by Sara Quin
“Teegy.” My childhood nickname for her bubbled out of my mouth between giggles. “We should play Nintendo!”
She returned from the garage with the dusted box as if it were a treasure. She stuffed a game cartridge into the slot, and the familiar twinkle of the Super Mario Bros.’s theme song began to play. Tegan studied the screen, jerking her hands and the controller through the air. I was mesmerized.
“Isn’t it weird that he’s collecting mushrooms?” Tegan said, turning toward me. “Mario is stoned, too.”
I met her eyes, reveling in her genius. There was no one cooler; the rest of the world and everyone in it ceased to exist. Everything she said made me laugh as if she were tickling my actual brain. I felt tears spill from my eyes, letting out groans of laughter. When the trip went sideways, and the thoughts cycling through my brain turned dark, she steered me back toward the light.
When the grip of my high relaxed, Tegan placed a hit of acid in her mouth and my focus shifted. It was her turn and I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her. The drug felt like an antidote, a magnet that pulled us back together.
* * *
When we started breaking out of the house to smoke cigarettes in grade nine, we’d stayed in the yard, or walked to the park a few blocks away. Eventually we discovered that the perimeter fence had a break in it, and the farmer’s field on the other side became our primary destination after dark. Away from the houses, we were less afraid of being spotted by neighbors, and our voices got louder and misdeeds more daring. Chasing the burn of weed smoke with stolen alcohol, we’d lie back in the field looking at the stars, spooking each other with unreliable sightings of coyotes in the distance. It didn’t feel dangerous, because we were together.
I considered all of this as I lay in bed, waiting for Tegan to return from hanging out with Emma. I thought about waking my parents up, imagining the three of us in Mom’s Jeep, searching for her in the ditch. I didn’t have to admit she was high, just stupid. A paralyzing fear scratched at the back of my skull. I wished I was telepathic, that I could feel her pain. Send me a twin signal, for fuck’s sakes. As the minutes stretched by, I prayed, an act totally foreign to me. Please let her be okay, I chanted over and over.
Just after 2:00 a.m., I heard her climb onto the roof. Then I saw a purple shoe and fingers on the window frame. Landing in a crouch on my carpet, she smiled at me and said, “Hi, I saw horses!” I was relieved that she was safe, but heavy with guilt. Seeing my own recklessness reflected back to me in Tegan’s behavior was truly terrifying, as if only when she was in danger could I realize that I was, too.
5. TEGAN WE’RE HOLDING IT FOR A GUY
Christina was upset that Sara and I bought two tabs at lunch to take after school before her Halloween party. She was even more furious when we got to her house and Sara realized she had somehow lost her wallet, with her tab of acid inside, and suggested the dealer come by to sell her a replacement.
“Sorry you lost your fuckin’ drugs, Sara, but you can’t have your drug dealer come to my house,” Christina argued.
I was sprawled on the carpet of Christina’s bedroom floor, stifling a laugh as I watched her, dressed as a ladybug for her Halloween party, desperately trying to pry the phone out of Sara’s hands.
We met Christina in grade nine. She was a part of the Frenchies crew but decided to come to Crescent Heights with Sara and me rather than go to Aberhart with Naomi. Christina and Naomi had been best friends since they were kids; like me, Christina was adjusting to having lost her best friend to Sara. From time to time, in moments like this one, an edginess would appear in Christina toward Sara, revealing the hurt she still harbored.
“It’s fine, Christina.”
“It’s not fine, Sara. My dad is in his room.”
“Relax,” Sara screeched, prying Christina’s fingers off the receiver. “I promise your dad won’t find out.”
Christina sighed heavily and turned around. Her blue eyes warmed slightly as she crouched down in front of me where I was lying. I stuck out my tongue, where my square of acid was still seeping into my bloodstream.
“I’ll literally kill you two if my dad finds out you’re on acid tonight.”
“Don’t worry,” I purred. “You know he won’t.”
“He better not.”
