Addicted to You

It didn't take long after Tom had left her for Louie to make her way into the bathroom where that horrid yet beautiful powder was still stashed. The feelings were all too much for her. The physical pain was bad enough, but she was used to that. It was emotional pain she was never very good at handling. And emotionally, she was in agony. She knew she could never be with Tom now. She had been broken again, and she wasn't going to let her bring him down with her. Only a day before she had been aching for Tom's touch, so ready to give herself to him. He would be the first man she slept with since leaving Jason and getting clean. She had been a born again virgin in some sense. But now she was soiled again. And the thought of Tom giving his perfect body and innocent soul to her damaged self made sobs rise in her throat.

Because of this she knew she had to end things with Tom quicly, before he began to develope further feelings for her and thus only be more hurt when she told him she was repulsed with herself and couldn't bring herself to let him touch her. To let him love her, for she knew better than anyone you had to love yourself before being able to accept love from anyone else. And so, it felt at that moment, she was doomed for a life void of someone's love, for she felt she would never love herself again.

Louie opened the medicine cabinet and snatched the large bag of heroin from the top shelf. She had to escape. She didn't want to feel anymore. She wanted her heart to be numb and her brain to shut off. She walked into her bedroom and looked around for tools. Normally she would have cooked the powder into a liquid and shot it into her viens, but she had no needles. So, instead she would do it the way she did when she first started abusing the drug. Before the process began to give a weaker high and forced her to begin shooting up instead. At least, with not having had the drug in her system for so long it would give her a high like the first time she did it.

Louie thought of what she could use. She opened her top drawer, her junk drawer, and dug around. In there she found a Bic pen which she proceeded to take apart so that all that was left was an empty tube. She placed it on top of the dresser before walking over to her bed and grabbing her purse from the floor. She pulled her wallet out and removed her license from it's slot before walking back over to the dresser and placing it next to the empty pen tube. She then grabbed the bag of powder and opened it. She thought back to the note Jason had left.

"It's strong stuff, so don't do too much at a time. I want you alive when I come back... "
The thought of him coming back made her think of just pouring out the entire bag and inhaling all of it, making her slip away into an over dose and escaping him once and for all. But, if there was one thing she had never wanted, it was to die of an overdose. She didn't want to be a part of that statistic. Not to mention, she had over dosed before, and it isn't pleasent. So, instead she tapped out just a small pile before sealing the bag back up and placing it in her junk drawer, a title that befitted it now more than ever. She grabbed her license and used it to shape the pile into a small line before placing it down and picking up the tube. She took in a deep breath and let it out shakily. Years clean were about to go down the drain, and the thought almost stopped her. Almost.

Louie inserted the tube half way up one nostril and held the other closed before leaning down and inhaling the line of powder. It burned, and it tasted awful, but soon she began to feel light. As the effects began to take hold, she walked over and switched on her stereo, allowing the sounds of soft blues music to drift through the bedroom before walking to her bed and curling up on the mattress. She felt light as air, only her eyelids seeming to have any weight. Goosebumps formed on her skin and the notes of Muddy Waters' guitar drifted over her and around her, caressing her and lolling her into nirvana. Soon she didn't have a care in the world.

It had been three days since Tom had checked in on Louie, but he texted her often to make sure she was okay. She would respond in short texts, or sometimes not respond for hours, which sent Tom into a panic, almost causing him to throw on his shoes and speed over to her place, but then she would finally text again, assuring him she was fine. He tried to call once, but she sent it directly to voicemail and texted instead, claiming her throat hurt too much to speak.

Finally, on the third day, she stopped responding all together. Tom sent texts every few hours, but there was never a response. And though there was the fear that she just didn't want to see him any longer, the fear that something was wrong was greater. So, when night came and he still didn't hear anything from her he finally decided to go check on her in person. He had known all along that it wasn't a cold. There was something else, something bigger. And he finally let himself fear the worst; that she was using again.

Tom made it to Louie's place around 11 PM. Her car was parked outside, so he knew she was home, and he could see from the street that all of the lights were on, so she wasn't asleep. He walked up the steps to her door and knocked. No response. He knocked again and called out to her.

"Lucrezia, it's Tom! I'm worried about you. Can you come to the door?"
No response. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed her number. He could hear her phone ringing from inside the house, but she did not answer. Neither did she send it to voicemail like she had done before. Tom sighed in frustration, his worry fierce. He needed to know she was okay.

He stepped over to the front window and noticed the curtains were open ever so slightly so that a gap allowed him to see in. He peered between them and into the front room of the apartment. The TV was on but the couch was empty. But he noticed it was crooked, as if someone had slammed into it. He then noticed the coffee table. It was laying on it's side, the things that were on top of it strewn about the floor. Then he noticed something on the floor in the opening of the room. He squinted so as to see better and once he made out what it was his heart stopped.

There, sprawled out on the floor, was Louie.