Me and Kara always hung out with Ann and Melanie – they were always together - in the quad. We hung where the freaks hung. Smoked cigarettes and rested against each other. Nobody said the word lesbian, we said they were together.

They were together the day I dropped a lit cigarette in my pocket and Melanie said,

“Your pocket’s on fire.” I looked, smoke was wisping out and gathering in my armpit.

I emptied the pocket, dumping Newports, matches, overdue math homework on the stairs.

Melanie laughed; Ann draped an arm around me.

“That was close,” Ann said.

It was January, snowing in Boston. It was my only coat.

“Thanks,” I offered cigarettes as gratitude even though they were both smoking.

Kara sidled up and snuck her hand in my back pocket warming my butt and heart.

“I’ll take one since you’re sharing,” Kara said. She did that trick where you strike a safety match on your jeans.

Kara kept leaning against me, talking to Melanie about a history exam. Melanie said something in French that was going to be on the test.

Melanie had French A block and I had it D block and she primed me with quiz questions and comments about the French teacher’s mood.

Ann and Kara were talking about some party on Saturday night in Brighton.

“You should come,” Kara said.

The jocks were in their corner of the quad, the nerds on the other set of stairs. The freaks and the queers were here.

I picked up the trash from my pocket dislodging Kara’s hand. When I got too far away from Kara I got chilled. I tried to recapture her attention, but she was flirting with Melanie. Ann didn’t seem to mind. Why should I?

In December, before winter break, Kara invited me to hang at her mom’s house. Her mom was a pill freak. There were pink pills Kara wanted me to try.

“My mom’s too zonked to miss them,” Kara said.

She pushed aside single earrings, a full ashtray, to reveal an array of pink, blue and white pills on the top of her dresser.

“Isn’t pink your favorite color?”

I downed a pink one.

“Vodka?” Kara offered the bottle after taking a swig herself.

“I’mna wait to see if I like the pink pill,” I said, scared of how alcohol and pills might rage together in my brain.

I balanced on one foot pointing my toes at the ceiling, an almost perfect vertical split. In those days I was flexible.

Melanie and Ann showed up. I tried to get Melanie to dance with me, but she slipped away.

“What did you give this one?” Melanie said jerking her thumb at me.

“Her favorite color is pink,” Kara gestured to the array of pills making an offer.

I danced over to Kara and put my arms around her shoulders trying to coax her into dancing. She brushed me away, but it was okay to dance alone in front of friends.

****

The party was on the first floor of a sketchy triple decker on the Brighton/ Boston line. Snow swirled and landed, turning the frozen ground a hard white.

We used to hang together a lot, me and Kara, and I missed her. Kara would be at the party. I went.

The front room was full of people doing tequila shots. I downed lime, salt, tequila. I went looking for Kara, opened a door, saw her on the bed shooting up.

“Close the door,” four people yelled.

Kara sat, a brown belt tied around her arm, pushing a plunger in her vein.

“Oh man this is great,” she slurred.

Someone was heating white powder and water in a spoon. My vision narrowed to focus on the spoon and the red plastic lighter, the guy flicking the lighter again and again.

Kara laid back on the bed.

I slid down the wall.

Weldon, this girl needs a ride home, someone said.

I staggered to his blue Cadillac. We drove away from Kara.

“Pull over, pull over,” I said. “I’m going throw up all over your car.”

“I’m not a taxi service,” he said. But he pulled to the curb so I could puke.

I spent the night on Weldon’s spinning couch, the image of Kara shooting up on loop.

At school Monday Kara was back on the stairs hanging out. Melanie and Ann in the same tight jeans, baggy shirts, same if you ignore me, I don’t care attitude. I could almost believe it never happened. I checked Kara to see if she was higher than usual. Nope. Same red eyes, same goofy grin. I could disappear and she wouldn’t notice. It wouldn’t hurt her the way it hurt me.

“My mom’s going to rehab,” Kara said. Maybe you can get a family discount, I thought, but that felt disloyal. Kara wasn’t an addict just because she shot up once. I wasn’t so squared away myself, I judged my judging and found me guilty. I didn’t know how to ask Kara if this was a real problem. Was the time I saw her with the needle the first? How fast could you get addicted to heroin? Kara was close to a school counselor, maybe I could talk to her. Was it still confidential if it was illegal?

The next week Kara didn’t come back to school.

In June, she called me from a halfway house. Her mom made her a ward of the state. She was working at McDonalds to pay rent. I went to the restaurant, ready to order fries, but when I saw her rushing around behind the counter, her stained uniform ill-fitting and worn, I knew I couldn’t confront her. Losing her chilled me, but her suffering was glacial.

I tried not to make it her fault – how much I missed her. One day we were close enough to stand in public with our arms around each other. Then, her life went on and I was nothing in it.