Someday

My life isn’t all that grand, I guess you could say. But it‘s the same sob story told countless times; my dad beat my mom from the time I could walk, then turned to beating me when I started to understand that she was too fragile to do a fucking thing about it. Long story short, I ended up here, at the age of twenty, with both mommy and daddy problems.

My therapist would probably tell you that I‘m resisting treatment, but the reality of it is, I know just how fucked I am and, hey, it gives me that whole troubled artist appeal when you throw in the whole painting thing.

My hand shakes as I wipe my nose hastily, more than aware of the perspiration pouring off of me. The heroin is not cooking quickly enough, so I increase the heat of the lighter producing the flame. I shift on the bed and tighten the tourniquet around my arm, finding a vein that I know will hurt like fuck to use, but still has at least one or two more good uses on it before it‘s completely fried. I manage to somehow to take one last drag of my cigarette before looking down at the syringe that holds what will probably be the death of me. The drug promises me a short while where I won’t remember, where my brain won’t be able to comprehend its own pain, and I know that it’s not worth it.

But somehow, for that short while, it is.

I grit my teeth slightly as the needle pierces my sensitive flesh, and I quickly press down on the dispenser just to get it the fuck over with. I don’t bother to try and hide the obvious evidence and simply allow my head to fall back against the pillows, burying my face in her pillow to inhale the scent that still clings to it. I swear I can feel the drug coursing through my veins but I know that this is wishful thinking, and as quickly as I got my fix, I wish I could take it all back. I find myself shaking and realize that it’s not from the drug but from sobs, and I whisper to myself, “Man up,” but it doesn’t matter. I just don’t give a fuck.

I want to be dead and, for a moment, I consider doing another shot of it, but I don’t. I don’t because I open my eyes for the briefest second and am staring face-to-face at the picture of the two of us on her nightstand, in the beginning stages of our relationship when we were only fifteen and she thought all of this was nothing more than mere experimentation. I squeeze my eyes shut as tightly as is possible as it comes crashing down on me for the millionth time today how much I have let her down, how eager and desperate she is to believe in me, to have more faith in me than anyone has ever had - even myself - and how often I continue to repeatedly disappoint her.

If I concentrate hard enough, I can almost feel the shape of her lips against mine, the feeling of her hair twisting through my fingers, but concentrating is becoming more difficult as the seconds, minutes - has it been hours? - pass, ticking slowly by as everything seems to magnify. I close my eyes and stop trying to think, because for some reason that seems to lighten the buzz I receive, and I allow it all to swallow me, consume me fully. I love the feeling I receive from the heroin, love the way it allows me to escape from my pain, but I hate the emptiness that results from it so quickly, hate what it does to my relationship with her. It’s worth it until I inject it, and maybe it’s not even worth it; maybe I just am so controlled by this addiction that I don’t even want it, I just need it. I hate the control it holds over me, the fact that I am so quick to succumb to the temptation, the urge. Suddenly, I just want to sober up and trash it all.

[&&]

My eyes open as I feel fingers pressing against the pulse point at my neck, and I groggily avert my gaze to meet her familiar green eyes. I don‘t blame her for checking to see if I‘m dead or alive, because I sleep like a dead man on my most sober day, and I can only imagine how I look after using.

“Hey.” My voice is raspy and raw, thicker and huskier than usual from sleep, and I desperately crave a glass of water. I hate the way her eyes look as she glances down at the lighter, syringe and tourniquet that were tossed carelessly to floorboards beside the bed, and I wish to Hell and back that I had at least hidden them before passing out. Her eyes show the ways being with me and knowing me have affected her. They show the wounds I have created and left open, raw. They show her love for me, but they also, at times, show the ways she feels betrayed by me.

“Hey.” The sound comes out almost as a squeak, though I can tell it’s resulting from the fact that she’s swallowing tears and is trying not to convey this to me. She is visibly searching for the correct words to use and I wish she would just say them, get them over with. Her fingers stretch and bend against the legs of her jeans, almost appearing to be deciding whether or not to touch me. She’s still trying to decide if I’m sober yet or not, and I know that I’m a mean son-of-a-bitch when I’m not.

“I’m sorry.” I’ve said the words a million times over and every single damned time I’ve meant them.

She acknowledges this with a nod and I will myself to tear my gaze from her as she quickly runs a hand under her eyes; she’s crying and, like all of those other times, she doesn’t want me to know.

Fuck. I lick my lips and I desperately want a cigarette. I weigh my options, because I never do it in front of her. She’s basically caught my using, though, and I bite the inside of my cheek as I reach over and grab a cigarette from the pack on the nightstand, along with a lighter. She still hasn’t looked up yet, and I place the cigarette between my lips and light it. I inhale deeply in hopes that it will help with the cravings I am already beginning to have. It doesn’t; they’re all I can think about, still.

