Beautiful Series Boxset, books 1-4

by Lilliana Anderson

  But everyone in there talked. Even Liam started talking after a while. They all talked about the things they did to get their hands on drugs, what they did while on them. No-one’s story is quite the same as mine. No one was a pet.

  So I didn’t share. I didn’t make friends. I preferred everyone to think I was a standoffish bitch instead of having those people, who have gone through addiction the same as me, actually look at me with pity in their eyes. I don’t think I could recover from that.

  The more I listened to them talk, the more I realised just how unforgivable everything I’ve done is. I don’t even want to think about it.

  “I’m sure this sounds like a broken record Paige, but you’re going to have to talk eventually,” she reminds me.

  “Where are we going?” I ask her in response, hopeful of a subject change.

  “Lemongrove. It’s Western Sydney. I’ve secured you emergency housing—a flat. You’ve been set up with some furniture, and you’ll be going to TAFE to complete your high school certificate. There are lots of programs that will help you get a job when you’re done. But for now, you need to stay clean, go to school, and meet with me once a week.”

  “What if I don’t do any of that?”

  “Then you lose your assistance. Simple as that.”

  I can’t believe I’m going back to school. Just the thought of studying again feels a little overwhelming. And a job? I have no idea what I’m going to do when the time comes to find a job. Drugs and theft aren’t mainstream skills.

  And I’m still not sure my life is worth living.

  Thirty-Eight

  8 months clean

  “Have you made any friends yet?” Justine asks during one of my home visits. She comes to me once a month now as my progress is looking good in her books. I have to show her everything I’m doing, and I have to pee in a cup for a drug test to prove I’m still clean. But other than that, my life is becoming pretty normal.

  “No,” I reply.

  “Paige, you need friends.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m fine on my own. Trusting people is what got me into this mess. I won’t be making that mistake again.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about that?”

  I shake my head and button my lips.

  She sighs and moves on to her next question. “How are your NA meetings going?”

  “I haven’t been to one,” I admit, looking down at the toe of my shoe. I know I’m supposed to go, but I don’t want to spend my nights sitting in a room with people telling me their sob stories. I had enough of that in rehab. There is no way I’m touching a drug again. I just don’t feel like I need to go.

  “It’s a part of your program, Paige. You have to go.”

  “Fine. I’ll go,” I lie. I won’t go. I don’t want to go at all. The meetings are anonymous, how are they going to know if I’m there or not?

  “That’s excellent.” She grins. “It just so happens, there is one on tonight at the Community Centre. I’ll take you.”

  Rolling my eyes, I nod my head. I don’t see a way of getting out of this.

  Justine drives us in her car. Out the front I see a sign on the door that says ‘NA meeting inside’. Advertising it seems to take away the anonymity in my books, but whatever, I guess people have to find it somehow.

  As expected, the meeting is filled with people droning on about their hard lives, essentially making excuses for their drug use. I don’t want to hear it. Each time one of them breaks down and cries over stealing their mother’s jewellery, I want to stand up and scream, At least you have a mother to steal from! But I don’t. Of course I don’t. Everyone’s pain is their own. I do understand that. I also understand that talking about it is making them feel better. I understand they need that.

  But I can’t talk. I can’t feel better. No amount of words, no amount of talking, no amount of admitting what I did, is ever going to change anything.

  Talking. Talking. Talking. It’s forever torturing me. I hate being here.

  Justine sits quietly beside me as I lean back in my chair and look up at the ceiling, avoiding all eye contact. I only half listen as they introduce themselves and share their stories. I’m more focused on the ticking of the clock so I can get out of here. But a voice and a name I’ve heard before brings my focus to the group.

  “Hi, my name’s Braden, and I’m a drug addict.”

  My head snaps forward so fast, I almost pull a muscle. Braden? Fucking Braden is here?

  My eyes grow wide as they land upon the face of the person I had thought of as my friend. The person I’d grown to care for. The person who betrayed me.

  “I need to go,” I say to Justine.

  “Paige. You need to stay for this whole meeting or I’m going to put in my report that you aren’t properly completing your program.”

  That means no assistance and the possibility of jail time. I fold my arms and sink back down in my seat then focus all of my anger and hatred into my eyes so I can shoot it like daggers into Braden. Just looking at him is making my blood boil.

  “Hi Braden,” the room choruses in that deadpan way a group does.

  “I started taking drugs when I was about thirteen,” he starts. “It’s the usual story. I started with pot and worked my way up to more illicit things. At first it was purely recreational, but using made me feel like the rules of the world didn’t apply to me.

  “As my need took over, my morals went out the window. I ended up taking a job with a really shady character. He asked me to procure certain…things for him.” He glances at me.

  “At first I didn’t mind. I’d find him what he wanted, deliver it to him and get paid handsomely as a result. I didn’t want for much, the money paid for my schooling and my lifestyle, and I still had a little left over. I chose what he wanted carefully and didn’t consider I was hurting anybody.” He frowns and looks at his hands. “At least until I fell in love with someone, and he wanted her as one of his pets.”

