“I don’t doubt it,” I murmured. The journal I was holding in my hand felt heavy and painful as if it were on fire. Guilt tugged at me as Ty’s face flashed into my mind, and then Ava’s, but I pushed it aside. I wasn’t like Ava, I was smart. I wouldn’t OD. I knew when enough was enough.
“Here,” Jesse said. “Try some.”
I hesitated, unsure if I should take the plunge and snort it. I needed it, oh, God, I needed it, but I was afraid. I was afraid of who I was when I was high. I was afraid of hurting someone. I was afraid of hurting myself. There was no feeling quite as terrifying as being out of control, and yet, there was nothing like just letting go.
“You’re a bad influence,” I said to Jesse. He laughed, but nothing was funny. In fact, as I leaned over the table and plugged one nostril, I was feeling anything but amused.
“There you go, baby,” Jesse said as I sat back. “Welcome to dreamland.” I closed my eyes, breathing deep, allowing euphoria to embrace me. I knew it was wrong, but how could something so wrong feel so goddamn right?
“Life is hard, man,” I said, sitting back on the couch. Jesse looked over at me with blood-shot eyes. I wasn’t sure if he was coherent for the conversation, but I didn’t care.
“Fuck yeah, it is,” he said.
“It’s hard, and it’s long, and it sucks. It sucks big time.” I closed my eyes again and thought of Ava, lying in that hospital bed, sick, weak, and desperate for another quick fix. I wanted so badly to judge her, to roll my eyes and insist that she was the drug addict, that she was the one who needed help. But even then, even though I knew that it wasn’t just her, that it was me too, I couldn’t stop.
It was midnight when a friend of Jesse’s stopped by my house to pick up some weed. He was a handsome kid, not like Jay or Carter, but cute in a boyish sort of way like Jesse was. He smelled of booze and cigarettes and walked with his hands jammed deep down in his pockets like a criminal, but I liked him, anyway.
“I’m Paul,” he said. I shook his hand and, feeling sociable, stepped aside so he could come in. Had I been sober, I wouldn’t have thought twice about turning him away. “Ah,” he said, looking around. “The party’s been here the whole time.”
“Shit yeah, dude,” Jesse said. He scooted another cushion over so both Paul and I could sit before reaching for a syringe.
“Is this your woman?” Paul asked Jesse, and I felt myself shifting uncomfortably as his hazel eyes flickered over my breasts.
“I’m nobody’s woman,” I said. “My name is Khloe.”
“Well, Khloe…” Paul leaned into me. His breath was ripe with stale beer and cigarettes. With him in my face, it wasn’t so appealing. “What’s a pretty thing like you doing with a loser like Jesse?”
“Hey,” Jesse said. “Don’t be a prick.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Don’t be a prick.” Paul smiled at this as if I’d said something funny, and I suddenly wished I wouldn’t have invited him in. Instead of being a bitch, though, I swiped the bottle of vodka from the coffee table and took a long swig, hoping the booze could soothe my nerves. Paul watched me with intense, beady eyes, like a hungry animal scoping out its next meal. What a creep.
I didn’t realize how fucked up I really was until an hour or so later when I started seeing double and then triple. Twice I tried to get up to get to go to the bathroom to throw up, and twice I found myself vomiting into the trash bin instead. I didn’t care. I was too drunk to notice, too high to think twice about it. I continued to drink and kept on smoking until Jesse, catching me off guard, decided to say something.
“Maybe you should slow down,” he muttered. Despite his hypocritical suggestion, the glaze in his eyes made it clear that he was just as out of it as I was, possibly more.
“Chill out, dude,” Paul said. He, too, had been taking swings from the vodka bottle and shooting up whatever Jesse had put in the syringe. Now, as he leaned in toward me, grinning, I didn’t find myself pulling away. I allowed Paul to trail his fingers up and down my arms. Behind him, Jesse watched us, but he said nothing. He was silent as if afraid of telling Paul to back off. I was too drunk to really notice. I watched Paul’s hands run down my arms and onto my thighs, feeling as though I was watching myself through the eyes of someone else, another being who would watch the scene play out with accusing eyes. I used to be that accusing person. Not anymore.
