Teófila’s Guide to Saving the Sun

by Cynthia A. Rodriguez

  I am a small speck in his beautiful and massive world.

  My tears wash away in his sea.

  George comes to grab me before the show ends, ushering me away and yelling in my ear that Mr. Williams expressed wanting me to meet him stage-side.

  I get there just as he finishes, and when I look out at the crowd, I catch my breath.

  It really is a sea.

  All for the boy who made me tackle a list of things I was afraid of for my birthday.

  Elijah rushes off stage and immediately pulls me in for a kiss, his sweat making his skin slide against mine.

  “What’d you think?” he asks, the smile on his face too infectious.

  “I loved it! I’m so proud of you!”

  And I am. But what kind of girlfriend am I? I didn’t know all the songs. I didn’t realize how many hours he’d been putting in.

  All I’d been worried about were the women.

  Stupid me.

  “I’m so happy I’m here,” I tell him as he takes my hand and we walk offstage.

  His face twists for a second, confusion marring his features. “Wasn’t that always the plan?”

  I don’t have time to answer because people are rushing around, pushing, and trying to get his attention. His hold on my hand slips and I hear him yell my name.

  “I’ve got her, sir,” George shouts from behind me. “No worries, Miss Morales. I’m sure he’s got some questions to answer and a nice hot shower to get to.”

  I try not to frown as I watch the people swallow him, but I follow George as he leads me to the car. We get in and he instructs the driver to bring us back to the hotel.

  The city taunts me with images of Elijah on a billboard as we pull off.

  33

  ELECTRIC

  I ’ve got my face buried in my notebook, my pen moving faster than usual, when the hotel room door opens.

  “Teófilaaaaa!” Elijah shouts, all while heading to the bedroom where I’m seated on the chaise lounge. “There you are.”

  He is so happy. I used to wonder when he’d be like this again.

  “Here I am,” I say, smiling at the sight of him.

  Beautifully brown him with his tattoos and his black T-shirt that probably cost more than all the clothes I brought with me.

  “What are you doing over here all alone?” He squats down in front of me. “Don’t you know there’s a party going on downstairs?”

  “How would I know that?” My question is accompanied with a confused stare that Elijah ignores, as he grabs my hand and pulls me up.

  “Let’s go. I’ve kept you to myself for long enough.”

  I try to pull away, to tell him I’m not wearing the right clothes to meet people, but he isn’t hearing any of it.

  “Tomorrow’s another sold-out show, then we’re headed to Virginia,” he tells me. “After that, Miami, Nashville, then Los Angeles.”

  My head is turning with all these different places.

  “We’ll need to get your passport in order because after we shoot a few music videos, we’re headed to Canada before hitting Europe,” he says.

  I’m breathless as we enter the elevator.

  “What?” he asks, finally looking at me. “You didn’t think I was letting you go again, did you?”

  He lifts my chin with a single finger and kisses me. It’s slow, but there’s nothing tame about the way his lips and tongue cause a fire to burn inside me.

  The elevator doors slide open and he’s back to talking almost too quickly for me to keep up with, introducing me to people standing in the hallway and laughing at the jokes they share. I can feel women staring at me, but with Elijah’s hand in mine, I don’t give a shit.

  We enter a room at the end of the hall and I’m happy it isn’t full of people who want to laugh and talk and take Elijah’s attention.

  But when I take a closer look, shock causes me to stop while Elijah keeps walking, oblivious.

  On the table, there are drugs.

  I can’t name them. I’ve only ever taken part in marijuana, and while that’s included in the pile, I eye the pills and white powder like they’re dangerous animals, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

  “T,” Elijah calls over his shoulder. His smile fades as he sees me standing near the door still.

  He walks toward me as I shake my head.

  “Elijah…”

  “Babe…”

  “You know I don’t do this,” I hiss, pointing toward the table, ignoring the people staring at us. “I’ve barely smoked pot.”

  “I’m not asking you to try anything.” His hands are on my shoulders, rubbing little circles with his thumbs.

  Circles that remind me that I hate being maneuvered and reminding me of things I hated that he did.

  Like trying to get me in this room where I so very clearly do not belong.

  “Then why are we in here?” I want to yank away from his touch, to ask him what the hell is going on. But I don’t want to embarrass him. Not when he’s doing what he loves, all while we’re headed back to what the beginning of our love felt like.

  “I’m just grabbing something really quick.” I don’t miss the touch of exasperation in his tone but I choose to ignore it.

  “Weed?” I ask.

  It better fucking be.

  My eyes are relentless in their search for the truth in his and he doesn’t flinch.

  “Among other things,” he says.

  Hit thumbs still and those circles stop and now I’m the one spinning.

  “What other things?” I finally ask a question I’m not sure I want to know the answer to.

  “Molly,” he says, a word I’ve heard about but never really knew what it did or meant. “Ecstasy, I guess.”

  That sounds more familiar.

  “Wh…”

  “I thought it’d be fun for us to try.” His voice is too soft, like he thinks I’m going to break.

  But I’m not fragile in the way that breaks. I’m fragile in the way that booms.

