Page 46 of Over You
Unreliable friend. Horrible role model.Click.The hammer cocked.
Overall worthless piece of shit.Aim.
People hate you. Georgia just feels sorry for you.Boom.That bullet tore right through me.
And this would be the time when I usually caved.
I laced my fingers behind my head and fought the urge to scream. Pacing by the steps, I debated on jogging to the church for another prayer cushion, maybe dashing across the street and ransacking the garbage for the three grams I’d tossed the day before.
Before I knew it, the sun was on my face, and I was halfway down the block. I made it to the corner then pushed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “Fuck!”
I stormed back to Georgia’s townhome, slamming the door.
Forty-eight hours felt like forty-eight years. It was bullshit that coming clean put my body at constant war with itself, and that was why it wasn’t easy.
My fingers wouldn’t stop shaking. I needed something,anythingconstructive to do with my hands that didn’t involve cutting up lines or wouldn’t make methinkabout cutting up lines.
A composition notebook sat on the tiny desk by the stairs. Falling to the chair, I grabbed a pencil and flipped to a spare page. The lead pressed to the paper. The frantic strokes of my hand sketched out a misshapen head balanced on a wobbly neck and tiny body. Huge circles for bulging, bloodshot eyes. Swollen pupils. Small slits for the nose, and the mouth full of rotting teeth grasping the wordaddictlike a piece of delectable fruit. To finish it off, I drew an arm too long for the guy’s body, and an exaggerated, caricature-like hand giving a thumbs up. Underneath the drawing, a barely legible title:My Body Needs It.
That was what it felt like.
It wasn’t a craving or some lust-filled desire.
I had chills and shakes, a drug-induced flu because hour by hour, I was stripping my immune system bare of a high that had become as basic of a need as my lung’s demand for oxygen. Sweat beaded above my lip while I stared at the picture. My mind was rotting. I ripped the drawing from the spine of the notepad and shredded it until it was nothing more than confetti.
I buried my head in my hands and counted my breaths. One. Two. Three. . . By seventy-two, the fire in my chest had quelled. The molten lava had hardened into obsidian and sank to the pit of my stomach where it sat.
I’d asked for seven days, and when those were up, I’d ask for seven more, but eventually, I knew I would screw up.
That’s what people do. They screw up.
And the next time I did, I’d lose everything.
18
Georgia
The Peacock’s door had been propped open when I dropped by on my way home from class. Fergus sat at the bar, tossing nuts to Albert, his pet peacock. “Get it, you knob. It’s food.”
I ducked through the doorway. Albert cocked his head to the side before spreading his iridescent feathers into an impressive purple and turquoise fan.
Fergus turned in his chair, grinning wide when his gaze met mine. “Hello, love.” He checked his watch. “It’s early. . .”
“It is.”
A warm heat washed over my cheeks when I walked toward him.
I had always prided myself on my dependability, and I was about to ask Fergus for an undetermined amount of time off.
The first time Spencer had detoxed, he was in an expensive rehab “spa” in the Santa Monica Mountains. Therapists and sparkling water were at his disposal as were stress-reducing massages. The clincher—I had found out later—was there was also an orderly named Jimbo who doled out drugs to most of the celebs.
Spencer had neverreallydetoxed in his life.
I’d spent the entire morning on my laptop, researching cocaine withdrawal while Spencer slept. It didn’t require medical assistance, although it was encouraged, and the overly optimistic part of me hoped that maybe my company could be enough. At least for seven days.
Seven days. What an arbitrary number to hang the rest of my life upon. But, God, I wanted to be with him more than I wanted my next breath. I may have spent a year finding myself. I may have concluded that a person doesn’tneedlove to survive. But there are many things in this life that we can lose without dying. Sight wasn’t vital to living, but my God, didn’t it make it more beautiful?
High or sober, together or apart, I’d never stop loving Spencer. It had to mean something when I wanted nothing more than to fall out of love with him but couldn’t.
