Saving Rain(9)

I didn't think I liked it, but then again … I found I maybe liked it a lot.

She raked her eyes over me as she asked, “What’s your name?”

I watched Billy hand his ten dollars over to Levi with a heavy dose of confusion as I replied, “Uh … Soldier.”

She laughed like she thought I was kidding. “No. Are you serious?”

That was when I decided I didn’t like her at all as I glowered at her and her sarcastic grin. “Yeah. Why?”

“Just making sure.”

She looked over me from head to toe as she licked her lips—in a different way than Mrs. Henderson had—and there came that stirring again between my legs.

“How old are you, Soldier?” she asked me.

“Thirteen.”

“Hmm, too bad,” she replied with a pout of her pink lips. “You're a really big boy.”

No. I definitely didn’t like her.

I dragged my scrutinizing glare from her and back to my friend, who was now waiting as Levi removed a plastic baggie of little pink pills from his jacket pocket.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. What’s happening here?

“Ten bucks only gets you one oxy,” Levi said, opening the bag.

Oxy …

There had to be fifty pills in that bag. Fifty pills that looked an awful lot like the ones Mom liked to take. The kind that made her drop onto the couch and stare at the TV until she passed out.

Where was Levi getting them from?

And why did Billy want one?

“That’s okay,” Billy said. “We can split it.”

Split it? Wait … what? Split it with who?

Billy shot a grin in my direction.

Is he talking about me? No way. He wouldn’t be … right?

Levi dropped a pill into Billy’s hand. Billy thanked him and told me to follow. I did, uncomfortable and stunned, feeling like everything was suddenly even more messed up and wrong than before.

What did Billy want with that pill? Why had he spent money on it?

I had known him since preschool. He didn’t do that type of crap. Kids like him had nice moms and nice houses and no reason to want the pills my mom took.

Yet he had one.

“Dude, she was into you,” Billy whispered, both disbelieving and excited. “You should’ve—”

“Why do you have that?” I cut him off, my voice urgent and hushed against the voices around us.

“Because I saw Robbie take one last week and it looked like fun.”

Last week, I hadn’t gone to The Pit with Billy and Robbie when they asked me to. Last week, I had been too scared to leave Mom alone.

I had wondered what my friends were doing without me. I had felt jealous and left out, worried I was missing something crucial while I was too busy cleaning up Mom’s puke and making sure she didn’t die. But now, I knew, and I wasn’t jealous anymore. I was disgusted and disappointed instead, and I stared at my best friend for a moment, feeling suddenly like I didn’t recognize him anymore.

“Fun?” I lifted my bewildered gaze to the sky and shook my head. “It’s not—”

“Okay,” Billy said, plopping himself onto the ground next to our bikes, “I’m gonna break it in half, and you can take one side, and I’ll—”

“I don’t want it.”

“What?” Billy was incredulous as he painstakingly broke the little pill in half with a barely audible snap. “Come on. It’s fine. It’s not gonna even do anything.”

I imagined Mom passed out on the beat-up couch that had come with the apartment. I imagined the countless times I’d shaken her, making sure she was still breathing. That never looked like nothing to me. But I wouldn’t tell Billy about that. I wouldn’t tell anybody.

“I don’t care. I don’t want it.”

“Fine. Be a baby. More for me.” Billy dug into his backpack for a water bottle and dropped one half of the pill onto his tongue. Then, with a quick sip of water, he swallowed it. “See? No big deal.”

Billy was wrong though. It was a big deal because just a half hour later, his head was lolled heavily against my shoulder, and he was barely able to keep his blackened eyes open. He laughed at the dumbest stuff, could hardly speak in full sentences, and every time I asked if he was okay, he'd tell me to relax.

But how was I supposed to relax when my heart was racing so fast?

***

It wasn’t until a couple of painful hours later, when the sun had set and the moon dropped silvery beams of light into The Pit, that Billy finally announced that he was ready to go home. He said his mom would start to worry about him if he didn’t get back. He said she’d be mad, so we collected our stuff and left, although I doubted his mom could be mad about anything at all.

I insisted on walking him home, making sure he got there safely, even though he'd sworn he was fine.

Mom said she was fine all the time, too, but I knew better than to ever believe her.

“Hi, Soldier!” Billy's mom called from the door, waving in my direction as her son slowly trudged his way up the path. “Do you wanna come inside for something to eat? I made a spiral ham!”

God, when was the last time I'd eaten ham? When was the last time I'd eaten anything that hadn’t come from the school cafeteria or out of a can at home? I couldn’t say for sure, but it had to be before Gramma had gotten really sick and couldn't cook anymore. What I did know was, ham sounded great. Billy's mom was a good cook, and I knew there'd probably be a couple of excellent side dishes to accompany the ham as well.