The Ladybug and the Junkie

One night in spring I found a ladybug at a punk gig. If you asked me then, I couldn’t tell you if it was march or may, but it was the dead of night, under a starless sky. I was eighteen, with a fake ID and hair that had never seen a brush, but I had somehow managed to spike out like one of those underwater mines in Nemo.

My eyes stung with eyeliner and mascara. I had too many grams of cocaine in my system and my legs wobbled under my sixty kilos. The ground rocked with the beat. The crowd was howling, and I was too, but I couldn’t hear my own voice. I laughed until my breath hitched and my throat clogged.

Everything blurred. Everybody drifted away from me, to the place where I couldn’t reach. I closed my eyes and chugged the rest of my beer. My best buddy and dealer dapped me up.

“You ok, dude?”

I wiped my face and gave him a rock hand.

He grinned, his eyes unblinking. I might’ve said, “Fuck you, man,” but I don’t think so, because his bleached teeth still stung my eyes.

Someone rammed me, and my knees crunched into the ground.

Time had passed; I knew this because a new band had started playing this horrible sad rock. I crawled in the gravel; little rocks sharp in my palms. My mind felt clearer, but my stomach churned like a cement mixer. The foul taste of vomit filled my mouth.

That’s when I saw the black and red. The ladybug. Too small for a place like this. All wrong. I had to protect her. I struggled over, bumping bodies and squeezing through until she was within touching distance, then I crumbled to her level.

And that’s what I remember.

Blinding sunlight awoke me. My body was drenched in sweat; clothes clung to me. I found my phone in my pants pocket; no messages, no missed calls. I pulled the blanket tighter around me and chucked the phone away, it smashed into a wall.

A shriek came. I froze, unable to hold it in, my underwear soaked. The stank filled the room. I sat up, squinting toward the sound, my face burning. There she was again. The ladybug. Well, today she was just a kid with raven hair and a frightened look in her eyes. She had backed up against a wall.

I fell back down on the pillow and punched my forehead, “I’m so sorry.”

“You guys are all the same, always mad or sad,” she mumbled.

“I didn’t know you were here.”

When silence followed, I lifted my head to see if she was still there, “Look, I’m really sorry, but could you turn around?”

She did, without a word.

“Don’t leave, ok?” I wrapped the blanket around me, leaving behind a brown patch of shame on the white sheet of the hotel bed.

The shower washed over me as I tried to remember the night before. Nothing. Except... there was a kid in my hotel room. A kid. My knees buckled. The stream of water rushed over my head. What did I do? Was I really capable of something like that?

The water was too much. I had to get out.

I opened the bathroom door slightly. “Could you ask if the hotel has any clothes for me?”

On the floor outside the door lay a t-shirt and sweatpants. I picked them up. “Thanks.”

She had taken care of me, and she had to be half my age.

I came out unable to look at her and dropped onto the couch. My whole body trembled. I couldn’t tell if I was freezing or terrified. I asked what happened.

“You were really annoying,” she said, “talking about taking care of me like I can’t take care of myself. I told you so many times.”

”But why are we here?” I dared look up at her.

She shrugged. “You had a lot of money in your wallet, so I got the room. You kept saying you’d take care of me, but I was taking care of you.” She rolled her eyes. “Why are you crying all the time?”

I wiped my tears. “So we just slept? You slept on the couch?”

“Yes?” She shook her head and got up. It looked like she headed toward the exit, but she came back with paper towels.

I blew my nose. “Why didn’t you leave?”

“Cause now you owe me.”

But she could've taken the wallet. There’d been hundreds in it.

I got up from the couch. “Are you hungry?”

We left the keys at the reception, and I tipped a little extra money for the mess. It was afternoon, and the streets were busy. The sun peeked out between buildings, reflecting the windows, but we walked in the shade.

Two girls about her age laughed outside a Domino’s, their mothers pulling them along. She stopped and stared.

“Pizza?” I asked.

She turned to look at me. Then she wrinkled her nose. “How come your hair looks like that? Looks like a bird home.”

I laughed, “Gee, thanks.”

Something that resembled a smile showed up on her face. An unfamiliar warmth spread in my chest. It reminded me of being drunk or high.

“How about this,” I said, ” You can decide how I cut my hair.”

“I can cut it?”

“Oh no,” I backed away from her, hands lifted, “I don’t trust you with scissors that close to my genius.” I pointed to my head. She frowned. I shook my head. “I meant you could tell the barber.”

She picked a haircut that didn’t look too bad. And this guy with long nails, and bright blue hair seemed ecstatic to make my crow’s nest into what he claimed was his greatest transformation ever.

We ate pizza after that.

“How come you have so much money? People like you never do.” She said through a mouthful. She had sauce all the way up to her nose. I decided it suited her.

“It’s complicated.” I took a few more bites of pizza. She watched people pass by outside, while I looked at her. “My dad owns a company, and he pays me to stay out of his life.”

“Then you can do whatever you want,” she said.

I shrugged. “How did you find the concert?”

She burped and some people turned their heads.

“I heard the music.”

"But what were you doing out in the middle of the night by yourself?” She gave me an angry look. “I don’t care what you think. You’re just a junkie.”

