Tight Knit Read Online Free PDF

six-foot tall fence around the yard to keep the neighbors in the dark about what goes down in this place. 
    I ring the bell on the outside of the fence. On the second floor of the house someone pulls the curtain, flooding the front yard with yellow light. I’m plunged back into darkness as the person comes down to let me in. 
    So far, everything’s just as it always is. Next he’ll let me in, I’ll go through a check, get the package and get the address of the drop off. Basic runner duties. 
    Don’t tell the runner anything. The less I know the harder it is for the cops to trace it back. 
    The fence gate swings open and I’m face to face with Garrett. He sticks his hand out and I take it. He pulls me into his chest then lets go, which is like a guy equivalent of a hug, I guess. I don’t do physical contact.
    “I was hoping it’d be you, Lannie.” Garrett’s eyes are shadowed and one of them is black. His cheeks are sunken, not from the drugs though, it’s natural for him. His smile is forced and I’m sure he only likes me because I keep my mouth shut and always turn down the cut of dope I’m entitled to as the runner. I quit that shit for Gram. It’s a stipulation of me being released into her care. Rehab at sixteen. Support meetings. Fun.
    I step into the yard and the gate closes behind me. Garrett drapes his arm around my shoulder, or tries to, as we walk up the front steps. I’m about a foot taller than he is. I shake him off easily, without seeming like an asshole. But I am an asshole, so he doesn’t notice.
    “You want a hit, kid?” Garrett points to a small square mirror with a line of cocaine and a blade on it laying on a small table in the entrance. 
    “Nah, man. I’m good,” I say and lean against the doorway into the disaster of living room. 
    He smiles. He knew I would turn it down. 
    “Just wait there. I’ll be back with the package.” 
    He’s gone only a few moments when a pair of boney arms slide around my waist. I recognize the arms. They’ve been around me more than once. I grab her wrists and gently remove them.
    “Violet, not now,” I say like a mother talking to her child. When did I become this guy? I never turn down sex. Again, maybe not entirely true, but I never used to turn down sex from Violet. It’s always sex with Violet.
    I turn to face her, and I’m reminded of why I turn her down now. 
    Memories of the once beautiful and voluptuous Violet flood my body. I remember when the drugs made her wild and spontaneous. When we would get high and the sex was crazy amazing. Partying with Violet was one way I could escape the pain. She was great at making me forget. Being older than me, she was my first and definitely my best. 
    She presses her body into mine and my hands slide down her shoulders as I gently push her away. I wished she was the old Violet. I could use a dose of the old Violet right now. 
    The new Violet makes my chest constrict and digs at my conscience. 
    Drugs dominate the new Violet, making her frail and desperate. She’s lost all her curves and all the softness that made her amazing to touch. Her eyes are faded, lifeless. She seems already dead at nineteen, only a shell of who she used to be. Now she clings to anyone who can give her her next fix and she comes back here to Garrett, to me, when she needs money or when she gets kicked out of her house. 
    What terrifies me most about the New Violet is that I was right there with her. Controlled by the quest to numb out. To stop feeling. I could be this right now. 
    I think of Gram. 
    Violet doesn’t respond to me when I turn her in the direction of the living room. She just wanders away. I no longer have what she wants. An escape. Violet slinks into an oversized chair and it almost swallows her, her boney arms hang limply at her sides. I realize she’s not on coke, the way her jaw hangs open and her eyes won’t focus are sure signs of heroin. Shit, I don’t want to be part of this