Adventures in Funeral Crashing (Complete Novel)

Chapter 10: Power Lunching

CHAPTER 10: POWER LUNCHING

I could have kicked Kyle. Suzie gave him the best lead in ever and he blew it by saying the following words, "Oh, that's nice."

I mean, dude, the girl you have a massive crush on tells you she doesn't have a date to the dance, well, maybe you should take that as a lead in and ask her. Poor Suzie, I actually think she was hoping he'd ask her too, the way her smile faded after that. Then they just stared at each other in silence. I didn't know what to do. Thank goodness the bell rang and saved us all from more horrendous teenage awkwardness.

I managed to chew Kyle out in whispers while working on our Chemistry experiment. He was just quiet about it. I know Kyle totally knew he had messed up. I did notice poor Suzie looking over at us all during class, so maybe all hope wasn't lost. He just needed a swift kick in the ass.

"So, what were you and Suzie talking about anyway?" Kyle asked as we started to set up for our latest Chemistry experiment.

"Just girl stuff," I said vaguely, not wanting to get into details about Ethan Ripley.

"Oh, okay," Kyle went back to concentrating on the experiment, not even trying to get more details out of me.

We were quiet for a little while as we each measured liquids for our experiment. I was thinking about what Suzie had said, the murders, and heroin overdoses. 

"Hey, Kyle," I said after a few moments.

"Yeah?" He was carefully pouring into a beaker.

"What do you know about heroin?" I asked.

He almost dropped the beaker.

"What?" he whispered, looking around for the teacher.

I repeated my question and added, so that he didn't think I was trying to buy some, "I know one of the girls who died at Laurel Community College and you're a science guy and all, so I thought you might know. It is a chemical substance."

"Well," Kyle started, "It was originally an over the counter drug by Bayer that they claimed was a non addictive substitute for morphine."

Kyle knew everything science related. He was my own personal Wikipedia. Still, I didn't need to know everything about heroin as a drug. I shook my head, "Well, actually what I wanted to know is could you murder someone with it? I mean is that possible?"

"You mean injecting someone, like those girls?" Kyle thought for a moment. "Sure, you'd just need to have a needle ready and then inject them. Supposedly you don't even need to heat the stuff anymore, just add water and go. That's easy enough if you have a supply. After that, it would be quickest to inject a vein, but even intramuscular injection would only take about 5 minutes for the effects to happen."

"Then what happens?" I didn't want to ask, but I had to know.

"From what I've read, you feel a sense of euphoria and then your system slows down, particularly your respiratory system, your heart stops, then you die," Kyle looked somber.

"Okay," I said, feeling a wave of sadness as I thought about Liz and the other girls. It was so sad. My eye caught Suzie's, across the room. She was looking at us. It was time to change the topic anyway. If I thought about it, really thought about it all, I'd just feel depressed and I needed to be productive.

"She's looking over here again," I mentioned, as we were getting ready to start mixing liquids.

Kyle looked over at Suzie and I thought I saw that "it" as his and Suzie's eyes met. I felt a pang. I wanted that. And, they were both too shy to get it. Life could be so unfair.