I shivered involuntarily as Paul’s fingers slipped between my thighs, gently caressing the area between my legs. Sober, I would have pushed him away, possibly even punched him but wasted, I didn’t care. It was hard to care about much of anything when the reality was nothing more than a twisted sense of Alice in Wonderland-type shit. Alcohol lowered my inhibitions, and drugs washed them away completely.
I closed my eyes, feeling Paul’s fingers on me, and a moment later, his lips touched mine. Behind him, Jesse said something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I didn’t care. As Paul kissed me, aggressively, his fingers digging into the sensitive curves of my skin, the world slowly began to fade out.
“No,” I whispered. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Relax,” he said. “You know you want this.”
At least once in everybody’s life, you’ve had that moment. Well, maybe not everybody, but drug and alcohol users have, that’s for sure. I’m talking about the moment of shame that comes with waking up after a bad night, and all at once every bad decision you made while altered comes back to you like a slap in the face. It leaves you breathless and ashamed, terrified to let it happen again. For me, that moment didn’t happen, but it should have, and it didn’t. I felt no shame because the night I’d spent with Paul and Jesse was a blacked-out memory, already gone and faded as though a hundred years old. I had no idea what had happened. I couldn’t remember. And if there’s anything worse than remembering every bad thing you did, it’s not being able to remember anything at all.
I was in my bed, face down in the pillow, and I was in such pain from head to toe that I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d been hit by a truck. The house was silent and empty; both Jesse and Paul gone. I lifted my head as far as I could from the mattress, squinting, trying not to allow the migraine to overtake me. It was almost noon. With great effort, I sat up and swung my legs over the bed, shaking.
I was naked.
I looked down at my body, tracing fingers over the circular black and blue bruises up and down my arms. Jesus. Had I been raped? No. But I’d had sex. Rough sex. Drunk sex. Blackout sex. Not the good kind of sex. Feeling panicky, I looked around my bedroom praying I’d spot at least a used condom, but there was nothing to be found. There was simply a cold, hard reminder that something had happened last night—something I would never remember, and the fault was all mine.
I stood and slipped on a robe, feeling oddly like I’d been violated. As I brushed my teeth, I couldn’t help but notice the way my hands shook. The shaking was so severe, in fact, that twice I dropped the brush in the sink and had to start over. As I leaned over the counter, my heart thudded in my chest. A tight sensation gnawed at me as if I was about to have some sort of anxiety attack. I straightened up, took a deep breath, and reached automatically for a half-empty bottle of tequila sitting on the bathroom sink. I took a drink of it, holding my breath, wondering if I would puke before I passed out or vice versa. I stumbled back to the bed and flopped down. The pounding in my head was vicious like somebody had beaten in my skull with an iron hammer. I reached for the cell phone on my nightstand and dialed Jesse’s number, wincing as the ringtone buzzed in my ear.
“Jesse,” I said when he answered. “What happened last night?”
“Good morning to you, too, sunshine,” Jesse said, and I had the overwhelming urge to find him and punch him in the nuts. “Did you have a good time last night?”
“Sure,” I said. I closed my eyes, wishing the pounding in my brain would stop. “All the way up until I blacked out and woke up naked this morning.”
/> “Oh yeah,” Jesse said. “About that.”
“Did we have sex?” I made a half-assed attempt to sit up, but I was suddenly nauseous. Instead, I reached for the tequila on the dresser and took another drink. My hands were still shaking.
“Not just you and me,” Jesse said. He sounded distracted. “You fucked Paul, too.”
“Shit.” I lowered my head between my knees, feeling weak and dizzy. The thought of having had sex with yet another grade-A douchebag made me want to vomit all over my bedroom floor. It was bad enough I knew that I had forgiven Jesse to the point of sleeping with him, but Paul? He’d been a stranger, and one I hadn’t really liked at that.
