Far From You

14

ELEVEN MONTHS AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)

I don’t mean to steal the prescription pad.

I really don’t. It never even crosses my mind until the Saturday I take Dad lunch at his office. It’s hot that summer, topping 110 some days, and I should be out at the lake or something, but I like to spend time with Dad. He does free teeth cleanings for kids on every fourth Saturday, so I usually grab some takeout to share on his lunch break.

“Give me a second, sweetie?” he asks after one of his dental hygienists lets me into his office. “I’ve just got to check on some things. Then we can eat.”

I set the bag of pastrami sandwiches on his desk, next to the burl wood clock that Mom got for him for one of their anniversaries.

He closes his office door behind him, and I sit down in his swivel chair, wincing when it leans back too far.

Dad’s desk is orderly, everything in its right place. There’s a picture of me and Mom, standing side by side, our shoulders nearly touching, framed in silver, and one of Dad on the sidelines, from before the accident, when he coached Mina’s and my soccer team. There’s a black-and-white one of me when I was eleven or twelve, my hair long and tucked behind my too-big ears. I’m smiling at something off camera, my eyes lowered, almost hopeful as my hand reaches out. For Mina, of course. Always for Mina. She’d been making faces at me while Dad took the picture. I remember how hard it was to not let my face scrunch with laughter.

I brush my fingers across the top of Dad’s stash of pens, neatly grouped together by color. I pull open his top drawer. There’s a bunch of Post-its, color coded again, and underneath that…

Prescription pads. A stack of them.

And suddenly it’s all I can think about.

I’d always have enough pills. I’d never have to worry. Never have to keep count, just in case the doctors noticed. It’d be so good. So right.

The paper tickles my skin as I thumb through one of the pads like it’s a flip book. I’m giddy, almost high on the mere thought of it.

I don’t plan on stealing them.

But I do.

I don’t even think about the trouble it could cause as I shove them in my purse.

I’m too in love with the idea of more and numb and gone.