Purple Hearts Read online

  Jake and Hailey looked at each other. “Have you talked to Dad?” he asked.

  “Not yet. No.” And I doubted I would. At least Jake had stood and listened. If I went anywhere near Dad, I wouldn’t have time to say hello before I was put in the back of a squad car.

  Hailey looked back toward the house. “I’m going to check on JJ.”

  She stepped inside with a glance backward, offering me a sad nod.

  It was just Jake and me now. “I’m deploying in a week. So. I guess I’ll see you when I get back.”

  Jake was silent. For the first time that day, I felt he was looking at me closer, seeing me like a brother, not as an enemy. Then he turned back to the house. “I’ll be the one to make that choice,” he said.

  The door shut. I was alone again. I made my way back around the house, left the flowers and LEGOs on the front stoop.

  Even when I tried to do things right, to be normal, nothing could be normal anymore. I had missed the window where it would be all right to waltz into their backyard, talk about football, JJ’s year in school. All my “thank-yous” and “sorrys” had grown too big. I bent behind the passenger side of the Lexus.

  Something was cracking in my middle now, right behind my sternum, spidering through my gut.

  The sobs came out in a horrible, retching sound, folding me. I remembered Hailey’s hug, the hope it held, and the heat of JJ’s small hands. It was almost too much, too much kindness, and I doubled over again, wanting to get away from this feeling. I wanted to stop trying, so I could stop failing. I wanted it to be over.

  Oxy could give all that to me. OxyContin had given me a space in the world above what was actually going on, where it seemed like I was too high in the clouds for any of my actions to actually reach anyone. I could fall in and out of people’s lives, leaving no trace.

  I wanted it now.

  I let myself want it. I let it hit me, over and over and over, pummeling me harder than anyone’s fists ever could, the blows landing deeper than my skin, into my organs, into my nerves, my veins. I waited until it passed, and made my way around the car.

  A Ford Bronco revved from down the street, squealed out from the stop sign. I thought nothing of it until it swerved, curling into a U-turn at the end of the block, and came straight for the Lexus.

  My heartbeat sped. Damn it. I knew that Bronco.

  I scrambled out in front of the Lexus, blocking the grill. The Bronco’s bumper screeched to a stop and tapped my waist. Johnno got out of the driver’s side, his pale white skeleton drowning in a huge Wu-Tang shirt, followed by Casper, who called himself Kaz, a bigger guy I had met a couple of times who would look like one of those pink-cheeked baby angels if he wasn’t half the size of a whale. Johnno glanced at the SUV, and lifted his shirt to scratch his stomach, revealing a handgun in his waistband. Subtle.

  “Sup, Morrow?”

  “Not much,” I said. My pulse was in my ears. I looked at Jake’s house, praying they wouldn’t come to the window.

  “Heard you were back,” Johnno said.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I just know these things, brother.”

  Kaz said, “Someone tagged you online.”

  Johnno glanced daggers at him. Kaz shrugged. I thought of Frankie on his phone. He must have posted a picture, something about being on leave. Damn it, Frankie.

  “We got details to discuss.” Johnno lit a Parliament, his mouth sucked back and his cheeks sharp out of his skull. Somehow he always looked like he was fifteen, eyes squinting.

  “No,” I said. “Not here.”

  Johnno nodded at Kaz. I wondered why, until I saw him come for me. A point-blank uppercut, knocking my jaw out of its socket, and another blow to the temple, too quick to feel any pain before I was out.

  Cassie

  “This sucks. This straight-up sucks, Nora.”

  We were sitting across from each other on my floor, our laptops open to healthcare.gov. Scattered around Nora’s leggings and stockinged feet were her snacks: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, birthday cake Oreos, and a ginger beer. Around me were my snacks: three different types of nuts.

  “I told you I didn’t have to eat them in front of you! I can eat nuts, too,” Nora said, staring at her split ends.

