I open my eyes and turn to Drew. He reaches up and holds a hand over me, blocking the sun so I can see him better.

Mae’s right: He kind of does look like a bad vampire.

“Peaked?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Good?”

“So good. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

The sun goes away and it’s immediately so much colder.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s warm up.”

Drew helps me stand and we cross back to the path and I don’t even care that I’m leaning against him, I’m so tired.

I sigh. “I think my high is gone.”

He reaches into his pocket and hands me another pill. “This one’s on me. Just a five. A little top-up.”

“Thanks.”

In twenty minutes, I’ll be me again.

“What about you?” I ask.

“That parking spot is only good for three hours. I have to take care of Sunny. You go ahead. I’m good.” We near a pretzel cart and he stops, grabs his wallet. “You hungry?”

“God, no. Food and opiates do not mix.”

“Just one for me,” he says to the guy as we walk up. “Salt, please.”

Please.

“What kind of drug dealer are you?” I ask once we’ve left pretzel guy behind.

“What do you mean?”

“You say please.”

Drew has a shy smile, and it’s cute.

“I mean, you don’t have to be a dick to deal.”

“Tell me, please, how does someone become a dealer?”

He shrugs, pulls off a bit of pretzel. We walk along a path and it’s nice. Walking. Being in the sun.

“It just kind of … happened. After I came to Saint Francis, people started asking me to hook them up. They figured since I came from Dorchester, I’d have a way to get product.”

The neighborhood Mom grew up in, when she was really little. Rough around the edges, she called it. Dad was the one with the Mayflower money, but what Mom’s family did, getting out of Greece and making a life in America even though they hardly spoke the language—that was always more impressive to me.

“So you had a way to get what they wanted, or you, like, signed up with a cartel?”

He laughs. “My cousin has a thing going with pills.”

“Must be good money. That’s why you do it?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Mostly. Rich kids at Saint Francis are gonna buy this shit from someone, right?”

“Like me.”

“You’re not like them.”

I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”

“Hey,” he says. I look at him. “You’re not. Like them. They just want to party. You … you know. There are extenuating circumstances.”

“I told you, I don’t want your pity, Drew.”

“You don’t have it.”

I reach out and pick a thick grain of salt from his pretzel, rub it between my fingers. I miss the smell of the ocean.