She got upset that things between us were falling apart again already and screamed at Nicole: "THANKS A FUCKING LOT FOR RUINING EVERYTHING! Now I have to LEAVE again because of YOU!"
They were screaming at each other for a few minutes. Then Lucy came back in the bedroom and locked the door. She told me again that the reason why Nicole wanted me to drive her to North Fort Myers was to go do a Backpage date. Lucy told me to ignore Nicole: "If we lock the door, and pretend to be sleeping, she'll call someone else for a ride eventually."
Now that I knew Nicole was about to go fuck someone else, I figured I might as well have sex with Lucy. Why not?
Lucy stood in front of the bathroom sink naked. I was lying on the bed, rubbing my dick, watching her beautiful breasts while she smoked crack. I was probably gonna end up having to masturbate for an hour again, because she just couldn't stop smoking crack. I was getting really frustrated. She saw how hard I was, so she came out of the bathroom, gently grabbed my dick and sucked the head for a little while, to tease me. Then she smiled her little mischievous smile and went back in the bathroom to smoke more crack.
Nicole wouldn't stop calling our names. She wanted to go to North Fort Myers as soon as possible. She kept texting Lucy that she wanted to leave, and texted me: "Really?" As if to say: "I can't believe you're fucking her!"
That made me feel really guilty. I got dressed.
"What are you doing?" Lucy asked. She hadn't slept in days, and it was finally catching up with her. Her speech was slurred, and her eyes were rolling in the back of her head.
"Nicole isn't gonna stop, so why don't you get some sleep, and I'll drop her off at your grandpa's house. I'll be back as soon as possible."
"No! I don't want you to drive anywhere alone with her. I want to come with you," Lucy replied. She was probably afraid I'd have sex with Nicole.
I told her that she really needed some sleep, and that I was afraid if she'd take a ride, she'd just end up disappearing in some dope boy's dirty motel room again, and then I'd end up driving home without her.
"No," Lucy promised, "I won't do that. I'll just take a ride and after we drop Nicole off, we'll finally make love and get some sleep."
On the way to North Fort Myers, our destination suddenly changed. They were both frantically texting. Then Nicole said she wanted me to drop her off at the Knights Inn. So obviously Lucy had told me the truth about Nicole going to do a call instead of going to her grandpa's house.
Meanwhile they were both answering their phones with their hooker names. Later I found out that both had posted fresh escort ads on Backpage that morning. Now they were both going to do calls.
They answered their phones right in front of me, talking to guys about fucking them, and how much it costs for half an hour or an hour, and that they do full service. They told guys they were available for doubles.
They didn't even realize I was there. Their mind was on their next fix, and what they would have to do to get it. It did not register in their brains at all, how upsetting it was to me to listen to them make plans to fuck other guys. The part of their brains that felt empathy was turned off.
"You two are like braindead zombies," I said angrily.
They didn't care. They were busy making plans. Nothing else mattered.
When we arrived at the Knights Inn, Nicole got out of the car without saying good bye or thank you. She knew I was going to Germany the day after tomorrow, and she wouldn't see me again for a while, but none of that mattered right now. She had drugs on her mind. She disappeared in some dope boy's room. For a fee, he was letting girls like Lucy and Nicole use the room to have sex with guys, and he gave them drugs and took all their money. It was heartbreaking to watch Nicole walk off into that room.
Then Lucy said, "I just gotta grab something out of the room."
"What?" I asked.
"Hold on, I'll be right back," she said and jumped out of the car to follow Nicole.
"You're not coming back, are you?" I asked.
"Of course I am! It'll only take a minute. I'll be right back! Don't leave without me," Lucy said.
I waited 10 minutes. Then I texted Lucy: "Ur not gonna come out, r u?"
"No," was all she texted back.
I fucking knew it. I was so sick of this shit. I had enough. At first Lucy had seemed so different from Veronica, but then she turned out to be just like her. And Nicole seemed so different from girls like Veronica and Lucy, but then she became just like them, as her addiction got worse.
I couldn't take it anymore.
I texted Lucy: "I can't believe u did this to me again. I hope ur proud of urself. It breaks my heart to see u like this. Good luck with everything. Have a nice life."
As I slowly drove out of the parking lot at the Knights Inn, I also texted Nicole: "I'm sorry, but I can't be with a girl who tricks on Backpage. I can't handle when a girl I care about has sex with other people."
I really, really couldn't take it anymore. I felt like I was stuck in some sort of crazy loop, reliving the same painful moments over and over and over. This nightmare had to end.
I know, I've said that about a dozen times throughout this book. So many times, the rational part of me screamed that enough was enough, that I had to quit, that I didn't want to be hurt anymore, but then that other side of me ran right back to one of these drug addicted girls. To start the cycle of pain all over again.
The truth of the matter was, I was an addict every bit as much as they were. They were addicted to crack and heroin. I was addicted to addicts. Have you ever noticed that it's a lot easier to deal with someone else's problems than your own?
They took drugs to forget their shitty life for a little while. And I spent all my time with addicts, worrying about their problems instead of my own, to forget about my own shitty, lonely life.
And the more drugs they took, the shittier their life got. And the more time I spent around drug addicts, the shittier my own life got. I was so busy distracting myself from my own life and my own problems, I completely stopped caring about even the most basic things. I didn't even pay my bills anymore. I didn't open my mail for months. I had a pile of unopened mail about 10 inches high on the kitchen counter. Everything I did was all about some addict girl in my life. I did nothing that was not somehow related to whoever I was “dating” at the time. I was severely codependent.
You might wonder: “If you were so unhappy, why the hell didn't you just stop doing what you were doing? Stay away from crackheads!”