  My heart stops. Do not tell them about me.

  “I’d seen her around for a while and she seemed, let’s say she was his ideal. But something happened, and I found myself helping her out, instead of using her like I normally would. As I got to know her, we became great friends—best friends—I loved her more than I ever loved another human. And together we starting working on something that would fund both of our habits.

  “It was all working really well, and we didn’t consider our drug use to be a problem. Life was good. But we were on borrowed time. My boss found out I had goods I wasn’t delivering to him. He threatened my life, and to save myself, I hurt my friend.” A tear falls and he meets my eyes as he wipes his cheek. “After that, I hit the drugs really hard, and it wasn’t long before I overdosed. I guess I wanted to die. I hated what I’d become. The drugs had taken over, and I wanted it all to be over.” He presses his lips together and sniffs. “But, I survived. I got help. And now, I’ve been sober for nine months.”

  The group claps to congratulate his sobriety, Justine places her hand on mine and squeezes me reassuringly. “You’re doing great,” she whispers.

  I turn my attention to her and blink rapidly. Tears are spilling from my eyes.

  I didn’t even realise I was crying.

  When the meeting is over, we’re invited to mingle over coffee or tea and some biscuits. I don’t want to stay, but Justine insists that I do.

  “You need to find yourself a sponsor,” she reminds me.

  I nod at a few people who smile to be friendly and make my way to the coffee urn.

  “Paige?”

  I close my eyes. I knew he’d come over, but I hoped he’d stay away. I turn to see him standing beside me, a pained expression on his face as he bites his lip, waiting for me to respond.

  “Braden.” There’s no emotion to my voice as I regard him. Even after his story, I still hate him for what he did.

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see that you’re OK,” he breathes.

  “I can’t tell
you how unhappy I am to see that you’re OK,” I retort.

  He sighs. “guess I deserve that.”

  “And then some.” I laugh humourlessly.

  He busies himself, readying his own cup of International Roast coffee, piling in the sugar to make it palatable, before speaking again.

  “You know that girl in my story is you right?” he asks. “You have to know I didn’t want to take you to him.”

  “Then why did you?”

  He stands in front of me and takes a breath as if he is planning on trying to explain, but he stops himself. We already know the answer.

  “We should have killed ourselves,” I whisper as I lean in close and speak so only he and I can hear. “Do you know what he does to his girls? He keeps them constantly medicated and uses their body like it’s a toy. And he shares his toys. He’s very generous like that. He plays rough too, until his toys are all used up and broken. And then he throws them out. Just like that.” I snap my fingers for emphasis. “It’s people like you who help him to do that. You keep his meat fresh, so he’s never left wanting.”

  His eyes are wide as the colour drains from his face. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

  “You could say sorry to me ten times a second for the rest of my life, and it still wouldn’t be enough. There is nothing you can do to change what happened. Nothing that can take it all away.”

  “Let me try, Paige. Please. I need to try and make it up to you.”

  “There’s nothing you can do. I’m not the girl you knew anymore,” I say as I step away from him and move back to Justine.

  “Everything OK?”she asks when I reach her.

  “I attended. Can we go now?”

  “Do you know that guy?” She nods at Braden.

  “No. I don’t think I ever knew him at all.”

  Thirty-Nine

  Counselling sucks, and I can’t seem to escape it. I hate talking about my feelings. I do everything I’m supposed to, but I still don’t share at the meetings. The most I have ever said is “Hi, I’m Paige and I’m a drug addict. I never wanted to be one, but somehow I got caught up in it and the destruction it causes. I don’t want to go back to it. I don’t think I’ll ever go back.”

  Braden keeps trying to talk to me, it’s like he needs me to forgive him so he can move forward. But I can’t.

  “So um, I’ve been working in a tattoo parlour. You should come and check it out sometime,” he tells me after a meeting. Every time he talks to me his voice has a slight shake to it. I make him nervous.

  “Why would I want to do that?” I ask. It seems like every time I speak to him, my voice loses all feeling. But maybe that’s just how it always is these days.

  “I don’t know. You used to like looking at my drawings. I thought you might like to see some of my designs.”

  I look over his arms and wonder why he isn’t displaying any of his work in his body. “Where are your tattoos? Seems strange to be designing them but not displaying them.”

  “I only have one,” he says, pressing his lips together lightly.

  “Did it hurt too much and you can’t handle getting any more?” I ask, mocking him.

  His eyes soften. “No. It was worth it.”

  He busies himself, placing granulated coffee in his foam cup, along with his usual mammoth amount of sugar. I watch him. I have to admit that curiosity is getting the better of me.

  “Where did you get it? The tattoo… can you show me or is it somewhere private?”

  “Nowhere you haven’t seen before,” he grins, glancing at me as he presses the lever on the urn to add the hot water.

  “On your arse?” I ask.

  He shakes his head as he adds his milk and turns to me. “No. It’s on my chest. Over my heart.”

  “Oh. Well… what is it?”

