Page 86 of False Start
There’s not a single car in the parking lot, but something tells me that means nothing today. Reaching for my key is pointless, because leaning on the double door is enough to push it open.
It’s unlocked.
My heart thrums, I’m only three steps in the building, but it’s enough to hear the music coming from Lonnie’s place.
It’s a short-lived feeling of relief that at least she’s safe.
The music is too loud for comfort, foranyreasonable person. It causes a lump to form at the top of my throat, and I can no longer swallow it down. Not until I see her. I run to the little studio apartment our friend once called home, the music twice as loud once I’m inside, and there she is.
Everything suddenly moves impossibly slow. It feels like ages before my brain can make the connection. The way she sits on the ground with her back against the wall, her head slumped down to the side, her skin no longer golden but a pale, grayish color, foam pouring freely from her lips.
“Antônia.” I shake her, my voice coming out a tremble.
Her eyes barely flutter.
“Nia, baby, what the fuck did you do?” I’m asking myself; I know she’s not capable of answering.
I go through her things in a fury, tossing her bag apart, hoping that she’s got something that can reverse a little of what she’s done to herself, just enough to buy me enough time to get her to a hospital.
“Fuck!” I scream, rummaging through the backpack, but aside from her phone charger and her wallet, there’s nothing else.
She moans like my chaos is disruptive to her high. I come back to her, lifting her eyelids by force. She’s hardly there at all, and it feels like my world is ending faster than it took for it to come into existence. I no longer know what I have time for, whatshecan hold on for. I lift her into my arms, my keys still in my pocket as I thumb through my phone.
The number is there, saved. I don’t know if it still works, though. He’s had a million phone numbers, and half of them were burners. I call anyway. We’re closer tohis house than any hospital, and God knows an ambulance will take three days to get here.
“Catie?” The voice is shocked that I’m calling, and I haven’t even spoken. He’s kept my number this whole time too.
“I’m not calling to talk. I need your help. My…” I take a deep breath before I get the rest out. “My girlfriend is overdosing, and I don’t know what to do.”
He doesn’t ask what I’m doing with a junkie, doesn’t mock that I didn’t have the tolerance for him but have the tolerance for her. He hears the panic in my voice, and he knows I need my big brother.
“Does she have any naloxone around?” he asks calmly.
“Is that Narcan? No. I looked everywhere.” I’ve given up searching for anything in the barren apartment and resort to lifting her over my shoulder.
“You’re gonna have to take her to the hospital, kiddo,” he says with a sigh.
My voice is a pleading cry. “You’re closer. Let me bring her to you.” I’m not sure she’ll make either drive at this point, and Iknowmy brother. I know he can fix this.
“This girlfriend of yours,” he says, “big scar on the side of her head?”
My stomach sinks so deeply, it feels like an abyss is created inside me.
He’s her dealer.
Of course he is.
I’m loading her into the backseat while trying to process this information, but I don’t want to accept it for what it is.
“Let me bring her to you!” I’m screaming. I’m so angry at him for once again taking the things I love from me with drugs.
First him, now her.
“No. Take her to the hospital. It’s time for Nia to hit rock bottom.” I’m pretty sure I hear him disconnect, but I’m still cursing and shouting.
“Ryan, what the fuck?” I’m sobbing from frustration and panic, but I don’t have time to dwell.
Thisis exactly why I’d written him off, why I stopped depending on him, why I didn’t want him in my life anymore. Ryan makes his own rules, his ego like God. He thinks he gets to decide who’s the right kind of addict for saving and who’s not, who conquers his gauntlet and who is crushed by it. I should have fucking known. My brain won’t stop, but I settle on the passing thought that it would take twice as long for an ambulance, so I start the car.