I wait a few seconds before I take another drag off of it, and look at Terran as she watches me. I don‘t remember calling her or telling her I needed to talk or anything to tell her to leave class early, but she‘s here and I‘m not going to deny that right now, she is the most beautiful sight in the world to me. I hate it when she sees me this way. I haven’t been like this in a while, and I know that she definitely hasn’t missed it. I’m not exactly boyfriend material to start off with, and so it’s probably the worst possible idea to make your best friend of too-many-years-to-remember your girlfriend.

“You called me,” she says in an almost-whisper, taking the cigarette from my fingers before she reaches over to the ashtray on the nightstand to snub it out. She hates it when I smoke and I know this, not because she has an issue with smoking in general, but because she knows that I have enough issues as it is and I don’t need to add another addiction to the list.

“I did.” This is supposed to come out as a question, but is expressed as a statement. I feel the warmth of her hand on my forehead before I see it, and I realize just how high I still must be.

“You’ve been using,” she states. I lean back farther against the headboard as I savor the delicious feeling of her soft fingertips caressing my skin, and watch as she looks at me, not in distaste but rather concern, and wipes her fingers on the already soiled blanket. “You’re sweating,” she notes, and gets off the bed to walk over and check the thermostat on the wall. “It’s 65 in here, you should not be sweating.” We both know I sweat profusely when I’ve been using, and yet it’s the same routine of checking the thermostat even though she already knows it has nothing to do with the temperature of the room. But it’s always the same thing; she sees me sweating and knows immediately that I’ve been using, but she always has to at least act as if she doesn’t know that I have been, like she’s trying to convince herself that maybe this time, I’ve kept the promise I made last time.

I notice that her arms are tightly wrapped around herself, gripping her jacket tightly to her petite frame as her back remains turned to me. I don’t realize it until now, but I am perspiring profusely, and I grimace as I pick at the T-shirt sticking persistently to my damp flesh. I feel like my body is betraying me, giving me away by sweating, and I can’t control it.

I watch as she walks over to the bathroom and I hear the faucet running soon after. I use the minimal amount of energy I have to hastily pull the T-shirt over my head, and toss it to the side, desperate for any brush of air I can receive. I consider taking off my basketball shorts, too, but this would require more effort that I‘m willing to exert. I close my eyes an sigh in disappointment in myself, not because I’m angry at myself for falling off the wagon but because I know what this is doing to her. I hear her footsteps and I feel her sit down by my legs again, and then I feel the damp washcloth rubbing over my forehead and then my cheeks.

“I would get you some Advil, but I don’t want to mix the combination,” she tells me, allowing her fingers to slip over my cheek. For a moment, I can’t understand why she would possibly still love me. “And a glass of water.” She hands me the small cup we keep in the bathroom and I down it in nearly one gulp.

“I love you,” I say, hoping that having one thing I actually do mean out there will make a difference. I open my eyes to gage her expression, and I immediately wish that I hadn’t. She has that sad smile on her face, and I can look into her eyes and see what I’ve seen millions of times before and, just as always, I wish to hell I hadn’t.

“I know you do,” she replies, and I can tell that she is trying not to make me feel worse. “And you know that I love you, too.”

You would be here even if you didn’t, I think to myself. “You’re too good to me,” I say. And she is, I know she is. I can’t think of many other people that would put up with this if they didn‘t love me. Well, that isn’t true. My mother did for twenty years of her life, and look what that got her.

She kicks off her shoes and moves to straddle my lap, sitting on my legs, because right now we both know that I’m so disgusted in myself this is the only way I’ll be able to not avoid eye contact. “I’m not angry with you,” she tells me, playing with her fingers in her lap while she studies my face. “I’m not disappointed, either,” she lies.

That is the one thing that I do not want to hear. I know that she’ll never be able to understand and, fuck, most of the time I don’t understand the addiction myself, but it is what it is and I’m going to fix it.

I run a hand over my tired face and rest my head against the oak headboard, suddenly exhausted even though I know I’ve slept for at least two hours, looking up at her and wishing with everything in me that I could have not fucked up. Not for the first time, but for the millionth time.

“I don’t know what to do,” she breathes. I attempt to focus solely on the feeling her jeans create as she leans back, her legs brushing over my bare knees, anything to keep my mind off of how I feel at the moment. “I feel like there isn’t anything new I can say that hasn’t already been said on at least a dozen other occasions.”

