“Wake up Lilla, Goddamn it! Wake the hell up!”

Lilla hears her friend’s panicked serenade like a distant train’s warning whistle on a damp track. Mary Margaret never swears. Dang is her usual cuss word. Lilla had unfortunately allowed Mary Margaret to see her in a similar state previously; it just never got quite this bad before and obviously riles her friend to the point of blasphemy.

It is 9:27pm as Lilla’s body heaves with repetitive vomiting, causing full consciousness to return to her, at least temporarily. Mary Margaret elevates Lilla and tilts her head to the side so she doesn’t choke on the vomit that rolls up her throat. Once her stomach is drained dry, Lilla lies limp in Mary Margaret’s arms, calling upon a God she hasn’t prayed to since her first Holy Communion. Over and over her prayers repeat. Please don’t let me die.

***

“The night is going to be a bad one,” the weatherman cautioned from the small 13-inch black and white TV in Lilla’s dorm. “Go out only if you have to.”

She snapped the 1970-something Zenith television dial into the off position, wrapped her hair in a loose ponytail, vomited one last time in the toilet and laced up her old hiking boots before heading out the door. She used the last of the heroin she had purchased yesterday and had no choice but to ignore the weatherman’s forewarning. 8:35. Lilla noticed the bright red numbers glowing from the digital clock on her end table before pulling the door closed. The radiator steam rapped in the ancient pipes of her third floor room as she left; its tattering attempting to summon her back into its warm embrace.

The dusty snow had already begun falling as she ventured from the coziness of the inside; the weatherman’s words of warning resounded in each flake that fell as she trudged into town through the Penn State campus. She imagined the central Pennsylvania wind as it swept down the slopes of Tussey Mountain, passing thrill-seeking skiers who craved the forthcoming snow-covered landscape. Lilla used to ski too.

As her steps struck the pavement in a quickened rhythm, a bitter breeze rolled up College Avenue, rumbling the windows of Café 210 West and slapping her hard across the face. This café-bar had remained her favorite hang out ever since she and her boyfriend Saul had first walked through its squat iron gate two years earlier. She fell in love with Saul at the Rathskeller, a dive bar in town. He was lead singer in Morrison’s Disciples, a Doors tribute band, and performed weekly at one State College hang out or another. Just as she had walked out of the bathroom their eyes met as he sang the line “…don’t you love her as she’s walkin’ out the door.” Cigarette smoke swirled between them, the scent of nicotine and urine bonding their union. They smiled. They both felt it with their eyes. Love, that is.

Lilla rushed into the café a little after 9:00pm with frozen cheeks and a slight tremor twitching her fingers. Her bones ached to their marrow, deeper than any flu bug could bury. She ordered a drink at the bar, and scored what she had come for in the back room where only musicians were usually allowed, but thanks to Saul she had connections. A year ago, she never would have imagined forking over this kind of money for a plump little baggy that fit comfortably in her fist. Today, she made the transaction without hesitation, as easily as buying a loaf of bread or a pack of gum. As she made her way back to the bar, Lilla caught up with her friend Mary Margaret, and sat down. But Lilla couldn’t concentrate on the small talk and thought of lies she could tell to slink away before the shakes got too bad.

After an excuse of a full bladder, she achieved her getaway. After sliding the lock of the bathroom stall door into position, she swiped her skin clean, loaded the syringe and stabbed it into her left inner arm. Her right hand shook for the last time.

Awwww! Finally! She thought.

Her head glided backward and rocked upon her neck, releasing a calming smile with one depression of the plunger. Her skin warmed as she exhaled, relishing the euphoria that never seemed to match with that of her first time.
Moments later, she was flat on her back. Her mind instructed her arms to boost herself up from the footprint-stained floor, but her heavy limbs disobeyed the orders. Everything faded; blackness squeezed inward from the outer edges of her sight until only a speck of the dirty wall remained visible. But then the minute speck left her as well, popping like a tiny bubble pricked by an invisible finger.

Upon Lilla’s awakening, Mary Margaret sat next to her on the floor of the ladies’ room with her legs bent beneath her. The stall door was ajar and Lilla lay in the middle of the bathroom floor. Many a nights Lilla had clung to the icy toilet bowl, temporarily forgetting what had been parked there only moments before her arrival. And tonight wasn’t any different except that her drug of choice wasn’t Smirnoff or Bud—and she never made it to the toilet.

