by N. K. Smith
It took me a moment to process everything, but once I did, I somehow propelled myself forward until I was standing next to Elliott. He looked like he could kill that boy right there. I put one hand on his bicep, and the other on his shoulder.
“Elliott, stop,” I said quietly. Nothing good would come from him hurting that kid, as much as I wanted him to. If he got caught beating someone else up, he’d probably get expelled, if not worse.
His jaw was clenched tightly, but I felt the muscles under my hands gently release. It was enough for the boy to sneak away, rubbing his neck. Elliott stood there paralyzed for a long time, even after the bell rang.
Body shaking, chest heaving, Elliott looked lost.
The hall was empty now. As I went to hold his hand, I absently wondered if his broken fingers felt any better.
“Elliott,” I whispered after long moments of silence.
Finally he turned to me, sucking in a long but stunted breath. “O-o-okay?”
I took a step back, releasing my hold on him. “I’m fine. How about you?” I regarded him carefully as I remembered how he’d been looking at that boy. Elliott was staring at my hand, and just nodded. Moments later, he gently grabbed hold of my pinkie, leading me to my first period classroom.
Just outside the door, he stopped, and pushed my hair away, brushing his thumb over the four small indentations on my neck. “D-don’t get hhhigh today, o-okay?”
I nodded against my will. Elliott smiled again and brushed my scar one more time, and then he was gone.
I tried not wanting to get high. I tried not getting high. Somehow I fell asleep in first period and woke with a start.
Nothing went right the rest of the day.
I spilled chemicals all over the darkroom in Photography. I said shit all wrong in Spanish, and I fell asleep again in Calculus.
I really needed to get some sleep, just not at school, and definitely not sober.
At the beginning of Study Hall, I stood outside the double doors to the library, my heart racing as I tried to think of a way to keep my promise to Elliott, but still block the assault of emotions that was pummeling me.
Something was very wrong with me. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like not being high. I didn’t like feeling like this. I didn’t want to keep going this way.
I couldn’t bring myself to enter the library, and I hated myself for it. Elliott was expecting me to sit with him. The pills in my pocket were calling me, tempting me, burning me with the calm, the peace, the numbness they offered.
I sank down onto the floor and just sat there. I felt like shit. Like complete shit. I told him that I would sit with him and now I couldn’t even go in there. He’d think this was about him like he always did, and maybe it was, I didn’t know.
I’d told Brody that Elliott was my boyfriend. What the hell was that about?
He would give me that look and it was going to make me feel even worse because he didn’t deserve this shit. I should’ve been able to go in there and sit with him and not give a shit about anything because at least he was there with me.
But it was just too crazy inside my head.
This day was crap and I just wanted to get high.
But I made a promise to Elliott that I didn’t want to break.
It pissed me off.
I walked toward Mr. Reese’s greenhouse, but got sidetracked when I got all jittery and nervous. I wanted to go back to Tom’s and sleep.
I barely made it to the bathroom where I threw up. It was only bile since I ate next to nothing for breakfast this morning. The bell rang, signaling the beginning of lunch. Splashing water on my face and drying it with a thin, brown paper towel, I looked at myself in the mirror.
Unlike Andrea, whose mind distorted the image that she saw, I could see myself perfectly, and I hated my reflection.
My collarbone stuck out oddly on one side. My skin was too pale, my lips not full enough. My knuckles were too big, my eyes too hollow. Was there even a person left inside this warped body?
I stared at my eyes, but I couldn’t do it for long.
I dropped my gaze and examined my cheekbone. Then I felt ghost touches and pinched my eyes closed. I could smell his breath and taste his skin, and if I had anything left in my stomach, I would have thrown up again.
Another bell rang. It must have signaled the end of the lunch period. Had I been in the bathroom that long? I forced my eyes open and washed my hands very thoroughly before sloppily taking my blood sugar and then exiting the bathroom. Elliott would be there with his wounded puppy face, and I would say sorry, and he would make it better for me.
When I got outside, I realized there was commotion in the hall. I was short and the crowd of people was tall, so I had no idea what the hell was happening, although based on the response and the cheers, there was a fight going on. I spun around when someone touched my shoulder, and instinctively I pushed whoever it was away.
A finger curled around mine and I took a deep breath, looking up to find Elliott’s worried expression. Just like before when looking into my own eyes, I couldn’t look at him for long.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. Someone pushed against my back, sending me closer to him, and I was suddenly in his arms, my head pressed against his chest as I breathed him in.
It took a long a minute for me to remember that we were in school and there were people all around us. And then I remembered there was some kind of commotion. “What’s going on?” I asked as I stepped back.
He held onto my pinkie finger, tethering me to him, and peered over the crowd. Elliott was tall enough to see over most of us vertically challenged people.
“J-J-J-JJJJason,” he said and then he stopped as his cheeks sort of ballooned out and his face got red. He pursed his lips and my heart ached for him, even as it ached more than enough for myself.
After a few seconds, he was able to continue. “C-CCChrissss.”
“Jason and Chris?” I turned toward the commotion as if I’d be able to see anything. “They’re fighting?”