Jasmine offered to drive Sara on her scooter to meet Garrett, the dealer, a compromise that eased Christina’s anxieties. Sufficiently fucked up, Sara and I spent a lot of the night in the front entryway, welcoming kids, reminding them to take off their shoes, and instructing them not to pick up the family dog, who’d just had surgery—all as penance to win back Christina’s love. When other kids who’d taken acid frothed and flailed, I discreetly moved them outside, buoyed by my ability to behave normally even though I was high. To me the best part of acid was bottling up how out of control it made me feel and forcing myself to not let on what was happening inside me. Watching Sara do the same felt exhilarating. Half the motivation was doing it when the threat of getting caught was around every corner.
Around eleven Mom picked us up and I made effortless small talk in the front seat, while Sara and Kayla giggled in the back.
“Did you guys smoke pot?”
“No.” We all laughed.
“You can tell me, and I won’t care.”
“Mom, gross.” I smiled back at Sara and Kayla.
As we walked up the front steps, the front door flew open. “What’s this?” In Bruce’s hand was Sara’s wallet.
“Whoa.” Sara sighed into the cold air.
“Where did you find it?” Kayla chirped. “She left it on the bus.”
All I could think about was the tab of acid in the wallet and if Bruce had seen it. Considering how Sara looked, I was pretty sure that was all she was worried about, too.
“You know how much that bus pass costs?”
“Yes.” Sara grabbed for the black wallet. Bruce pulled it back out of her reach.
“You didn’t think to mention that you’d lost your wallet? Did you even care that if someone hadn’t brought it here and dropped it off, it would have cost your mom and me seventy bucks?”
“I . . .”
“Isn’t that why you wear that chain, to make sure something like this doesn’t happen?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Bruce. I’ll take better care of it.”
Bruce handed the wallet to Sara and disappeared up the hall toward the living room with Mom close behind.
I mouthed “Fuckkkkkk” to Sara and Kayla as I closed the door behind us.
Sara unsnapped the leather and tugged the tinfoil wrapping the acid out from behind the bus pass.
“Holy fucking shit,” she mouthed toward me. “It’s still in there. What should I do?”
“Flush it,” I mouthed back.
Between us, Kayla’s head ping-ponged watching our silent conversation.
“I’m going to take it,” Sara mouthed.
“No, don’t.”
“I’m gonna do it.” She unwrapped the tinfoil fast and popped the paper in her mouth. Smiling at me like a crazy person, she grabbed Kayla and pulled her into the kitchen.
I abandoned them to the bright glare of the kitchen lights. Idiot, I thought.
An hour later, Mom busted into my room and demanded to know why I was on the phone after curfew. I glanced at the clock and swallowed hard. It was almost midnight. Bruce was over her shoulder, the two of them back in detective mode. Ripping me out of the dark of my bedroom, she pinned me to the wall and raced through an accusation that left me dizzy.
“Explain this: Your sister just spent the last hour in the garage with Kayla—Rollerblading. She lost her wallet tonight. You’ve all been giggling and acting strangely. Now your pupils are huge, and you’re flushed, and you’ve been in your room, in your shoes and jacket, talking after curfew when you have a friend over. So, you tell me right now, or I’m calling Christina’s dad: Did you guys get high tonight?”
I smiled casually at her as adrenaline f
looded my insides, making me feel even higher. “Mom. Relax. Emma is home alone. I was just keeping her company until her parents got in. And I have my jacket on because it’s cold in my room. Go check?” I pointed for effect. God, I’m good. “And how the hell do I know why Sara and Kayla were Rollerblading? Ask them. I’ve been up here the whole time.”
She leaned in. The acid was making her face look melty. I tried not to cringe or turn away. “Go get your sister right now and come downstairs.”
“Sure,” I said, shrugging my shoulders coolly. I walked away very carefully. “First, fuck you both,” I said to Sara and Kayla when I was safely inside Sara’s room. “Why were you guys Rollerblading in the fucking garage?”
They both looked stricken with fear.
