High Achiever Page 18

  “Make sure you bring a note with you tomorrow. You are coming tomorrow, right?”

  “Yes. I should definitely be better by then. Thank you.”

  I hung up the phone before he had a chance to reply. I honestly didn’t care if he fired me at this point. I didn’t care about anything except finding money so that I could make this pain stop.

  I rolled back up onto the bed and let out a growl as a wave of nausea made its way up from my belly into my throat. I ran to the bathroom, but it was too late. Vomit shot out of my mouth before I could open the lid of the toilet, covering my shirt and the bathroom mat.

  I crawled through the vomit and lifted the lid but couldn’t muster the strength to stand up. I laid my head on the cold ceramic seat and closed my eyes, waiting for the nausea to pass.

  It felt as if my bones were in a vise grip; at any moment I was certain they would snap. It was as if my body were on fire and I was trapped inside. I wanted to shed my skin, this weak human flesh that was revolting without its fix. I needed a pill; I needed something.

  With a sudden burst of energy, I remembered that Eliot had half a bottle of vodka in the pantry. I ran like I was trying out for the Olympics and threw the pantry door open with enough force that it knocked a few magnets off the fridge.

  I lunged for the bottle and chugged until it was empty. The bitter alcohol burned the walls of my esophagus as it made its way down, but I didn’t care. I needed the pain to stop.

  I reached for my phone in my back pocket and mashed the numbers to Lazarus’s cell.

  Each ring felt like an eternity. “Yo, you know what to do.” BEEP.

  I cursed out loud and frantically dialed again. Ring, ring, ring. “Yo, you know what to do.” BEEP.

  Tears of desperation streamed down my face as I opened my text messages. I needed pills and I needed him to answer. I began typing:

  Hey Laz. Remember that thing we talked about last week? When I said I couldn’t because I have a boyfriend? I changed my mind, please call me back ASAP.

  What the hell am I doing?

  Lazarus had tried to offer me pills in exchange for sex a million times. I always said no. I would never sleep with him for thousands of reasons, the main one being I loved my boyfriend very much.

  Therein lies the problem. I’m broke and I have no money for pills. I love Eliot so much that I need to do whatever the hell I can to ensure he doesn’t know I’m detoxing. Four hours from now when he gets home, the pain of this withdrawal will have doubled by then. He would know I was using and it would kill him. I can’t do that to him, it would ruin him. Two minutes of meaningless sex is much better than destroying this wonderful man’s future.

  I have to make this pain stop so that I can make it through the night. One more night, then I’ll try to get clean tomorrow.

  I picked up the phone to call Kayla. We hadn’t spoken much since Eliot and I had moved in together because he thought she was a bad influence. Which was precisely why I needed to get ahold of her right that second.

  “Hello?” she answered, sounding surprised. I don’t know what it was about the sound of her voice, but I instantly broke down into sobs.

  “Holy shit, Tiff, what’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Dude, I am so fucking sick. I’ve been getting high this whole time and I am detoxing so bad. Lazarus isn’t answering, and I have no money and honestly, Kay…I want to die.” I could barely get the words out.

  “Oh my God. I can’t believe you didn’t call me sooner, idiot. I don’t have blues, but I have Ds,” she said.

  “What the hell is a D?” I asked. Why did she know about something that I didn’t know about? We started using at the same time.

  “You haven’t heard of them? It’s a pill. It fucks you up. The only thing is that—”

  “I don’t care. Please. Please bring me one. I’ll do anything,” I pleaded.

  “Okay, I’ll be there in like twenty. I’m so happy you called, I’ve missed you so much,” she said.

  “Please! Just come. We can talk when you get here,” I said. I didn’t want to reminisce. I needed her to shut the hell up and get here with drugs.

  I lay on the floor of the kitchen twisting in agony for what seemed like a lifetime. The vodka didn’t do a damn thing to help with the pain; it was almost as if I were immune to it during withdrawal. Each second felt like three hours. I imagined that this was what people in a gas chamber must feel like moments before taking their last breath. I was suffocating from the pain.