“You okay?” Jesse asked, and I wanted to snap at him. Instead, I took a ragged breath and another swig of tequila, praying I would become buzzed enough to keep this hangover from completely engulfing me.
“I have to go.” I hung up the cell phone and got shakily to my feet in desperate need of a shower. As I shrugged off my robe, I took another drink from the bottle, anxious and numb. My thoughts ran wild, a twisted mess in a black hole of confusion. I tried desperately to rack my memory, tried to recall anything from the night before. There was nothing.
The water in the shower was warm against my skin, washing away the horrors of the blackout night. As I scrubbed, my eyes skimmed over the tiny pin-hole-like dots in my arms from where I had been shooting up all night. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall of the shower, sick to my stomach. I wondered what Carter would say if he were here. He would be so disappointed in me. He would shut down and mope around like a child until I was ready to forfeit and apologize. He’d been good at that. He always knew when it was time to pull away from me. He’d always been able to show me just how badly I’d fucked up simply by shutting down and not talking. I would have gotten desperate and clingy, blubbering an apology while I sobbed into his lap. Not anymore, though. Now, there wasn’t anyone who would be disappointed in me.
Well, maybe one.
I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower before drying and dressing. As I did so, I finished off the last bit of tequila while I grabbed some clothes from my drawers and stuffed them into an old gym bag. I slung the bag over my shoulder and stumbled out to the car, not bothering to call him first. I figured that if Jay weren’t home, that would be the perfect opportunity for me to turn around and head home.
I tried, I could say. I tried for you, Carter.
My hands were still shaking as I pulled up to Jay’s place and shut off the engine. I stepped out of the car and grabbed my bag, taking another steadying breath before heading up to his floor. I stopped in front of the door and raised my hand, hesitating, ready to bolt. My fist swayed where it hung in the air. I closed my eyes, took another breath, and took one unsteady step back. Then I turned to leave.
“Khloe?” The door to the condo opened. I stopped where I was, flinching. It was too late to escape now.
“Hi, Jay.” I turned back around, letting my bag drop next to my feet on the ground. “I need your help.”
I stood facing him, hands dangling by my side, head pounding with the debilitating pain of my hangover. I knew that if I stood there much longer, I would fall over before I had the chance to sit down.
“Anything,” Jay said. For some reason, he didn’t seem surprised to see me there as if he’d been expecting me. He came out and picked up my gym bag before moving aside so I could come in. I looked around, feeling uncomfortable, wondering if it was too late to bolt.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I said. “I need to get sober, Jay. I need to get sober for Carter, but especially for myself. I can’t keep living like this.” Instead of saying anything, Jay reached out and drew me in for a hug. He smelled of old spice and soap, a comforting smell and a smell I could trust. “I can’t do this without you.” I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of his skin against my cheek. “I can’t do this alone. I’ll break.” He pulled away then, holding me out at arm’s length, his eyes meeting mine.
“You know how hard this will be, right?” he said.
“I got sober once before,” I told him. “With Carter. I had a seizure and had to be taken to the ER in the middle of the detox.”
“I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” Jay said. He kissed his hand and then touched my forehead, smiling. His smile was sad, and guilt tugged at me. So many times before I remembered seeing that sad smile on Carter’s face, and for another trying moment, I considered turning around and getting the hell out of there, but I didn’t. I forced myself to stay put, glued to the floor, ready to face my demons no matter how petrified I was.
“I’ll try to leave,” I told him. “I will try to leave when it gets bad. I will probably try to get out of the house, and I may be really mean to you.”
“I have experience with this sort of thing.” Jay grabbed my bag from the floor and flung it over his shoulder. “It may take a couple of days for your body to really start reacting to detox.”