***

Mary Margaret grabs hold of Lilla and coddles her as Lilla dreamily watches shadows dance about the walls, hallucinations at their finest. Lilla’s left foot wedges crookedly against the bathroom door, unintentionally blocking anyone from entering, while her hair dangles in a lake of margaritas and what looks and smells like the pepperoni pizza she ate for lunch. The tip of the syringe clings rigidly to her vein; the determination of the heroin sucked excitedly within its plastic cylinder, now courses beneath her skin and through her organs, soothing her nearly to the point of extinction. Finally, Mary Margaret’s eyes land upon the syringe dangling from Lilla’s arm and she swats it away, ricocheting it off the far wall.

The thumping radiator clamor from her dorm room of an hour or so earlier begins once more, but whatever little focusing abilities she has left allow her a brief realization that the repetitive pounding is not that of the torturous radiator hunting her down, but that of her own foot thrashing against the door in spasms. Lilla reaches to control this uncontrollable limb, but her weakened arm falls to the floor in defeat.

“Breathe…breathe…oh, God…Lilla, breathe! God damn heroin shit!” hollers Mary Margaret. Her tone teeters between demanding and desperation as she rocks Lilla against her chest. Lilla can’t understand her friend’s instructions. Lilla is breathing. She struggles to deepen and quicken her breaths to please, but her attempt only ends in failure. Lilla feels an immense pressure upon her chest, causing the air that fills her lungs to escape in a rush. She looks around, but is confused by what is happening to her since no one is applying this heaviness. She seals her eyelids shut again as if attempting to salvage what air she can by sealing all possible portals to the outside.

Oh God! I can’t breathe! With the rise of fear and an open fist, Lilla’s fingers smack Mary Margaret away; every ounce of energy balled up in one uncontrollable slap. Her head drops from Mary Margaret’s lap and delivers a jarring blow to her skull’s backside, hard against the battered tile floor.

“Stop, Lilla! I’m trying to help!” Mary Margaret cradles her cheek; her flesh is also sore.

But Lilla doesn’t want her help—she can’t breathe and needs air. The bathroom walls appear to inch closer, collapsing in on her. She needs something to drink. Where’s my margarita? She questions herself as she smells the Jose Cuervo, but then realizes that it saturates her clothing. With nothing to drink, she gives up and curls fetus-like, hallucinating of water fountains of chilled wetness filling her parched mouth.

And now she is alone. Mary Margaret had mumbled something about getting help and fled the bathroom moments earlier, thrusting Lilla’s leg out of her way. As Lilla lies alone on the bathroom floor, melancholy visions invade her mind and remind her of the first time the drug won her over.

It had been a fourteen-hour day. Much like today, as the snow had descended in heaps. First thing in the morning Lilla was off to class, then a six-hour day of work, then a speedy, but thorough, workout at the campus gym. That’s when she should have gone home. Saul had asked her to meet him to hang out. He had said she needed to relax. “You work way too hard,” he had said. With the bedroom door locked behind them in the house he shared with his band mates, he introduced her to her enemy. He had taken her hand and rolled up her sleeve as a smile stretched across his lips. The next thing she knew, her eyes had flowed backward into her head with one gentle roll as if questioning her brain on what the hell she had just done. Her arms and legs sprawled across Saul’s futon as she tried to focus on what he was saying. “I love you, baby.” She had finally comprehended his words as he lovingly unwound the necktie from its grip on her arm. He loved her. He had done it for her…to help her. Lilla was always wound too tight. She had believed that he knew best. At the time, at least. And she had relaxed that night; that was for sure. And the high was better than any adrenaline rush from any workout she had ever experienced, and even more addicting. It had taken her two years to develop a regular work out routine, but only one night with Saul and a needle and she was hooked. She had heard the gym got new treadmills a while back, but she didn’t really know for sure.

While she lies on the bathroom floor, her eyes catch sight of the sink’s underside. Maroon stains swirl about the basin’s bottom in the form of a rusty hippo…a wine-red whimpering woman …a burnt sienna splash in the shape of a smiling dog; an entire world of inhabitants in blood-red rust float before her like a summer sky full of scorched, wandering clouds.

