I take a few steps back, and he edges past me, his key ring dangling from his finger. Ready to fill this park with dust clouds as he speeds away in his fancy ride.
Wait a minute . . . “Why am I letting you go?” I step forward, waving the knife in front of his face, forcing the guy back until he’s pressed against his hood. “I should call the cops on you.”
Panic flickers in his bright blue eyes. “You don’t want to do that.”
“Actually I do. That’s one less dealer to help my mother get high. They’ll love you in prison.” I pull my phone from the back of my shorts. “I hope your mommy’s ready to send you tubs of Vaseline in your care package.”
“I’m not a drug dealer!” he exclaims, irritation flaring in his voice. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe him. But only Mom’s dealers come to our door these days. There was a time when child protective services would make random stops, but that ended when I turned eighteen and they could officially not give a damn about me.
“What do you think, Sims?” If anyone can sniff out another dealer, it’d be him.
“He told me he was a friend.” Sims steps forward until he’s inches away from the guy, taking on a menacing stance.
“I’ve never seen this guy before in my life.” I’d remember. Six-foot-two-ish, square jaw, sandy brown hair in that perfectly messy style. He also has that “I’ve got money” vibe, even in a faded black T-shirt and dark blue jeans. Not what I’d expect my mother’s heroin dealer to look like. And honestly, not the kind of guy I’d expect to come sniffing around a strung-out, haggard thirty-nine-year-old woman. If he were looking for blow jobs as payment, I’m guessing he’d have no issues getting it from the pretty blonde cokeheads on campus.
“Look, I don’t want trouble.” He’s doing his best to ignore Sims, who’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, ready to pounce. “I was coming to drop something off. No one answered the door, so I was going to leave and come back later.” I detect a slight accent, though I can’t place it.
“What d’you wanna give her?” Sims’s gaze drops to the guy’s pockets, looking for this “thing.”
The bastard will just as easily steal it as give it to me. This is the point where my drug-dealing neighbor is no longer useful to me here. In fact, he’s making me angrier. “Go back to your pen, Sims. I’m sure someone’ll be coming around for a dime bag soon enough.”
Taking two steps, Sims turns that menacing gaze toward me, his nostrils flaring. “You know, you’re awful mouthy for a little girl needing help.”
“Do I look like I need help?” I wave the blade at him. “You think I’m stupid? You’re not here to help me. You’re looking for an opportunity. And what’re you gonna do to me, anyway, huh?”
“You’ve always been a bitch,” Sims mumbles, taking a step closer to me, puffing out his lanky chest.
The guy adjusts his stance, looking ready to grab Sims and throw him to the ground.
“Relax, Rich Boy, Sims here is all talk. Plus he’s on probation and if he lays a hand on me, he’s going straight to jail for a long time. Isn’t that right?” I need to stop egging Sims on. I’m banking on him being smart enough to walk away, but I already know he’s an idiot.
Before I can find out how big an idiot, Vilma’s shouting pulls all our attention away. “iLa casa se está quemando!” I look to where she’s pointing, to the smoke curling from the kitchen window.
Oh hell. Mom’s finally gone and done it.
Shoving Sims out of the way, I snap my blade closed and toss it into my purse with one hand while I fumble with my keys using the other. “Mom!” I unlock the door and throw it open, bracing myself. A plume of dark smoke rolls out above me and sails upward.
The kitchen is on fire. No surprise, the toaster oven is the source, angry flames spouting from it, igniting the threadbare curtains that dangle by the window. They go up in a rush, doubling the size of the fire as the flames reach for the cupboards and the walls.
I dive for the fire extinguisher, my heart pounding in my ears. “How do I even use this thing!” I shriek, panicked.
A strong hand yanks it from my grip. The guy I just held at knifepoint pulls the pin and aims the nozzle toward the toaster oven. White foam shoots out toward the flames. He seems to know what he’s doing and I don’t have time to wonder why the hell he’s helping. I turn my focus on Mom, sprawled out on the couch, one arm and one leg dangling off the edge.
As still as the dead.
I dive for her, shoving the coffee table out of the way to make room. Trying to ignore the chaos behind me, I press my ear against her mouth to check for breathing.
I feel nothing.
My feet pound against the floor as I run to my room, for the hollowed-out book where I hid the doses of Narcan and next to it, the breathing mask. The last time she OD’d, the doctor set me up with a course and sent me home with this stuff for when I needed it next.
I fumble to collect the pieces, my heart hammering in my chest.
I’ve been gone maybe thirty seconds, and yet when I return, it’s an entirely different scene. Flames crawl along the walls and ceiling of the kitchen, the intense heat from the blaze causing me to flinch as I step over the spent extinguisher that lies on the floor.
The guy is holding mom’s lifeless body in his arms. “It’s too late. Come on!”
Shit. This means firefighters and maybe police . . . I lunge for the used syringe, snapping the needle off the end. I toss the syringe into the heart of the fire.
“Forget that!” The guy grabs hold of my arm and tugs me out the door with him, forcing me down the stairs. I chase after him as he marches past where Vilma stands, phone in hand, spouting a bunch of Spanish words that I do understand, like ambulancia and fuego. She must have called 9-1-1.
“Put her down!” I grab the guy’s arm, his skin hot, his muscles tense under my mom’s weight, and wave the Narcan in front of him. “I need to give her this right now.”
He finally relents, setting her down on the dirt laneway, though I can tell he doesn’t like doing it.
I rip the cap off the nasal spray applicator and the tube. Steps I memorized but have never actually executed in real life. My hands are shaking as I shove the glass cartridge into the applicator and twist it into place.
“Come on . . .” Holding her floppy head up, I spray half into one nostril, and then half into the other, hoping I haven’t messed it up and put too much in one and not enough in the other. I set the breathing mask over her mouth and lean down to blow into it.
“You’re doing it too fast.”
I try to slow down.
“Here, let me.” Strong hands clamp over my biceps and pull me to the side. Normally, my fists would be flailing—a natural reaction to anyone manhandling me—but right now I’m thankful for the help. He’s the only one who’s offering any.
He drops to his knees, sealing his mouth over the tube to blow into it. He pauses, then blows into it again before shifting his gaze to her withered chest. With a slight shake of his head, he goes back to the mask, repeating the rhythmic pace.
“If she doesn’t start breathing on her own after three to five minutes, I have to give her another dose,” I explain, wringing my hands as I watch him, desperate to hear sirens. The fire station is around the corner.
Not close enough, I accept as I glance over my shoulder to see the angry flames dancing inside, eagerly charring every last, sad possession we have.
Unfastening his watch with smooth precision, he hands it to me. “It’s been about a minute.”
I take the watch without a word.
After another glance at her chest and a pause, he warns softly, “You might want to get the other one ready.”
I dig it out of my pocket and kneel beside him, my fists balled up tight.
“Your place isn’t well marked. You should head down the road to wave them in.”
“They’ll follow the smoke. Besides, they already know where we live.”