I catch the bus, ride up to Capitol Hill, and get off on Broadway. The street is lined with short girls in boots, fedoras flung over shoulders, and suede bags that match their shoes. They remind me of girls I used to know, or maybe they remind me of the girl I used to be, or maybe they look like girls I wish I knew or wish I was.

I can't remember the last time I took a shower.

On the other side of the street, outside the fast food place, a girl I think I saw at a party last week sits with a paper cup. This guy, Frank, hunches next to her, the hem of his overcoat scraping the sidewalk, his arms crossed.

I walk over to talk to the girl, but when I approach her, she stretches the Styrofoam cup out to me for change. I tell her who I am, that I think I know her from somewhere, and she just keeps her arm outstretched. So I drop a dime in the cup and feel it hit the back of my head as I walk away. I ignore this and walk toward a well known apartment a few blocks away. The sky darkens quickly and I feel tiny drops of cold rain hit my face as I knock on the door of the apartment.

A scruffy guy in boxers opens the door and grunts. He leaves it open and I step inside. I start to wonder where he's gone, when he returns. He sees that I've left the door open; he glares at me, and slams it shut.

The two of us are alone in the hallway and a tiny plastic bag appears out of nowhere, dangling between his fingers. He says, "Fifty bucks." I hand it to him. And even though I don't recognize this scruffy savior, I think he must know me, because he takes the money, drops the bag into my coat pocket, and leads me to a room in the apartment. He opens the door for me, and before he leaves, he tells me I've got half an hour.

People don't leave you alone in a room in their house to shoot up unless they know you.


I have my own works because my roommate, Sarah, is sick from sharing needles. When I discovered the needle exchange a few blocks from campus, I started swapping used ones for new ones because it seemed the thing to do, like when you go to the clinics and automatically pocket a bunch of condoms, even if you don’t plan to use them. Turning down free shit doesn't make sense. I brought the needles back for Sarah and I to use, and always kept a large bag of fresh needles under the sink, but she never really cared about any of that stuff anyway. She's not the type to do dishes, either. We don't eat all that much, so it doesn't matter any more.

Sarah doesn't care that she's sick. I think she might even be kind of glad. If the drugs don't kill her, then the other thing will.


After the guy leaves, I sit down on the bare mattress on the floor. I take out the bag from my coat pocket and start to fix up. It's good to have focus. I've seen plenty of people drop the spoon because they're shaking so badly. You just have to stay calm and remember to focus.


Last night, Sarah's boyfriend came over and kicked her. Sarah hasn't spoken for a few days, not since her mom called, I think. I wouldn't have let him in, but the door was unlocked and we don't live in a secure building. He walked right in and over to where Sarah was lying, watching the television. She stared at Wheel of Fortune. He kicked her a few times but she didn't move. "Are you dead, bitch?" he said loudly, not bothering to look over at me. I was half asleep, wishing he'd leave. He made too much noise. He kicked Sarah's leg once more and left.

"Sarah, what did he want?" I asked after he'd left.

But Sarah didn't answer me; she kept staring at the television set. I locked the door and then I came back to the couch and pulled a blanket over myself, huddling under it, trying to get warm. It's always cold in our apartment. We're always freezing.


I'm grateful the scruffy guy dealer left me alone. Some guys like to watch girls shoot up.

When the stuff finally hits my bloodstream, I fall back onto the bare mattress on the floor and close my eyes in relief. Last night, I woke up at midnight shaking. I crawled to the bathroom and threw up. My skin felt like ice. When my stomach was completely emptied in the toilet, I hobbled over to Sarah.

Her eyes were closed and my heart stopped for a second.

I shook her and said, "Sarah! Sarah!" Her eyes opened, and I started crying. "Sarah, I'm sick," I said, and some saliva fell out of my mouth. I wiped it off with my hand. "Sarah, are you okay?"

She didn't say anything, but lifted her blanket up toward me and I crept in. She wrapped the blanket over both of us and rocked us. But I couldn't go back to sleep.


We can never come up with enough money for any dealer to want to come over to our place. We stopped trying a couple of months ago when one of Sarah's boyfriend's friends laughed and said he wasn't making a car trip for $50, that it was a $100 minimum, and even that was pushing it. "If I come over there, one of you is going to have to make up for the other fifty," he said. Sarah motioned for me to hang up the phone and we spent the rest of the afternoon calling every single person we knew who might want to help.