  “It’s not the snacks.” It was partially the snacks. It was also the forms. And the awkward call to Jimenez, Gustafson, and Moriarty, wills and probate attorneys, asking them to access my W-2. The secretary, Elise, had recognized my voice and asked me how things were going. Could be better. The suck factor increased when I had to drive not once, not twice, but three times to the Kinko’s six miles away to print out 1099s for catering gigs I had done through The Handle Bar. I had to send them as proof of my projected income, even though my guesses probably wouldn’t be accurate, because I wasn’t sure what my income would look like next year now that I had no full-time job.

  “And this terrible, terrible hold music is killing me,” I added. From its spot on the floor, my phone on speaker piped a tinned synth version of “Young at Heart.”

  Suddenly, the music clicked off. “We’re sorry. We are experiencing a higher rate of customers than usual. Please hang up and go to healthcare.gov, or remain on the line and we will assist your call as soon as possib—”

  “WE’RE ALREADY AT HEALTHCARE DOT GOV,” I yelled. I was answered by another rousing rendition of “Young at Heart.”

  Nora ate a Cheeto. “This would be a lot easier if it were two months from now,” she said. “Because then you wouldn’t have to qualify for the special enrollment period.”

  “Yet another reason to finally invent that time machine,” I muttered.

  Nora snorted, still chewing. “Oh, you should call Toby,” she said.

  My gut did something flip-floppy, unidentifiable. Then again, it was doing a lot of that lately. “Why?”

  “He texted me just now.”

  “Why doesn’t he just text me?” And what’s with the sudden concern with my existence outside of band practice and our respective beds? I wanted to add, but Nora never liked to hear about us hooking up, no matter how infrequent.

  Nora pointed to the still-serenading phone. “He probably couldn’t get through.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well,” I said, feigning apathy, “tell him how much fun we’re having.”

  I’d been on hold for two hours. I had found out that people who wanted ObamaCare in Texas could sign up only from November 1 to January 31. It was September 27. In the meantime, I would have to buy temporary private insurance, and my special enrollment period application had not gone through after a week. Nora and I were calling today to see if they actually received it.

  Either way, there was no doubt I would be paying out of pocket for the ambulance ride, the emergency room visit, and the hour-long visit with Nancy, a diabetes nutrition expert who was unsettlingly cheerful and whose every sentence sounded like a question.

  It didn’t look like my glucose levels varied enough to have to take insulin yet?

  So for now, we would try meal planning and exercise?

  Here were some good on-the-go meals?

  For a snack, Nancy recommended nuts?

  The nuts weren’t that bad. And neither was Nancy. She was just trying to help. But damn, eating greens and whole grains had tripled the cost of my last two trips to Central Market.

  And over time, my insulin production would be worse. Once my insulin was gone, it would need to be replaced to keep my sugar levels safe. And that meant injections. And injections meant paying for all the items on the list I’d taped to my fridge reminding me why I was eating tasteless, boring foods like lentils: vials of insulin, needles, syringes, alcohol pads, gauze, bandages, and a puncture-resistant “sharps” container for proper needle and syringe disposal.

  “Hand me that pen, Nor.” She tossed me the one in her hand. It was covered in Cheetos dust. I wiped it on my pants, then started to write it all down.

  My total costs, just for diabetes, added up to $650 a mo
nth. On top of rent. On top of student loans. At The Handle Bar, I made about $2,000 a month, if I was lucky enough to get good hours.

  I was in bad shape. Even if I qualified for a low monthly premium, I wouldn’t be above water because of the previous out-of-pocket bills. And until I reached the yearly deductible, I would pay hundreds of dollars each month for the insulin. And all of it just to live like a normal human being. Not even normal. A human being who would be alive enough to pay her debts.

  I lay spread-eagle on the floor and tried not to panic. I’d read somewhere that cursing has a chemical effect on your brain, alleviating stress. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I chanted.

  Nora crawled over and lay next to me, the whiny drone of the hold music serenading us.

  I handed her the paper on which I had written the costs.

  She cursed with me, and crumpled it up, throwing it across the room. “What are we going to do?”

  “About what?”

  “All of it.” She gestured to me, to the laptops, to where my keyboard was set up over by the living room window.

