The Only Medicine

I tell Mama that I’m sick and that I can’t go to school, and she goes along with it, although I’m sure she knows what’s going on. I don’t text Mike and tell him not to bother picking me up, and I find myself waiting for the sound of the car pulling up outside, but he doesn’t come by. My phone vibrates every few minutes; another missed call, another text from Vic that I can’t bring myself to look at or reply to. All I do for three days straight is lay in bed and eat Oreos and watch shitty daytime TV.

On the fourth day, Mama practically drags me out of bed and tells me to go to school. My face when I look in the mirror is drawn and my eyes puffy, but there’s not a lot I can do about that. I think about cutting class.

“Mia,” she says when I reach the kitchen. “You need to eat something. Something other than those cookies.”

I glower at her and grab my granola out of the cupboard. She watches me until I pour it into a bowl and sit down. It feels good to be eating real food again, but I can barely stomach the whole bowl. All I can think about is everyone gossiping and staring at school. My thoughts drift inadvertently to Mike and whether he’ll be there and my stomach threatens to bring up what I have eaten.

I make it to school just as the bell is ringing, and I sit through each of my classes in a stupor, doodling in my notebooks and avoiding eye contact with everyone else. If people are whispering about me, I don’t hear them. I’m heading to the last period before lunch when I realise what it is—English. This will be my first class with Mike. I stop in the middle of the hallway, wondering what I should do. Do I go in and ignore him? Sit at the back of class? The idea of even looking at him makes my throat close up. I sidle past the door and catch a glimpse of him sitting at his usual desk and I can’t do it—I keep walking. I head to the nearest bathroom and sit in the stall, my head in my hands, willing myself to not cry. Dammit. Fuck. What’s wrong with me? I’ve gone to school with exes before and it hasn’t been a big deal. I didn’t even make this much of a big deal about Jane.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I sigh and pull it out of my pocket to finally trawl through all the texts from Vic. To my surprise, the latest one is from Tony, and there’s actually a mix of texts from him, Jaime and Vic. Nothing from Mike—I push that thought to the back of my mind.

“hey Mia, hope ur feeling better. U can come hang with us at lunch if u want? :)” the latest text reads. I guess they know that I’m at school today; maybe they’ve seen me walking around or something. I’ve been so stuck inside my own head that I can’t even remember what classes I’ve been to today.

I consider texting back, but it’s so close to lunchtime already; perhaps I’ll just turn up. They’ll be in the music room, as usual. I wait a few minutes after the bell and then exit the stall. The lighting in the bathroom is terrible and makes me look worse than I did this morning. I splash some water onto my face and straighten my septum ring and head for the music room.

Tony is sitting in the corner, tuning the school guitar, and Jaime is eating a sandwich. They both look up when I enter.

“Oh my god,” Jaime says. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I reply, sitting down between them. My eyes flick to the big sign on the wall that says ‘no food/drink’, then I pull my sandwich out of my bag.

“You don’t look fine,” Jaime says.

“You’re not supposed to say that,” Tony hisses, but I just wave them off.

“I’ve just been sick,” I lie. They share a glance but don’t say anything else about it.

“You know what will make you feel better?” Jaime pipes up after a while. He doesn’t wait for me to reply. “Getting fucked up.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, I could really do with a drink.”

Tony looks at Jaime warningly.

“I’m not suggesting we get drunk now,” Jaime laughs. “There’s a party across town tomorrow night. You could come with us, if you’d like?”

My mouth twists into a grimace. “I don’t know.”

“I’m pretty sure there won’t be … many people we know there?” Jaime replies carefully, turning it into a question. I understand what he’s getting at—he means Vic and Mike probably won’t be there.

“I’ll see how I feel tomorrow.”

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun. We could hang out at my place beforehand.”

I just shrug and he takes that as a yes.


I end up with detention again on Friday afternoon after cutting class on Thursday (and most of Friday). I don’t even really care. I sit at the back of the room and scribble in my book and wait for the hour to tick by—I don’t even have my phone, since the teacher running detention confiscated them at the start. Jaime had said at lunchtime to come over to his house around six o’clock, so it’s not like I’m going to be late or anything.

After the hour is up, I head up to the front of the room and grab my phone from the teacher. There are two texts; one from Jaime and one from Tony.

“bring alcohol,” reads the text from Jaime. I don’t have a fake ID and Mama doesn’t drink, so there’s a fat chance of that happening.

“u want a ride to Jaime’s?” reads the text from Tony.


“Hey, how’s it going?” Tony says as I hop into the car.

“It’s okay,” I reply, buckling my seat belt. “I got detention.”

“Oh, that sucks.” But of course, he already knows that. He’s quiet for the rest of the drive and it’s a bit awkward. I wonder how it’s going to be at the party—I haven’t gone to a party without Vic or Mike before, and I’m a bit nervous.

