Hey Stranger

Zaid’s POV

Arden’s going to go get fucked up again…he doesn’t know that I’m completely aware that he’s been dropping what seemed like every opiate that can in pill form that I’d ever heard of.

Right now he was zoned out on the movie we were watching but he didn’t even really seem to be paying attention. His head was in my lap and I was running my hands though his shaggy curls because even though I felt like everything was wrong I wasn’t going to act like it. He was still Arden I still loved him and needed to touch him. I glanced down at him for a moment and noticed he was quietly tapping his hand against his hip bone in a fast rhythm. He was about to get up to go do a snort I knew it, I’d been watching him for weeks at home and at school and it was always the same twitch.

These past few weeks I’d silently observed him move up, in brand, kind and dosage. Every few hours I’d watch him run away from me to go take his pills, crush them up and snort them up his nose…and when I’d ask if he was okay he’d lie. It like he thought I was an idiot. Did he really think I didn’t realize that constant sniffle he had wasn’t from some mysterious cold that affected only him? There were so many things that were right there in front of me, every little sign and tell laid out in perfect order keeping me awake at night.

He wasn’t eating right. It was the first thing that I really noticed. He was already too thin and yet every time I’d watch him pull his shirt over his head I was waiting for the clank of his rib bones though it never happened. Sometimes he’d go a few days without ever going through the lunch line at school or setting foot in the kitchen and then suddenly he would binge everything he could possible put in his mouth.

At first I told myself that it was an eating disorder it had to be because I thought he’d never lie to me but the sound of an ID card clicking on the counter and the loud sniffle from the bathroom when he thought I was passed out had blown my delusions away over and over. Yet I never really confronted him, I talked about it a few times but never told him I knew.

There were other things too like his little shakes he’d get every so often in class or when we were out and he couldn’t get away from me. His sometimes blood shot eyes or the fact that he’d just daze off when someone speaking were other things that just ate at me. He’d barely talked to me now or anyone really, constantly off in his own head. He’d still hang off my arm when we’d go places or be the first to grab my hand but it wasn’t like before. The little smiles, the kisses in the middle of the night to tell me he loved me…they just didn’t happen anymore and I missed it.

I missed so much about him and he was right there with me…I missed the intensity in his eyes when I fucked him because every time we messed around I could see the dullness in his eyes, the sluggishness that told me he was on something. He just wasn’t into me anymore and it killed me.

He wasn’t into anything…I’d try to talk him about what was happening to us, the journals my aunt had given me and he’d just blow off. He really didn’t want to talk any of that and he didn’t write or draw in his own journal anymore either. Everything just seemed so fucked up and I wanted my boyfriend back but I didn’t know how to get him.

The worst of all of it was that I’d caught him and knew without any doubt what he was doing and I’d just let it go. I’d found the baggy of Oxycontin in his hoodie he’d tossed on the end of the bed. The bag he fallen out and I picked up looked at him in the palm of my hand for almost 5 minutes and then I just put it back. I put the hood on the chair in my room and walked out to go running. That was how I dealt with it, he’d lock himself in the bathroom to get high and I’d put on my running shoes and run until I was dragging my feet and unable to breathe on the way home which for me was pretty fucking hard.

I’d just ignored all of it but I couldn’t anymore I fucking couldn’t it was affecting me worse then I let on. My grades were fucked, my performance on the foot ball team was fucked, my life was fucked and all because I was letting my boyfriend drug problem rule me but I couldn’t hide how I felt anymore.

Arden suddenly got up and without thinking I grabbed him by his belt and pulled him back down on the couch moving so that I could pin him down under me, my hands gripping his wrists over his head. .

“Z, what are you doing?” he asked lazily as he looked up at me. “I mean Nadia got a rule about fucking in…”

I cut him off harshly squeezing his wrists. “I’m not trying to fuck you…”

I was so angry as I watched him blink at my tone like he was perfectly fucking innocent. “Then…What’s up?” He twisted at his wrists as if to get away but I just held tighter, but not tight enough to hurt him just keep him there

“I know what you’re going off to do.”

“What?” He asked stupidly and I could have hit him but it wasn’t what I was setting out to do. I didn’t want to hurt him I wanted him know.

“I know about the drugs Arden, I fucking know…I found the pills in your hoodie. You should try to hide that shit better.” I growled at him and he bit his lip. “And now you’re going to show me. I want to see you do this shit.”