In the scruffy guy's apartment, I can hear someone vomiting in the hallway. Now that I think about it, I'm not really sure this apartment belongs to the scruffy guy at all. Maybe he's squatting. Maybe we all are.

It's hard for me to remember things. I stare at the ceiling of the apartment I'm in. It's stained—someone upstairs must have flooded their kitchen or bathroom at some point. An oval, reddish stain is directly overhead, but I'm so grateful to be high, so grateful to be here in this apartment. The stain starts to resemble a brown halo over my head.

Last week, a guy called me and we talked on the phone for a half hour before he realized I didn't recognize him, even though we'd dated a few times earlier this year. He came over anyway, after we hung up, and brought some shitty coke. When I asked him if he had anything stronger, he raised his eyebrows. He opened his mouth to say something, but Sarah started moaning from her bedroom. He looked really freaked out. I grabbed a syringe from under the couch and told him I needed to take care of my friend and I'd be right back. I went to give Sarah the last of the bag we'd bought a couple of days earlier—and in truth, there wasn't really much—and when I came back out to the living room, he was gone.

I can't remember his name.


I know I've got to get back to the apartment. I shouldn't leave Sarah by herself for very long. She needs some, too. Sarah should be getting a check from her parents within a few days. They think she's still in school. They think we both are. I think we are, technically. We registered for classes, but I'm not sure how many we actually went to. And I'm not sure how much time we have left before the end of the semester. I'm not sure how much time we have left at all.

Sarah's been my best friend since freshman year. I met her in chemistry class. I walked in, and there she was, in black leather and silver earrings, staring out the window. Other kids talked, whispered, shuffled things around, and she was in the front row by the window, staring out at the courtyard with a small smile on her lips. I sat next to her and didn't say anything. But she turned to me and smiled. She stretched out her hand, and I took it and smiled back.

Sarah would teach me everything.

We became roommates the next year, and Sarah taught me which blouses would show off cleavage, which directors and actors were cool and which were not. I learned about feminist theory and politics. Sarah grew up in New York City.

I always dreamed about living there.


And it happened:

One day, Sarah and I are partying, and the next time I look at my watch, a few months have passed, and we don't have any heat in our apartment, there's no food in the kitchen, and the living room is littered with tin foil and plastic baggies. Sarah's boyfriend is kicking her, and I think all of this started with a party last winter break, or maybe it was the summer when we were all at this trust fund kid's house and there were drugs on every table, in every room, all over the floor, or maybe it happened the first week of this semester when someone gave us some for free and we didn't stop doing it until it was gone, and then we blew the grocery money on more, and from then on, it seemed pointless to stop.


The trip from the scruffy guy's apartment back to my own takes awhile. I get on the wrong bus by mistake. When I finally open the door to our apartment, I call Sarah's name. What I've got in my pocket isn't going to last us more than a couple of days. One of us will probably have to write a check for cash tomorrow. I can't deal with thinking about running out of money.

As usual, Sarah doesn't answer.

I turn on the TV and stare at it for awhile. I doze off and when I wake up, it's dark out again.

I walk into Sarah's bedroom and sit down on her bed. Her comforter is blue and fuzzy. I nudge her legs and say, "Sarah, wake up."

She doesn't answer.

I pull the comforter from her face, and Sarah's eyes are open and glazed over. Her mouth is open, too, and there's foam falling down her lower lip.

I cover her face up quickly, and back away, falling to the floor as I do.

My shin hits her nightstand, but I can't feel anything. I crawl backwards toward the door, open it, and crawl out into the hallway. I pull the door shut behind me and crawl quickly toward the couch.

The living room is dark except for the bright Twilight Zone shadows on the couch and walls.

I leap up and turn on the lights. My face is wet, and I think I'm crying, but I can't tell. I make myself another fix and before it hits, I realize that I've got at least another three days before I'm out.

Three days. That should be enough time to get more money. Somehow.

I start to nod and I sink down into the couch. Now I can think. Now I can concentrate. Now I can focus.