  “First thing is to marry a wealthy patron,” I started, putting out a finger.

  “Get on their health insurance,” Nora continued. We put out two fingers.

  “Then we convert one of the rooms in their mansion into a recording studio, and we write a hit record.”

  “I’d marry you if I were rich,” Nora said.

  I tapped her stockinged foot with my bare one. “Me, too.”

  She looked around. “You’d have to be a little cleaner.”

  “Whoops.” The floor we lay on was dusty. Three different shirts graced the futon like throw pillows. Old magazines were stacked on the shelves next to the knickknacks. My bartending apron was tossed over my keyboard, its contents falling out. I really had to take more care. In every way. “I’d try,” I added.

  “I wish we had rich friends who we could marry for their benefits,” Nora said.

  “Yeah, well. We need new friends.”

  As we spoke, my eyes landed on my bartending apron again. Sticking out of the pocket of the apron was the corner of a colorful brochure.

  The army brochure.

  Luke

  I opened my eyes to the Bronco’s ceiling, head throbbing. The interior smelled like sweat and cough medicine.

  I’d met Johnno at a party at his house four years ago. When all the gin and whiskey bottles ran dry, he had started handing out pills. He was one of those kids who were always on the Austin Community College campus, but never in class. No one knew how old he was. The day after the party, I’d come back for more. And the day after that.

  He’d never asked for money, only that I ride with him to someone’s house, or play him in Fallout, or answer the door when cops came. Our friendship had turned sour when I tried to go back to school. He’d pull his gun on me when I told him I was going to class, then joke about it later, after we’d snorted more pills.

  That’s the kind of asshole he was. Pure chaos. And I was back in the epicenter. I sat up.

  Before I could register Johnno next to me in the backseat, he landed another blow to the back of the head. My nose ground into the seat in front of me, spotted with grease and sprinklings of white powder. He was holding the back of my head in place.

  “You thought you’d just lay low for a couple of months and get out without paying for all the shit you dumped? You don’t answer my calls,” Johnno muttered, digging his long nails into my neck. “You getting smart, motherfucker?”

  I said nothing, even as his nails broke my skin and involuntary tears leaked from my eyes.

  Kaz’s pink cotton torso loomed in the periphery, one hand on the wheel, the other scrolling through his phone. He sighed, bored.

  Johnno pressed my face harder into the seat. “If you don’t talk, I’m gonna take you out and curb stomp you.”

  Kaz made a sound like a snort, still not looking up from his phone.

  “I’ve been in training,” I said, trying not to shake.

  “One night we’re having a good time, watching The Wire, then you disappear and get on a boat to Afghanistan.”

  Kaz let out another snort. “Afghanistan on a boat. Motherfucker, do you know where Afghanistan is?”

  “Man, fuck you, Kaz,” Johnno muttered, and suddenly his mouth was close to my cheek, stinking of menthol. “Ten.”

  “What? No.”

  “Five for all the shit you threw out, five for interest.”

  I blinked against the fabric, trying to ignore the throbbing behind my eyes. “How much does Tim want?”

  “No, you don’t talk to Tim. You talk to me.” Out of the corner of my vision, I could see Johnno put his other hand to his lap, where the gun was tucked.

  “Let me up,” I said as calmly as I could. “I’m not going to pull anything, Johnno.”

  “Do not fuck with me,” Johnno said, his voice tense and high.

  I rose with my palms open, near my shoulders. Nothing. I got nothing. I’m not a threat. A thought flashed. I wonder if he would give me a bump. Just to get through this.

  No. Stay here. Stay straight. “I don’t have the money,” I said.

  “No shit,” he said. “So you have a week to get it.”

  My palms became fists. “What the fuck, dude?”

  “You got some vision while you were balls-deep high and wiped out my supply, dumbass. Just because you were feeling righteous one night.”

  I had flushed it down his toilet while he was in Orlando. He had returned home to no pills, all my stuff gone, and a vague note I had written, something like, I’m okay, I’m just never coming back.

  Johnno pounded the seat. “Return to Earth.”

