Author: Cassia Leo

I wait at least fifteen minutes, while carrying on a text conversation with Harlow, before I decide to check on Mikki. I make my way to the restroom door and listen for a few seconds. Hearing nothing, I knock three times.

Chapter 6: MIKKI – January 3rd

The knocking on the door doesn’t startle me. I sit on the toilet with my panties chained around my ankles, staring at the cream-colored walls. I’ve been in here a while, and the meth is finally kicking in; my heart is racing and my fingertips are starting to get a little cold and numb. I’m not breathing fast enough to keep up with my heart. That’s okay. I like the numbness.

Grabbing my purse off the sink, I pull a large, sharpened safety pin out of an inner pocket. I gave this safety pin a name because he’s my trusty little friend who I knew I could count on to make it through airport security. I call him Casper. I unclasp the safety pin and stare at the sharp point, the way it glimmers in the awful bathroom lighting. I press the point against the fair skin at the top of my thigh, almost where it meets my hip, then I drag it lightly across my skin. It stings a little, leaving a thin pink line that fills me with relief and revulsion. I dig the pin deeper into my skin and drag it across again, over the same pink line, applying more pressure this time. My stomach clenches inside me until I pull the pin away from my skin and let out a deep breath. Tiny red droplets of fresh blood bubble up from the scratch. I close my eyes as I cross my arms over my belly and double over.

The knocking has stopped. Hopefully, Crush has realized that he should just grab his fucking bagel and leave me, and my craziness, far behind.

Another knock. ‘Miss, are you all right in there?’

Fuck. Crush has enlisted the help of the nerd behind the counter. I quickly get dressed and stuff the open safety pin into the pocket of my skinny jeans. Maybe it will prick me while I’m walking around looking for a place to sleep tonight. Stupid storm. What kind of cheap motel room am I going to get with $70 in my bank account?

I had to buy two plane tickets for this trip and both of those were canceled today. One of those flights has an overnight layover in Chicago and the other – the flight I was really going to take – was a direct flight that was supposed to land at LAX in five hours. The flight with the layover isn’t supposed to land until 2:00 p.m. tomorrow. But now that all flights are canceled, my parents and Meaghan and Rina are going to start looking for me. Rina will find my letter. I can’t wander the streets of Boston. It won’t take long for the cops to spot a girl with black hair, tattoos on her fingers, and a scar running from the corner of her mouth to the point of her chin. I have to hole up somewhere until this storm passes.

A key slides into the lock and the bathroom door opens just as I’m drying my hands on a paper towel. ‘Can’t a girl take a piss in private?’ I say, pushing past the nerd.

I walk right past Crush, ignoring him when he calls out to me. ‘Where are you going?’

I want to shout back, I need a cigarette or I may become homicidal! Pushing through the door, a flurry of icy wind blasts me in the face. I gasp and curse at the same time. ‘Fucking shit!’

Crush appears behind me at the threshold looking a bit pissed off. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ I reach for the pack of cigarettes in my coat pocket, but my pocket is missing and my wool coat doesn’t feel like wool.

I’m not wearing my coat.

‘Get in here before you freeze to death.’

My hands tremble as I stuff them into my jeans pockets in an attempt to cover up my moment of meth-induced mania. I step back inside, making sure not to touch him as he stands like a fucking stone column in the middle of the threshold. I can feel the embarrassment curling my shoulders as I attempt to retreat into myself. Why am I here with a complete stranger? And why is this stranger so fucking concerned with my safety? Offering me a cab ride and some breakfast, knocking on bathroom doors, chasing me out of coffee shops.

‘What are you, some fucking superhero for freaks?’ I mutter as he takes the seat across from me at the table.

‘Super-freak?’

I smile reluctantly at this joke, but the moment he smiles back I feel sick to my stomach. I take a deep breath as a wave of regret overcomes me and, the guilt comes. Whenever I’m high around friends or family, there’s always a measure of guilt for not being totally present. But I don’t know this guy. Why should I even care if he thinks I’m a bit weird or spacey?

Because, for some weird reason, he seems to care about me.

‘That will be your nickname.’ I reach for the discarded muffin top and break off a piece. ‘Super-freak.’

He smiles, probably thinking I’m going to put the muffin in my mouth. ‘Ah, hypocrisy flourishes in the face of hunger.’

I break up the muffin and watch it crumble from my fingertips onto the plate. ‘I’m not eating it. I’m merely destroying it and everything it stands for.’

‘What does the muffin stand for?’

‘Conformity and exclusion. If you’re not the best or the prettiest – or the tastiest – then you’re worthless. That’s what the muffin top stands for.’

‘God,’ he whispers. ‘Can you be any more charming?’

‘Maybe if I had a drink or two in me.’

‘It’s ten o’clock in the morning.’

‘Yeah, and it’s really fucking cold. So cold we may all be frozen to death by tomorrow morning. Do you want to spend the last day of your life worrying about the appropriate time to start drinking? Cause I’m pretty sure the appropriate time was about one hour ago when they canceled all the flights.’

He nods as he stands from the chair and begins to put on his coat. ‘You make a good case. I will not be filing an appeal this time.’

