Diaries

Chapter 18

I wasn't ready to be home alone with Swifty again. I spent extra time in the library, learning about drug addiction and withdrawal symptoms as each day began to feel like a personal hell. It was hard to turn it down when Leo would offer, and lately he didn't have any to offer anyway. My muscles were sore, my limbs felt heavy. I wanted to sleep all day, but didn't want to be caught at home by Swifty. I knew his schedule like clock work, so I adjusted mine accordingly.

Mornings I bussed to school. After school, Leo and I would play basketball at the courts between both our neighborhoods. Swifty never kicked him off the team like he threatened, but Leo quit and wouldn't tell me why. Eventually... he stopped coming to the basketball courts, too. Some nights, I'd look for him on his rooftop, not once was he there in the two weeks that had gone by.

I walked past Leo's apartments before heading home as the sun was setting. This had become ritual for the past couple of days. I couldn't understand why he was so hard to get a hold of all of a sudden... and I was too afraid to ask his mother anything. No one was there, and his bedroom light was off.

I looked around and made my way up his stoop. Hopping up to the ladder of the fire escape from the first floor and climbing to the roof. For the first day in a week, he was there... and I had wished I didn't see him laying with his back against the tar stroking himself to a high like no other.

He jumped up immediately, slipping his hand nervously from inside his basketball shorts that were now useless to wear. I didn't take a single step forward. I watched him at my distance, wondering where I had gone wrong for him no longer to want me part of the equation.

"Look, I can explain ..." he was so high his words came out in slurs.

"Explain what, how you're jacking off or how you've been dodging me for a week?!" A wave of rage shot through me. I didn't know if I wanted to leave or stay to hear the answer.

Of course I stayed.

"Me and the guys were out on a little binge and I just didn't know... I didn't know... how to like... tell you." He rubbed his nose repetitively with the back of his hand.

"Binge?" I asked.

He nodded, laughing inappropriately as it definitely wasn't the time.

"Mickey knows somebody... who knows somebody... who has the uppers we like..." He rubbed his eyes next, then began scratching at his face. His skin was dry, as were his lips. He wasn't the same, and I knew it was the drugs to blame, "so we... you know... we were getting those... but I couldn't bring my girlfriend... you know. Like... I have to protect... you... and it was... a dangerous situation."

"So you've been gone for an entire week over pills?!" I'd never seen him look or sound so ignorant. He was torn apart by the substance. I hadn't realized how much we'd been using before this moment, and how much worse it had gotten for him.

He nodded his head, I could see his tongue swishing around the gums beneath his lips.

"Why haven't you at least come to the basketball courts? Or looked for me like I've looked for you? Why were you up here jacking off rather than—"

"Come on baby you know I love you I just... I ... I didn't want you to see me ... like ... like this." He said, his head hanging low as he could barely look me in the eye.

"We'll I love you and there's nothing you could look like to make me not love you anymore. Running away from me and hiding is what will definitely piss me off, but never stop me from loving you." I assured him.

"Well... maybe we're just... not working out. We're two different people. You like... being sad all the time about your parents and I like—"

"Getting stoned all damn day?! You're not playing basketball, where's your notebook?! You don't even write in it anymore!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He was trying to make it seem as if I was the only one with a problem.