Unraveled

Caught

Drug addicts weren't always high. That was hard for a lot of people to understand. Sometimes it was tough to get a high. Sometimes it wasn't necessary. Addicts often had more than one drug of choice. There was always the one that was hard to kick—mine was heroin—and the ones that were the gateway drugs—ecstasy.

In the early days of addiction, addicts act like normal people. They may just use at parties and then go on with their normal lives. Then it turns into a mid-week wind-down. Then it's every other day. Then every day. Then multiple times a day. And then you are either getting high or searching for a high, your skin crawling until you get that sweet relief.

And when an addict relapses, those early days are even shorter. There aren't as many steps between the initial use and the full-blown addiction days.

On one of my early days—about a week and a half after I had relapsed—Billie was at work and I was working on raiding her fridge, a joint positioned between my lips. She was going to be home in an hour. With everything she was doing for me, I could at least make her a decent meal. I wasn't a great cook, but I wasn't too bad at following a recipe.

I found the leftover chicken she'd made the night before and took it out. I tore it apart and tossed it into a bowl with the cream of something soup—it wasn't what the recipe had called for, but it was all she had—and some boxed stuffing. I mixed it and dumped it into a casserole dish. I sprinkled some cheese on it and threw it into the oven.

There were some frozen green beans—which I had used that morning to nurse a hangover—that I dumped into a bowl and set aside to microwave later. Some half-eaten bags of chips and a few beers. Dinner was good to go.

I walked into the living room and was putting out the joint when someone pounded on the door. I took a swig of beer before I set it back down on the coffee table and went to the door.

I opened the door without looking. An angry Will stood on the other side, my father a few feet behind him. It took me a minute to process them standing outside of Billie's house. It took another minute for me to realize that I probably looked like shit. And was obviously high.

"Hey," I said slowly.

"Get your shit and come with us," Will said, brushing past me and into the house before I could stop him.

I stood with my hand on the doorknob as my dad stepped silently into the doorway. Will stood with his hands on his hips; his eyes surveyed the living room. I knew there was a bag of weed and a few joints on the coffee table. Some beers from the night before that I hadn't cleaned up. A couple bags and a kit were strewn on the couch from where I'd shot up after getting drunk last night. There was probably still powder from the line of coke I'd done that morning.

"I'm not going with you. You can't make me," I told them.

"Do you know how long it took us to track you down?" Dad asked in a low voice. "It took us a week to get Jase to tell us who you might be with. A couple of days to figure out where she lived."

"She's at work," I told him as I walked away, brushing past Will, and sitting down on the couch. I picked up one of the bottles I hadn't finished and pointed it in Will's direction. "I'm surprised it took you that long."

Will's eyes landed on mine finally. I held his gaze as I put the bottle to my lips and took a drink.

"Relapse—" he started, but I didn't let him finish.

"Relapse is a part of recovery. I fucking know that."

Will looked at me silently. He wasn't trying to mask his emotions. The anger and the frustration were clear on his face. The knit brows. The set jaw. Hands on the hips. Eyes narrowed just the slightest. This was the tough love act he'd given me when I'd almost relapsed straight out of rehab.