As I cleaned out my mother’s things I found pill bottles all over the place, in cabinets and drawers, in the pockets of her sweaters. Demerol, Xanax, Percocet, Oxycontin. It was senior year, and my mom was dead. We had parties.

The pills kept coming, automatic refills from my mom’s mail-order pharmacy. Massive amounts of them. Danielle and I started selling them to friends, friends of friends, kids from school. We made plenty of money, enough to pay the rent and bills and not have to work. It went on like that for nearly a year. When the drugs dried up I felt relieved, like my mom had finally finished dying.

I actually liked being sober, having energy again. I enrolled in a few classes at the community college and got a new restaurant job. But Danielle loved getting high. After the pills were gone she started snorting heroin. At first it didn’t seem that different—just one more drug to try. But Danielle changed when she started shooting up. The dope made her slow and vacant, no fun to talk to. Soon all she thought about was getting high. I knew it was my fault, that my mom’s pills got her addicted.

I tried to help her. I gave her rides to the methadone clinic, I encouraged her. She would lie to me, say she was clean, but I would come home from school to find her sweating and shaking, and I’d know she had a fever from a dirty batch. She couldn’t quit.

Seeing Danielle like that, nodding, her eyes glazed, her arms bruised—it scared me. She’d get high and drink Cokes and suck on hard candies, letting the plastic wrappers fall as she nodded in and out, idly scratching her arm. Those wrappers littered every room. Eventually Sally found out and quit giving her money. Maybe Sally thought that would make it easier for Danielle to kick, if she had to get a job and go to work every day. But Danielle started dancing and all those girls were doing drugs, too.

One night I went out with friends from work and drank too much tequila. I could hardly move the next morning, for the nausea and pain. In the kitchen I poured a ginger ale and began searching for aspirin.

“You poor baby,” Danielle said. “Why don’t you try this. Come on, it’s a painkiller. Your headache will go away.”

Still drunk, I assented and let her tie a scarf around my arm. I was grateful for her touch. I’d missed her. She slid the needle in with such care. To be the focus of her attention—it was the best feeling, until the dope hit, and then that was the best feeling. For a few minutes I cared about nothing, held in a soft, swirling cloud, until the swirling part took over and I vomited for half an hour. My headache returned, more intense than before. Danielle hardly noticed because she was high, too. I did heroin a few more times after that. I was trying to keep up with her, trying to be with her, but it was never any fun for me. Soon she hooked up with Joey and moved out. And then she went to prison, twenty-four months for possession.