  A burst of adrenaline and joy shot through my veins as I heard acrylic nails tapping on my front door. “Oh my God, come in!”

  I didn’t move from the floor; I was going to snort whatever the hell this pill was right off the tile below me. “Where are you?” Kayla asked, apparently unable to see my lifeless body by the dishwasher.

  “In here,” I mumbled.

  “Oh my God, Tiff. You are such a dork,” Kayla said, rounding the corner.

  “Fuck you, where is it?”

  Before she could respond, Kayla’s friend Javier appeared from behind her and smiled down at me. “Hey down there. You okay?” he asked with a look of sympathy on his face.

  “Not really. I’d offer you a drink, but I can’t move. Why the hell are you here?”

  “Tiffany!” Kayla scolded, obviously embarrassed.

  “Sorry! I just wasn’t expecting company, and was wondering…what he was doing here. So what are you doing here?”

  “It’s his stuff, asshole, so be nice.” Kayla laughed, setting her purse on the counter. “Are you just gonna stay down there?”

  “Yup.”

  “Ha-ha. Okay, give me a sec to get it ready,” she said, pulling the stuff from her purse.

  I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, anxiously anticipating the feeling of the powder filling my nose and dripping down my throat. It took her a few minutes to get ready, but it seemed like it had been a week.

  “Ready?” Javier asked.

  “Hell yeah,” I replied, with my eyes still closed. “Just set it on the floor next to me, I’m not joking, I can’t move.”

  The room was silent. I opened my eyes and gasped. “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked him when I realized he was about to strangle me with a belt. “Are you trying to murder me?” I screamed, jumping to my feet.

  “Tiffany, calm down. I tried to tell you on the phone, but you cut me off,” Kayla said calmly. “The belt isn’t for your neck, it’s for your arm.”

  I looked at the belt, then looked back at Kayla. I hadn’t noticed before because I was lying down. Her arms…they were bruised, and covered in track marks. The world was suddenly spinning around me as I came to terms with what was going on.

  I looked at Javier, and looked down at his hand. He was holding a syringe, loaded with drugs.

  “Soooo,” Kayla began, “what do you want to do?”

  I looked at her, back at Javier, then down at the needle. I had never shot up before; junkies shot up, and I wasn’t a junkie. I had three choices here. Continue detoxing and destroy my relationship. Shoot myself in the head with a gun and make it easier on everyone. Or have some strange dude I don’t know shoot me up in the kitchen of my cop boyfriend’s house…

  “Fuck it, let’s do it,” I said, rolling up my sleeve.

  35

  “I need you to stay really still, okay?” Javier said, looking into my eyes.

  “You will feel a pinch, and you can’t flinch when you do. After I untie the belt, you need to stay seated or you will fall down. Your knees are gonna give out. You ready?”

  My heart was pounding out of control. I had heard so many stories about people shooting up. They always end up living under bridges and contracting diseases. Javier wasn’t a doctor, he was a dishwasher at Barron’s Roadhouse, for Christ’s sake. What the hell was I doing? />
  “Are you sure that this will take away the withdrawal? I won’t feel sick anymore?” I asked nervously.

  “Tiff, I promise. You know I wouldn’t let him do this if I didn’t think it would help. I promise you will feel better. It’s up to you, though. If you don’t want to do it, then don’t. I don’t want you to think we are forcing you,” Kayla said.

  “No, I know. I’m just scared. I would honestly rather die than feel another second of this shit. I want to do it—I have to do it, I just—I’m scared.” My legs had been restless for the past two hours. I was tapping my foot uncontrollably, hoping the muscles would get so tired that they would stop aching.

  “I can’t…I can’t take it anymore. Just do it. Hurry up.” I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath.

  “You have to stop shaking your leg,” he said, grabbing ahold of my arm.

