“Dude, you’re fucking spacing.” Tristan cracks through my thoughts as he enters my room, rapping on the doorway. He has a T-shirt on and a pair of baggy jeans and his blond hair looks wet for some reason, but I doubt it’s from a shower, since ours has been broken for days.

“Why’s your hair wet?” I ask over the music, slanting my head to the side, and a drop of water falls into my eye, rehydrating it.

His fingers move for his hair, which gives me a view of his forearm and the small holes and scabs covering his skin, some outlined with shades of blue and purple. “Oh, I washed my hair in the sink. It reeked like vodka for some reason…I think someone might have poured it in my hair last night when I passed out on the living room floor.”

“Yeah, I can see that happening.” I redirect my concentration back to the drip in the ceiling. “You have a knack for crazy things happening when you pass out, which is a sign that you might want to stop.”

“I’ll stop when you stop,” he says, because he knows I’m not going to, and it makes me feel like a terrible person, even though I’m not certain he means it. Still, I should at least challenge him, but at the same time I can’t give up the one thing that brings me a drop of peace in the murky lake that’s become my home.

“So are you going out tonight with me after we make a pickup?” He changes the subject, glancing around at the nothingness that pretty much fills my room, except for my sketchbook that’s on the floor. His gaze briefly lingers on it before he looks up at me. “Dylan said he had some shit for us to do over at Johnny’s…well, he said stuff for you to do, since he’s still pissed off at me for screwing over Trace and there’s a good chance he could be there.”

Johnny is the guy who supplies Dylan with large quantities of drugs for him to deal and sometimes we get drugs from Johnny ourselves. Trace is one of the guys we deal to regularly. Trace actually has a lot of money, at least in comparison to us. He also has a lot of connections, which means pissing him off is a very bad thing. About a week ago Tristan “accidentally” shorted him a couple of ounces, one of which he sold and the other of which I have no idea what happened to—we probably used it and I didn’t even know. When Trace asked him for his thousand hundred bucks back for being shorted the ounces, Tristan replied that he didn’t have it—that he’d spent it. Tristan’s dumb ass managed to get away without getting his ass kicked. He did come home with a huge bruise on his face and I think all of us have been expecting Trace and his guys to break down the door and beat us up until Tristan pays him back.

“As much as Dylan is an asshole, I’m with him on this one,” I tell him. “You’re lucky Trace and his guys haven’t broken down the door and beat your ass. Remember what they did to Roy and his girlfriend after they stole from him?”

“Roy was an idiot,” he says. “And didn’t know how to lay low.”

“No, he tried to lay low,” I reply in a firm voice. “But they found him and beat the shit out of him. He ended up in the hospital and almost freaking died…and they raped his girlfriend.”

It seems crazy that this is the way things are, but I learned really quickly when we moved down here that there are a lot more dangers with drugs than just doing them. There’s also a lot of danger through exchanges, the people I meet, the people who think I’m ripping them off. But I’m not even sure they are dangers because most of the time I don’t feel scared, knowing what could happen. The risk just exists like everything else.

Tristan seems unfazed. “A, I don’t have a girlfriend, so I don’t have to worry about anyone but myself, and B, I’ll figure out a way to pay him back…somehow.” It’s clear in his voice that he has no intention of paying Trace back. Tristan has no boundaries anymore, not just with stealing and taking drugs, but with life choices; he’s always pushing toward danger. Never thinking about the consequences, veering toward a short life. We all kind of hover in the same place, always a few steps away from getting ourselves killed or arrested, especially with the large amount of drugs Dylan has in his possession sometimes when he’s working a bigger exchange. But Tristan never seems to know when to pull back, and a few steps is more like half a step for him. I’ve had to stop him more than a few times from getting into fights, doing too many drugs, mixing the wrong drugs, but it’s okay. I owe him so much more and I’ll keep helping him—making sure that half a step always exists—until the day I die. It can be my penance.

“It’s not worth death.” I have to pause to catch my breath. Saying the word “death,” talking about death, or even thinking about it, can sometimes make me feel like I’m helplessly falling, even when I’m flying. “So stop stealing shit and find a way to pay Trace back before he gets fed up.”

