Swallow

Chapter 1.82:

After I left the Davis' house, I wound up down at a shady pawn shop in the heart of the town's drug district. I hocked two of my foot pedals and a small amp I had recently bought before everything around me went to shit. The guy only gave me about a quarter of what they were actually worth, but I needed the cash fast and didn't have many options.

Desperation was an ugly, four-headed beast that was far worse than the actual addiction itself. In order to satiate the cravings, I had to do whatever it took to chase my next high. The money might have only been enough to get me by for a few days, but it would give me the time to pull myself out of the ditch I was trapped in.

Then I would stop. I would quit using, get sober, and be done for good this time. 

I came down from my seven-day binge without anything other than a fuzzy recollection of what I had done in the past week—at least I thought it was a week. I couldn't really be sure exactly how much time I let my addiction swallow me whole. It could have been ten minutes or five years for all the better I knew.

Time always passed differently for me when I was using. The same drug never affected me the same way twice. Sometimes the hours sped up in warp speed and others slowed down to a creeping crawl until everything stopped, frozen in place as time ceased to exist.

There was no rhyme or reason to how anything in my world happened. Everything around me just did what it wanted, bringing me along for the ride.

I came to on a hardwood floor in just my boxers with the neck of an empty Jack bottle clutched tightly in my hand. I blinked myself back into reality and tried to figure out where the hell I ended up. 

My whole body ached as the sensation of being alive came rushing back in. I felt everything overtake me all at once as every nerve in my body fired up and exploded simultaneously. Just the scratchy floor underneath me felt like a billion aluminum paper cuts were shredding me open.

The hole Riley left inside was the worst pain of all. It terrorized my head, filling my chest until I couldn't catch my breath.

And the baby—I couldn't even think about the baby without it all coming full circle back to Riley and the gaping hole. The pain would start again and again until it made me dizzy.

It was too much to handle.

I pushed myself up from the ground, but my arms gave out, unable to support the weight of my enormous, throbbing head. I collapsed back down on the floor and landed on a stack of DVD cases. When I rolled over off them to my other side, I almost pissed myself when a loud crunch sounded at the back of my skull.

The noise reverberated around the room, nearly blowing out both of my eardrums.

This was it—I had finally accomplished what I was determined to do for years. I finally broke my body beyond repair and was seconds away from my death.

The end wasn't what I expected and hurt a fuck ton worse than my demented brain could ever have dreamt up. The stench of death was all around me—weirdly, the smell was surprisingly salty and stale.

I raised my hand to cup the back of my head to feel the spot where my brain was oozing out. My fingers landed against something smooth, cemented flat against my hair. I pulled the odd textured thing away and brought it in front of my face.

It was a yellow, almost empty bag of chips. 

It wasn't my brain. That was somehow still buried some place inside my head.

"What the fuck?" I muttered and turned the bag over to inspect it. I inadvertently dumped the remaining contents all over my bare chest when I moved it too far.