The first time I shot heroin was with Jimmy. Well, of course it was with him, it's not like Will and Tunny were ever that bad. It was like we had an unspoken rule that we wouldn't get sucked into anything too intense. Tunny got drunk, Will got stoned, and I did a bit of both, but we never tried anything more serious. As a whole, we steered clear of getting into anything too strong.
That must have been where I went wrong, because St. Jimmy himself was always so intense. He filled the space around him with his charisma. Everyone who met Jimmy just immediately needed to listen to him. Jimmy was everything we were always too afraid to be. He was everything I wasn't.
And everyone did what Jimmy wanted them to do. I knew from the moment I met him that I would do what he wanted, even if I was fucking terrified, because I wanted to be him. At least, that's how it started. It wasn't me trying to impress him, it was about me wanting to be just like him.
So when he came to sit down on the edge of the crappy, ratty mattress I was sitting on, I was ready to listen. Jimmy pulled out a cord and threw it onto my lap before continuing to set up. I picked up the cord and stared at it, startled. I was glad he couldn't see me, because I had a feeling he would be pissed and disappointed. He always got like that when he remembered how innocent I was compared to him.
I knew enough to realize I had to tie it around my arm, but the nerves and general clumsiness meant I fumbled and fucked up. I still can't tie off too well by myself, but it's okay when Jimmy's there.
He finished setting a needle up and turned towards me, sneering at the still loose cord. And so he tied it for me, tight enough to make me wince. Jimmy looked up, and for once he looked amused instead of just angry with my stupidity. Keeping eye contact, he leaned down to brush his lips against the inside of my elbow.
"Trust me," he said, and in that moment, I did. I nodded and offered him a slight smile, which turned into much more of a grin when I realized that he looked almost proud of me.
"It's going to hurt, yeah?"
"Oh, no, it's going to be as far from hurt as you can get," he answered, his mouth brushing my hair now before resting just to the right of my lips.
"Better than air," he continued, and I could feel him smile before he pulled away and I fell back onto the bed, suddenly too foggy minded to ask him if he was talking about something far more serious than hard drugs.