The Needle and the Damage Done

“Dude, what is your problem?” my best friend Adam Schmidt asks as we’re walking to econ the next day. I’m pretty sure he’s been talking to me about the previous night’s soccer match, but I completely spaced out on him. “You used to live and breathe this stuff. Where’s your head at?”

I can’t deny this. Adam’s the golden boy of the school and as his best friend, we were involved in a lot of the same activities. We’d played soccer together since elementary school (this being the first year that I wasn’t on the team), although as far as shared extracurriculars went, I had to draw the line at choir. Growing up, Adam has always been like a brother to me, but for some reason I cannot bring myself to tell him about Sylvia. So I lie. “I don’t know, man. I think I might’ve just flunked that chemistry test.”

“Get out of here, you rocked it,” Adam disagrees. “You always do.” Again, I can’t deny this. I’ve always studied my ass off for school. Adam on the other hand was blessed with God-given smarts and has never studied a day in his life.

“Yeah, hopefully.” I’m desperate for a subject change, and luckily Adam comes up with one.

“Hey, so guess who was asking me about you in study hall.”

“I don’t know,” I tell him. “Who?”

“Melissa Fifeman,” he answers, smiling. Melissa Fifeman is without a doubt one of the most attractive girls in school.

“Isn’t she dating Drew Abrams, though?” I ask. Drew’s kind of a punk and he’s a junior, so I’ve never been able to fathom why she’s wasted any of her time on him.

“No, they broke up this morning,” Adam corrects me. “How do you not hear these things, Dawson?”

“Just don’t pay attention, I guess,” I say vaguely. I think back to Sylvia’s letter from last night, trying to remember if she mentioned anything about breaking up with this John guy. Maybe Sylvia is Melissa and Drew is John? But Sylvia said that John goes to a different school, so there’s no way John and Drew could be the same person, unless maybe that was a detail she slipped in to throw me off? My head hurts from trying to figure this all out.

“Well don’t you want to know what she asked about you?” Adam persists. I wish he would just leave me alone right now because at the moment, I don’t give a flying rat’s ass what Melissa Fifeman asked about me.

“What?” I inquire, mostly so he will just spit it out and stop talking sooner.

“She wanted to know if you were seeing anyone.” Adam is all smiles, like he’s so proud. “You should totally ask her out, bro.”

“What did I tell you about calling me bro?” I roll my eyes. I know I’m being cranky with him, but I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I tossed and turned all night thinking about Sylvia’s letter and wondering when I’ll get the next one. “Bro is not a thing.”

“It’s a thing,” he insists. We finally reach the econ classroom and he takes his seat next to me. “But you should seriously go for it.”

“I don’t date,” I remind him. I flip my econ book open to the page written on the board, glancing at the chapter title. “You know this.”

“Yeah, but this is the perfect opportunity for you to stop being shy, nut up, and get with the hottest girl in school.” Jesus, I wish he would just stop. Even on a good day, I don’t have full patience for Adam, and right now it’s wearing thin.

“No thanks.” I act like I’m reading my textbook, but he and I both know that I’m not actually concentrating on the words.

“You don’t think Melissa Fifeman is hot?” Adam asks. “What is wrong with you?”

“She’s good-looking,” I say. “I just don’t want to ask her out, okay? Besides, she and Drew just broke up this morning. I’m not looking to be a rebound.”

“But what does rebound really mean, anyway?” he continues. “It’s such a loose description…”

“Definition,” I correct without looking up.

“Whatever.” Adam waves me off. Luckily he’s not able to continue his little pestering mission since Coach Landry is ready to start class. I try to pay attention to what he’s talking about – microeconomics or what-the-fuck-ever – but I can’t focus. I keep glancing around the room trying to see if any girls look particularly distraught, as bad as that sounds. But they all look normal.

Econ lets out and I manage to avoid Adam and head off to Final Touch for my first day of work. It goes pretty well and Hilary teaches me a little bit about the flowers, but mostly shows me how to set up displays and then runs through a checklist of tasks for me. She tells me that normally her son and adopted daughter are around to work, but they both work at the Halloween store and then some toy place for the Christmas season. We exchange small talk the rest of the time I’m there, and she sends me on my way around six. On my way home, I stop at McDonalds, hoping it will make feel a little less sick but it doesn’t work.

I check the mail when I get home, half-satisfied and half-horrified when I open the mailbox to find an envelope addressed to me, no return address or stamp on it. I race inside and leave Mom’s mail on the counter for her and then rush up to my room, closing the door behind me for some privacy even though I know that no one is home. I tear the letter open and start reading that now all too familiar script.

Dear Dawson,

I want to apologize again if I freaked you out with my letter. I wasn’t…completely clear-headed when I wrote it and was trying to make sense of it all. Today I can’t say that I feel better, but after I dropped my letter off for you, I headed over to my friend Cammie’s. I know I haven’t given you many details about my friends other than that they’re both three years older, but Cammie’s pretty much the nicest person on the face of the earth. I went to see her mostly to try to calm down and relax a little – writing that letter to you got me all upset again – and ended up spilling everything to her.

