“Yeah?”

“I volunteer as tribute.”

Oscar came darting back into the room, running around and bumping into everything, squealing this high-pitched death scream, like he’d just escaped the slaughterhouse and was running for dear life. I was about to ask what was up with him, but before I could form the words Preppy was on his feet running down the hall. I was close on his heels, but felt like everything was moving in slow motion, including me. Frame by still frame, the realization of what was happening was revealed. Preppy’s voice calling out Mirna’s name. Oscar’s squeal as he pushed passed me in the hall.

Mirna, laying on the kitchen floor.

Blood pooled around her head.

CHAPTER TWENTY

PREPPY

Dre was quiet when we followed the ambulance to the hospital. She was quiet when we sat in the waiting room. She was even quiet when the doctor came out from behind swinging double doors, calling for Mirna’s immediate family. We followed the doctor back through the doors to a room with a glass wall, the pale blue curtain peeled back, revealing a complicated web of tubes and what could have been Mirna somewhere underneath. Dre pressed her forehead to the glass. “We’re going to monitor her,” the doctor said. “She’s stable for now, but the next forty-eight hours will tell us more. She hit her head when she fell and we stitched that up.” She was a young Asian woman with a high bun in her hair, and at least three pencils sticking out of it. She didn’t look much older than I was. “But just know that even if she survives, the chances of a full recovery at her age, with her pervious diagnosis of dementia, isn’t likely. If the next two days go well, then she’ll be here for a couple of weeks. If she’s still stable after that then we’ll discharge her, but she’ll need around the clock care.” She looked up from her clipboard to Dre, whose eyes were still on Mirna, and then to me. “Probably for the rest of her life.”

“She’s been on the waiting list for Sarasota Assisted for months,” I explained.

“I’m going to the ladies’ room,” Dre muttered, hugging herself. Her Keds squeaking against the linoleum as she headed toward the hall with the restroom sign hanging from the ceiling.

The doctor scribbled something down on her clip board. “I know some people over at Sarasota Assisted. I’ll give them a call, tell them about your grandmother’s situation, see if we can get her moved up the list.” She tore off a page from her note pad and handed it to me. “Here is the name and number of another facility. It’s a little farther away, but it might have an opening sooner if SA doesn’t work out.”

“Thanks,” I said, folding the paper and tucking it into my pocket.

“And I know it’s not my place,” she started, glancing to where Dre just disappeared. “But I saw her arms. I wrote down the number for another place. Just in case it could help.”

I know the doctor was just trying to help, but for some reason her suggestion that Dre wasn’t okay infuriated me. “Mind your own fucking business,” I snapped, leaving the doctor and heading down the hall. I passed the elevators and waited across from the restroom.

After a few minutes, I knocked on the door. The elevator dinged and a sad looking couple got off and checked the room numbers on the wall. The doors closed again, and that’s when I knew that when I burst into the ladies’ room that Dre wouldn’t be there.

I was right. The single stall was empty. No windows. She was never even there.

I jogged to the elevator and frantically pressed the button. I didn’t know where the fuck she went, but she had a five minute head start, which if she wanted to run from Mirna, from me, wasn’t nearly fucking enough.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

DRE

There wasn’t enough time. Not in this life or the next. There were still a million apologies owed, a trillion cookies to be baked, a lifetime of hugs to be had.

Life is short. Death is final.

Dementia is a purgatory in which nothing matters.

There just wasn’t enough fucking time.

The voice in my head grew louder. The one that started as a whisper. A suggestion. A voice that told me that they knew what I needed to stop the pain. The one that told me that escape was only a needle away.

I swallowed down the lump in my throat and pushed open the back doors. I ran across the parking lot to the shell road behind the building, picking up speed, running with no destination in mind until I could no longer see the lights from the hospital behind me and my tears dried on my cheeks. I passed a few scattered houses before stopping when I came to a cemetery lined in wild growing hedge.

My heart was beating fast from exertion, but suddenly it started to pound erratically but it wasn’t my heart. It was bass from music. Some poppy dance tune. Laughter floated in the air from behind the bushes. A house slowly came into view. A three-story run down Victorian that looked as if it had been abandoned. The hedge gave way to an open iron gate. A sign reading DO NOT ENTER was hanging from a cut chain. Young people, around my age, were scattered all over the lawn and the porch. Candles lined the railing.

“Hey,” someone said, startling me. I spun around to find a petite red-headed girl with a glazed over look in her eyes. “Do I know you?” she asked, her words slurring slightly.

“I don’t think so. I just heard the music.”

“Well if you’re looking for a party, you’ve found it!” She raised the bottle of vodka she was carrying in the air and took a swig, splashing some of it onto her face.

I shook my head and was about to turn away, when the breeze rustled the trees and a very familiar scent snaked its way from the house, through my nose, and into my brain. The sensation of awareness that followed was like smelling the cologne or perfume of an ex-lover. With one little sniff, I remembered every touch, every taste, every euphoric feeling, almost like we’d never been apart.

My ex-lover, the only real lover I’d ever had, was calling to me.

And the bitch’s name was Heroin.

* * *

I don’t remember moving my feet. I don’t remember entering the house. What I remember is the couple having sex against the wall of the foyer. The smell of body odor and feces. The graffiti marking the walls. The peeling wallpaper.