4. Nia

4

NIA

Here I am again, at the most familiar part of Devil Town. The very street I lost myself to as a teenager, the very street my mom fought tooth and nail to pull me out of. I look down at my empty prescription bottle and squeeze it tight in my hand.

This is fine.

I just need a little more to wean off, and then I'll be back to normal again. I pull my phone out of my pocket and text one of the few numbers I still know from memory.

I'M OUT HERE

I don't know why I bother; the man never looks at his phone. I unbuckle my seatbelt, anxiously looking around as I pocket the empty bottle and feel for the wad of cash. The door opens before I can reach it, a brunette in a black pantsuit combo looks me up and down before sliding past the half-shut door.

I put up my hand to stop her from closing it behind her, returning the same stale stink-eye she'd given me, before pushing it open the rest of the way and walking inside.

"He—Hey, squirt." It comes out almost like laughter, amusement for sure in seeing me again, no doubt surprised that I'm still alive.

Ditto, motherfucker.

"Ryan fucking Lee." I grin, finding him sitting on the same torn up leather recliner I'd spent many teenage nights sleeping in.

He's only six or seven years older, but he carries with him wisdom from being on his own for so long, and at times, it appears the same as old age. When I was seventeen, he was twenty-three and running an ecstasy operation right out of Devil Town.

The first time we met, a friend convinced me to skip school to trip on acid. I had never done LSD before, nor had I any idea what it would do, what to expect. Clueless, I followed, and I spent the majority of the day rolling around in the grass, staring at the clouds in Devil Town Skatepark. Our dealer had been Ryan Lee, and he soon became one of my best friends.

Now, the skatepark is a parking lot.

Ryan Lee still looks the same, maybe a few lines around the corners of his eyes that wasn't there before, but the overall image hasn't changed. I'm nearly twenty-eight now, and he, thirty-four. He's donning the same shaggy, mousy-brown hair that some beauty school dropout probably cut in exchange for a teener of coke, and wearing the same cargo pants with just enough pockets to hide everything he needs.

Not bothering to take my shoes off at the door, I run to him and jump into his lap, gracing his cheek with a sloppy, wet kiss.

"Motherfucker," he grumbles, wiping it off with the back of his sleeve. "Where've you been, squirt? You disappeared."

"Ryan, it's been five years. I went to college." I laugh, pushing off him and walking toward his kitchen.

Cups in the second cabinet to the left, plates on the right. Bread in the drawer for some reason, and pills under the microwave. Hard drugs in the bedroom, of course—the cocaine in a fake version of Little Women, the hard stuff in a Lion King VHS. Those are only his personal stashes; the stuff he sells he keeps in the walls, inside safes hiding in plain sight, disguised as paintings and family portraits.

"Could have visited." He huffs, propping his foot up on the opposite knee as he watches me open the fridge and grab a can soda.

I'm probably the only person alive with the balls to walk this freely in his house, the only person who can do it without being accused of stealing.

"I wasn't sure this was still home. My parents moved to New York the same year I left for school," I try justifying.

"I'm not family?" he taunts, a disingenuous hurt look on his face.

I deadpan, unblinking as I pop the tab on the can, "I texted you a million times without an answer, and you know how I feel about rejection."

He furrows his eyebrows, the line in the middle growing deeper by the second before he pulls his phone out to prove me wrong. Scrolling, the wrinkles on his nose soften as he bites his lip, trying to mask any sign of defeat.

"Told you." I chuckle, dropping to the couch across from him and propping my feet on the coffee table. "I thought you were in prison, honestly."

He gives me a scolding look, like the insult might have actually hurt him.

"What? You didn't answer me! What was I supposed to think?" I set my can down.

"That I'm a better dealer than some shithead who'd get caught and go to prison." He crosses his arms over his chest.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to offend, buddy." Batting my eyelashes, I try to charm my way out of a tussle between old friends. "But you never answered."

"You know how I feel about pointless talk." He grabs his glass off the table, whiskey, neat, probably something standard like Jack, but if someone was visiting, he'd tell them it was Johnny Walker Gold Label.

No one in this town can tell the difference anyway. He doesn't bother spending money to impress others. It's not his style.

"Should have visited," he deflects.