  “Am I not fun enough already?” I ask.

  Anger is tiptoeing quietly around us, ready to light the fuse.

  “Of cour…”

  “Wait, have you done this before?” I ask him. I know how I look and how I sound; like a judgy uptight little bitch.

  But this is Elijah, the person I once knew best. The person I still feel like I want to spend my life with.

  “No,” he answers, and I can’t make out whether he’s telling the truth or not, so I throw my hands up.

  “T, we can walk out of this room empty-handed, and I will still think you’re my favorite person.”

  I am confusion and desperation. Wanting love and wanting to be myself and not knowing where they both can exist.

  So I make my mind up before I can let my thoughts get the best of me.

  “If we try this, we try it in the privacy of our room,” I tell him, figuring we’ll be okay that way. And maybe this will be a funny story we look back on together.

  He nods, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll never let anything happen to you,” he says, and I believe him.

  But not because it’s the truth. Not because I am filled with relief at the sound of his sincerity. Not because there’s no room in his words for doubt to seep in and plant seeds in my mind.

  I believe him because of love.

  I always heard it makes us do stupid things.

  And just like I always did, I eyed the moment for what it was—a shift. Whatever came next would be a direct result of whatever decision I made right now.

  The first drink I ever had was with Elijah. My first tattoo matched his.

  All my vices included him. He introduced me to pot, to lust, to experiencing a desire so strong, it could crack your teeth.

  So, it makes sense that he’s the first person I ever try ecstasy with.

  MOLLY FEELS…ELECTRIC.

  I am all good things and good feelings.

  And maybe I’ll never come back down.

&nb
sp; We are laughter and light.

  We’re sweaty sex and magical fingers.

  Everything feels amazing, from the soft sheets to the shower.

  Sensations are on fire; every experience is…ecstasy.

  The highest of highs.

  I’ll never come back down.

  34

  HIGH

  Happy birthday to me.

  I run my fingers through my hair and wonder why I ever wanted to straighten my curls.

  It’s like a whole universe lives on my head…and in it.

  My cheeks are in this permanent state of expression and I make them work as I glance around, looking for Elijah now that I feel that familiar happiness kicking in.

  Palm trees sway above me, as if they’re saying hello. I wave back, putting my cheeks to work even harder.

  “Isn’t this heaven?” I hear Elijah say, his voice sounding farther than I’d like.

  When I roll over to find the sound, I see him standing at the edge of the balcony. One foot is over the edge, and I giggle at the sight, wondering if he can fly now.

  “Ask the sun,” I whisper, feeling my heartbeat slow in my chest. Or maybe it’s in my head as the world slows down around me. Birds fly above where I lie on the balcony, and I think about being a child on a playground, asking where they’re going.

  Just before receiving my first kiss.

  “How did we get here?” My hands reach toward the birds, but I’ll never catch them. Even though we’re at the very top, I’ll never reach them.

  “We’re meant to be here,” Elijah answers, leaning over the railing, his hands gripping the metal bars, so he doesn’t fall.

  My mind flies back to my seventeenth birthday, and I hear the psychic in my head.

  Whispering about my inner compass.

  Is it broken?

  Or do I really belong here?

  I’d never seen Miami before, and here I am. I wanted a life bigger than the one I left behind, and here I am.

  But was it a result of doing what I was meant to do? Or had I simply decided to choose a route that required less discovery and hard work?

  “Come see the world, T.” Elijah waves me over, but I can’t get up.

  I am bliss and fear and I wonder when he forgot how afraid of heights I am.

  And here we are.

  High.

  35

  ANOTHER ONE

  “T urn it off,” I grumble, throwing the first thing I touch at the ringing alarm clock.

  It’s an empty bottle and Elijah swears as it crashes to the floor, shattering into pieces while the alarm goes on, unaffected. “Fuck, T.”

  I pull the blanket over the back of my head and scream into the pillow. “Turn it the fuck off!”

  The bed moves as Elijah whips the covers off his body and marches to silence the alarm.

  Sweet blissful quiet.

  “Get up and clean that up,” he grumbles, stomping back to the bed. “Before someone gets hurt.”

  “Get someone else to do it.” I turn over, ready to go back to sleep.

  But Elijah has other plans, yanking the sheets off my body. “I asked you to do it,” he starts.

  When I sit up, I shout, “No, you ordered me to!”

  My head feels like it’s going to split open, and I glance around the disastrous hotel room.

  We mixed last night, something the dealer mentioned when he dropped off the Molly.

  “MDMA and alcohol feel real good,” he had said. “Next level shit, if you time it right. Until the comedown, anyway.”

  We’d already been drinking when we decided to invite Molly into the mix. And we didn’t stop after we started rolling.

  Rolling.

  The term one uses for being under the influence of Molly.

  I was spending more and more of my time here rolling.

  Here we are, at the comedown. Nothing feels good anymore. It’s like going from technicolor to black and white.

  Everything you once loved, you can’t stand.

  Like the sound of the goddamn alarm clock.

  “Fuck this,” Elijah says, standing up and walking away.

  “Where are you going?” I ask his back.