Easier said than done. Ask an obese person why they don't just eat less if being fat makes them miserable. Or ask a smoker why they don't just quit. Or ask a heroin addict why they keep doing heroin if everything about the heroin-lifestyle makes them miserable.
Anyway, so I slowly pulled out of the parking lot. Once I got home, I took a bath for hours. That's what I do to hide from my life when I'm not busy running around with a drug addict. I did a lot of thinking in the tub that night. I decided to write a book about my experiences with addiction and addicts.
Mainly to process everything that had happened. I read that when you write stuff down, you don't think about it all the time anymore. And hopefully reading in black and white how badly my life was going would help me find the strength to end this chapter of my life.
And maybe my book could serve as a warning to others. Maybe someone will read this and learn from my mistakes. Maybe it will help someone else realize that they're stuck in the same self-destructive spiral and get out before it's too late. I like to think that I'm a fairly smart and rational guy. I never would have dreamed of ending up in this crazy situation. And yet, here I was, soaking in the tub for hours, hiding from the world, after not one but two crackheads had broken my heart. Again.
If everything you've read in this book so far sounds absolutely nuts to you, count your blessings. Because that means you have no experience with addiction. But if you or one of your loved ones has struggled with addiction, you recognize all these bizarre scenes I chronic
led in this book, because chaos and insanity is normal, typical life for an addict. If you have never experienced this world yourself, you probably think I just made up a bunch of crazy shit to fill a book. But if you have struggled with addiction yourself, you know it's all true.
The next morning, while I was packing my bags for my Christmas trip to Germany, George called: "So what happened last night? Did you have a threesome with Lucy and Nicole?"
"No, actually I didn't have sex with either one of them," I replied.
He thought that was hilarious: "You had two beautiful girls spend the night at your house, you love both of them, and they both love you, and you didn't have sex with either one? You FAILED! I'm gonna have to revoke your man card."
"We were up all night, because they were doing drugs. And the next day they ditched me at the Knights Inn. It hurt so bad to see them walk into that motel room," I said.
In the afternoon, I got a text from Lucy: "I'm so sorry. I can't believe I did that to u. I don't even know what to say. Just... I'M SO SORRY."
I knew that whenever she had a lucid moment, she really did feel terrible about all the things she had done to me and other people. That's why she couldn't bear to be sober for even a minute. Her head was filled with painful thoughts and traumatic memories. The only way she could get through a day was by completely numbing her emotions with drugs, so she didn't have to think about anything.
Have you ever seen The Notebook? It's a movie about these two old people in a nursing home. A man reads an old lady a story from a handwritten notebook. It's a love story about a young couple. The old lady seems to remember the story, but isn't sure. It turns out she has Alzheimer's, and she was the one who wrote the story of how she and the old man had met. Her disease had progressed to the point where she didn't remember their life together, or even who he was. He was a complete stranger to her now. But every night, when he finished the story, she remembered him for a few minutes. For a few minutes each night, she came back to him, and she remembered how much she loved him. And then the fog took her away again.
That's how I feel about Lucy and Nicole. I love them. They're sweet, beautiful, lovable girls, who deserve all the love, kindness and affection in the world. And sometimes, for just a few minutes, they remember who they used to be. But then the drugs cloud their minds, and the fog takes them away again.
I really hoped they'd get help some day, before it's too late for them.
But I finally began to realize that I didn't have the power to help them. All this time, I was the victim of my savior complex. I thought if I could be someone else's knight in shining armor, I'd feel better about myself, and wouldn't think about how shitty my own life was.
I decided that my trip Germany, to spend Christmas with my parents, was going to be the end of my adventures in Fort Myers' underworld. Getting on the plane would be like me riding into the sunset, while the words THE END slowly scroll across the screen.
And it was perfect timing. It was the end of 2013, so my New Year's resolution for 2014 would be: NO MO HO! No more whores. I decided that I was never going to see them again, I wouldn't contact them, and I wouldn't even think about them anymore. This trip was going to be a clean break, I thought. The beginning of the next chapter of my life.
But the whole time I was in Germany, I kept thinking about Lucy and Nicole. Finally, after about a week, I checked Backpage. It was Christmas Morning. And there they were, posing semi-nude in a whole bunch of their escort ads, day after day, offering to have sex with any random stranger.
I messaged Nicole on Facebook: "Remember our conversation in the car a few weeks ago, when I told you, you wouldn't just fuck guys for a day or two to pay bills, but soon you would be doing it all day every day, and it would become your new life? See, I was right. It always starts like that. And are you happy with your life now? Are you happy living like this? Are you proud of yourself? I know you're not, sweetie. This isn't really you. Please stop. You're slowly killing yourself with this shit. And you're killing me, because I care about you, and I can't stand the thought of you doing this. You told me you are not the kind of girl who sleeps around. But now you spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning letting pervs fuck you and sucking their dick. Did you ever think it would come to this?"
I think I wrote that more for me than for her.
Then I opened Microsoft Word and started typing. I didn't plan out the book. I just started typing, and it all came pouring out of me.
NO MO HO
"Being a nice guy doesn't mean you are a push over. It also doesn't mean you are easy to manipulate or take advantage of. No, being a nice guy simply means you care, have no time to get mad at the small stuff, and you think of the world in larger terms than self. And despite living in the shadow of the bad guys and paying for mistakes you didn't make, you hold on sometimes more than you should, but when you can no longer, you move on because it's the right thing to do."
Eugene Nathaniel Butler
“Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.”
Deborah Reber
“Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.”
Ann Landers
“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”
Steve Maraboli
“Pain will leave you, when you let go.”
Jeremy Aldana
“The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday.”
Steve Maraboli
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Find out how the story ends in the third and final book:
Bad Choices Make Good Stories 3
Finding Happiness in Los Angeles
Now available at
www.BadChoices.us
The Heroin Scene in Fort Myers Page 32