"Ass." I chuckle, reaching across and grabbing the remote from his hand to switch the show.

"Proud of you." He says it quietly, like he's not sure if it's an okay thing to say.

Weird relationship to have with your drug dealer, but if I'm good at anything, it's parentifying anyone a day older than me. It's almost like they can sense my mommy issues from a mile away, can't fight the biological need to nurture me, even those who don't have a single nurturing bone in their body.

"Don't be." I snort. "Why do you think I came to see you?"

He sighs, not acknowledging me yet somehow not ignoring me either. Reaching under the coffee table, he pulls out a mirror about the size of a book. On it are already four lines, measured out perfectly equal alongside a small pile of the powder.

"What's your poison these days?" he asks, knowing my first addiction is escaping reality.

"I just ran out of Roxys," I confess, always feeling icky when we interrupt personal shit for business.

"The fuck for?" He grimaces, his disdain for prescription pills still stronger than ever.

"Car accident." I turn my head to show him the scar.

"Yikes," he grumbles, putting the mirror back under the table and walking into his room. In just a few minutes, he's out again, holding The Lion King VHS in his hand.

"No way, dude." I wave him off, knowing damn well I don't want that shit. "Just give me some narcos to take the edge off, something with codeine."

"That shit is bad for your liver." He shakes his head. "Tiny bumps, never more than enough to get rid of the pain," he instructs.

"Ryan, it's all drugs," I muse, never tired of the way his brain processes things.

"Yeah, and one favors big pharma. The other supports the local economy." He grins, opening the VHS and pulling out the clear bag.

The powder is a light beige color, looking more like something I'd cook with than something I'd put up my nose.

"I don't know," I drag out my words. "I feel like, once upon a time, I had a hard limit, and this was it."

"Hard limits are for people whose drug dealers don't know them by their full names, Ant?nia Da Silva. If I remember correctly, your birth certificate's original copy is still in my important documents safe." He gives me that damn parental look again.

Except I've never bothered to ask him for his last name. Ryan Lee always felt like enough, and maybe by not telling me, he protected me, in his own way.

You never want to know too much. That's one of his many rules. In typical Ryan style, the rules are for everyone but him.

"Are you kidding me? I've been looking for that thing for at least three years, Ryan! I blamed my mom for losing it." I get up, running to the black and white framed photo of this very house that hangs above the fireplace.

"You brought it over after the homecoming dance fight," he reminds me. "You were gonna start over, remember?"

I exhale all the air out of my lungs, an autonomous response to the memory.

That was the night I'd had enough. Some petty argument between my mother and I had escalated into me telling her college wasn't my path. At the time, it hadn't been, but she, an immigrant who had worked her entire life to give me the opportunity of college in the United States of America, couldn't fathom the idea that I'd throw it all away.

For Roller Derby, of all things.

After threatening to send me to Brazil for correcting, I exploded. Packing everything I deemed as necessary to become an independent adult into a small bag, I set to camp out at Ryan Lee's house. Still a minor then.

I lasted two weeks before she goaded me into responding to a text, somehow using that message to help the police track my location. Ryan and I had been at the local Waffle Station getting breakfast when the police showed up, his assistant at the time feeling the full force of the raid in his stead.

I lift the frame from the wall, entering the numbers I know by heart.

Fourteen, forty-one, fourteen. The guy is some weird sort of genius, but he's oddly obsessed with the number fourteen. I can't fight his logic; when he breaks it down and tells the chronological tale of every fourteen that had brought him blessings, it gets hard to argue that it truly isn't his lucky number.

Fourteen has kept Ryan Lee from prison many times.

The safe clicks, and inside is nothing but a thick manila folder. Opening it up, I find every single conviction this charlatan would dare try to convince me doesn't exist. Thumbing through a few Wayne County misdemeanors from the last three years—no doubt discharged by whatever judge he paid off—I eventually flip right past it, the Silva catching my eye before I flip back to find my full name.

I smile victoriously, folding it in half and sticking it back into the pile of papers. I don't know why, but it's been safe here for this long. Why move it? It's not like I know where I'm going next anyway. I tuck the rest of his trophies back into the folder before I close the safe once more.

"Keep it here for me until I figure out where I'm going? I don't want to lose it."

