She sat up and put her feet on the floor, and as soon as she did, her head spun with images-- deformed babies in rows of cribs, bags of white powder floating around her bedroom. But the most disturbing thing was an image of herself in torn and tattered clothes with blood spatters on her legs.
Maggie fell to the floor. “What the hell?” She said out loud, and as quickly as the images entered her mind, they disappeared.
She realized she was sweating and…panting, maybe hyperventilating. She needed a pick-me-up…that was all. She reached under her bed and pulled out a metal lock box. With the key she removed from her night stand drawer, she unlocked it and pulled out a tiny plastic bag, a straw, and a small mirror.
She would feel better in a few minutes.
Work felt endless. Her boss had chewed her out for being a half-hour late. He told her it was becoming habitual, and if it happened again, she was done. He’d hate to see her go because the customers liked her, but he wasn’t paying her to not show up.
By the time the dinner hour came around, Maggie had a head-banger headache. She had three more hours left to her shift after which she was meeting Mike at their latest hangout—an apartment of one of his classmates.
It started out being a big party stocked with every kind of liquor and all kinds of drugs. She was told she had loads of fun the first time she went, but she didn’t remember. It didn’t bother her then, but she hadn’t remembered any of the night’s events whenever she was there since the first night, and that was beginning to disturb her. She was afraid there was more to the party than she was told.
She planned on speaking to Mike about it after she got out of work. She hoped she could convince him to have a quiet evening at his place. Since his roommates would be at the party, they could have the place all to themselves. She might be able to convince him with the promise of some wild sex.
As she was cleaning the table from the last patrons, she saw Mike out of the corner of her eye in his usual spot outside the diner. She tapped on the window to get his attention and motioned to him to come inside.
Most times, Mike didn’t like to come into the restaurant, but this night he did.
“Hey, there,” she called to him.
He nodded and took a seat at the first table he came to.
She walked over to him and ran her fingertips across his cheek. His head turned slightly from her touch.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just a long day of classes.”
“Why don’t we just spend a quiet evening at your place? I bet you’re tired, and I could use a break from that scene. I’ll make it worth your while,” she purred.
“Yeah, sure.”
She studied him. He was more somber than usual. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, are you almost done?”
“You’re a man of many words tonight,” she said over her shoulder as she made her way to the kitchen. “Just give me a minute to punch out and grab my purse.”
After clocking out and saying good night to the other staff, she walked back into the eating area to find Mike gone. He was back outside pacing on the sidewalk. She walked up to him and took his hand. She looked into his face. “Ready?”
He nodded.
When they entered his apartment, Mike immediately went to his bedroom. Maggie sat on the couch debating if she wanted to confront his mood or call it a night.
A few minutes later, he came out, sat next to her and folded his hands. “We need to talk.”
Maggie’s heart sank as it recognized a Deja Vu moment. “Okay. Talk.” She kept her eyes straight forward to fight the anger that was rising.
“I want to go to Jason’s tonight.”
“Fine, let’s go.”
“Without you.”
Her head snapped in his direction.
With a slight whine, he said,” No, it’s not that. I like going sometimes….”
“Sometimes. That seems to be the only place we go lately.”
“Come on, Maggie, you’re being stupid.”
Maggie’s face felt hot. “Stupid. Well, thanks for that. You want to go to some guy’s apartment where everyone drinks and does drugs all night and God knows what else happens with all the slutty women there….” Maggie stopped. Her head began to pound with images of naked women entangled with men, and she was smack-dabbed in the middle of it all.
“What is it?” Mike asked alarmed.
“Go, if it’s what you want,” she snapped. “I’m going home.” She got up, but he grabbed her hand and kept her from leaving.
“Look, Mike. You want to go party and do whatever else goes on there, though for some reason I can never remember what’s gone on in that place, and you want to go without me. That’s fine. I don’t want to go anyway. So go.”
“Maggie, please.”
“It’s okay. I get it.”
“No, you don’t. I don’t want to break up. I just want a little room.”
“A little room. Sure thing, Mike. Now if you’ll let go of my hand, I’ll be more than happy to give you that room.”
He recoiled at her rough tone and released her.
Maggie stood still for a moment. Did she want to turn and look at him, kiss him? Or just walk out the door and not look back. The struggle was so strong, she couldn’t move. Months of getting high with him fogged her brain when it came to the truth of their relationship.
She turned and kissed him on the lips, pressing her tongue against his forcing them to open. She put every romantic, sexual feeling she ever felt into that kiss until she felt him giving back. Then she pulled back abruptly and left without a word, a satisfying smile playing out on her lips.
Three weeks passed without a word from Mike. Maggie used her anger to stop her drug use. She took herself off of everything including her birth control pills. It was one of the hardest things she ever did. She felt miserable, was often sick to her stomach and suffered migraine headaches. But she didn’t miss a day of work even though there were several times when her boss wanted to send her home for poor performance.
