Read Online Problems by Jade Sharma - Free Book Online

voicemail. I sounded like a child. I sounded like someone you might not want to call back right away. Where is a good emergency when you actually need one?
    When men stop wanting to fuck you: Poof! You disappear.
    I took three Xanaxes and watched Bob’s Burgers on my laptop till I passed out on the couch.
    * * *
    â€œWe’re going to be late,” Peter said. It was twenty past seven. We had to be at Penn Station at eight.
    â€œIt’s not going to take forty minutes in a cab,” I said.
    â€œThere are no cabs.”
    â€œThere’ll be one, just wait.” The wind blew in my face. My head hurt. Why did I ever agree to go to his parents’ house for Thanksgiving? I cursed the past me, the one who hadn’t considered what the present me would have to go through.
    The past me was always fucking with the present me. Like agreeing to go jogging at nine in the morning, like agreeing to help people move, like making doctor’s appointments at eight o’clock. Thinking naively, “It will be good for me to start the day early.” But when the day finally arrived for whatever, that past me with too-high expectations for myself had totally fucked present me.
    The psychiatrist had given me Suboxone. Suboxone was the new methadone. Like methadone, it blocked dope, but Suboxone took longer to leave your system. You could see people nodding outside methadone clinics. Suboxone never did that. It didn’t give you a real high like methadone, but it was something. It felt like you had drunk an entire pot of coffee and then took some shitty speed.
    â€œMaya,” Peter started, but then a yellow cab with lights on turned the corner and I was saved from whatever tangent he was about to go on.
    I slid into the seat, put my headphones on, and turned up the music. It was some indie band, singing, “Everything’s a mess,” and then something about a heart, and then I couldn’t understand the words. Peter put our bags in the trunk and slammed the door a little too hard.
    Penn Station was packed. Kids twirled around. Tired parents studied the departure board. Peter went to pick up our tickets. I stood and waited for the gate number to appear. I called Amy,my college roommate. Amy had been calling me every night since she started working the late shift. She was going to be visiting her in-laws.
    â€œHey.”
    â€œHey, what’s up?” she said, sounding tired.
    â€œI’m at Penn Station, and I don’t want to go,” I said, sweating in my big coat.
    â€œIt will be fine.”
    â€œThey don’t know we smoke. I’ll have to sneak around like I’m fourteen again. The sister is a Jesus freak. The brother and the brother’s girlfriend, Sue, who is hot and is studying to be a doctor . . . a fucking doctor. How do I compete with that? What do I do? I’m fat, and I do nothing.”
    â€œYou’re working on your thesis.”
    â€œAmy, I’m not.”
    â€œThey don’t know that.”
    â€œAmy, I’m using.”
    â€œWhen did that start?”
    â€œI never stopped.” I had told her I stopped. “But I stopped today. Today I’m clean.”
    â€œGood,” she said. “Are you anxious?”
    â€œI need a Xanax, and we haven’t even boarded the train.”
    â€œYeah, well, pause for a moment and feel bad for me. I’m in weirdo white-trash world Upstate with Dennis.”
    â€œYeah, how’s his mother?”
    â€œMaya, this morning I woke up, and she was sitting on the couch dipping saltines in a jar of generic mayonnaise. Watching an infomercial like it was a real show.”
    â€œThat’s disgusting,” I laughed.
    â€œThere was a pork chop on the counter. I mean, with no plate or napkin or anything.”
    â€œGet out off the phone. The train is boarding,” Peter said, tickets in hand.
    â€œI got to get on the train. I’ll call you,” I said.
    â€œOkay. Have