I nod. “Yeah.”
“I shouldn’t have sold it to you,” he says quietly.
“Jesus. Don’t give me your pity—trust me, I have enough of it. I just need something to get me through senior year. That’s all. And if you tell anyone I told you—”
“That would be a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality,” he says, with a half smile.
I give him a long look. “Are you actually a nice guy?”
“Total hardened criminal. But I have a soft spot for brunettes.”
“My hair is actually black. And I have a boyfriend. In LA. In college, actually.” It feels important that he know because he’s flirting with me and I suddenly feel guilty because I want to flirt back. I miss Micah so much.
Drew whistles. “A college boy. Are your dates at the library?”
“Very funny.” I point to the caf. “I’m gonna grab some food before sixth period.”
He nods. “I’ll see you around, Hannah.”
I head to the bathroom and don’t make eye contact with anyone as I hide in a stall. I gulp down a little blue pill with some water from one of the metal bottles Mom sold at her studio. It says ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST. This water bottle doesn’t know shit.
I wonder if Mom and Dad can see me here, now. They’d be so disappointed. Ashamed, maybe. My eyes fill and I press my hands against my lips to keep the sob in, to hide it behind the gossip and the makeup sharing and the I need a tampon-ing of Saint Francis’s largest female-identifying bathroom. I’m the last to leave when the bell rings, when it’s quiet and no one will talk to me.
It doesn’t take long for the Percocet to kick in. It’s much stronger than Vicodin, and I went straight to my old dose, even though I haven’t worked up to it. Rookie mistake, but I don’t regret it because halfway through math I’m in my happy place. But remodeled. Warmer and fuzzier. Drew looks over at me a few times, and I smile, actually smile at him. I have no idea what’s happening in class—there’s a lot of shit I don’t understand on the board. The teacher calls Drew Mr. Nolan, and I have fun making sounds in my head with his last name. Drew Nooooo—laaaaan. Nohhhhhh. Llllllllllannnnn. When the bell rings, I float out the door.
“You only took one, right?” Drew asks quietly as he comes up to me.
I nod. “I’m a lightweight. And you’re a very nosy drug dealer.”
“Good customer service, remember?”
He puts his hand on my elbow and guides me away from the pushing and shoving, from the hordes of people. A life raft in this wave.
“How good?”
He gives me a sideways glance. “What do you mean?”
“Like, good enough to ditch with me good?”
He hesitates for just a second. “Yeah, okay.”
And, just like that, I’m skipping out on the rest of the school day with Saint Francis’s resident drug dealer.
my father is a liar.
Wall
Boston Public Library
Boston
15
Hannah
Drew grabs my hand and leads me toward the closest exit. We’re in the neighborhood across the street from Saint Francis by the time the bell rings. I notice we’re still holding hands, but I don’t move away. It feels good to have some kind of contact. I am the girl that still laid her head in her mother’s lap when she was seventeen.
Also, his hand feels like warm sand—or maybe I’m just full of warm sand.
“My head feels like an hourglass,” I say. “Like…” I stop and I show him. The sand that’s falling, so slowly from the crown of my head, down, down. “You know?”
“I’m glad to see my product’s working so well.”
“Five stars.”
He nods toward a Ford Fusion that’s seen better days.
“This is precisely why I don’t park in the student lot,” he says.
“A good Knight of Wands move.”
He laughs. “Um, okay, whatever that means. I like the knight part.”
“Your cards. Tarot.”
“Ah. Cool. So, where to?”
“I don’t know. I usually go to the beach. But the beach here sucks. What do you recommend?”
“How about the Common?”
“All right.”
Boston’s most famous park. Right in the middle of the city, where we can hide in plain sight.
“Didn’t they kill people there?” I ask as he starts up the car.
“Yeah. Public hangings.”
“Fuck.”
I sink into the seat and close my eyes. “Your car smells like ass lemons.”
“Air freshener. Sorry. My cousin is always borrowing it and smoking his crappy cigarettes in here.”
I peek at him. “You don’t smoke?”
“No. That shit kills you. And they’re wicked gross.”
This is funny. It makes me lauggghhhhhhhh. My drug dealer is kind of a square.
“Says. The. Drug. Dealer.”
It gets hot, really hot, and I start taking things off. “Can you roll down the windows?”
“On the door next to you.”
I look at the knob-thingy. “This car is so old.”
“Hey, it’s a car. You wanna take the T?”
The thought of getting on the subway is, like, so horrible. People eating food. All that perfume. Talking on their cell phones. The way it makes those sharp turns and I can never keep my balance.
“God. No.”
“Okay, then. Show Sunny some respect.”
“You named your car.”
“Fuck yeah, I named her. She’s my pride and joy.”
I smile at him, then pet the dashboard. “Good girl, Sunny.”
“Oh my God. She’s not a dog.”
The look on his face. I burst out laughing again.
“I’ll be here all night,” Drew says.
I stare out the window as he drives us into the center of the city, not too far from Saint Francis. The buildings here are beautiful, like we’re speeding through a picture book: brick with elegant molding; old, narrow streets.
I stop talking. I don’t know if Drew’s picking up my vibe or if he’s normally quiet. He’s got a local college station on—Emerson, probably—and it feels right, somehow, to be in a car with a drug dealer while Ben Howard sings along with his guitar.
Drew parks on a side street, then jumps out and comes around to help me.
“A gentleman drug dealer, eh?” I say when he opens the door.
He gives a bow. “At your service.”
I follow him down the narrow street and out onto Tremont, past another old church. The sand in my head falls, falls. Boston is so much better when you’re high.
“This place must have more churches than anywhere else,” I say as we pass a large stone one. Puritans, man. “Except maybe Rome. Have you been?”
He laughs. “I’m a Saint Francis charity case, remember? The farthest I’ve been is an ill-advised trip to drop off product in Brooklyn.”
I forget sometimes that my family has money, that things are easy for us. Except the staying-together-and-alive part.
“I’ve never been to Brooklyn,” I say.