Clockwork [final]

Three

Later that evening they were sitting in the lounge, Adette reading and Derek sitting and fidgeting agitatedly. She’d given him a magazine in the hopes he would read it, but instead it lay abandoned by his feet. Every inch of him burned with craving.

“Just take it out while she’s gone, she won’t catch you,” the voices hissed in his ears. He shook his head, trying to snap out of it with no success. Almost as if possessed, his hand crept its way into his pocket and closed around the forbidden packet.

It just so happened at that moment, Adette returned. “Derek!” she said sharply, her eyes glinting, “Just what do you think you are doing?”

He jumped about a foot in the air, clumsily stuttering, “I uh, well…”

There was an unexpected stab of irritation in his gut. How was he supposed to answer that? Both of them knew exactly what he had been doing. She sighed, suddenly looking more worried about him than anything else. She sank onto the couch, watching him and deciding what to do while he shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.

“Are you just going to sit there and stare at me?” he grizzled eventually. He was already beginning to feel the effects of withdrawal. She was aggravating him ten times more than she should just sitting there looking at him. It vaguely dawned on him that he was trembling. He felt sweat trickle down his forehead.

“Look,” Adette began, “I want to help you get over this crack addiction, but to do that you’re going to have to want it too. I can’t do it if you don’t try.”

Derek gave a short, sarcastic laugh. “You seriously think you can get me off crack? You must be high too, ginger.” He couldn’t help but feel angry with her. Was this girl delusional? Surely she didn’t think she could just take a crack addict off the streets and cure him with a wave of her magic wand. Why would he want to get better all of a sudden? Just because she told him that he wanted to?

Adette’s expression remained calm, almost eerily blank. “I have seen many worse off than you manage to quit. Are you suggesting you are too weak?”

“So what if I am?” he spat back aggressively.

“I know you’re not that weak, Derek. I may have only just met you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t sense that you have true strength in you.”

Derek scowled. “Don’t feed me that soppy shit, chick. You don’t know anything about me, get it? I got hooked on crack because it made me forget everything. I’m so weak I couldn’t even handle my own past. So how exactly, ginger, could I ever handle getting off it?”

As if something inside her had snapped, Adette’s eyes flashed and she stood up so abruptly he almost flinched.

“Look, I’m trying to save your god damn life here, get it? Do you know what happens to crackheads like you when they keep on this downward spiral? They die, Derek. Don’t lie to yourself. And don’t think I don’t know about this stuff, because… because you’d be surprised, okay?”

With that, she swept out of the room, leaving Derek staring after her in stunned silence. “Jesus,” he whispered to the empty room, “What have I got myself into?”

The hours slipped by, but he remained sitting in the exact same position. Though on the exterior he didn’t move except for the trembling, on the inside he was at war with himself. He barely heard the crashing around upstairs, nor did he notice as the darkness got thicker, pressing in on him, the shadows flickering and dancing like flames. His thoughts were so loud that all other sound and vision were drowned out. He knew this was a decision that would change his life forever.

Early in the hours of the morning, he stood and walked to the dying embers that remained in the fireplace, a little packet clutched so tightly in his hand that his knuckles were white.