Page 59 of Dark Room Junkie

“Promise me it won’t happen again.” She grabbed my left hand and pointed to the long scar on my forearm.

I yanked my arm back and let out an annoyed tone. She made it difficult for me not to get loud. “Stop it! You’re exaggerating again.”

“No! I’m just worried about you. What do you think it does to someone when they find their own son in a pool of blood? I blame myself!”

Rightfully so, I thought but kept it to myself. Instead, I nervously got up and paced into the kitchen to get more sugar, which I didn’t need. But I couldn’t sit next to her any longer without saying anything. The dumb thing was that I was giving myself away by doing exactly that.

“You’re having a relapse,” Corinne noticed with a monotone voice.

I brushed it off with a smile and put the sugar on the living room table. My gaze fell on the paper bag next to the sofa. “What did you bring?”

“Alex! You promised you’d talk to me about it!” Tears were welling up in her eyes, tearing me apart inside.

“I’m not having anything,” I replied, pointing to the bag. “Is that the Rolleiflex?”

“When did it start again?”

Impatiently, I shifted from one foot to the other. “Nothing started,” I insisted stubbornly. She could be stubborn when she wanted to. This wasn’t a relapse. I had nothing left and wouldn’t have a chance to consume anything until Saturday anyway. I didn’t need it, and I wasn’t addicted.

Although it would’ve been helpful to have something handy, in case that black wave came crashing back. Being swept away by it was so damn shitty. I was fed up with feeling small and weak because that’s exactly what that wave made me feel. First, it tossed me around like a washing machine, and then it spat me out like something indigestible.

But no. I didn’t need it.What was the purpose of learning all those strategies if not to handle those shitty memories?

“Alex?” Corinne asked softly, almost fearfully. “Please, make an appointment with Gerber. Today.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “It’s not what you think. Besides, I have to go to Geneva tonight. I’ll be there until Friday.” That wasn’t even a lie, but Corinne looked at me incredulously. “Do you want to see the confirmation?” I asked, flinging my hands up in irritation.

Corinne fidgeted on the cushion and fought back her tears. With trembling hands, she took the coffee and drank it. After she put the cup down, she cleared her throat, her gaze drifting back to the photo. “Does he have something to do with it?”

“No!” I exclaimed a little too heatedly as if I wanted to defend Noé. “He’s cleaner than clean! Trust me.”

“Clean? How would you know that?”

Her question startled me. I furrowed my brows.What? Could it be ... that he himself has experiences ... That would explain a lot. He said soda. No alcohol.

As if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, I realized something I’d been blind to before. I turned away from Corinne, clasping my hand over my mouth in shock as I took a few steps back. “I’m such an idiot,” I murmured. “It wasn’t the party, it was ...” When I turned back to face Corinne, I stopped myself from saying another word.

The drugs.

I wanted to grab my phone and call him, but I knew he would ignore me. It wouldn’t even surprise me if he had already deleted or blocked my number.

“You like him,” my mother remarked, not as coldly anymore. Even her features softened. “I can see it in your eyes. It saddens you that he ran off so suddenly.”

Now she had me. The comedown wasn’t great anyway, but with just a few words, she had flattened me into the ground. Powerless, I sat back down on the sofa, resting my elbows on my knees, and buried my face in my hands.

“And I don’t even know him that well,” I muttered.

“Oh, Alex. Then you need to make an effort to get to know him better. And if you say he’s clean, then that’s a good thing, right?”

In my head, thoughts started racing. It’s not like I wasn’t aware of the crappy situation I got myself into. I was almost ready to chalk it up as a relapse—even though I wasn’t addicted. And if I had to be clean to make Noé happy, then I’d just stay away from the stuff. But what I couldn’t control were those damn memories. And they were building up into a monstrous wave, leaving me breathless.

Make an effort to get to know him better.Those words echoed in my mind. Make an effort... The past few years had been all about efforts. I’d been trying nonstop to make something of my life, to get it together, to find happiness.

“What’s weighing on you?” Corinne asked, empathetically.

In moments like these, I felt supported by her. Even though I called her by her first name, which was unusual, as I had learned from colleagues, I didn’t do it to distance myself from the mother she was. But we had been through some dark years that had shaped our relationship into what it was now. And even though I knew there were still taboo topics, and I longed for a hug from her, the cocaine in my brain took over again.

“How do you deal with still feeling guilty about Dad?” I asked without looking at her. I could feel her turning into an iceberg beside me. And even though she didn’t move away from me, the distance between us grew.

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