On one such night, he almost fired her. She begged, and he told her if she didn’t get her shit together soon, she was done.
She not only got her shit together, she started to look for auditions again, feeling elated that she was getting back on track.
Then came the knock on her door she’d hoped would never come. It was mid-morning. She finished a late shift the night before and was able to sleep in. Her roommate had already left for work.
She went to the door in her flannel pants and ribbed t-shirt that she slept in. When she opened the door, she wished she had put on the baby blue, small, satin nightie that made what little curves she had appear more alluring.
Mike was holding a bouquet of roses.
Immediately, Maggie fell back into Mike mode, but she played it with cunning moves. First, she stepped aside to let him enter the room, and as he bent over to kiss her, she turned her head.
He entered with uncertainty. “Is your roommate here?”
“No. Don’t you have classes?”
“Exams. I’m done for the day.” Mike held out the flowers to Maggie. “They could use some water.” He took a seat on the couch.
Maggie took the flowers to the sink. She put them in the only vase they had and set them on a table near the window.
“They’re lovely. Thank you,” she said, admiring the rich red bouquet.
“Mags…”
Her head snapped in his direction. He only called her that when something was wrong.
“Look, if you’re here to officially call things off, we already did that.”
He grimaced. “I didn’t want that. You ended it.
She sat in a chair opposite him. “Look, Mike, if you came here to rehash everything, you might as well leave. You wanted time, so I gave it to you. You didn’t call. Now you show up with roses.” She nodded in the direction of the flowers. “Mixed messages, don’t you think?”
“Come back.”
>
“Excuse me?”
“I want you to come back. I miss you. I never wanted you to leave. I just wanted….”
She waited for him to finish.
“I need you to come back. Please.”
He had shaved off his beard. She could see the soft outlines of his chin and the tiny cleft shouting sexiness. She felt heat rise within her, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to resist him if he came near her, which he did.
With deliberate suggestive movements, he was kneeling in front of her, cradling her head in his hands. He delivered a soft, open-mouth kiss that rattled her insides and brought her defenses to a screeching halt. Her body reciprocated no matter what her mind was telling her at the moment.
She took him to bed, lust driving her actions and squelching the regret she was about to regurgitate.
Chapter Thirty
Maggie was beginning to believe that Mike and she could find that happy ever after she had seen in the visions the first time she saw him in New York, but it only lasted one week.
He hadn’t offered her any drugs during that time, and they had spent every night together at his place—alone and blissful. Or so she thought.
She was cradled in his arms in bed when he reached into his nightstand and brought out the familiar plastic bag.
“I thought we were done with that,” she said quietly.
“Aw, come on, hon. You know we have some really hot sex with it.”
“I thought our sex was hot enough without it.”
He lifted her head so that her lips met his and he kissed her, soft, but brief. “Come on, do it with me, please?”
“I haven’t done it in…”
“Palease?” He whined in his cute, childish and rather sexy way that Maggie always found hard to resist.
“Fine, just this once.”
But it wasn’t just once. Maggie fell back into the routine of drugs and sex. It took hold of her faster and stronger than the first time, so much so that she became dependent on being high so she could make it through work faster than she did the first time.
It wasn’t long after that Mike convinced her to go back to his friend’s apartment where the wild party was still going on week after week.
When she arrived at the party, she took a quick snort from Mike’s bag, and then left him to go to the makeshift bar in the dining room. She was about to ask for a rum and coke when she tumbled backwards from the onslaught of visions flooding her mind.
Naked bodies were strewn about the room, including hers and dead babies laid in a sea of drug bags. Then the image transformed to vivid colors of red liquid on a sidewalk in a back alley, and in the middle of it she was sprawled unconscious, her arm extended and her palm opened where an empty, tiny plastic bag rested.
Suddenly, she realized she had stepped back into the den of iniquity, a place she had fought so hard to get away from. It was then Maggie knew she had to stop—she had to gain control. Somehow, she would avoid taking any drugs or drinking any liquor.
When Maggie regained her balance, the bartender was staring at her. “Sorry, didn’t have much to eat. Just a coke please.”
He nodded as if he understood her ailment. He filled a tall glass with ice and opened a can of coke. Then he winked at her as he lifted a bottle of booze.
“No rum,” she said quickly.
He stared at her for a moment as he waited for the foam to dissipate in the glass, and then finished off the can.
Maggie thanked him. With trepidation, she moved throughout the apartment—around people and furniture, from room to room, not staying in one place for very long in order to go unnoticed. She hoped this would keep away offers of more drinks and drugs.
Success with this plan, however, came with a very large downside—the symptoms of withdrawal could start at any minute, and sure enough, while she mingled, her head began to pound as the blood vessels constricted in answer to her body’s engulfing need for the drug.
She hugged herself to stave off the stomach cramps making her gag every now and then. Soon, she was hiding in the bathroom when the shakes were so strong she thought someone would notice her body moving uncontrollably.