  “Fuck, I can’t, man,” I whimpered in frustration.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  I nodded furiously while keeping my eyes clenched shut. He tapped the vein in my arm twice, then pushed the needle in. My eyes rolled behind my closed eyelids from the pain and I tried not to move. Two seconds later I felt him untie the belt, and I opened my eyes to see that the needle was already out.

  Before I could open my mouth to say anything, a wave of liquid relaxation began at the top of my head and slowly made its way down my body. It was as if I’d been trapped in a snowstorm all day, and someone finally placed a heated blanket on top of me. Every place this blanket touched instantly transformed to jelly. Suddenly every ounce of pain I’d been experiencing for hours was just—gone. It had disappeared, all of it. I felt normal. I felt…amazing.

  I began laughing but the sounds were coming out in slow motion. I could see Kayla and Javier looking at each other and smiling. “I think it worked,” he said, glancing back at me.

  “Duh, told you she’d love it,” Kayla said, smiling with satisfaction. She was my best friend; she knew me better than anyone.

  “Holy shit, you guys. Thank you so much. I thought I was going to die for a minute there. I feel so much better. I work tomorrow, I’ll pay you back, I promise.” I went to stand up and Javier jumped toward me, gently placing a hand on my shoulder to keep me in the seat.

  “Easy. You may want to give it a minute,” he said.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I assured him as I stood up. I wanted to hug Kayla and thank her for being such a wonderful friend. But when I tried to take a step toward her the world suddenly went black.

  I could feel my knees hit the tile and heard a bang as my head fell back into the cabinet. My vision returned, and I could see both of them dropping down next to me to check on me.

  “Duuuude. I just got so light-headed!” I laughed. “I should have listened to you, probably.”

  “Are you okay?” Kayla asked while checking me for injuries.

  “I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting that. Why does that happen?” I asked.

  “It’s way different than snorting a pill, this goes straight into your bloodstream, it’s a lot stronger.”

  He said, “Yo, Kayla, we gotta go, man, I don’t want to be here when her man gets home, ya know what I’m sayin’?”

  “Are you gonna be okay if we go, Tiff?” she asked, standing up and reaching to pull me up.

  “I am, yeah, I’m probably just gonna get some sleep, now that I can. I don’t want to start shooting this shit all the time, it was just a onetime thing—an emergency. I’m actually gonna try to get some Suboxone tomorrow, I’m sick of this shit,” I said.

  “I hear you, I’m gonna quit soon too. Maybe we can do it together?” she said as she hugged me goodbye.

  “That sounds good, friend. I’ll call you tomorrow, thanks again. Bye, Javier!” I called behind them.

  As soon as the front door shut, I glanced around the kitchen to make sure there wasn’t any evidence and headed to the bedroom. I felt like I had run a marathon. All the agonized twisting, restless legs, and throwing up had really taken a toll on my body.

  I lay down in bed and checked my phone; there was a message from Lazarus.

  Wassup girl, I’m straight, you comin’ through?

  “Hell no,” I said to myself as I reread the text. I was desperate to stop the pain when I’d sent him that text, but I was fine now. There was no way I was going over there to hook up with him.

  His text got me thinking, though. If this stuff went straight into my bloodstream, it would probably fade off a lot faster. I would be sick again before the sun came up tomorrow. I should probably make a plan to get more now that I was feeling normal again. My mind began flipping through its Rolodex of people I could ask for money. Not my sister, I just borrowed money from her two days ago. I can’t ask my dad, he probably has no money. Think, think, think…

  Oh, I could ask my friend Meagan. I hadn’t talked to her in a while. She had no clue I did drugs, so the call would seem random, but believable.

  “Hey, Tiff! I haven’t heard from you in forever!” Meagan said excitedly upon answering.

  “I know. I’ve been so friggin’ busy with work, it’s been insane. How are you?” I asked, not really giving a shit how she was.

  “I’m great, just working a lot. My mom is sick, so she’s been staying with me. She hurt her back.”

