Ghost President
As soon as Adam was safe inside his car, he found his clean rigs and cooked himself up a large shot of speed. Searching for a good vein took longer now than it first had; his veins were beginning to collapse. He hated the way he must have looked, sitting in his beat-up car searching for a vein to hit. Trigger hadn’t lied when he’d said he was a good customer. A little too good, he thought.
He reminded himself of his mom in the worst ways. Maybe he was even worse than her. At least alcohol was legal. Adam couldn’t even use legality to justify his habit. Instead, he blamed his mom’s death. Before that everything had been perfect. The anger inside him bubbled up again at the thought of her murderer’s life. He, or was it a she?, probably never thought twice about what had been done. Unlike Adam, he probably slept just fine.
Adam finally found a vein that wasn’t totally collapsed. The relief hit his body immediately. All his anger subsided and a wave of pleasure swept over him. No one could ever tell Adam that nothing was better than sex; he’d found something that was. He leaned his head against the seat and closed his eyes, his fingers digging into the sides of the seat. Something that felt this good couldn’t be wrong, could it? Something that erased all his pain and worries had to be a good thing. There he went again trying to justify everything.
Done with the needle, Adam rolled down his window halfway and threw it out. As he did, he glanced into the car a few parking spaces away from him. The car was by far the nicest one in the lot, and Cady was sitting inside it. He couldn’t help but stare as she rolled a blunt, focused completely on the task. She pulled a pink Bic lighter from her glove compartment and sparked up the blunt. As she did, she happened to turn her head to Adam and caught him watching her. She laughed and reached across the passenger seat, rolling down the window.
“You like watching me,” she said loudly out the window.
Adam smiled back at her. Fueled by the high, he said, “You’re fun to watch.”
She opened the door and used her finger to tell Adam to come inside. Adam cleaned up the small spot of blood on his arm with a cotton ball. If Adam had been sober, the sight of her Mercedes would have scared him away. With the speed high and flirty invitation, though, he felt like the world’s biggest big shot.
He confidently slid into her car and closed the door behind him, a smirk smeared across his face.
“You smoke?” she asked, holding the blunt out to him.
Adam actually didn’t smoke marijuana. Sure, he had a few times before in high school and college, but he’d never really seen the appeal. Why get pulled down when you could get lifted up?
“No thanks. That’s not really my thing.”
“What is your thing? Don’t say you don’t have one. You were at Trigger’s place, and no one just hangs out with Trigger.”
She took a hit from the blunt and blew out smoke rings into the air.
“Speed.”
Cady didn’t say anything, and the thought went through Adam’s head that he would be the one scaring her off. Meth had a pretty bad rep even among addicts. It was kind of that one drug you just didn’t try. Most addicts believed it was worse than heroin. Adam prepared himself for a self-righteous speech from the girl sitting beside him.
“You have any on you?”
Okay, not exactly a self-righteous speech.
“In my car,” Adam nodded towards it.