He tugged on my finger and we walked away from the crowd. He led me around, taking me another, much quieter way to the greenhouse. Once inside and seated at our table, Elliott asked, “O-o-okay?”
I looked away because his beautiful concern was too much.
He didn’t ask about Study Hall, and the fact that he didn’t made me feel like shit. I knew he wanted to, but he kept his questions about my whereabouts to himself.
So far, I had kept my promise, but I wanted to get high so fucking badly. I could literally feel those pills in my pocket. While it was comforting to know they were there if I absolutely needed them, I hated them, just as I hated myself. They were such a temptation, and I felt myself losing my very thin thread of willpower.
It wasn’t fair that he asked me not to get high today. This stuff in my head hurt, and I didn’t want to feel it. The day had been horrible. First the breakfast with Tom, all fucking blueberries and burnt hands on the coffeepot, then ripping my bag and snagging my gloves. And Aiden’s hand on my breast, and that boy’s hand on my ass. And his fucking voice in my head, whispering things I didn’t want to hear.
I was angry at this whole stupid thing. There was no reason for me not to be high right now. Elliott and his stupid concern pissed me off. I shouldn’t have been concerned with his feelings. I had messed this whole move to Damascus all up.
I wasn’t supposed to be surrounded by people who gave a damn about what I did, and I certainly wasn’t supposed to be all wrapped up in some guy and his emotions. The inevitable disappointment he’d eventually feel hurt me too. It wounded me, and yet at the same time it stoked the fire within me and made me angrier.
This was ridiculous. I could be high, but I wasn’t. I was sober and sitting next to Elliott, waiting for class to start, hoping that somehow that horribl
e voice would shut up, because I didn’t want to be called a dirty girl right now.
I put my head down on the cold Formica table, extending my arms and wrapping my hands around the front edge of the table. I felt sick.
“SSSSophie?”
I ignored him because I didn’t want to talk to him right now. I wasn’t okay and I didn’t want to see his puppy face when I said that I wanted to get high.
I could hear Mr. Reese speaking and I took a deep breath, because his voice gave way to another.
You’re such a dirty girl, Sophie. Show me how dirty you can be and I won’t tell your mother.
My eyes snapped open and I sat up straight. My stomach lurched as something warm wrapped around my left hand and I looked down.
Elliott was holding it.
I still couldn’t look at him, but I squeezed his hand because this shit hurt.
I was supposed to go to P.E., but when Elliott turned toward the Administrative office, giving me a small lopsided smile as he went, I felt sick again. When I saw Aiden, I somehow made my way to the boy’s bathroom with him. I hated the smell of men’s bathrooms. There was nothing nastier than the smell of that urinal cake mixed with the pheromones of multiple men’s piss.
But once inside the stall, he took the long pointed stick of a pen cap and dipped it into the white powder, holding it out to me. “That’s my girl!” he exclaimed as I snorted it.
It grew dark around me.
Be my beautiful, dirty girl.
Don’t start that shit, Sophie. Don’t make me tell your mother.
Then the head rush kicked in and I leaned my head back against the red metal wall. That was better. I couldn’t feel that painful shit in my head seeping out and tainting my muscles and bone. Instead I felt the rush of whatever the hell I’d just inhaled.
Aiden pressed himself against me like I was going to let him do me in this bathroom that smelled like piss and shit. Maybe some other day I would have, but right now I just wanted to buy more of that shit and not be touched by him.
Languidly, I pushed him back. “How much will forty bucks buy?”
He attached his mouth to my neck as he touched me between my legs. “Not much, but I can front you some.”
I was confused because Aiden never fronted me anything since that first time I bought coke from him. I was also confused because he was rubbing me through my jeans and while it felt good, something inside my slow, yet speeding brain was yelling at me that it was wrong.
“How much will you front me? I don’t get paid until…”
“Suck my dick, Sophie, and I’ll front you a gram.”
My hands were suddenly fisted and Aiden gripped my shoulders as he tried to push down. I pushed him back with my fist. “Just give me forty bucks worth, Aiden.” My voice shook and I just wanted him to give me the shit and go away.
I didn’t want to be in this smelly bathroom with him. He pressed in again, moving closer. I didn’t want to kiss him. I turned my head, and pushed at him again. “I’m not going to have sex with you.”
He licked my neck and I shivered. My body responded even though I didn’t want it to. I pressed at him again and he stepped back.
“If I fucked you in the bathroom, would Dalton kick my ass too?”
I shoved my hand in my pocket, wanting to wrap it around that green rock I carried around now, but instead I pulled out the rest of my money. “Just give me that shit.”
Finally, he backed off of me and set about getting my shit ready. It wasn’t but a moment after he left the stall and I heard the bathroom door open and close when I snorted every last speck of what he left. Just moments after that, I was sitting on the dirty floor in the smelly, nasty boy’s bathroom, shivering.
“W-what did you t-t-take?”
I swayed a little. “I was being good.” Elliott kept looking at me, waiting for me to answer his question, but I couldn’t remember the answer. I couldn’t focus. “I shouldn’t have…I don’t know why I did.”