Oh, God. Why do I keep doing this? One day she’s just going to give up on me, and goddamnit, that can’t happen. This thought immediately sobers me up and the fog that has been lingering around my brain completely diminishes.

I take her hands into mine, silently pleading with her to look at me, to forgive me. Only, I know I deserve every bit of the guilt I am feeling. “How do I have the magical ability to completely fuck everything I do?”

I see a slight flicker in her eyes as she looks up at me. “Well, I hope you’re not fucking everything.” The profane word sounds strange coming out of her mouth, but I can’t help a small smile that comes onto my face as I lean forward, taking her head in my hands to kiss her forehead.

“I promise I’ll get better,” I whisper. “I mean it this time. Not that I didn’t mean it those other times, but I really, really, really mean it this time, love, I swear.” Her fingers trace my lips as I meet her eyes, begging her to believe me. I know that if I can’t do this for her, for me, the least I can do is become sober so I don’t become my father.

“I know,” she murmurs, leaning forward to kiss me softly. Finally, a peace treaty for the day. The problem isn’t solved and I know that, but at least for today, for right now, I’m the guy she’s in love with again. I realize just how much I have missed the feeling of her lips on mine, and lean forward to catch her neck and pull her mouth back to mine.

Our fingers entangle, and in a position that should feel slightly awkward but somehow doesn‘t, I look up at her. I know in my heart how wrong I am for allowing this to happen each time, because I know that she would do anything for me regardless of what she wants for herself.

Her lips are a soft whisper against mine as her fingers stretch to grasp my face. An unspoken act of forgiveness, at least for the rest of the day.

“It’s okay,” her lips part from mine, ending the barely-there kiss and she consoles me, her voice barely coherent.

It’s slow and slightly clumsy as I bring her lips to mine again, and I realize just how long it has been since we last kissed. My fingers slide into her soft, sunshine-colored hair and her lips part slightly, breathing into my mouth as I bring her closer to me. The room is suddenly too humid, the headboard too hard against my back as she leans forward and presses my spine closer against the oak and the pillows. I realize without falter as our tongues tentatively meet that I’m reading too much into all of this and thinking more than I should, but this thought only creates more as her soft fingertips stroke the skin just beneath my hairline.

I watch as she leans her head back slightly and glances at me with those knowing green eyes, the ones that I’ve both loved and hated since the day I met her. She toys with the pendant hanging from the silver chain around my neck as she ponders this, twisting it between her thumb and index finger. She licks her lips before her eyes meet mine once more, and she studies mine. For today, this is the end.

I frown slightly, focusing on the pale flesh of the insides of her wrists, my eyes following the vein that continues up the inside of her forearm, studying the way it disappears into slightly darker skin. I can't help but look down at my own and notice the heavy scars, the track marks that will never go away.

[&&]

Fix. I need a fix. I need one so desperately that my whole body seems to burn for it. It controls my thoughts, leaves me watching her in the mirror as she applies make-up, counting the seconds until she leaves for classes. I’ve gone a week without them but the climb-the-walls and rip-at-my hair craving has returned, and it has my palms sweating and my movements fidgety. It consumes me entirely and I feel revolted and disgusted with myself for not being able to control my own body, but my eyes are on the drawer where I keep my supplies and I consider walking over to it and throwing the tourniquet around my arm, right in front of her, but even I have more impulse control than that.

It seems to be hours before she throws her make-up back into the small cosmetics bag on the counter, walks over to me and stands on the tips of her toes to kiss me. “I’ll be back in a few hours.” The way she looks at me tells me she can see through to the battle I am fighting within, but she raises her hand to brush the fallen hair out of my eyes and leaves it be. Neither of us want to endure another confrontation about it.

As soon as I hear the door to the apartment close and know she is safely down the hall, I go for it. I sit myself down on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, back against the shower doors, and go through the process of heating the drug. It’s all routine and I’m numb the entire time I’m doing it, filled with disgust in myself. It only takes a few minutes for me to have that one chance to say no, to for once in my life deny the temptation and urge. I look down at the syringe in my hand.

She’s there, in my head, with that look in her eyes from before that tells me she can’t do this again.

”Cade,” she whispers, lifting her head from my bare chest. My fingers run over her naked back and I look down at her.

“Hmmm?”

“I love you.”

I clench my eyes shut and want to scream at myself. One more time, I promise myself. One more time and I’ll get the help I need. Besides, this is a small shot. I’ll be sober in only an hour or two.

