Page 50 of False Start
I open the curtain, already wrapped in a towel, but I’m startled when I see StarScreamer standing on the other side, waiting.
“Just so you know, I am one hundred percent invested in this.” She grins like an idiot.
“What are you talking about?” I give her a side-eye before walking back to my locker and pulling clean clothes from my bag.
“Oh, I’m sorry, are we still in the pretending phase? We all assumed since you two were getting it on in the shower all week that we were good to talk about it.” She shrugs, staring off into the distance to give me something like privacy while I throw on my clothes. “We’realltalking about it, so I figured you’d at least want to join the conversation.”
I don’t answer her.
“Fine,” she says dramatically, like she’s the one exhausted ofme. “But I’m thrilled about it. I think you’re perfect for each other.”
“Leave it alone, Stella,” I warn her, not needing to complicate things any further by adding a peanut gallery to our situation.
They thrive on inner-team gossip, and there hasn’t been a relationship in the team since Venice and Lady Yaga screwed around that one summer.
At least they can stand to be in the same room again.
Star waits for me. It’s standard to not let a skater leave the rink alone at night. The walk to the car is brief, but you never know when a weirdo might be lurking. The rest of the skaters have gone, but Nia is sitting on the hood of her car, biting her thumb nail as she stares at her phone. Her hair is unbrushed, tangled, haphazardly thrown into something like a bun at the top of her head.
Because she can’t put it in a braid.
“Nia!” Star chirps, her tone full of dramatic suspicion. “What are you still doing here?” She gives me a sly grin and elbows me, like she thinks this is part of some plan between Nia and me.
“My car won’t start.” She huffs, and though she’s looking at StarScreamer, it’s the first time I’m hearing her talk this week.
I’m desperate for her attention.
It’s a measly little crumb, and I devour it.
“Do you need a jump?” I ask, giving myself permission to initiate since it isn’t a conversation about us.
“That’d be great.” She just barely glances at me, and I’m not sure if it’s me or if it’s StarScreamer causing this reaction from her.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to each other then,” Star sings as she opens the driver side of her PT cruiser.
Nia’s staring at her phone again, so I flip Stella off as I walk toward the trunk of my SUV. I grab the cords and get in my driver’s seat, pulling the car up beside Nia’s banged up little shit.
She’s off the hood now, sitting on the curb, still staring at her phone. The nervous energy vibrates offher, evident in the way she bounces her leg to self-soothe. I attach the ends of the jumper cables, and she gets in her car. We both let it charge until she’s satisfied it’ll run.
“Call me if you get stuck,” I offer, knowing she won’t.
She nods again. Nothing else said between us.
It’s torture.
22
NIA
Icoast through practice all week in a foggy haze from the mixture of pain pills and heroin that is starting to become such a common part of my day-to-day, I’m not even bothering to lie to myself anymore.
I have a problem.
Well, I have three problems.
The Cat Harvey-sized problem is growing by the minute, the one that shatters my confidence but keeps me wrapped tight in her chokehold. I don’t know what it is we’re doing, but I crave it, and every moment I don’t have it, I need to be high.
She isn’t the cause, though, and if I wasn’t depending on her, I would just be using something else as another excuse to get high. My wrist became a new opportunity, but now, it’s taking three times as many pills to do the job of a little bump.