“W-what did you t-take?”
I thought for a moment, my eyes darting around the parking lot quickly, not focusing on any one thing. My nose itched. I’d snorted whatever it was, but all I could remember was Aiden stopping me in the hall and showing me something new.
I’d said that I wasn’t interested, but then what?
Then I kept hearing his voice, remembering his smell. He told me that I was so beautiful and that if I would just stop moving away, it wouldn’t hurt as much.
I didn’t want to hear it anymore. I didn’t want to see him when I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to feel it, especially when I was sitting next to Elliott during Horticulture. So I’d found Aiden during last period and he let me try a little. I bought some and snorted it in the bathroom, then felt guilty about it.
I had known that Elliott would be so disappointed. I didn’t want to disappoint him, but immediately after I’d snorted it, I knew he would be. I sat in that bathroom stall with stupid tears leaking from my eyes until the final bell rang. By that time, my legs tingled and I was shaking.
“SSSophie?”
“I don’t know.”
“W-w-why did you? Did I do ssssomething to…”
“No!” I tightened my hold on his arm. Why did he always have to take things so personally? This wasn’t about him at all. This was about my screwed-up brain and my need to make stuff go away.
He reached out to brush a stray lock of my hair off of my forehead, and I flinched. “I’m sorry.” I let go of his arm and grabbed his hand before he could drop it back down to his side, and squeezed it tightly. “I won’t do it again.”
I shivered again and the fear that Elliott would see and know the truth assaulted me from the inside. He would leave. I wasn’t able to keep my word to him. I was horrible. I was bad. I wasn’t worthy. I didn’t want to do this anymore. I wanted to be good for him. I wanted him to love me and stay with me.
“I’m sorry. Don’t leave. I’ll be good, I swear. I won’t do it again! I promise I won’t. Just don’t…”
My mouth kept spouting stuff like that while my mind ran away from me, hating Elliott’s expression. My mind kept telling me that I didn’t deserve him, and the look on his face was proof enough.
But as my mouth kept promising that I’d do better, that I’d be better, and my mind kept telling me that I never would do better and I’d never deserve Elliott, he opened up his arms and pulled me to him.
I couldn’t think straight, but his arms and body felt so good.
I had no idea where the day had gone.
She was so incredibly high and couldn’t tell me what she was on. I nearly panicked, but her frantic pleas calmed me, oddly enough. Her nearly hysterical rambling and confusion reminded me of the last time Jane cut herself. This wasn’t good. Sophie shouldn’t be using drugs like this. I needed her to stop. I didn’t think I could handle this anymore. If she didn’t get better soon, I didn’t know what I’d do.
I pulled Sophie to me, hugging her close in the middle of the school parking lot while straggling students walked past, not even bothering to pretend not to stare.
She clung to me and I let her for many reasons. First, it was incredibly cold and I didn’t know where her coat and hat were, second, because I liked the feel of her so close to me, and third, she was so high that I was frightened she’d fall.
She didn’t look right, she wasn’t acting right, and she couldn’t speak right.
I thought that she’d gone to her last class when I headed to see Ms. Rice. After painstakingly making it halfway through Green Eggs and Ham, I waited for Sophie by her locker, but she never showed up. I checked by the gym and she wasn’t there. Then I checked in the library, and only found Mrs. Peters. Finally I went outside and found her standing in the middle of the parking lot looking around as if she didn’t know
how she got there.
I raced over.
“Elliott! I found you.” She wiped her nose with the heel of her hand as she bounced with chemical energy. “I thought I was lost.”
She was babbling, saying she didn’t know what got her to this point or why she’d gone so far. Although she said that she hadn’t meant to get high, and was trying to be good, I had no idea how someone could not mean to get high. Especially not that high. But she just kept saying it over and over. I’d never seen her this bad before.
So now, as I held her to me, feeling her shaking and knowing that it wasn’t just the cold that was giving her chills, I kissed the top of her head and automatically swept my thumb across the four raised points of her fork scar.
“SSSSophie, where’s your c-coat?”
It took a few seconds before she mumbled something into my chest, her arms tightening around me. I removed her hand from my shoulder to tilt her chin up and look into her eyes, giving her a quizzical look.
She repeated her answer, only this time with more emotion. “I don’t know!” She broke out in sobs once again, pressing herself into me, and burying her face and tears in my coat.
“Is it in your l-l-l-llllllocker?”
She nodded and I turned us both toward the school, intending to retrieve her things, but her legs buckled and I caught her just in time to save her from the pavement.
“Don’t leave, Elliott,” she whispered, causing dual reactions. While I was thrilled that she wanted me around, I was heartbroken that she believed I might actually leave her. She obviously didn’t understand that I was probably completely unable to leave her. I didn’t think my body would comply even if my brain demanded it.
“I-I-I’m not lllllleaving. We need to get your sssss…things.”
I managed to get us closer to the school. It was difficult, since she wasn’t really walking on her own, and she was leaning into me.
“We ssshould sssee SSS-Stephen.”
She stopped. “No! He’s a spy and he’ll tell them and they’ll send me away. They’ll take me away from you.”