He smirks like he knows I can't be trusted with my own shit. "You good to go then?" He's obnoxiously irritating for a man his age with so many felonies.

"Don't be annoying." I slump back onto the couch. "I'm just not sure I'm ready for that," I confess.

"I'm not the Devil on your shoulder, I'm just the facilitator." He clicks his tongue, putting the bag back into the VHS.

"Wait." I bite my lip, and he lifts his chin up, raising his eyes to look at me. "Maybe just to try it?"

"I don't know, squirt. I don't think you're right for this shit." He stands again, grabbing The Lion King as if he's going to put it away.

"Ryan…" I growl. "Don't be a dick."

I know his methods well, the dark psychology he uses to get addicts from one thing to the other. It's kept him rich, regardless of whatever product he might be low on at any point in time. The man's a mad genius. Borderline terrifying, but he's undeniably good at pushing drugs.

"No, I'm not playing, Nia." He shakes his head, a severe expression on his face. "This shit isn't for you. I have painkillers under the microwave," he says, as if I need reminding.

"Are you kidding me?" I'm insulted and don't care to hide it.

He's treating me like a fucking kid, no better than my mom.

"I'm just looking out for you," he says softly, walking into his bedroom.

Getting mad at Ryan Lee serves me nothing except the guarantee that if I throw enough of a hissy fit, he won't be selling me anything tonight. So I huff internally, putting away all my feelings of resentment and accepting the pills as my consolation prize.

I walk toward the microwave, lifting the countertop unit just enough to slide out a flat wooden box. "Which ones?" I ask, looking at the different clear baggies and the plethora of pills they hold.

"Blue, with the thirty on them," he shouts from his bedroom.

They're hard to miss, the other blue pills clearly ecstasy with their fancy little imprints of robots and flowers on them.

"How much do you want for these?" I ask, turning around to find him right behind me.

"Hmm." His breath is hot on my shoulder as he prowls over me with his towering height from behind me. "My tub's real dirty, kiddo." He gives me a dark smile as I look up at him.

I sigh. "I'd say I need to hold on to what little pride I have, but I could honestly use the free shit." Reaching under the cabinet of the kitchen sink, I rummage for whatever cleaning products I can find.

That had always been his thing. I never bothered to inquire whether there were girls who fucked him for drugs, or if there were people who owed him to the point where it was dangerous. When it came to me, his expectations were always clear, always innocent. A task, a chore, in exchange for what I needed.

There were many times in college when I thought back to Ryan and how I'd made it through the most turbulent time of my life unscathed. High as fuck, almost always deathly out of it, but never in danger. Because, for some reason, he was, in his own way, always looking out for me. If I blacked out from drinking, I'd wake up tucked safely in his bed, clothed. If I was up too long rolling, he'd kick out any strangers to make sure I didn't get taken advantage of during the night.

It's taken a lot of years to realize the privilege that came with our friendship.

Privilege that extends far beyond free drugs.

"Can I ask you something?" I can't keep it in anymore. My brain is doing the thing it does, and I have to know for myself, have to process it outwards and not just in my own head.

"What?" He puts on the tired big brother tone he's so good at using with me.

"Why did you keep me around so long?" I ask, and a confused look spreads on his face. "You know what I mean. You never tried anything, never took advantage of me when you very well could have, never asked for more than I was willing to give." The word vomit flows out easily, like the rehearsal in my own mind was enough preparation.

"I don't rape women, Nia. There's plenty around who give it to me for free." He takes that same annoyed tone as when I made the prison joke, like he's not happy about his morals and ethics being called into question. As if he's not a fucking drug dealer.

A good-looking one at that, with all his teeth, which is fucking rare for this town.

"Okay. My bad." I raise my hands, one wrapped firmly around a bottle of cleaner and the other a scrubber.

He lets out an exhaustive sigh. "I kept you around cuz you made me look good. Because I trusted you more than I trusted my runners," he confesses anyway. "Every other bitch coming in here was blown out of their minds, trying to fuck me or fuck me over. Half of them were Xanni-ed out on my couch, head in another universe with drool pouring out of their mouths. Dealers were coming in and out of the house back then, but there you were, pretty little Nia. My golden trophy, sitting on the chair, doing just the right amount of the good stuff to be sweet and social. Making a great impression. You're part of the reason I'm king of this empire now. Remember that year before you left, when I had you in charge of weighing my blow?" He chuckles at the memory. "That was hot as hell. Every minor league pusher was jealous of me, and every major leaguer was impressed."

