
had
been home earlier.

Everyone was laughing. Happiness seeped into the group until the tension was like a cherry pit spit into a napkin, folded and refolded until it was hidden.

“You know what?” Matt said. “You two side by side gives me an idea.”

“What?” the girls asked in unison.

“How about it’s my lucky day and I get a two-Hannah blow job?”

“What’s that?” asked Hannah.

The other Hannah giggled, “He wants us to both suck his cock at the same time.”

Hannah didn’t know what to say. As willing as she was, she had never done anything like it before and was nervous.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun.” Hannah number two elbowed her gently. “Is this your first time?”

“Yes.”

“If you girls don’t want to…”

Hannah spoke up, “I’ll do it.”

The girls knelt side by side as Matt lowered his pants, hard with anticipation. He stuck it into Hannah’s mouth first. This pleased her. She could taste the sex on his cock and she tried to ignore it, sucking harder until the taste disappeared. He pulled it away from her and offered it to Hannah number two, who eagerly took it, thrusting her head on it until it all disappeared, over and over again.

Matt pulled away, “Kiss each other,” he said.

Hannah didn’t have the option of hesitating; Hannah number two grabbed her and kissed her deeply. Her free hands explored Hannah’s breasts. Hannah didn’t know what to do. She kissed her back, but didn’t return the touches.

“Okay, back to me,” Matt said.

Hannah number two was greedy and didn’t share equally. When Matt distributed his cum all over their faces, Hannah number two swallowed hers and licked the remains off of Hannah’s face, ending it with another deep kiss on Hannah’s mouth. She leaned in to kiss Matt, but he pulled away.

“Not on the lips—not after what you just swallowed.” He kissed her on the top of her head and she smiled.

Running the situation over again in her head made her heart race. The panic was starting to envelope her in until she felt like she couldn’t breathe. The best way for her to get through it was to pretend she was someone else. Imagining she was the better version of herself—the girl who wouldn’t have given a two-Hannah blow job; the girl who would have kicked the other Hannah’s ass after her first cute laugh—this would allow her to smile through the pain. She had to convince herself it didn’t hurt as badly as it did.