Fiorinal

“It hurts, but it’s worth it.”
I’ll take her word for it. Ronnie never did me wrong before. That’s just her nickname. Veronica is her real name. I think. Ronnie makes her sound like a lesbian. Which she is.
I think.
Never could watch when the needle takes its deep plunge into my skin. Scared of those things, always was. I once took an allergy test when I was in the third grade. The nurse sat there and pricked at my arm forty five times.
I think.
Each prick was then padded with a little drip of a common allergy in liquid form. It would sink into the little hole that the nurse had just punctured my beautiful skin with. If that hole would turn green or something, that would mean that I’m allergic to that particular allergy. Each test was inconclusive.

“Now that you feel it, you’ll be gone soon”
I love you Ronnie. You’re my girl. Nothing could ever come between us. Except your sexuality, but that’s ok. As long as you’re near me, I know everything will be alright.
Think.
Maleigha wouldn’t have done this with me. Meleigha loved me. She listened. She wanted to know what I had to say. She looked forward to when she’d get to see me. She missed me. She noticed when I wasn’t around. Sometimes it’s good to have an alpha-female for a girlfriend. It’s good to know that at least someone’s always thinking about me every few hours.
I still can’t think.

“It’s not working.”
“Give it time”
“It’s supposed to be instant.”
“Not this kind.”
Maleigha and I used to go thrift store shopping every Sunday. There wasn’t much to get in a small town such as this, but it was worth a trip once a week for the occasional furry brown sweater or the pair of pink, knee high Converse that she found at the Salvation Army on Bahey Rd. Those were the most ridiculous shoes that I had ever seen, and to add insult to injury, she would wear them with a long black leather coat that went all the way down to the ground. It made her look like a cross between Trinity from the Matrix and Kim Gordon.
Well, at least I think she did.

“You’re cute when you’re high.”
“Are you implying that I‘m not cute when I‘m sober?”
“No! You’re cute all the time! But you’ve got a really silly grin on your face right now that I’ve never seen you do.”
I laughed a hearty laugh, one of those kind that a pothead belts out when told a joke that doesn’t make sense to anyone else at all, including said pothead. Ronnie’s cute. I wish she weren’t a lesbian. Still haven’t figured out if she really is a lesbian or not, but I’ve acquired enough evidence to raise suspicions, but not enough to require me to work up the nerve to ask. She hangs out with Kaysie a lot. I don’t know why I want to know so bad. People have a right to their privacy, but there is a part of my friend that I don’t know yet. Maleigha was not a lesbian.
Wonder if Ronnie knows that I love it when she puts her hand on my leg when I make her laugh. Couldn’t possibly be a flirtatious move. Not from her at least. I think.

I can hear Ronnie’s voice, but I can’t make out what she’s saying anymore. I can think now. I can remember things clearly. The couch looks more comfortable than this fucking barstool. I don’t want to get up though. My whole body feels like sex right now. The middle of the afternoon kind. The kind of sex that ends with a nap in each others arms and a trip to Denny’s afterwards because both of us are too lazy to cook anything afterwards.
A lot happens at Denny’s. Although I mainly think of it as a sweet haven filled with country fried potatoes and waffles for the drunk at two in the morning, but shit happens at Denny’s. I bet it’s the food. Maleigha and I ate there a lot. It was nearby, and we had lots of afternoon sex. She would always order the French toast and drench it with butter and strawberry jam. And each time, she would get about one and a half of the toasts eaten before she would give up. I feel like I know the size of her stomach even though I’ve never actually seen it. I would always get the country fried potatoes and pour however much ketchup was left in the bottle at the end of the night all over them. Heart attack, schmeart attack.

Seen her arm though. Too many times. Maleigha started to throw up one night after we got home from dinner. I figured it was food poisoning. Wouldn’t be much of a surprise coming from Denny’s. It always breaks my heart to see vomit stuck in an angel’s hair. Little globs of who the fuck knows that stuck to the same brown hair that I run my fingers through every night. Her being sick made me want to cry. Situations of regurgitation always make me feel helpless.
The vomiting wouldn’t stop, and she began dry heaving. She was having trouble breathing because her stomach kept contorting and there was absolutely nothing left. I kept trying to feed her water just to get something in her system. Something had to be there.
Maleigha fell on the floor and started convulsing. I gave her mouth to mouth naively thinking that was going to help in some capacity.
9/11. I hate having to talk to the police. I may not be not doing anything wrong, but police officers have a way of making me feel like I am guilty even if it’s an emergency situation. No matter. Hide the pot. No big deal. They’ll be here to help.
I think.

I’m in another world right now. Everything feels like it should be something it’s not but it is anyway. That doesn’t make sense. I feel like everything is going to be ok. I feel like Maleigha is near me. I want Ronnie to be Maliegha. I want something real.
An ambulance came and picked up Maleigha sometime around 7:30, I think. I rode to hospital with her in the ambulance. She had to be hooked up to a respirator. I kept asking the EMT guy questions throughout the ride: Is she going to be ok? What’s wrong with her? Can you help her? Does this thing drive any faster?
I remember a lot of the color white from then on out. Maleigha had a fatal reaction to an allergy that she didn’t know she had. I wish I could remember what it was. Think. Think, you fucking asshole. You loved her, and now you can’t even remember how she died because you’re fucking strung out on H.

“…”
I remember when she took an allergy test. It was shortly after we started seeing each other. She didn’t like needles either. Every little needle prick made her squeal that was cute despite the fact that it was a squeal of pain. I kept telling her to picture each little prick like it was just a pigeon poking at her arm with his beak.
Come to think of it, I think it was the thirteenth prick that made her arm swell up. What was it called? Think. Fatal Nut. That’s it. Fatal Nut.

“I’m gone.”