  I stuttered, glancing at the piece. “Yeah, b-but a week? You couldn’t have pushed that much in six months. Is Tim after you?”

  “That’s none of your fucking business.”

  That meant yes. This was the same answer Johnno had given me back when we shot the shit on the futon, and I had asked him if Tasha, the girl he was seeing, had broken up with him. None of your fucking business, bro, he’d said, his upper lip twitching.

  Still, it didn’t add up. I opened my hands again, trying to sound casual. “Five K is nothing to what Tim makes. What’s the rush?”

  Kaz cleared his throat, eyes still on his phone.

  And then I realized. “You got yourself into some other shit, didn’t you?” Someone was after him, too. So he thought he’d shift the load.

  Instead of answering, Johnno reached for the cup holder, grabbed a bottle of Sprite, and took a swig. Johnno had always drunk Sprite like it was water.

  With a jerk he palmed my head and whacked it with the butt of the gun, Sprite spreading in the air like a fountain. Pain streaked through my nerves, my teeth, my spine.

  “I need more time,” I slurred, lemon-lime pop in my eyes. “I’m serious. You can kill me but I don’t have it.”

  “If you don’t have it, I’ll come for your family, too.”

  I broke out in a cold sweat. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Johnno chugged the rest of the bottle. “Not my problem.”

  “Half in three months,” I said, blinking against the knives in my skull. “Half when I get back.”

  “Fine.”

  I tried not to shake. Johnno spit out the crack of the window. Kaz pressed a button to unlock the doors, and I staggered out, dripping blood.

  The squeak of a door opening sounded from across the street, and my breath caught. Jake stepped out on his stoop. JJ’s little blond head poked out from behind him.

  He caught sight of me, and paused.

  Go back inside, I silently commanded. Jake’s gaze turned to Johnno through the open window, then to Kaz. His face hardened. I knew what he was thinking. We were double-parked in the middle of his peaceful street. It would look the same way if we were pulling some other shit. If we were high. He turned away to shuffle JJ back inside.

  This wasn’t the plan. The plan was t
o say sorry, to show him I’d changed. Now it looked like I had lied to his face. It looked like I was the same fucking idiot I’d always been.

  Cassie

  I was sweating through my Kinks shirt, biting a hangnail off my thumb, pacing up and down a block in West Lake Hills next to the Gopney Playground. After Nora had left, I’d brooded all last night, scheming, and drove over an hour early so I wouldn’t miss him. I’d had to turn back once because I’d forgotten my phone at home, then I’d gotten in and out of my car three times, and almost made it down the block before turning around and parking again. Frankie and I used to dangle off the monkey bars here, kick in sync on the swings, play TV tag, freeze tag, bridge tag. Inside the little plastic cabin near the sandbox, we used to set up a house. Then we’d run around the borders and pretend we were fighting aliens, protecting our progeny. While my mother cleaned his house, Frankie was my day care.

  I stood on the curb, waiting for him, the pads of my fingers sore, just like they used to be from playing piano. But now my fingers hurt because I had pricked them with a glucose meter. Now I waited for Frankie ready to play a different kind of game. Now, in my head, I was proposing to him.

  Frankie, please fake-marry me.

  Frankie, we both love snacks, and we are both from Texas. I think this could work.

  Frankie, remember that time that you stepped on an ant and cried? I do. Who else knows you better than I do?

  Before we lost touch, Frankie and I were best friends. He had started hanging out with the football players, and though he ignored me in the hallways, here on the Gopney benches he’d told me that I was better than all the guys I had crushes on, congratulated me when I’d made our high school’s jazz ensemble on the keys as a first-year, listened to every story I exaggerated, affirmed every vague, ecclesiastical notion I had about music.

  For a time, at least.

  Can I come over and see ya? I had texted him.

  Yeah!!! Eating lunch with parents but will be done at 1ish, he’d replied.

  Here’s what I figured: According to the army website, if Frankie and I got married, he’d get two thousand dollars more a month, for a housing allowance and subsistence benefits.