I hold back the smile, the compliment doing more than it probably should, but I'm feeling fragile as fuck at the moment, and my vulnerabilities are starting to leak out.

"I'm not upset by any means." I tuck my hair behind my ear, trying to laugh it off. "Just something I thought a lot about over the years. How lucky I was to have had you in my life and never get caught in a situation where I got taken advantage of, or have you put me in awkward positions of having to turn down your advances."

"My advances? First of all, you remind me too much of my little sister." That confused look appears once again. "Second, why would I hit on a gay chick?"

I bite the inside of my cheek. "I didn't realize it was that obvious." I frown. "I'm just now starting to realize it myself."

"Do you not remember the night Big Ricky brought his girlfriend over and we blasted through an eight ball in an hour? The two of you made out for half the night. I thought he was going to kill you for trying to steal his woman." He grabs the cleaner from my hand and then the scrubber.

I laugh, unable to pull that memory from deep within the dungeons of my mind. "I do not remember that night. How is she?"

"Dead, I think. Ricky went to prison for assault." He walks around me, placing the cleaning products back under the sink.

"Fuck," I whisper, never getting more than a moment to forget just how easily life took from us.

"You smell like shit, and you look even worse, Nia. Pay me back another night." He closes the cabinet doors and walks over to the bathroom door, as if to tell me to shower.

"I can just shower at my hotel," I laugh.

"Stay the night. You can have my bed." He's not joking.

"Miss me that bad? I'm not even high yet. I can drive home." I walk past him, back to the living room.

"I can't have my neighbor thinking this is exactly what this is. Sarah Prichard is enough of a bitch without being suspicious of my daily activities," he finally explains.

"Sarah Pritchard? I think I went to school with her. She lives next door now?" She was a nosy little clarinet player who always got me in trouble for smoking cigarettes in the bathroom.

"Sure fucking does." He seems annoyed just thinking about her.

"And what do you mean? How are you making money if all your customers are spending the night?" I cross my arms over my chest, trying to figure out what the hell he was doing for money.

"I upscaled. Signed on with some heavy hitters. Now, I just liaison the product between them and some big timers." He emphasizes liaison like there's a lot more to it than what he's letting on. "More or less, anyway. None of the product except my personal shit makes its way to my home now. Had to make changes to the game once they gentrified the fuck out of the neighborhood."

"Wow. I'm impressed," I admit, walking over to the coffee table and swiping my keys. "Don't get in over your head," I warn him, like I'd done a million times before. It makes no difference; Ryan Lee only listens to himself. "I gotta grab my bag out of the car."

"Pull your car into the driveway. Looks less suspicious," he clarifies.

"Jesus. That paranoid? You're almost as bad as Mitch the Twitch," I joke, rushing out the door before he can react to the insult.

Mitch was a low level dealer who did way too much of his own product and always came up short when Ryan needed to collect. He ended up switching to meth and developed a twitch after enough time, and the nickname Mitch the Twitch stuck. He wound up in prison not too long after for selling meth at a school playground. Anytime he came around, he'd ruin Ryan's blinds, fingering them to death to make sure we weren't being watched by the feds.

That kind of paranoia is unavoidable when staying up three to four days at a time.

I used to like the feeling. It made me feel productive, like I could get everything done for the first time in my life. Now, I just want to sleep every feeling away like they don't matter. Back inside Ryan's, I'm in the bathroom, undressing in the mirror. My reflection is just another routine I avoid.

I don't even know who that girl is these days.

The shower is hot and everything I need to feel better after the unexpected beatdown my muscles received today. Less prepared for the hit of losing the person I loved most, but still unprepared for my speed test today. Yet somehow, my body managed to pull it off anyway. Muscle memory or something of the sort. I push the thought of Lonnie back down into the dark recesses of my mind and go back to the twenty seven laps I skated.

Maybe it was the 60 milligrams of Roxy coursing through my veins that made it somehow doable.

I'm not going to overthink this one.

Not tonight, anyway.