  He pulls the neck of his T-shirt down so I can see it. It’s a symbol about the size of my palm done in black ink. I’ve never seen one like it before, it’s a circular shape that has spikes and arrows evenly placed around it as they jut out of some sort of irregular square shape in the middle.

  “Does it mean anything?”

  “Yes. It’s the symbol for sorrow and despair. I got it over my heart to remind me to stay strong. To remind me of what I did to you.”

  My throat thickens and makes it hard for me to swallow. “Don’t, Braden. I don’t want to hear it,” I whisper, tears burning the backs of my eyes as I shake my head no.

  “But I loved you, Paige, and I threw you to the wolves. Handing you over was the worst thing I have ever done. I need to remember. I need to be reminded every day when I look in the mirror that my drug addiction destroyed not only my life, but that of my friend’s as well.”

  “It wasn’t just my life you destroyed Braden. Every girl you ever took to him was destroyed. Why don’t you have a tattoo for each of them?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the only one I tried to keep for myself. You’re the only one I didn’t want to take to him.”

  “You’re talking like we were lovers or something, Braden. I think you’re romanticising what was between us.”

  “I’m not. I did love you. You were my family. My best friend. You knew me. What we had was better than some stupid relationship where you fuck for a while and it’s over. We were real together.”

  “I have to go.” I say, thumbing over my shoulder. I can’t stand here and listen to this anymore. “Congratulations on your job. I’ll see you around.”

  I spin on my heel and make my way out of there as fast as I can. Trying not to think about the emotions boiling up inside of me. Having Braden back in my life is messing with me, making me feel things I don’t want to. I hate that he felt so strongly about me and still handed me over. I hate that he has a tattoo on his chest that represents me. I have so much hate, so much disappointment inside me.

  I want it gone. I don’t want to feel like this anymore.

  I hold on until I get back to my flat. I hold on as I rush to the bathroom, turn on the shower and get inside. The water is still cold, but as soon as it hits my face, I let go.

  There’s something about crying in the shower that makes it OK. It’s like crying with the water doesn’t make it real, and I can pretend it never happened. I can pretend I’m still strong. But I’m not. I never have been.

  Forty

  “Paige, we’ve been having these sessions for a few months now. I’m not going to sign off on your treatment until we actually discuss something important,” my counsellor, Erin, says to me at my next appointment.

  “Don’t you think the most important thing is that I stay off the drugs? Isn’t that the whole reason I’m here?”

  “Yes, that’s part of it. But the loss you’ve experienced makes you a high risk of relapse. Counselling can help, Paige. But only if you’ll let it.”

  “I’m not going to relapse,” I insist, looking at a print of an Australian bush scene hanging on the wall in her office, and wishing that she had a window so I didn’t feel so trapped whenever I came here.

  “What makes you so sure about that?”

  “Because I won’t.”

  “I admire your determination, Paige. I really do. But right now, you’re living in a guided situation. You have regular contact with people whose job is to make sure you have all the help you need to move on with your life. This situation won’t last forever. Eventually, you’ll be on your own. You’ll want to have relationships, maybe even start a family. And all of these things can be extremely difficult if we don’t address your past. How can you possibly have a productive future?”

  I adjust myself in my seat and fold my arms over my chest. “Firstly, I don’t want to have a relationship, or a family. I don’t want to address my past either. It’s been one huge disappointment after another, and I really don’t want to think about it.”

  “You might not want to think about it. But our minds have a habit of forcing us to deal with things.”

  I drop my head against the back of the couch and loo
k up at the ceiling. During the day, I’m able to keep busy. I focus on my school work, or I read. I tidy my flat, and I cook. Life is very normal during the day. But when it’s time to sleep, my mind won’t stop.

  In those moments before I drift off, I remember everything. My dreams remind me about my past. Then every morning when I wake, the first thought in my mind is of Phoenix, followed by the knowledge that my self-destructive decisions are the reason she didn’t survive.

  “You know, when my parents kicked me out of home, I thought I was better off on my own. That I didn’t need the help of homeless shelters, or the charities that run them. I thought that being put into foster care, or a girl’s home would be the worst thing that could ever happen to me. But now I know that if it wasn’t for programs like this, I’d be dead.” I brush a finger across the top of my nose as I focus on the carpet. “Honestly, I think sometimes that would be better. I’m not going to kill myself, but I do wish I had sometimes. Because if I could choose between my daughter’s life and my own, I’d choose hers. Every time I’d choose hers.” I choke up and struggle to keep going. “Every time I think about her growing inside me, it hits me that all she ever knew was drugs. All she felt was my misery. She never knew love. She was dead before I knew she existed, and I hate myself for that. All I ever wanted was someone to love me. For my parents to love me. And she died without a single hope, a single breath. I wish I was sitting here with a little girl in my lap talking to you about how hard it is being a single mother without an education. But I’m not. I know what I did. I know what I lost, and I don’t want to talk about it any more. I am not going to relapse. I don’t want to take drugs to forget. I need this pain. It’s the only thing reminding me that I’m still alive.”

  Forty-One

  18 months sober