The rest of the evening, we sat at a beach. As the sun drifted over the sea and the light filled her eyes with wonder, I felt the craving. A part of me wanted to leave her like that in my memory and call my dealer. But she looked so peaceful. Her hands crunched the sand, and it poured through her fists like an hourglass. I was stuck; I wanted that peace. Then, for a moment, it was like someone else sat there. I looked away.

After the sun had set, I didn’t know what else to do, so I invited her to stay in my guest room. The next few weeks we lived in quiet company. There were moments when I sweated out my sheets and shivered so hard I couldn’t sleep. Other nights I stood on the balcony, phone in my hand, finger hovering over the call button, staring out at the city. But most of the time, she distracted me.

I taught her piano when she said, “My mom’s a junkie. That’s why I left. I thought I would go back.”

I swallowed, “You can stay here for as long as you’d like.” I showed her a few notes on the piano, and placed her fingers on the right keys-

“Are you a junkie?” She asked. I paused and stopped breathing.

“No,” I said, “Not anymore.” I didn’t know that it was true until I said it.

I hunched over the keys; a few tears landed on my hands. Wasn’t I supposed to be the steady one? She was quiet for a long time. Then she threw her arms around me and squeezed like she was afraid I'd disappear. But she had no idea how afraid I was; I struggled to understand how she could be real.

In summer, time passed slowly. We ate more pizza than I ever had before. When I hung up a picture of her with sauce all over her face, she protested. But later when we watched a movie, she leaned her head on my shoulder for the first time. I kept still and held my breath.

She got very into the piano. I noticed her playing when I did laundry, cooked dinner, and changed sheets. She left her sheets in the washer sometimes after the screams. We didn’t talk about it. The few times I went in, she slammed the door, so I let her be. She hid when she cried.

I came home one day after grocery shopping. I heard the familiar clinking of the worn-out tangents. She missed one- the sound cut off. Then it restarted. Her shoes stood next to mine in the entry. Her hoodie lay draped across my favorite chair. Pictures of us colored the walls. I went over to her with my jacket still on. She looked up and smiled at me. It hit me so hard I grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat on the porch, breathing. It felt like home.

Winter covered the streets in snow. I breathed frost into the air and leaned over the railing of the balcony. People walked below, in and out of buildings and stores. Christmas shopping. I had already bought a present for her. Her own piano and lessons with a private tutor.

She knocked on the window. I went inside, rubbing my hands together.

“I have to leave.”

“Do you need me to drive you?”

“I have to go back to mama.” She evaded my gaze and fiddled with a small box. “I don’t think I'll get to come back.”

“What do you mean?” I pulled off my jacket. “Did I do something wrong?”

“I left mama.”

“You don’t have to go.”

She nodded and gave me the box. “Thank you for helping me.”

“You can bring your mom here. You can both live here.”

She hugged me again. This time I held on.

You laughed yesterday.

Then she was gone. I opened the box; it was a small ladybug figurine.

I spent two weeks barely sleeping. At the slightest knocking sound, my heart pounded, and I was at the door in seconds. I walked in the cold, often at night on deserted streets. Streetlights cast my shadow from front to back endlessly. The craving was suffocating.

One night I called my old friend.

“There's a jazz band at the dive, since you're too good for punk now.” His laugh was sharp.

“Cool. See you there.” I hung up and stared at the phone. His contact picture stared back at me. No. I threw the phone at the ground. It bounced.

Then I stomped it dead. What now?

I packed the few things I cared about and left. The drive was long. Landscapes I hadn’t seen in years. At gas stations I bought snacks and took walks. I wanted more time. I blasted music to drown my thoughts. I fought the urge to turn around and call him again.

I made it to the town where I grew up. Not much had changed. The house looked the same; my mom had kept up the garden. The candy store down the street was still there. And the cemetery… I drove past twice before I could make myself stop. The engine hummed steadily. I rested my head on the steering wheel. It hit fast; it was hard to breathe. I grabbed a tissue, and noticed a whole pile of used ones in the passenger seat.

Someone knocked on my window. I looked up. A woman with grey hair, and deep wrinkles around her eyes. She looked worried. I smiled through tears and gave her a thumbs up.

The day was grey and darkening. It wasn’t until sometime at night I opened the door. The sky was clearer out here, stars were everywhere. The icy wind whipped my hair around. I shivered. The cemetery lay empty, brown leaves blew across the grass. Metal clinked around me.

I stopped in front of her grave. My eyes watered; my hair was wild. It was beautiful; the gravestone. Clean and black with golden text. The shape was gentle and soft, like she had been. A little ladybug on a flower was etched beside her name. A grave lantern had burned all the way down. I kneeled and put down my own ladybug.

Then I talked. I told her my story, because she never got to share hers. I apologized again and again, because it would never be enough. I laughed because it felt good to talk to her again.

It was past midnight when I rang the doorbell to my mom’s house. She opened the door in a black robe, and froze. She had changed, her hair was shorter, and she had a few gray strands. More wrinkles than before. I couldn’t tell if she was happy to see me. I was shaking when I stepped up and embraced her.

At first, she did nothing, and I considered turning and running away again, but then she squeezed. Her breath came in hiccups, and she sniffed and held the back of my head.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered. “Can I come home?”

She nodded and squeezed harder.

I haven’t seen the ladybug since the day she left. Sometimes I’m not even sure she was real.