Tori snapped awake from a fitful sleep, covered in sweat. She stretched her arm across the other side of the bed, her heart sinking when she found it empty. She didn't want to believe that last night had happened, she wanted so desperately to dismiss it as a nightmare, but the bed told otherwise. Jade was gone. Tori tried to choke back her sobs and was unable to. She wept bitterly.
Tori was startled out of her misery when Jade's phone began to go off. Tori stumbled out of bed and found Jade's phone plugged into the charger. She answered it.
"Hello?" She said shakily, her nose stopped up and tears still trailing down her tan face.
"Damn, you sick, Jade? I told you you wouldn't be able to handle that fire." The man said, chuckling.
"Jade is dead." Tori said quietly.
"What?"
"Jade is DEAD!" Tori screamed into the phone.
"Tori? Oh, shit... Fuck, what happened?"
"She overdosed, Andre! That shit you sold us last night, it was cut with fent..." Tori trailed off as the image of Jade seizing on the floor, her lips blue, popped into her head. Fresh tears formed in her eyes.
"Fuck! I... I don't don't know what to say. I'm so sorry, Tori. You have to believe that I didn't know! My boy told me it was pure, I swear to God I didn't know!" Andre said, choking up.
Tori said nothing.
"Look, you still need your fix, right? I got a new batch, I'll give you two bundles, Tori, okay?" He said, trying to placate her. He might have been a drug dealer, but Tori and Jade were good friends of his. They went all the way back to highschool.
"R-really?" Tori whimpered. She had flushed the bad heroin down the toilet after Jade died and only had a couple of Roxies yesterday. Her body ached dully, anticipating her daily shot. Tori couldn't bear to go through withdrawals and mourn her girlfriend's death at the same time.
"Yeah, really." He said with a sigh.
"This doesn't make up for what happened." Tori insisted.
"You don't want the dope then?"
"No! I mean, I do! Please..." Her desperation was not lost on Andre.
"Alright. I'll be over in fifteen." He said smiling into his Pear Phone and hung up.
Tori wiped her eyes and got out of bed. She picked up a pair of skinny jeans off the floor and put them on, then went to the tiny closet and pulled Jade's favorite hoodie off the hanger, putting it on. It smelled like Jade. She felt like Jade was embracing her and smiled wanly. She stepped into a pair of beat up Converse then went into the cramped living room, sitting on an ugly, outdated plaid couch she and Jade had found next to a dumpster. When you spend all of your money on heroin, you tend to not care about interior design.
Tori began to fidget anxiously, it had been fifteen minutes. Jade's Pear Phone started going off to the tune of Lil Jon's Turn Down For What. Seeing that it was Andre, she answered hastily.
"Yo, I'm pulling up." He said and hung up before she got a chance to respond. Tori jumped up off of the couch and went outside, locking the door to her apartment. It was a bad neighborhood. She walked around the parking lot of her apartment complex, but didn't see Andre's Mercury. Tori sighed, she was all too familiar with waiting on drug dealers.
Getting cold, she was about to go back inside when he pulled up next to her. She got into the car with him.
"I'm really sorry about Jade." He said genuinely. Tori didn't want to think about Jade, the only thing on her mind was dope.
"Yeah... so, what do you got for me?" Andre smirked.
"Look in the glove box." Tori opened the glove box. She saw a crackpipe and clear baggie with several grams of the white rocks.
"Andre, no. I need heroin." She said, not bothering to hide her disappointment.
"I know what you need. It's back at my place. Help yourself to that hard though. I just cooked it up, it's drop." He started to drive. Tori smoked crack on the way to Andre's place. He still lived with his grandmother.
"It's good, right?" He asked.
"Yeah." Tori mumbled. She was on cloud nine. Andre pulled into his driveway.
"Let me do a blast." Tori handed him the stem and the baggie of crack. He melted a fat chunk into the chore. He put the pipe to his lips, the flame just barely touching it, and sucked steadily. He could feel the head rush immediately.
"Makes me horny, don't it make you horny?" He asked, blowing out a huge cloud of white smoke. Tori said nothing.
Andre got out of the car and Tori followed him through the house into his room. He locked the door.
"So, about those bundles..." Tori said, perking up.
"Don't worry, I got you, girl." Andre said, "and it ain't that China white shit either. But... you gotta earn it." He added with a smirk.
"What do you mean?" She asked, feeling nauseated. She knew exactly what he meant.
"First thing, Jade was my customer. I never dealt with you. You could have a wire underneath them clothes for all I know."
"I'm not wearing a wire!" Tori was becoming frantic, she desperately needed a shot. She lifted up her shirt. "See?"
"Yeah, this is how I see it: Your girl is dead and now you trying to flip on me." He said before doing another hit of crack.
"What? That stuff has you paranoid, Andre." Tori said nervously.
"I'm gonna need you to take off all of them clothes if you want those bundles." She did want those bundles. Badly. Tori sighed and stripped down to her bra and panties. This is why Jade handled their dealers, she would never put up with shit like this.
"Take the rest off." Andre demanded. Tori hung her head and obeyed.
"Mmm, that's nice. Come here."
"Wait, I need to do a shot first." Tori stammered.
"Fine." He pulled two bags of heroin out of his pocket and handed them to Tori. "Do your shot," he said, "and then..." He trailed off, licking his lips.
"I don't have a rig." Tori said. Andre gave her a needle.
"I need a spoon." He gave her a spoon that had been abused for this purpose before. Before she could say anything more, he gave her a glass of water off of his nightstand and his black Bic. Tori sat down on the floor and prepared her shot. Once it was ready, she drew the whole thing into the needle.
"Don't do the whole thing," he warned, "it's fire." Tori ignored him. They all said that. All of the veins in her arm were collapsed, so she searched for a vein on her feet. She found a fat vein in her left foot and stabbed it with the needle. She drew the plunger back and saw blood mix with the dope. She smiled for the first time today, knowing she had hit the vein, she injected it into her foot and felt a sudden rush of relief. It was like she had been covered in warm honey from head to toe. Everything was right with the world.
"You ready?" Andre asked impatiently.
"Yeah." Tori slurred, standing up.
"Lay on the bed." He ordered. She did as she was told. She saw him do another hit of crack before nodding off.