4:39 P.M.
In Culpeppers’s storeroom, no one is talking. Grace is back to whimpering and rocking. Amina is checking her phone. Javier and Cole both have their eyes closed. Javier’s face is twisted with pain, while Cole looks exhausted, his head tipped back against the wall.
Miranda’s eyes are drawn to her photo thumbtacked to the bulletin board above Cole’s head. She’s one of a couple of dozen sullen faces. After Amina caught Miranda, she grabbed her wrist when she tried to run. Amina isn’t that big, but her grip was like a ring of iron.
And this was where Amina took her. This very same room. When she was here a month ago, Miranda thought it was all going to end. Finally. She would be arrested and her parents would find out about everything. The lying. The stealing. And the rest. She was filled with shame, but also relief. Instead of calling the police, though, Amina snapped Miranda’s photo and then banned her from the store. Back then, Miranda told herself that she was lucky. And she hasn’t gone near Culpeppers since, at least not until today.
Now her head hurts worse than it had when she was trying to get coffee, which was when? She checks her phone: not even an hour ago. Earlier she was freezing, and now sweat is pouring off her. Yesterday, Matthew called off their meeting without explanation. If this whole nightmare hadn’t happened, she would have met him by now. He would have traded her some Oxy for the items she stole, and right about now she would be starting to feel good again.
Last summer, OxyContin started showing up at parties. It was a prescription drug, made in a factory someplace. That meant it was safe.
And the first time Miranda took it? It had been like falling in love. Like figuring out the biggest secret ever. She still remembers sitting in the backyard of some guy she went to school with, his parents gone and a party all around her, a party where normally she would have felt anxious the whole time. It was Matthew—Matthew Scout, although she didn’t know his full name then—who had given her that first pill. It wasn’t long before euphoria filled her. Miranda felt energized and mellow at the same time. It wasn’t like pot, which made her paranoid. Or alcohol, which made her talk too much and then made her cry. Oxy just made her feel good. A half hour after swallowing that first pill, she had been relaxing against Matthew’s shoulder.
It turned out that lots of people in her high school play around with Oxy. People from every sort of group—the burnouts, the geniuses, and even the girls who were wicked-good softball players who were going to get college scholarships—they’ve all tried it. But only the rich kids have the money to keep doing it, which makes it more cool. Because it’s so expensive, this big rich drug.
The one problem is that even though Miranda lives in tony Lake Oswego, she isn’t all that rich. Hasn’t been since her dad left her mom. Her dad still buys her things, but he doesn’t give her that much cash. And Matthew might have handed her that first pill free, as a favor, but he couldn’t afford to keep doing that.
And that was before he showed her that if you crushed up the pills and snorted them, you felt even better. And the next thing Miranda knew, if she didn’t have any in her system, she felt terrible. She cashed seven thousand dollars in savings bonds her aunts had given her for birthdays, money meant for college. She sold her phone and told her dad she lost it. She sold her leather jacket. She sold her mom’s camera, which hadn’t been used since the divorce. Matthew knows someone who has an eBay store, so Miranda has started shoplifting the things he says sell well. Anything just to stay in that happy place. Plus, it turns out that if you stop using, you feel worse than you ever have in your life. Like you have a fever. Like you’re going to start vomiting and never stop. Like your bones are being broken. Like she feels now.
“There’s a fix for that,” Matthew has told her. “You could just start using heroin. It’s way cheaper.” He does it himself and says it’s no big deal.
But so far Miranda has been saying no. If you use needle drugs, then you really are an addict.
“Look at this,” Amina whispers, and shows Grace something on her phone. At least it stops Grace from not-quite-silently crying.
Miranda pulls out her own phone. She texts Parker. R U out? Hiding w/ people at Culpeppers.
A few weeks ago, down in his basement, he had offered her a trade. Her time for his money. And she let him do whatever he wanted, knowing it would eventually make the pounding in her head go away.
Is Parker even alive to read her text? Probably not. When she shifts, she can smell herself, the acrid scent of fear. Miranda swallows hard against a roil of nausea.
Dear God, she prays, not even certain there is anyone to listen, help me. Help us.