Page 4 of Forgiving Paris
Push,she told herself.Get to the tent.Just… a few…more… steps. Alice pushed herself until she dropped to the mouth of a crowded tent. Three girls were passed out near the back. Another two—a married couple—were nodding, succumbing to the rescue of their latest dose of heroin.
“I need it.” Alice’s entire body convulsed now. She pulled her knees to her chin and rocked. “Please, someone. Hit me up.”
Needles lay scattered on the torn tent floor. Tonight, sweet, handsome Benji was the most alert of the group. “I got you.” He grabbed a needle from a filthy bowl and grabbed Alice’s hand. “Hold out your arm, Alice.”
It was all she could do to obey. Her muscles were tense, cramping. Benji looked a little high, and he wobbled as he crawled to her with the needle. But the sharp silver point found its mark, somewhere along the tracks of heroin memories that made up her arm.
“There, Alice, baby.” The minute the needle was out of Alice’s skin, Benji used the syringe to fill the vial again. “My turn.”
With every heartbeat, heroin flooded Alice’s veins and pumped through her body. And as it did, the aching stopped. Her arms fell to her sides, no longer shaking, and her legs stretched out in front of her. “More, Benji.” She closed her eyes. “Give me more.”
“No.” He leaned back against the tent pole. The drug was working for him, too.
“I need it.” Alice leaned closer and put her hand on Benji’s arm. “The sick… it’s worse today.”
Benji shook his head. “This is strong stuff, baby. That’s enough.” Benji used to be a med student with a dream of being a surgeon. The druggies in the camp trusted him.
“It’s not that strong.” Alice stared at the man. He was twenty-five, maybe thirty. No telling with heroin. Addicts aged a decade overnight. Alice had asked him once, but Benji said he didn’t know. “Too many years.” That’s what he had told her. Too many since he’d checked out of life and given himself to the drug. Everything about his old self was gone. All he had these days was the needle.
By now Alice’s headache should’ve let up. But instead her temples pounded. She stood on her knees and looped her arms around Benji’s neck. The two of them had found solace in each other’s arms more than once. When they were sober. When they weren’t sick or high. She kissed his dry lips and stared into his droopy eyes. “I need it, Benji. Give it to me.”
If he were sober, Benji never would’ve agreed. He knew when a batch of heroin was strong, and he knew when it was maybe laced with fentanyl.Peppered,he called it. But tonight, in this moment, Benji was too high to care. He returned the kiss and worked his hands into her hair. “You’re beautiful, baby.” His words were slurred. “You know that?”
“Give me more.” She pressed herself against him. “Please, Benji.”
And then, as if he was as intoxicated by her presence as he was by the drug, Benji did as she asked. He leaned back and felt around for the still half-full syringe. Shehelped him stay steady long enough to find her arm, to find a vein strong enough to take the jab.
“I’ll do more, too. We can find the high together.” Benji kissed her cheek and aimed the needle. And just like that he was feeling the same euphoria she was feeling. She knew because she could see it on his face.
In a rush the second hit overtook her, warming her and offering a peace she only knew after a hit. Her headache faded and she fell against Benji’s chest.
“You okay, baby?” He ran his hand over her matted hair. “You okay?”
Suddenly a sense of panic came over her. Because she couldn’t make her mouth work, couldn’t find the words. And something else. She couldn’t draw a breath. “Ben… Ben…”
He was up on his knees now, taking her by the shoulders. “I told you… not to, Alice!” His voice was loud, frightened. “This stuff is peppered. It’s too strong.”
Alice could feel herself losing consciousness, her breathing deep and labored. Why couldn’t she fill her lungs? What was happening? Then she remembered. This had occurred before when one of the heroin batches was laced. When it was peppered. That time one of the tent people had shot her up with Narcan and she’d lived.
It was her last hope. “Narc… Narcan.”
“I don’t have it, baby. It’s all gone.” Benji shook her again. “Stay with me, Alice. Stay with me.”
Alice was in a whirlpool. A deadly, dark horrific tunnel, and she was falling down… down… into the thickest,dankest liquid. And she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t take another breath.
She remembered how she really loved Benji and how the man had turned to illegal pain meds when he tore his meniscus playing football with a few friends, and how he’d gotten caught stealing from the hospital where he was doing his residency and how they’d fired him. He would never work in the medical field again, Benji had told her. And in a thick fog of shame and addiction, Benji had left home and never looked back.
His family still didn’t know where he was.
I love you, Benji. I’m sorry. M’man, if you’d only opened the door.She was out of oxygen, and she felt herself fall to the cold tent-covered ground.
“Baby, stay with me!” Benji shouted at her and shook her again and again. But his words began to fade until eventually her heartbeat stopped. And then there was nothing but eternal darkness and one final thought before death had its way with her. The thought she couldn’t bear to admit to Benji or even herself.
Alice was pregnant.
THE BEEPING SOUNDSmust’ve been some part of hell. That’s all Alice could imagine. Because she had died. She had felt her heart stop beating.
But like the wings of a butterfly spreading on the first warm day of spring, Alice finally blinked her eyes open and looked around. She was in a hospital, hooked up tomachines. Her hand instinctively grabbed at her throat. If she’d survived, she was surely on life support. But her neck was soft and whole.
