Swallow

Chapter 1.73:

I tore off outside and across the lawn to chase Riley down. There was no way she could have gotten far. It had only been a few minutes and she had short legs. I should have easily been able to catch her since one of my strides was about four of hers.

The spot in front of the house where she had parked the night before was empty.

I stopped near the street and turned my head, looking both ways to try to catch a glimpse of which way she was headed. There were no clues or flashes of movement anywhere within my line of sight. The street was eerily silent around me.

Riley had just disappeared into thin air.

"FUCK!" I screamed as loud as I could.

Riley never listened to me before about anything.

Why did she pick right now to start?

I sprinted back inside the house to get dressed to go out to search for her. There were only so many places she could have gone in a town the size of this one. 

I grabbed a wadded-up t-shirt off the floor, not caring if it was clean. The only thing that mattered right now was finding Riley and making this complication between us disappear as fast as possible.

I grabbed my keys off my dresser and paused for a second, looking down at the pills lying loose on the dresser. They began singing a sweet song to me to lure me back in. The louder they called to me, the more my mouth began watering for a tiny glimpse into the darkness. Taking a few right now wasn't going to hurt my sobriety. I had been sober for months and was much stronger than before.

The shadowy voice in my head reassured me that I could keep myself under control as long as I only gave in this one time. The only way I could talk to Riley and keep a level head was not to feel anything for a while.  It was the only way to seal the memories back up and hide them until they didn't exist. I needed them to stay calm.

Fuck it.

I was going to take them. I could stop again whenever I wanted to. Just a couple would be enough. No one would even have to know it happened.

I started to open my mouth to place them on my tongue and hesitated. The Oxy's delayed release wouldn't hit my system fast enough if I swallowed them right now.  The quick fix approach would work much better to get my body back under control. 

There was only one way for me to get what I needed quickly.

I bent down and grabbed two loose guitar picks off the floor that were casualties from my drawer smashing tirade.  I flattened one of them against the first pill using my finger and thumb. The pill easily crumbled into a fine powder as I applied more pressure.  I reworked the small pile repeatedly until I had every little grain crushed and then used the second pick like a shovel to scoop it up. I pinched my nostril as I brought my nose closer and inhaled deeply until the pill residue was all gone.

It burned like a blowtorch was firing away directly on the membranes of my nose.  It stung so terribly that I had to fight the natural urge to blow the powder back out for relief.  My throat felt utterly devoid of any fluid and wanted to close up on itself. 

Eating a whole fistful of lava would have been more pleasant.

The first hit was always the worst.

I had forgotten how much I hated the feeling.  It was one thing to take them this way when you were already halfway gone, but completely sober was a whole other level of hell. 

One pill wasn't going to be enough for me. I had to have more to get the burning to disappear.

I went back for another pill and went through the same motion; this time the only difference was I snorted it up the other nostril to even the score.  My head felt lighter as I took in the other pile.