“Does that happen a lot?”
Callie had to swallow before she could speak. “Yes.”
“Interesting.”
She shivered when his fingers tickled up her leg. Her eyes closed. There was no resolve left inside of her body. She longed for Leigh to break down the door, to shoot Andrew in the face, to rescue Walter, to save her from what was going to happen next.
Callie bit down on her helplessness. She couldn’t let any of that happen. She had to do this herself. Leigh would be here eventually. Callie wasn’t going to be the reason her sister got more blood on her hands again.
She told Andrew, “Help me sit up.”
Andrew grabbed her by the arm. The vertebrae in her neck made a popping sound as he jerked her up. She looked around for her dope kit. He’d left it open on the edge of the mattress.
She told him, “I need water.”
He hesitated. “Does it matter if something is in it?”
“No,” she lied.
Andrew walked back to the bar.
Callie picked up her spoon. The handle was bent into a ring so she could hold it better. She took the bottle of water from Andrew. She assumed he’d made Walter drink from it. She had no idea what the Rohypnol would do but neither did she care.
“Hold on,” Andrew said, bringing the candles closer so he could see what she was doing.
Callie felt her throat work. You didn’t do this for porn. You did it in private, or you did it with other junkies because the process was yours and yours alone.
“What’s this for?” Andrew pointed at the cotton ball in her kit.
Callie didn’t answer him. Her hands had stopped shaking now that she was giving her body what it wanted. She opened the baggie. She tapped the off-white powder onto the bowl of the spoon.
Andrew asked, “ Is that enough?”
“Yes,” Callie said, though it was actually too much. “Open the bottle for me.”
She waited for Andrew to comply. She held a sip of water in her mouth, then squirted it out onto the spoon like a cardinal feeding its baby. Instead of using her Zippo, she picked up one of the candles from the floor. The white vinegar smell was strong as the dope slowly boiled into a liquid. The dealer had fucked her. The stronger the smell, the more shit in the cut.
Her eyes met Andrew’s over the smoke rising from the spoon. His tongue had darted out. This was what he’d wanted from the beginning. Buddy had used tequila and Andrew was using heroin but they both wanted the same thing in the end—Callie put into a stupor so that she couldn’t fight back.
With her free hand, she tore off a piece of the cotton. She picked up the syringe. Bit the cap off with her teeth. She placed the needle into the cotton and pulled back on the plunger.
“It’s a filter,” Andrew said, as if a great mystery had been solved.
“Okay.” Callie’s mouth had filled with saliva the second the smell had hit the back of her throat. “It’s ready.”
“What do you do?” Andrew’s hesitancy gave her the first glimpse of who he’d been as a boy. He was eager, excited to be learning a new, illicit thing. “Can I—can I do it?”
Callie nodded, because her mouth was too full to speak. She twisted her body to bring her feet onto the mattress. Her pale thighs glowed in the candlelight. She saw what everybody else saw. The femurs and bones of her knees so pronounced that she might as well be looking at a skeleton.
Andrew didn’t comment. He laid down alongside her legs, propping himself up on his elbow. She thought about all of the times he’d fallen asleep with his head in her lap. He’d loved to be held while she read him stories.
Now, he was looking up at Callie, waiting for instructions on how to shoot her up with heroin.
Callie was sitting at too severe an angle to see the upper part of her thigh. She peeled off the Band-Aid. She found the center of the drained abscess by feel. “Here.”
“In the —” Andrew was still hesitant. He had a better view of the drained abscess than she ever would. “That looks infected.”
Callie told him both the truth and what he wanted to hear. “The hurt feels good.”
Andrew’s tongue darted out again. “Okay, what do I do?”
Callie leaned back on her hands. The satin jacket fell open. “Tap the side of the syringe, then gently depress the plunger to get the air out.”
Andrew’s hands were far from steady. He was as excited as he’d been when she’d shown him the two bicolored blennies she’d bought at the fish store. He made sure Callie was watching, then thumped his finger on the side of the plastic.