  “Damn, that sucks. I’m so sorry to hear that. Hey, so I have a super random question. No pressure at all, I’m just in a bind. I work tomorrow at three, but I completely freakin’ forgot that my power is about to get shut off. They sent a bunch of late notices and I’ve been so busy it just slipped my mind. They said I have until midnight to pay or we will lose power…Is there any way I can borrow like fifty dollars until I get off work tomorrow?”

  I felt bad lying to her, but I would feel a lot worse come the morning if I didn’t do this. Besides, I could pay her back when I got off tomorrow.

  “Aw, friend, of course. You remember where I live, right?” she asked. Thank God.

  “I do, oh my God, you are a lifesaver, thank you so much…I’m on my way,” I said, sprinting to the car.

  * * *

  —

  “What’s up?” Lazarus said, answering his phone.

  “Hey! Are you still straight?” I asked.

  “Ya.”

  “Cool, can I come through?”

  “For sure, li’l mama.” He hung up before I could respond.

  As soon as I hung up, my boyfriend’s picture popped up on my screen. It was like he was watching me or something. “Hey, babe!” I said cheerfully into the phone.

  “Hey, where are you?” he asked. I glanced down at the clock and wondered what he meant. He wasn’t supposed to be home for an hour and a half.

  “I’m at Walmart. Where are you?” I lied.

  “Well, I came home an hour early to surprise you with a Redbox movie, but you aren’t here.”

  “No way! Aw, babe. That’s so exciting! I’m leaving now and should be home in like thirty, I’m at the Walmart by the house.” God, I was a terrible person. He was doing something nice for me while I was buying drugs. I am such a piece of shit.

  “Okay, I’m gonna shower and stuff, I’ll see you when you get here.”

  “Okay, see you soon. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Guilt was an emotion I’d grown accustomed to. Just about every decision I made in my life was followed by a cloud of guilt. The only way I knew to get rid of the cloud was to bury it with more drugs. They made it go away; they made everything go away.

  As I sped to Laz’s, I gripped the money tightly in my hand. I was so grateful that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting some tomorrow; these pills would hold me over until I got off work tomorrow night.

  I gently knocked on the door and as soon as Laz swung it open, I was immediately hit with a cloud of smoke. “Jesus
,” I said, wafting it away from my face. “Are you guys hot-boxing this place or what?” I asked, stepping inside behind him.

  “Nah, it’s just me here. I just hit the bong, you want some?” he asked, holding up a ridiculously oversized glass bong. It was the length of his entire body, and I would be in a damn coma if I hit that thing.

  “Hell no, thanks.” Ever since I’d moved in with Eliot I hardly smoked. It made me too paranoid.

  I followed Laz into his room and glanced around as he shut the door behind us. I’d never been in here before. It was surprisingly neat and tidy, not what I expected of a drug dealer.

  “So, what you tryin’ to do, mama?” he said, giving me a flirty smile.

  “Just two of them, please?” I said, staring at the Goodfellas poster above his bed. I didn’t know people still hung posters up.

  “A’right, a’right. Soooo…what you gonna do for it?”

  “What do you mean—” I looked over at him just as he pulled his shirt over his head. Suddenly I realized what was happening.

  “Oh, oh no. No, I have money. I don’t need…we don’t need to do anything. I can pay. Sorry, I meant to tell you that,” I said awkwardly.

  His face fell, and he plopped down onto the edge of his bed. “How much you got?”

  “Fifty.”

  “A’ight, I’ll give you four blues.”

  “But fifty only gets me two. I was gonna use the leftover ten for gas because I’m almost out,” I said, feeling confused.

  He didn’t say anything; he was staring at the floor. Was he gonna hook me up with extra? Because that would be amazing. He did that sometimes on days he was feeling generous. Today must have been one of those days.

  “Give me the fifty, I’ll give you four, and you can give me a blowjob,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Ah. No, that’s okay. Thank you, but I’ll just take the t—”

  He was lunging toward me before I could finish my sentence. He wrapped his hands around my arms and squeezed so tightly it felt like my bones were breaking.