Sara said, “I don’t know . . . I guess—”
“Forget it. We have to go downstairs right now. So you better figure out how not to seem like you’re on two fucking hits of acid, because you look really fucking high right now.”
“I am really fucking high right now,” Sara said.
“Wait, why are you wearing only long underwear?”
Kayla giggled.
“Should I change?”
“There’s no time, Sara. Fuck,” I gasped. “Jesus. Come on.”
Downstairs, Kayla and I flopped onto the couch next to Mom and Bruce as Sara folded herself into the chair across from us.
“Did you guys get high at Christina’s?” Mom asked, muting the movie she and Bruce were watching.
“Didn’t you already ask us that in the Jeep?”
“If you guys smoked pot, we won’t be mad. Experimenting is normal.”
I tried to shake my head at Sara. Don’t fall for it, I thought. Stick to the plan. Mom was always reassuring us she wouldn’t be upset if she found out we tried drugs. Neither of us bought it.
“No, we did not smoke drugs. Are my eyes red? No. Do I look high? No.”
She did.
“The first thing you did when you got home was make food. There wasn’t food at Christina’s? You sure you don’t have the munchies?”
I died.
Sara burst out laughing. “No.”
“Something just seems off with both of you tonight.”
“You’re being very paranoid, Mom,” Sara said. “Did you and Bruce get high?” Both of them scoffed at this.
“Can we go now?” I asked.
Mom looked between us and finally said, “Go.”
Upstairs the three of us lay in Sara’s bed giggling. I felt invincible. We were getting so good at pretending we weren’t high.
* * *
The next Friday we smoked up with Kayla while Bruce was at hockey and Mom was at work. An hour later I nearly fainted when she walked into the kitchen, surprising me.
“Hi,” she said flipping through a pile of mail.
“Hey. You’re home early.”
“Is that allowed?”
“Of course. Duh.”
I turned back to the toaster and tried to steady my knees. Did I smell like weed? All I smelled was the toast I was buttering. How long had I been buttering it? I picked up the plates and slowly turned around, but to my relief she wasn’t there. I quickly descended the steps to the basement. I felt suddenly aware it was much too quiet inside the office where I’d left Sara and Kayla. Rounding the corner, I swallowed hard. Mom was already in there. Sara and Kayla were frozen together on the couch. I smiled. They did not smile back.
As if in a horror film, Mom spun slowly around in her office chair, the plastic bag of weed we’d bought earlier suspended between her hands. “Hi. Is this yours? I asked those two, but they aren’t sure whose it is. We’ve been waiting for you, hoping you could help us figure it out.”
My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I thought for a second. “Um, we’re holding on to it for a guy at school.”
Sara and Kayla turned to look at me.
“You’re ‘holding on to it’? ‘For a guy’? Really?” Mom said, letting out a chirp of laughter.
Sara and Kayla laughed, too.
“Yes,” I repeated confidently. “We’re holding it for a guy.”
“What guy?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“We can’t rat, Mom.”
“Excuse me? You can’t ‘rat’?”
“Yeah. Sara’s right, we can’t rat.”
“Do you even know where this ‘guy’ got this? It could be full of poison, or PCP. Did you know that? They sell you idiots shake and soak it in PCP if you’re lucky. But this is probably just stewed in Lysol. Do you guys want brain damage? Would you guys like that? Would that be a cool Friday night if Kayla got brain damage?”
I giggled, and Sara did, too.
“It’s not funny.”
I put down the toast and sat on the carpet with a sigh. “That seems extreme, Mom.”
“Really? Does it? I spend every night going to collect people who smoked or took something and then had a psychotic break. That’s my job. So, I think I know a lot more than you do.”
“We didn’t smoke it yet,” Sara said.
I pumped my fist internally when she said it. Genius.
“Oh, you didn’t smoke it? Hmm? You’ve just been sitting down here watching TV with it?”
“It’s not ours,” I said. “We’re hold—”
“You’re holding it for a guy. I heard you.”
“We can just give it back to the guy,” Sara said.
“You’re telling me you didn’t smoke any of this before I got home.”