But Maggie wasn’t hiding just because she felt her body was going to explode any minute. She was hiding from the party—the one she had attended so many times before but could never remember. She was hiding from the party that corrupted her with evil toxins that she had worked so hard to eradicate from her body once before. Tonight, because she struggled to stay sober, she had to hide in order to do it. She hid in fear.
When she felt she had it under control, she exited the bathroom. At first she was afraid Mike might be looking for her and get suspicious, but for the first time she noticed everyone was stoned or drugged up, or drunker than a skunk (she heard her mother tell her father that one time) to even notice.
She watched Jason, the apartment owner put some white powder into the drinks of two women when they weren’t looking. Before long, he and a few others were having sex with them. Suddenly, she understood why she never remembered the parties, and she had to get out.
Maggie almost tripped over a table when she saw Bella who was too far gone and totally engulfed in the orgy to recognize her. Had Bella been at other parties? She tried to remember, but those nights were as blank as if she had never been there.
As one of the men turned to get a better position, she realized it was Mike. Maggie backed up quickly making a b-line for the bathroom before he spotted her. She huddled behind the locked door afraid to leave, but more afraid to stay.
More images were assaulting her. They morphed in and out of her brain faster than a program on television in fast forward. She squeezed her head with her hands trying to push them and the pain from her headache out of her body, but both were relentless.
When they finally stopped, Maggie had an epiphany. No. Maggie had been given the gift of foresight, but at that moment it didn’t feel like a gift even though she was totally aware of the warning she was being given. She knew if she was to do anything, she had to get out of the apartment.
Mike probably wouldn’t miss her until he was done with Bella. How she hated both of them at that moment, and she didn’t want to think about the questions that swirled in her mind. There would be time for that when she got out of the apartment.
She swallowed the fear and anger that was taking over her expression to focus on anonymity so she could place a blank stare on her face as if she was high. She took a deep breath and opened the door. The party was still going on in full force and in the midst of laughter and loud talking she heard the sounds of sex. She hadn’t realized how much sound the bathroom door blocked out.
Luckily, the only thing she brought with her was a small wallet and her phone, both in her pockets. She made her way to the front door swaying a little to keep her movements as real for a drugged up drunk as she could. But she didn’t stop, even when she tripped over a couple laying on the floor in the living room.
Her heart was racing as she got closer. She grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. Just as she was about to step out, she heard Mike shouting. “Mags, where ya goin?”
Footsteps pounded behind her. Grunts could be heard as if he was bumping into things or people on his way to her, but she didn’t look back. She couldn’t see just how close he was getting to her.
She slammed the door and ran as fast as she could down ten flights of stairs and out onto the streets of New York City at three in the morning. She didn’t care that she was alone with no transportation. She had learned the subway system and knew there was a station a few blocks away. If she saw a cab before that, she was willing to spend the large sum of money it would cost to get her home.
After a brief look up and down the street, she took off at a full run toward the subway. She didn’t slow down until she was able to sit down on a bench. She couldn’t tell if her rapid breathing was from running, lack of drugs in her system, or both.
The car she was seated in swayed sideway
s on the track in a carnival ride like motion bringing on a wave of nauseous. The already dim lights flickered on and off as if they were in sync with the motion of the train. It made her think of the Christmas electronic sound/motion effects machines she saw at a neighbor’s holiday display in her home town.
She pulled her phone out to take her mind off her physical ailments. Mike had already sent her several texts. They were mostly gibberish, some with a lot of swearing, but she got the gist. How dare she leave.
She tapped out a reply on her phone. Don’t ever call or try to see me again. She put her phone back in her pocket. She leaned her head against the wall, but she didn’t dare close her eyes. The image of her lying in a pool of blood had scared the shit out of her. The bag in her hand made her realize she had to evade a drug overdose, but she had no idea what the babies or the blood meant.
She just wanted to get home. When the subway reached her stop, she hurried off the train and made her way up to the sidewalk keeping an eye on her surroundings. She was four blocks from her apartment building. Four blocks till she would be safe.
She walked into her apartment before her roommate was awake. She went into the bathroom and took a shower hoping to wash away not only the physical, but the mental dirt as well. Then she threw up until there was nothing left but dry heaves.
There was a knock on the bathroom door. “Maggie, it’s me. Mike is downstairs. He wants to come up.”
Maggie wrapped herself in a towel and opened the door. “No. Don’t ever let him up.” Her eyes were wild with fear.
Her roommate, Erin stared hard at her. “I hope you mean it this time.
Chapter Thirty-one
Three months passed and neither Mike nor his friends bothered Maggie after he showed up at her apartment. She hoped it was because of the text she sent him later that day. She told him if he and his friends left her alone, she would never tell his parents about his extra-curricular activities. She also wrote she had told several of her friends and family about what had happened and given them all the information they needed to do the same if anything ever happened to her.
The Fairy Trail Page 13