Just for a while, she thinks, submitting to an unintentional snooze. Her pulse slows as it accompanies her breaths on their detrimental path. A floating sensation rises within her as she dreams of the Bellefonte Quarry.
She had climbed the toothed rock faces lining the water far below many times before—long before. Her body used to be strong, not shriveling and weak with only dreams to keep her active. She imagines peering upward longing for the bright sun to warm her once tanned flesh that in recent days remains a dull gray, but instead gazes into storm-ridden skies full of rain clouds and darkness. Inching her toes over the rough stone edge, she falls forward. Down she drops, her feet twirl over her head over and over, as she descends to the destiny Saul had created for her long ago. She soars off of the quarry’s jagged cliff into the jade waters below, falling between the blue-black sky above and the toothed rocks as they subtly lick her skin as she plummets. For a brief moment she thinks she sees Saul. His dark curls swaying in the breeze as he stands upon the rocks she had fallen from; the same smirk upon his lips that she recalled from that night in his bedroom. However, this time, she sees something different in his lips. Something much different than love.

Seconds later she jerks awake. This abrupt action causes her right arm to twitch, scratching herself on the cheek with one of her chewed, unpolished nails. A trace of blue tint highlights her nail beds, signaling her body’s pursuit for the same oxygen for which her lungs so desperately hunt.

Where is Mary Margaret? Lilla finds herself now wishing she hadn’t slugged her away. Fending for herself was nothing new, and opening her eyes is now the foremost obstacle for her to overcome. It takes a few long, blurry moments for the gray speckled floor to come into focus. Shortly after it does, Lilla realizes that her drooping eyelids won’t budge beyond slits. A few feet from her nose and the foaming white substance that froths from her lips, a silver object sparkles. While trying to correct her disorientation, the shiny thing crystallizes at the base of the urine-stained toilet. It is her spoon smudged with burns. She graduated from foil last month. Her Reebok shoestring lies nearby, curling like the long-deserted skin of a Bellefonte rock snake; still and lifeless, although moments earlier twisted about her scarred arm as if alive and feeding. She never uses those aerobic shoes anymore, and doesn’t care if she has a set. Her old pastimes, like old friends had vanished. That is, everyone except Mary Margaret. And now Lilla wonders if she is coming back.

She takes a breath.

Help! Terror surges through her as the realization that she is going to die sinks into her numbing head. Death seeps around the floor, crawls over the shoestring and coils itself around her neck as her breathing becomes shallower.

She takes another breath.

Her eyelids flicker shut and remain that way no matter how much she tells the surrounding muscles to contract. Her arms transform from weak to unresponsive as her leg twitch slows to an occasional shudder. The dirty floor grows colder as her thoughts and memories blend, not remembering what is real or imaginary, so much so that she forgets even whom she is waiting for. She wonders where Saul is and becomes angry. Angry that she is going through this alone. Infuriated that he showed her how to inject the venom into her veins, into a body that used to be so healthy.

Another breath.

“Hurry!” Lilla hears an unfamiliar voice and feels the drive of the wooden bathroom door bash into her nearly numb leg. Fucking asshole! she wants to scream, but instead only opens her mouth searching for her voice.
Someone grabs hold of her limp arm and holds her wrist for a few moments. Nice, she thinks, missing the friend that she knows she has, but can’t recall the name at the moment. And she can’t understand why, when this mysterious person tugs open her eyelids, she can’t see a thing. Am I blind? She longs to cry, but realizes that the tears won’t flow.

“She’s unresponsive and her pulse is barely there. Her pupils are like pinpoints. Give me the Narcan,” demands the same guy whose voice now sounds soft and appeasing. “This one’s going down.”

Somewhere deep within, Lilla recalls hearing about this drug before. Saul’s cousin…or friend…or a friend of his cousin overdosed and an emergency room doctor had used it on her. But Lilla’s pretty sure that this stranger died anyway. Or was that someone else? She does remember that Saul had been there with that person. He had been the one who had driven them to the hospital. Then all of her memories disappear. Her mind scatters like a dismantled jigsaw puzzle, taking with it all the pieces of Saul and their love and that dark, reeking basement bar where they met.

Please help me! are the words that get lost in her throat with no moisture, then like a springtime blessing, a cool sensation drenches the inside of her nostrils. She desires to blow her nose, but can’t. Her arms still refuse to cooperate. She has always hated things going up her nose. Cocaine was never her thing; now she wonders if she made the right choice.

As the miracle spray reaches her brain, it instructs her muscles to begin working again. Without warning, she flaps her eyelids open and stares into a stranger’s eyes.

She breathes.

“Hi,” says the man with the nice voice and soft hands and a gentle smile that lights up the rancid bathroom.