I pull on my black wool coat and he leaves some cash on the table, then we grab our luggage and head for the door. Yanking the drawstrings on my hoodie as tight as I can, I brace myself for the inevitable blast of cold air. Crush exits ahead of me, presumably to absorb the brunt of the blast.

‘I know a place just around the corner from here on Mass,’ he shouts over the whoosh of the wind. ‘You think you can make it? Looks to be at least four inches of snow on this pavement.’

‘I’ll let you know if I feel a bout of death coming on.’

We keep our heads down as we drag our suitcases down Columbus Avenue through the snow; or, at least, I attempt to. It takes about fifteen seconds of this for me to regret every single piece of clothing I packed in this suitcase in my grand scheme to appear normal. We’re halfway down the block when the chest pains begin.

‘Wait,’ I wheeze, clutching my chest as I try to catch my breath.

‘Do you have asthma?’

‘No.’ Just meth-induced heart palpitations.

He waits a couple of minutes for me to catch my breath, then, without a single word spoken, he grabs the handle of my suitcase and begins to drag it toward Massachusetts Avenue. I keep my head down and press my lips together to keep them warm – and to hide my smile.

We cross Mass Ave, passing a pizza place, and continue half a block before we turn right into a small side street that looks more like an alley. My heart is racing again. I shake my head, taking quick, shallow breaths to try to stave off a panic attack.

‘Where are you taking me?’ My voice is muffled by the fear flooding every vessel in my body.

‘What?’ he says, looking over his shoulder as he continues down the tiny street toward an empty parking lot.

‘Where are we?’ I shriek.

He stops and stares at me. ‘Are you all right? I’m just taking you to this jazz club.’ He points at the brick-faced building to a sign that reads: Wally’s Café. ‘See?’

I draw in a long breath of freezing cold air, then I nod my head and continue after him. ‘Isn’t it a bit early to go to a jazz club?’

‘I know the owner. If he’s not there, the manager will be there. They don’t officially open for another eight hours, but there’s pretty much always someone here. They’ll let us hang out and keep warm as long as we want.’

‘How do you know the owner? Are you related to him or something?’

‘No, Wally’s is sort of a training ground for local musicians – particularly music students. It’s one of the oldest and best jazz clubs in Boston and, if we stick around till six, you’ll hear some of the best live music you’ve ever heard; guaranteed. Tonight is blues night.’

As he approaches the door to Wally’s, I don’t bother telling him I’ve never actually heard live music before.

He has to knock a few times before someone finally shouts through the door, ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Crush!’ he shouts back. ‘And it’s colder than a Yankee’s heart out here. Open up!’

The door swings open, revealing a tall, thin black man in a blue and white plaid dress shirt and gray chinos. ‘Get your butt in here, boy. You’re letting in the snow.’

Crush quickly pulls the suitcases and the guitar case into the club and I smile at the man as he holds the door for me to enter. Crush rolls the luggage into a corner near the entrance of the dark club, dusting off the snow before he turns to me.

‘Leroy, this is my friend Mikki. Mikki, this is Leroy. He manages the club.’

I nod at Leroy and he scrunches up his eyebrows. ‘Nice to meet you too, young lady.’

I hate talking to strangers. I’m not sure how Crush has been able to break through that social anxiety, but Leroy is making me nervous. I feel as if he’s expecting me to say something clever or funny, just because I walked in with Crush.

‘Sorry. I . . . it’s nice to meet you.’ I hold out my hand to him.

He pauses for a moment as he looks at the tattoos on my fingers, then he smiles as he shakes my hand. ‘Y’all can go hang out at the bar. Jimmy’s coming in about an hour. He’ll fix y’all a drink. I’m going to get this damn schedule worked out. Third Monday this month I got a cancellation.’

The club is tiny and very dark, but it’s warm; and not just because the heat is working. Something about this place feels . . . safe.

We sit down on some stools at the bar, which runs almost the entire length of the narrow room. I take off my coat and lay it across the stool next to me and Crush does the same.

‘When Jimmy gets here, he’ll make you the best damn martini you’ve ever had.’

‘This place has the best music and the best martinis? Sounds like heaven.’

‘It is,’ he replies proudly.

We sit in silence for a moment; just long enough for the dark anxiety to start building inside me again. I begin thinking of how I almost freaked out in the alley a few minutes ago and wondering when my craziness is going to be too much for him to handle.

The alley.

Don’t think about it, the voice inside my head shouts. But, on any given day, my thoughts vary between a leaky faucet and a fire-hose of negativity, drowning me or just annoying the hell out of me until I’m forced to do something to make them stop.

‘What are you thinking?’ Crush asks, and suddenly I notice that he’s holding a crushed penny in his hand; actually, he’s rubbing the penny between his thumb and forefinger.

‘Do you think saving someone’s life cancels out taking another person’s life?’

He looks horrified by this question. ‘What? What do you mean?’

‘I mean exactly what I said. If you kill someone, can you erase that sin by saving someone else’s life?’

He drops the penny onto the bar. ‘Why would you ask me that?’ I wait for him to pick up the penny before I reply.

‘Look, it’s just a question. No need to freak out. I didn’t kill anyone.’