Thank God that she at least found someone to talk to. I couldn’t imagine trying to go through something like that on my own. Shit, that had to be hard though. For as close as Adam and I are, I don’t know that I’d ever be able to tell him something like that if I were her.

There wasn’t much that Cammie could do for me, but she did help me try to formulate a plan to help myself. Naturally, she said the first thing that I had to do was break up with John. She told me that even though I truly consider something like this rude, I had to break up with him on the phone. I couldn’t disagree with her there. Still, I was nervous about it. Cammie offered to call and do it for me, but I felt like it was something that only I could do, if only to get some kind of closure.

I definitely can’t disagree with Cammie either. The last thing I’d want my best friend doing is breaking up with the guy who raped her face to face. There’s no way you’d be able to predict what could happen.

Cammie sat with me while I called John. Half of me prayed that he wouldn’t pick up so I could delay the inevitable, but the other part of me couldn’t wait for this all to be over. After the fourth or fifth ring, John answered in his characteristically cocky voice and asked if I’d enjoyed our night together.

Wow, what a fucking prick.

I told him that no, I had not, and that that was my main reason for calling. He snottily asked me why my panties were in such a twist. I could feel Cammie trying not to shake in anger next to me when he said that. But she was trying to be strong for me, so I had to be strong for the both of us too.

Finally, I dropped the bomb on him and said, “John, I’m breaking up with you.”

And would you believe that he had the fucking audacity to ask me why?

You’ve gotta be completely kidding me. Does he seriously not know what he did was fucking awful?

His tone totally changed then and it was almost like I could feel the hot air deflating out of him through the phone. He kept asking me why I was doing this to him and telling me that he loved me and that he needed me in his life. I’d personally expected a lot more anger and a lot less desperation. Apparently Cammie had as well because we kept exchanging confused glances while I had him on speakerphone.

Jesus, this John guy is a freak. An entitled fucking dirt-bag.

Then he did the strangest thing; he threatened to kill himself if I didn’t take him back.

Enough with the abuse, John. Physically, emotionally, sexually, all of it. Just leave Sylvia alone.

I wasn’t really sure how to respond to this. Thankfully, I didn’t have to because Cammie took the phone from me and started yelling at him. Now, in all the time I’ve been friends with Cammie, I’ve never once even heard her raise her voice. So to hear her scream at John was both scary and exhilarating. It was hard to fully understand her but I caught quite a few phrases that were variations of “fuck off.”

Cammie might be my new favorite person in the whole universe.

After that little rewarding scene, I think it’s fairly safe to say (so far at least) that John will not be my problem anymore. That in itself feels good. Not that I feel completely better or anything like that. But at least it’s some kind of a start. Still, I confessed to Cammie that I really didn’t want to go back in my room after what had happened with John. She asked me if I thought I’d be able to convince my dad to trade rooms with me and then offered to help me move my stuff if he agreed. When she drove me home I asked my dad if he’d trade rooms with me (citing the fact that his room has a bigger closet) and after a little persuasion, he agreed. Cammie stayed to help us switch rooms around and ended up running between rooms so that I wouldn’t have to go into my old one for anything. I truly can’t ask for a better friend than Cammie.

Like I said, I’m just glad that Sylvia’s found someone to help her through this. God knows I can’t, and even if I knew her (do I know her?) I’d probably be completely useless in this kind of situation anyway. I’d have no idea where to start.

You’re probably asking yourself why I’m writing to you if that’s true. I guess mostly because while I love Cammie and she’s a wonderful person, there’s still some things that I just can’t completely tell her. I didn’t have any intention of telling Cammie about what happened with John but I did anyway. Usually though when I decide that I’m not going to tell someone about something, I don’t. I’ve tried writing in a journal but that’s really of no use to me. I never liked it. I guess you could argue that this whole letter thing is basically the same concept as keeping a journal, except it’s kind of nice to have control over who reads them, as opposed to having to be afraid of my dad finding my journal or something. Although realistically, you could be showing these off to all of your friends, but I trust you and I know that if you were doing that, I would’ve heard about it in the hallways by now.

Why would I want to show these off to Adam or whoever? I don’t even want to be reading these. Although I have to say that this is a substantially better letter than the one I got yesterday, so I’m thankful for that.

Anyway, I feel like I’m rambling at this point, so I’m going to cut myself off, mail this, and try to relax a little in my new room.

Thanks again for listening,
Sylvia

At least this letter isn’t going to make me lose sleep tonight and hopefully Sylvia will sleep better, too. I fold the letter back up and stick it with the others. I’m hoping that I won’t be collecting many more and start thinking about how morbid this all is. With any luck though, I won’t get any more letters like the second one. Then maybe I’ll be able to concentrate long enough to figure out what the hell is going on in econ.