Chapter 4: Jecka, Pills, and the Unspoken Things

The fluorescent lights of the school bathroom hummed a particularly aggressive tune, a soundtrack to my internal monologue that was currently less about existential dread and more about the gnawing emptiness in my stomach. It wasn’t hunger, not exactly. It was more like a tiny, rabid badger had taken up residence in my gut, demanding tribute. The tribute, in this case, was usually a neat little stack of white pills.

I’d managed to snag a few from the communal stash in my backpack, a feat that required the stealth of a ninja and the moral flexibility of a politician caught in a sex scandal. The familiar coolness of the Percocet dissolving on my tongue was a tiny, fleeting victory. It dulled the badger, at least for a while. It also dulled the insistent buzzing in my brain, the one that reminded me of… well, everything. Mom’s vacant stare. Dad’s final, desperate note. The way the world seemed to tilt on its axis, leaving me clinging to the wreckage.

“Luna? You in there?” Jecka’s voice, muffled by the thick bathroom door, was a warm, familiar vibration. It was the sound of sanity, or at least, my version of it.