“It’s not worth death, huh?” Tristan questions, ignoring my remark about Trace as his forehead creases in confusion and I wonder what he’s on, if the drugs are just getting to him or if he really questions if it’s not death.

“Not for you,” I say with the little care I have left in me. “Drugs aren’t worth your life ending.”

“But they are for you?”

“Everything’s worth death for me.” I lose my breath again over the word. I need to stop saying it, but sometimes when I’m strung out, words just crash out of my mouth.

He glances uneasily at the names Lexi, Ryder, and No One tattooed on my arm. “Just stop talking about death and get up and come do this run with me.”

“Where are you going?” I ask, but my voice gets washed away by the increase in the volume of the music as the drummer bangs harder on the drums and the woman singer belts out passionate lyrics that I swear to God are trying to tell me something. I become distracted by images appearing in my head, ones I’ve tried to put down on paper many times but can never seem to get as perfect as I want them to be. Nova with drumsticks in her hands, pounding to the beat while beads of sweat cover her smooth skin, but in the most beautiful way possible.

Tristan goes over to a corner of the bedroom and turns the music down, tipping over the stereo in the process. “You’ve been listening to some real depressing shit lately.”

“I guess so, but does it really matter?” I ask, wiping a few water droplets off my forehead. “It sort of matches my mood anyway.”

“I was just pointing it out.” He picks up a dirty shirt off the floor and chucks it at my face, then gives the side of the mattress a good kick. “Now get your ass up so we can go get this shit done. I have plans later tonight.”

I blink my dry eyes and force saliva down my throat a few times to rehydrate it. “I’m not sure I want to go anywhere right now.”

“Why?” he asks, backing up toward the wall. “You have something better to do?”

“No, but I’m not really feeling it right now,” I tell him. “In fact, all I want to do is lie back down and stare at the water stain on my wall.”

He relaxes back against the wall, shaking his head. “Okay, fess up, who the hell was on the phone?”

I turn my head toward him, my brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“When Delilah gave you her phone like a week ago,” he says. “You’ve been acting weird ever since and using more, too, which I’m not going to lecture you about, since I’m always getting pissed at you for lecturing me.”

“I’ve been acting as weird as I always do.” I sit up and pick up the shirt he threw at me. “There’s nothing wrong and no one called me.”

“Someone called you or else she wouldn’t have given you the phone.”

“It was…just an old friend.”

He rubs his jawline contemplatively. “Was it who I think it was?”

I slip my shirt over my head and put my arms through the sleeves. “Does it really matter?”

“It seems to matter to you, which is weird because nothing ever seems to matter to you, except for the last few days,” he states, moving away from the wall. He opens his mouth to say something, but then he pauses, debating. “It was Nova, wasn’t it?”

“Why would you even think that?” I gather some loose change piled on the floor beside my mattress, the only money I have at the moment, and most of it came from walking around and checking car doors. If they’re unlocked then we raid them and steal anything that has value. It’s the only source of income I have other than dealing for Dylan. He uses us to deal and in return we get drugs and sometimes cash to buy more drugs, a roof over our heads, and what more is there? It’s all I need—deserve. “I haven’t talked to Nova in forever,” I add.

“So what?” Tristan retrieves his cigarettes from the pocket of his jeans, nudging a few quarters on the floor in my direction with the tip of his worn sneaker. “Nova seems like the sort of girl that would call after a year and you had this look on your face while you were talking on the phone…like the conversation meant something to you.”

“I’m surprised you were sober enough to see my face.” I stuff a handful of coins into my pocket, then pick up the mirror that’s beside the pile of coins, reach under my mattress to where my stash is, and pull out the plastic bag holding the white shards of crystal that’s going to either let me numbly survive the night or kill me. “You’ve been on heroin so much lately, you’ve barely been conscious.”

He rolls his eyes as he removes a cigarette from the pack, puts it in his mouth, then cups his hand around the end and lights it with a lighter he finds on my floor. “Don’t be a fucking hypocrite.” He blows out a cloud of smoke as he takes the cigarette out of his mouth. “You do just as much crystal as I do smack. In fact you might even do more.”