“I hope I won’t have to keep you long,” I admitted. Already, I was wondering if this was a bad idea. Jay wasn’t my doctor. This wasn’t his responsibility, and yet I was dumping it in his lap as if he deserved to deal with it. It was something I had done so many times before with Carter, and it was probably me who had driven him over the edge.
“If it takes a week, I’ll be here for that, too,” Jay said. I met his gaze, feeling an overwhelming emotion of trust and kindness. Jay owed me nothing, and yet here he was, putting his life on hold to help his drug-addict friend through a rough patch.
“I hope it doesn’t take long.” I sat down on his couch, wishing already that I had a bottle of booze between my fingers. The fuzziness from the tequila shots from earlier was already starting to wear off, and the reality of the situation was hitting me in full force.
“You would probably be safer in a hospital,” Jay said. He took a seat next to me, squeezing my shoulder. “You know, under the care of a medical professional.”
“No hospitals,” I said. “I don’t want the police involved.” My tone was sharp, but Jay didn’t draw away or flinch. I had to give him credit for that. Most people were intimidated by my temper. Carter had never been. He’d taken my physical and emotional lashings with a grain of salt.
“They could give you something to make detox more bearable,” Jay said gently, but I shook my head. The hospital was too risky, and I couldn’t put myself in a vulnerable position. If the law were involved, I’d be screwed. I couldn’t let that happen.
“I refuse to go to the hospital,” I said. “I can do this here, with you.” Feeling overwhelmed, I got to my feet, crossing my arms over my chest. “I knew this was a bad idea,” I said. Jay said nothing, only watched me tap my foot nervously. “You don’t want me here. That’s okay. I can’t blame you. I…”
“Sit down, Khloe,” he said. His tone was firm, and I found myself lowering back down onto the couch without argument. “I won’t let you do this alone. I just need you to know that it is going to be hard, and it is going to fucking hurt. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said. “When was your last drink?”
I glanced at my watch. “Like, half an hour ago.”
“Were you shooting up last night?”
I hesitated. “Yes.”
“What was it?”
I looked at the ground, swallowing a lump in my throat. “I don’t know. Heroine, maybe.”
“Have you been taking anything else?”
I almost didn’t answer. “Pills. Narcotics. Vicodin. Oxycodone.” I leaned forward, resting my head in my hands, realizing how deranged that sounded out loud.
“More than once a day?”
I didn’t bother answering.
“Detox symptoms can begin anywhere from twenty-four to forty-eight hours after your last hit,” Jay said. “Sometimes earlier.” I sat up, trying not to think too hard about what I was getting myself int
o.
“I don’t want to go to the hospital,” I told him. “No matter what happens, unless I’m about to die, I do not want to go to the hospital.”
“Fine,” Jay said. “I can respect that as long as I know you’ll be safe without it.”
“Safe? Yes. Happy? No.” I sighed and leaned down, resting my head in my hands. I felt tired. Sick. Emotionally drained. But I knew I was too wired to sleep. “I’m a mess when I drink, Jay. I’m a mess when I do drugs. I do stupid things that I would never even consider while sober. This morning I woke up and heard that I slept with two guys last night, one of them nothing more than a stranger who I didn’t even like. If I’d been sober, he wouldn’t have even been in my house.”
“Funny the stupid shit we do when our inhibitions are gone,” Jay said. “Take it from me.” I sat up to look at him. Jay folded his hands behind his head and leaned back, meeting my eyes.
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “You used to be a drunk.”
“Worse,” Jay said. “Meth. Every goddamn day.”
“Christ.” The pounding in my head was growing worse, and I wanted to slam my skull against the wall just to see if it would ease the discomfort.
“I almost died, Khloe,” Jay said. “Twice.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” I straightened up, squinting. “You seem to be all I have left.”
“That’s not true.”
“You don’t think so?” I asked. Jay met my eyes briefly and then cast his gaze down. I scoffed. “Told you so.”
“Maybe you should stop pushing people away,” he suggested. I laughed, but it was void of humor.
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