Your Love is my Drug

After a thirty minute walk, in the pouring rain nonetheless, I arrived at my destination. I looked at the familiar houses, which was covering in rain and fog, the irony of it made me sick.

I pulled my sweater closer to myself and turned into the brick house, walking up the steps and standing at the doorway. Crying, I took a steady breath before knocking twice.

The door opened two seconds later. He looked at me, saw my tears and opened the door.

“It’s the only place I could go...”

He sighed and stepped out, wrapping his arms around me and holding me as I bawled. He was always here for me, no matter what, even if he was angry. He rubbed my back as I shook.

“You did the right thing,” he said softly, kissing my head, “And you came to the right place, come on.”

I looked up at him and nodded, “Thank you so much, Jon.”

He smiled weakly and wiped the water away from my face, “Come on.”

He led me into his house, told me to wait in the living room while he went upstairs. He came down with a towel, boxers and one of his t-shirts. He shoved them into my chest, and looked at me.

“You look like shit,” he said honestly, “You need to stop crying and go shower, okay?”

I wiped my eyes and nodded, holding the nice gesture in front of myself. I knew my way around this house like I knew my own, so as he sat on the couch and flicked on the TV, I headed around the corner to one of the bathrooms.

As I shut the door, I dropped the clothes on the floor and hung the towel over the shower doors. Then, I took a sidestep and looked in the mirror. My hair was ratty and dripping, my face was pale and my eyes were swollen, red and puffy. I had under eye circles the size of my head and blotches on my cheeks.

Jon was right, I looked like shit.

Sighing, I stripped down and climbed into the shower. Blasting the hot water, I cherished the warmth. I washed my hair with boy shampoo, because sadly, that’s the only thing Jon had in his shower. Axe shampoo. Luckily, he had bar soap underneath the sink, which he probably saved for his hands, but I used it anyway.

A good half hour later, I was clean. My eyes were still blotchy and gross, but I felt a lot better. The tears had stopped and so had the shaking, and now I was just extremely emotionally exhausted.

I pulled on Jon’s boxers and his shirt, dropped the towel in the hamper and opened the door. I walked slowly into the living room, where Jon was sitting, still watching TV.

He glanced up, “There we go, you look half alive now. Feel better?”

I shook my head, sticking out my bottom lip and plopping down next to him. He sighed, reaching down to grab the blanket on the next couch, and pulling it to cover me up. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into him.

“It’s okay,” he said sadly, rubbing my shoulder, “You’ll be fine.”

I shook my head, “I deserve it.”

He let out a breath and nodded, “Not going to disagree, yea you do. You fucked up... big time.”

I shut my eyes and felt my bottom lip quivering; I didn’t want to cry anymore. I was too drained to open a fresh batch of tears.

“I- I just...” I shook my head.

Jon looked at me, “Why didn’t you go to Pat?”

“He left too,” I sighed, wiping my eyes, “He broke up with me. I deserve that too.”

Jon stiffened a little bit, and sat up, “He what?!”

I glanced at him, “He left.”

“But... he was just-.”

“-Brent means more,” I said quietly, “Which is good. He needs to come first after what I put him through.”

Jon frowned, “You didn’t do it alone- Pat did it too, and he wouldn’t have done it if he wasn’t in love with you.”

“Can we stop talking about it?” I asked desperately, “I’m tired... and I want to stop thinking.”

Jon just nodded and let my rest my head on him, where I eventually fell asleep.

There weren’t any sweet dreams that took me away from the nightmare that just happened. It was a dark sleep, one that was necessary, but was not particularly enjoyable. I woke up in the guestroom, snuggled up to the warm blankets.

I took in a breath and broke into tears.