The Exchange

Misty’s car made a gut-wrenching grinding noise as she pulled into the parking lot, pulling into a shaded spot near the back. The grinding, which happened just about every time she turned the wheel now, had become so loud and anxiety-provoking recently that it eclipsed the fact that her AC had conked out before summer even started. But now, sitting in the muggy shade, beads of sweat appeared almost instantly and unbidden on her top lip. Her muscles groaned, and her bowels cramped as if someone was tightening a vice. Her phone lit up with a text message, predictably from Cole:

can u get glass

Misty fumed inwardly, head pounding. Lazy bastard. She was just as dopesick as Cole, but as usual, here she was, burning gas money thirty minutes each way in her busted jalopy to pick up supplies for both of them while he sat on his ass back in the camper. He had promised to call Brandon and cop while she was out, but she wasn’t holding her breath. “With what fucking money?” she had fired at him earlier that day. “We ain’t got but $100 left from my last check from Stuckey’s, and I need $20 to put enough in the tank just to get there.”

“Don’t start with this bipolar bullshit again,” Cole had responded dispassionately. “I’ll talk to B, he’ll let me work something out.”

Misty suspected there was something more to the arrangement than Cole was letting on, but if it meant getting right– and not shitting her pants, which was starting to become a concern– then it was pointless to fuss about it. Besides, the last time they got into it over this kind of thing, it had almost come to blows, and neither Cole nor Misty could afford to screw up their probation over something that stupid.

She considered texting back to remind him that he had already reached his monthly limit of two glass pipes and she herself could only get one more, and that she wasn’t about to use up her last one just so he could trade another pipe for clear that he probably wouldn’t even share. Instead she sighed and tossed the phone back into her handbag, knowing that she’d do it anyway and would just wind up getting more pissed at him. But this was still better than figuring it out alone. Misty knew what alone felt like. She remembered ‘alone’ and what that entailed after Tyler died almost two years ago; for all of Cole’s attitude and nonsense, and even for him bringing fent into her life, she’d kiss his sorry ass forever if it meant keeping ‘alone’ in the distant past.

The irony was hardly lost on Misty that the same junk that had killed her fiance was how she had learned to deal with it, but after losing Ty, it was like she hit a shame ceiling and could go no further. Worse almost than when the state had taken the kids. Like, nothing else could possibly make the guilt or self-hate go away or make it any worse. She wasn’t getting the kids back any time soon, and Ty definitely wasn’t coming back. Both of them had had a plan to get custody again, and now that was gone, too. So, when Cole skulked into her life with slow, Misty figured, why not? She wasn’t entirely convinced that this wasn’t the result of some great cosmic fuck-up anyhow, one that left her behind instead of taking her with Ty, leaving her instead to take the slower route to what would likely be the same destination eventually.

One of the staff at the exchange stepped out to drag one of the needle disposal bins back into the building, signaling that they would soon be closing shop. Crap. How long had she been sitting here? Misty looked at her phone again and saw that it was now 4:31 PM. Suddenly, she remembered it was also Friday, which was the whole reason she had made the drive in the first place. No one gave out cleans on the weekends, unless you counted the users that hoarded them and charged $5 for a bag of the same points they got for free. Or if you felt like begging the pharmacy, and most of the time they still wouldn’t sell to you, at least not if you couldn’t hide your track marks. Usually, that also meant there was a long line of other participants here waiting to stock up for the weekend, but perhaps all the fiends had collected their works early today.

Normally, there was a big guy with a beard and a blonde hippie chick working at the door. For some reason, it was just the hippy girl today, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt with a band name Misty didn’t recognize. The blonde chick had worked there longer and was a little absent-minded, once giving Misty the long needles instead the short ones and sometimes forgetting to add the extra cottons and alcohol wipes to the bag like she always asked for, but she was easy to talk to. Usually just shit about the weather or compliments on Misty’s earrings and stuff like that. But occasionally it reminded her that no one else had been even that nice to her in a week.

“Hey there!” she chirped through the open window at the door as Misty approached. “You made it just in time!”

Misty forced a smile. “Yeah. Just in time. You need my member card?”

“Nah. Your ID is easy to remember-- MSSM 96. It's basically a palindrome!” She pushed a few buttons on an iPad and looked up. “What can I get you today?”

“Shorts, extra cottons and alcohols please. And can I get a bowl?”

The blonde chick nodded and pressed a few more buttons. Misty was a little worried she might actually be past her limit with glass pipes after all, but the girl added one to her bag without saying anything. “Any Narcan today?”

“I’ll take one, I guess.”

“Cool.” The girl pulled a kit from the shelf and examined the number on its label before entering it onto the iPad. “And have you had to use any on anyone since you were last here?”

“No, not since then.” The girl handed her the brown paper bag with her supplies through the window. Misty reached for it and, without knowing why, blurted out, “This Sunday’s the second anniversary of my fiance dying.”

The expression on the hippie girl’s face softened, lips turning slightly downward and brow furrowing slightly. “Wow. That’s gotta be a heavy one.”

“Yeah. He OD’ed.” Misty rocked back and forth on her feet and turned her gaze at the ground, her eyes stinging. “I was there. We was just shootin’ pills then, but they was laced and we didn’t know it. I know they’s test strips and stuff you can use to check it now, but we had no idea, and neither of us had touched slow before. So we didn't have no Narcan either.” Her lungs suddenly felt short of air, but she continued. “Wouldn’t have made no difference, really, 'cause I fell out too. By the time I came to, he was already gone.”

The girl said nothing and Misty could not bear to look up and check her face again. Like thunder, her voice cracked into wordless sobs and she turned away. “I’m sorry,” she breathed raggedly. “I don’t know where that came from.” She finally glanced up at the girl, who was shaking her head slowly.

“Yeah, I don’t know either,” she said softly. “Grief’s kinda weird like that. It sneaks up on us.”

Misty nodded, smearing tears and sweat from her face.

The hippy girl then said, “Hey, no pressure, but sometimes I get a little tired of saying ‘I’m sorry’ all the time when I hear stories like yours. Can I offer you a hug instead? You good with those?”

Misty covered her face as a fresh wave of tears sprang forth, nodding anyway. She felt the blonde girl step out and wrap her arms around her shoulders, Misty leaning forward with her face still covered and streaming. For once, she did not mind losing track of the time.

The memory of sinking into the embrace of this girl, whose name Misty couldn’t even remember, would soon be superseded by her body’s reminders that it was still in withdrawal, and that familiar, if more bitter relief awaited her at home. But in that moment where time stood still and Misty felt the almost painful sensation of remembering what it was like to feel cared for, she thought for a second that feeling might even be more powerful than fentanyl. Almost.