“No,” the three of us said.
“We weren’t even trying to hide it from you. We know it was stupid and we’re sorry.”
Mom gave us what can only be described as a look of total disbelief. We are screwed, I thought.
“Okay, well, let’s smoke some now, together. Since it’s someone you know, it should be totally fine.”
“Mom, come on.”
“No, seriously. It will be great, Tegan. Let’s all get high together. I haven’t smoked since New Year’s Eve.”
“Mom, gross. Knock it off,” Sara warned.
“Why? Weed’s cool. It’s so cool to get high.”
“Mom,” I said. “You can’t smoke pot with your teenagers and their friend.”
“I’ll smoke with you, Sonia,” Kayla said.
“Kayla!” Sara and I shouted. “She’s joking.”
“Oh,” Kayla replied, giggling.
Mom stood up, the weed still in her hand. “You’ll have to tell the guy you were holding it for that your mom smoked it all. I’m not giving this back; Bruce and I are going to get stoned while you’re at your dad’s tomorrow.” There was no universe where that would happen.
“Whatever.” I laughed. I felt relieved; somehow, though we’d been caught, we’d gotten a pass from her. Then she dropped down between Sara and Kayla on the couch and said, “What are we watching?”
Mom smiled to herself through the entire movie as each of us slowly burned out next to her. She was quite content to let us suffer, exacting the best punishment she could have handed down. Next time we’d be more careful; we’d think twice about taking such a significant risk at home.
The next morning when Dad arrived to pick us up, Mom told him she’d caught us with weed.
“Well, if I remember correctly, you used to smoke a lot of weed when you were their age, Sonia,” he joked.
“Oh, is that right? And you didn’t?”
He chuckled. “Never.”
“I seem to remember you and your brother picking me up and getting me high on the way to school in grade twelve, hot boxing that little Bug he had.”
“Let’s go, babes. Your mom’s memory can’t be trusted.”
“Tell them about the Supertramp concert, Steve, and the time you made me take acid,” she shouted as Dad closed the front door. Though they’d been divorced most of our lives, they remained good friends. This kind of back and forth wasn’t uncommon.
Sara and I laughed on our wa
y to his truck. “You and Mom took acid?”
“All lies,” he said, smiling.
6. SARA NAOMI
It was minus twenty degrees Celsius, and I wasn’t wearing long johns under my ripped jeans. The exposed skin on my knees had turned purple, and the wind burned my cheeks and the tips of my ears. Burying our hands in the shallow pockets of our winter coats, Tegan and I didn’t speak as we made our way from the bus stop on the highway across the subdivision’s shortcut to our house. At home, we hovered near the back deck. We smoked a pinch of weed I spilled into a crushed Coke can punctured with pinholes.
“Hurry” is all Tegan mustered as I flicked the lighter with my frozen thumb, forcing sparks but no flame. “Give it to me; we’ll die out here.”
Sucking deeply, she passed the can back and I inhaled the smoke lacing out of the hole. When we got inside, I should have done homework, but I went straight to the basement, where I used Mom’s computer to write secret letters about the girl I liked. It was still a shock to feel desire for girls, addictive thoughts that stole hours of my time at school and in bed before I fell asleep.
Girls had always been interested in Tegan and me. They sometimes followed us home from school or watched us at choir practice. As a twin, I was used to being stared at by people, but this was different. I started imagining them observing me, even when I was alone. I wanted these girls to look at me; I wanted to be seen.
Tegan came into the office and flipped on the television. “What are you writing?”
“Nothing.”
I always told lies to protect her from what scared me, but this one I told only to protect myself. I printed what I was working on and walked upstairs to my bedroom, where I stashed the pages deep inside the torn-out gut of a stuffed animal. A few months earlier, Mom had come into my room and read a few lines of a letter I’d accidentally left in the printer tray downstairs. It was addressed to my best friend, Naomi.
“Do you like Naomi as more than a friend?” she asked, saying each word carefully.
My arms and cheeks went numb. “I just wrote the words to see what it would feel like.”