“Zaid…” his eyes were suddenly welling up with tears and he was bitting hard on the full bottom lip that I wanted to kiss. I was so wrapped up in him that seeing his tears made me want to kiss the fear away and the thought disgusted me.

“No…you’re going to show me. You want to get high, take your fucking drugs with me in the room. Let me watch, I want to see it first fucking hand.” I was suddenly getting off of him and pulling him by his wrist on the couch.

“Zaid stop…” he whimpered as I started to pull him towards the stairs but he was trying to fight me even though he knew I could have easily just picked him up and taken him up to our room but I was enjoying yanking him along. It was feeding my anger. He now fully knew that I was aware of everything and he wasn’t even denying it.

“No…You want to get fucked up so that’s what we’re doing we are gunna get fucked up.” I growled at him as I got him up the stairs and started to drag him down the hall to my room.

“Zaid…no...” He was almost sobbing now but he was putting on the firm voice as I pulled him through my room into the bathroom.

“Yes Arden, you’re going to lay out your fucking lines and then you going lay the same out for me.” I growled at him as I let him go and stood staring him down as I shut the bathroom door with a slam.

He stood there bare foot on the tile floor his arms crossed tightly over the front of one of my sweatshirts that was drowning him and just sobbed looking down at the floor. What was he feeling in that moment? I wanted to know so badly but I wasn’t going to ask I was too pissed off and caught up in the moment to say anything other then what I needed to so I could make him see what he was doing to me.

“Where do you keep them? Get them out, you were running off to come up here anyway…You’re shaking like crazy. Get them out!” I shouted at him only because I know Nadia wasn’t home yet.

He jumped and looked up at him those big amber eyes swimming with shameful tears but he did move grabbing the little make up bag off the back of the toilet and opened it. He methodically pulled out a bag and laid out four of the white tablets. It was obvious he’d done it so many times that he didn’t even have to think about it anymore because he was sobbing and shaking yet he didn’t falter as he picked up glass I kept on the sink to crush them up.

He picked his old school ID card from the year before from the makeup bag and started to smooth out the powder separating them into four perfect lines. He stepped back and crossed his arms again looking down at feet unable to meet my eyes.

“Now do your lines Arden. It was you wanted…take your fucking drugs!” I instructed him noting the tremor him my own voice but growled when he shook his head.

“I said fucking do it!” I shouted and he let out a sob before was moving forward and grabbing the little cut straw he had in the bag and belt down and did the two lines. He snorted and sniffed several times obviously the task was made hard because he couldn’t stop crying.

“Now it’s my turn…” I picked up the straw he’d laid down and he was suddenly grabbing my wrist and shaking his head.

“No…please don’t…” He said through his tears and pushed him off watching him stumble back barely able to catch himself on the wall from the force I used to throw him away from me.

“I want to know what it’s like…I want to feel what you feel Arden. You have all these fucking issues and need to take this shit to get away. Well I have problems too.” I told him and he just looked up at me with big scared eyes.

“I mean…I was raped by my own brother, I still fucking dream about it and then I’ve got this fucking voice in my head and before I fucking met you my life was fine. I knew I was I didn’t have all this creepy shit going on in my life and I was learning to deal with the fact that I’ve never been able to trust anyone in my entire fucking life before you because of the shit I went through.” I yelled in a harsh groveling tone, not noticing the tears in my own eyes.

“Zaid please…you don’t have…” he started but again I cut him off.

“No you didn’t have do this crap to get away!” I screamed at him and heard his sobbing get louder but I needed to finish what I had to tell him. “I want to know why you thought you couldn’t just come to me. Did you think I didn’t know what you’d gone through? That I didn’t have my own experiences that hurt me just as much as you think your hurting? Because Arden my life has never been fuck cake walk and you know what…You don’t even what the fuck pain is.”

He started step to me again taking my arm trying to hold my hand and pushed him off me again. “Stay away from me…I don’t even fucking know you. I can’t do this Arden, I can’t fucking lie and pretend like what I just watched you do is okay.” I said finally really starting to cry as reached out and wiped the remaining powder on to the floor “I love you so much but I can’t watch you do this…I can’t.” I said and heard him call my name as I walked out of the bathroom.

I didn’t look back as I walked out of my room and down the stairs pushing him away from me every time he tried to pull me back before I just walked out leaving him crying on the front porch.