  “To go sleep in the fucking tub!”

  I roll my eyes and grab the blanket on the floor and lie down. Somewhere near me, a phone is vibrating. I sit up again and try to make out where it could be, my eyes still squinting in the dark room.

  My hand goes under the bed and I hit the edge of the phone. When I pull it up, I see my mom sent me a text.

  Mom: We miss you.

  The last time I talked to my mom, we were leaving for Miami. She told me how pissed Miley was that I never called.

  Neither of them knew I was too high to meet up with her, chasing the sensation, ingesting pill after pill to keep it.

  I told myself I’d stop, and I tried. I even managed to slow down.

  But in this moment, living in the comedown, I find myself opening the nightstand and grabbing another.

  I stare at the way the morning light behind the dark curtains tries to push through.

  Until everything feels good again.

  THE SUN FEELS LIKE A HUG.

  This is what I think as I lounge by the pool, in November, in LA. Elijah’s on the lounge chair beside me, asleep.

  I watch as his bare chest rises and falls, and I think about the rise and fall of my life.

  I think about the cycle that my life has been in and how I’d always assumed that Elijah was at the top of the Ferris wheel. But living with him, following him around the country, was turning out to be one massive blur.

  I didn’t want to blame myself; I didn’t want to be this person who only ever wanted to feel good.

  My dumbass should’ve known; if I was capable of being addicted to pain, I was even more susceptible to becoming addicted to pleasure.

  “Elijah,” I whisper.

  He hums as tears fog my sunglasses.

  “Elijah, I think I need to go,” I say, a little louder this time.

  “The bathroom’s over there,” he grumbles, not opening his eyes.

  “Home,” I correct him, and I feel like I can’t breathe. “I think I need to go home.”

  I’m gasping now and he sits up. His hands are on my knees as I lean over to find some sort of balance.

  “What’s going on, T?”

  I’m an addict, you’re an addict.

  And a liar.

  “When we took Molly that first time…was it your first time?”

  Elijah’s chuckle says it all.

  But my hand reaching up to slap him says even more. “You were getting high and fucking around while I waited for you to pick up the goddamn phone and call me.” My voice sounds so distorted, so alien.

  This is hurt and a depression I never knew could exist.

  This is darkness and betrayal.

  “You need to relax!” he shouts, holding me by my arms and shaking me. “Fucking relax, yo.”

  The more he shakes me, the more I scream and sob and fight his hold.

  We end up on the ground, grappling for power.

  “You piece of shit.” The words taste as awful as they sound in my struggle.

  “But you love this piece of shit, don’t you?”

  We’ve fallen so far from grace.

  This can’t be love.

  “Let me go,” I sob, defeated. “Just let me go.”

  But he doesn’t. He holds me as I cry and try to purge all the darkness away.

  “I can’t…” I whisper, lying across his lap, my body limp from the physical fight as much as the emotional one.

  But he knows what I need. His hand feeling around in his pocket knows exactly what I need.

  “Here. Just take another one, baby.”

  Words are garbled on my tongue, but my fingers make quick work of snatching up the magic-laced pill.

  I’ll never come back down.

  36

  THE SUN AND THE MOON

  T he hotel r
oom is empty when I wake up. I can hear the birds chirping and life beginning, but I am dead.

  At least, it feels like it.

  I’m not entirely sure I know what we took last night. I don’t think it was any version of Molly, ecstasy, or MDMA I’ve ever tried before.

  I prefer those old friends to this new one.

  Fentanyl is what someone called it, whispering the word like the dirty little secret it was. I didn’t know what it was.

  But I know I don’t have any more of any of it.

  A frenzied search comes up empty as I sit in the middle of the floor and sob.

  I cry as if someone’s died.

  And I know that someone has: The me I always thought I would be.

  My mind goes to the days of working at the café and writing stories no one gave a shit about. And maybe that life wasn’t fabulous, but it was one I could remember.

  As I crawl to the bathroom, I’m unsettled by the idea that, yes, I’ve traveled to so many beautiful places. But I spent most of the time being too high to create memories, lying around in hotel rooms we trashed in our stupors, having sex that felt amazing but reminded me that I wasn’t the only one when I came down from my high.

  When I stand, I’m almost afraid to see myself.

  But I open my eyes.

  And I look in the mirror. I’m not as pretty as I was, hours ago. My eyes are red, my lips are chapped, and the tears running down my face remind me just how pathetic I’ve become.

  I was not raised to be the addict I’m slowly becoming.

  If my father saw me now, he’d drag me out of here. After he killed the person responsible for giving me the drugs.

  I wipe my tears away and step into the shower.

  Nothing feels as good; not the water running over my bare skin, not the steam that cocoons around me. Not even sinking to the floor and letting everything go.

  I pinch my legs, little points of pain that remind me that when I was on drugs, I couldn’t feel that.

  And how dangerous it is, not to feel pain.

  My fingers are pruned by the time I step out of the shower.

  After drying off, I finally take stock of the hotel room. Disgusting doesn’t even cover it. Old food, dirty clothes, and a bed with a broken leg are what I’m faced with.