“I don’t think I want to go anymore,” I say suddenly. We’re just down the road from Jaime’s house, from what I can remember. It’s the first time I’ve been here without it being pitch black outside.

“Oh,” Tony says, sounding disappointed. “This is Jaime’s house here, though. But I can just take you home now, if you want.”

I pause. Well, if we’re already here … perhaps I’ll just hang out with Tony and Jaime for a bit and then ask them to drop me home on the way to the party.

“I mean, I’m not sure if I want to go to the party … but I’ll still hang out with you guys here for a bit.”

“Oh, okay.”

We both hop out the car and he reaches into the backseat to grab a pack of wine coolers and what appears to be a bottle of bourbon wrapped in a brown paper bag. I don’t ask where he got them from; I can only presume he has an older sibling or something. We haven’t really spoken much about our respective families, but Tony doesn’t seem like the type to have a fake ID.

Jaime greets us at the door, a grin on his face, as usual. “Tony, my man!”

They grab each other’s hand and go in for a one-armed hug, patting each other on the back. I stand to the side, feeling a little out of place. It’s strange being at Jaime’s house without legions of drunk people on the lawn or loud music playing.

“And what’s this about you having detention, miss?”

At first I don’t realise he’s talking to me—I’m too busy staring at the yard, remembering the last time I was here. Then he clicks his fingers in front of my face and I flinch back, startled. He lets out a short laugh.

“Yo, Mia, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

We head inside and down the hallway toward Jaime’s room. As soon as we’re inside, Jaime closes the door behind us and asks me again, “Why did you have detention, Mia?”

I just shrug. Tony takes a seat on the edge of Jaime’s bed—it’s a lot tidier than the last time I was here, tucking a drunk Jaime into bed, but there are still clothes strewn everywhere—but I remain standing near the door, fiddling with one of my plugs nervously. Jaime cocks his head at me, a bemused expression on his face, but he doesn’t push it any further.

“You can sit down, you know,” he says, taking the box of wine coolers from Tony and pulling a bottle out.

“There’s barely anywhere to sit,” I say drily, but I take a seat on the floor by the bed.

Jaime’s room is small and relatively empty, save for a dresser in the corner with a little television on it. I hadn’t noticed it before.

“What do you guys wanna do? Do you wanna play some Xbox?” Jaime says, getting up to turn the Xbox on anyway.

“Uh, sure. I don’t think I’ll be very good,” I admit. It’s true—I never play video games and I can never really get into them.

“We’ll go easy on you,” Jaime teases, handing me a controller.

It ends up being some kind of soccer game, which I totally fail at, but after a few wine coolers, I stop caring. At that point, it starts becoming a game to see how quickly they can defeat me, because I’m so terrible. Jaime goes out to the kitchen and grabs us a couple of mugs to drink the bourbon out of, since we’ve polished off the wine coolers.

“Hey,” Tony says once Jaime leaves the room. I look up at him and he slides down the bed to join me on the floor. “I’m glad you decided to come out tonight.”

I smile at him. “Me too.”

Jaime comes back in and does some kind of weird salsa dance with the mugs, grinning at us broadly. “Who’s ready to get fucked up?”

I just close my eyes and raise my arms like I’m praising god, and Jaime tucks a mug into my outstretched hand. I hadn’t realised how much I needed this after the week from hell. Tony cracks open the bottle of bourbon and gives us all a generous pour. We all sip and sit in contented silence for a while, the Xbox turned off and long forgotten.

“So, Mia … what exactly happened with you guys?” Jaime pipes up after a while. Tony flashes him a warning look, and he quickly adds, “That is, if you want to talk about it,” but the bourbon has settled comfortably in my stomach and I feel myself answering before I can think or stop myself.

“I just fucked everything up.”

They share a glance.

“I, um, heard from Vic … he’s worried about you.”

My stomach turns at the thought of Vic. Am I more upset about what I did, or what he did? I still have multiple missed calls and unread text messages from him that I can’t bring myself to read or reply to. “We’re not speaking.”

“But you guys are best friends,” Tony says, making it sound like a question.

“Well, I fucked his brother and ruined everything and now we’re not.” I take another big gulp from the mug of bourbon. From their expressions, I can tell that what I’ve said isn’t much of a surprise—either they already knew because Vic or Mike told them, or they guessed as much.

“I’m sure you can be friends again,” Jaime says carefully.

I sigh and go to sip from the mug again, but it’s empty. “I don’t know that we can,” I reply glumly, sloshing a large amount of bourbon into my mug.

He looks at Tony, then back at me. “I mean, I spoke to Vic and he said he’s sorry and that he just wants to see you—”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” I drain the bourbon and pour another, and another, and another.

Notes