She adjusted her position on the couch, her eyes bright, the pupils constricted. She used both hands to lift one leg over the other knee, wincing as she did. “But six months ago, my doctor told me he had to lower my dosage. He said the amount I was taking would put up a red flag on my chart and that would alert the DEA. You know yourself all the laws that are changing around oxy, how prohibitive they are. They’re kicking people off their pain management plans so abruptly it’s leaving them with no option but to head to the streets. People are killing themselves because they can’t live with their pain. That’s what my sister did.”

Julia shook her head slowly. “I know it was wrong to take the OxyContin. I know I shouldn’t have done it, and now I’m going to lose my license. I might even go to jail. But the dose I get now is too low. I have a standing order with this dealer. She’s not exactly legal, but she delivers a few extra oxy to me every month. It’s been over a week since she left any, though. So I took a few extra from the medical supply closet, just to tide me over.”

“You get them delivered? Where?”

“The birdhouse on my front porch.” She chuckled. “Sophisticated, right?”

“No, I meant, where—who—do you get them from?”

She shrugged and looked away, not answering.

My mind was churning, too fast to keep up with. Was it Violeta? Had she delivered drugs to people like Julia? But now that Violeta was dead, there was a gap in the supply chain.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone you were suffering so much?” I asked.

She snorted. “I was afraid! Pain management is such a taboo subject, you know? I was scared people would think I was a bad person for needing it.”

“You’re not a bad person, Julia.”

“I need your help.” She clutched my hand. Hers was icy-cold, the skin stretched tight over bony knuckles. “Can you prescribe me some pills? Just a few to get me through until I can get more?”

I coughed to cover my surprise. “Julia…”

Julia laughed, a hard, dry sound, like straw scraping against asphalt. “No, sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

She dropped her face into her hands. It took me a minute to realize she was crying. I put a hesitant hand on her shoulder.

“When did the war on drugs become a war on the disabled?” she asked bitterly.

The opioid epidemic was a complex one, not nearly as black-and-white as politicians tried to make it seem. Almost lost in the national controversy surrounding the epidemic was the reality that some people genuinely needed opioids. Badly. And these people were being forgotten, betrayed by a system desperate to look like it was righting a past wrong.