I want to die as I pierce the over-sensitized flesh. My teeth dig into my lower lip at the pain that results from using the vein. Just like that, sweet relief is taking over. Slowly, I’m slipping into the daze, allowing the drug to do the only thing it does right; forget. I loosen the tourniquet and slide down into the fetal position against the frigid tiles, allowing them to cool my clammy flesh. I press my face into them, and just like always, I want to take it back. But this time, it’s done.

[&&]

“CAIDEN!” There is pressure at my jaw, jostling my head against the cold ground, shaking me. “CAIDEN GABRIEL!” Fingers pressing against my chest, but something’s there, something smothering me. I can’t breathe, my body won’t move. Mouth opening, sweet breath entering.

Pressure on my chest again.

One, two, three.

“Caiden.” Tears. Crying. Something damp hitting my neck. “God damnit, why do you keep doing this?!” It occurs to me quickly that she thinks I’ve over-dosed or something terrible along those lines. She’d probably be better off if I had.

“Terran.” The urge to throw up enters me, to force the drug from my system. My body and brain make the connection, and I somehow manage to clamber up quickly enough into a sitting position to grip onto the rim of the toilet, hands on my back suddenly there to assist me, and allow the substance to leave my body.

By the time I am done vomiting I feel vastly better, and I open my eyes into narrow slits, enough to see who is there. I know without even having to look, but I want to punish myself, want to see her expression. There’s the God-awful taste of bile in my mouth, and I nod my head in the direction of the sink. This gives me time to think, to come up with something to tell her to make this all better, while she gets me a glass of water.

When she hands me the cup full of tap water, I still have nothing. I rinse out my mouth and turn my head to the toilet, arching my body enough to spit the water into the toilet after gargling. There are no words to say, we’ve finally reached our catalyst.

“This isn’t about you,” I say.

“No, it is. It has everything to do with me, Cade. I just…..” She sighs, licks her lips as she shakes her head and looks away from me.

“You can’t do this anymore,” I finish for her.

It’s silent for a few minutes as she ponders the fate of our relationship, because the cards are in her hands. “I love you,” she says. “God, I still am in love with you.” She looks down and her hands are wringing in her lap.

My eyes close. I’ve known it would come to this eventually, that no one should put a person through the hell I’ve put her through.

“Caiden.” She whispers my name, grasping my attention once again as my gaze slowly returns to her skeptical face. And I know. I know that this is over, that she can’t take this anymore.

“Cade,” she coaxes, lifting my chin to hers as she looks at me with that gut-renching, soul-grabbing look of hers that she knows I hate so much. She grasps my chin more tightly as I attempt to move my head, attempt to avoid those eyes.

“When all of this is over,” I decide. “I’m going to get better, Ter, and when all of this is over it will all be fine.” I can tell that she wants to believe me from the way her eyes divert to the wall above my head but is suddenly remembering all of those times where I was raging, throwing things and sobbing, those times when I was so piss-ass drunk that she literally had to take my keys away from me and do everything but tie me to my bed to ensure that I didn’t go anywhere.

“Just please,” I plead, “don’t give up on me. I would in no way judge you or hold it against you if you did because, believe me, I know that you’ve given me more second chances than anyone else I ever have known ever would give someone, but this is the end. I can feel it.”

I can tell that she wants to accept this as the form of a consolation that it is intended to come across as, and a small, hopeful smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. But, God, how many times has she heard those words, too?

“I’m here for the long run, Cade. I wouldn’t have stayed this long if I wasn’t.” I’ve heard the line a few times in my past when worst came to worst and I began to doubt not her, but myself, and just like those previous times, I believe her. Not because I feel like I have to, or because this is a consolation to me, but because she doesn’t lie.

“I know.“ She scoots over closer to me and she’s suddenly leaning against my torso, her face in the crook of my neck, her hands coming around to the back my neck where she runs her fingers through my hair slightly. I sigh heavily as I bring my arms around her, burying my face in her hair.

I inhale the fresh scent of her perfume and shampoo mingled into one, and for a few seconds, it’s like I have a few opportunities left. But the truth of the matter is, I’ve used them all. Tears blur my vision and begin to saturate her hair as I know that this is not right, that all of my shots at life are gone and I have reached my last resort.

I just never thought it would come to this, never thought I would allow myself to lose her as I have.

The reality of the situation is that I need her in my life. I need her to believe in me, because no one else does and God knows I don’t. But it kills me to kill her, and I am by what I am doing to myself. I can see this, see how selfish I am being. I love her and she is my world, but I can’t expect her to do this anymore. She needs to move on with her life, and somehow, deep in my heart, I know that this is the right thing to do.

With a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, I take her face in my hands and press my lips against hers one last time, at least for a while. Someday, I promise myself. Someday she’ll be mine again.