Lainey's Story

22

I saw in my ugly green chair with a TV tray in front of me applying makeup to my heavily bruised self as Krist slept, looking completely dead to the world. I've already mentioned Krist could get a little handsy when he was too tweaked out but that night was full-on handsy...and I was supposed to meet my mom for lunch and hopefully get some money from her.

Although I'm not fully sure what had set him off, just that he had come to the conclusion that whatever he'd been stabbing at under the baseboard had somehow been planted by me for whatever reason. He'd been too incoherent to even elaborate on what was going on in that head of his.

What I do know, is that I had gotten done with my bath and had laid in bed to watch Frasier when he came home ranting at me.

Before I knew it, he'd drug me out of bed by my arm, tossing me on the floor, and began pummeling my head with his fist. I did my best to fight him off, I may be small but I'm fast and wiry so I was able to get away briefly.

He'd gotten a handful of my hair, pulling my back, asking me some weird shit about "What did you hide under there? What did you put there?"

I clawed his face, "I don't even know what you're talking about, go the fuck to bed, Krist, go to bed!"

"You'd like that, huh?" he said, overpowering me, eyes dark and empty. Nobody was home so there was no point in trying to rationalize with him.
Krist pinned me briefly before I kneed him in the balls and was able to fight my way out from under him, my adrenaline coursing through my veins.

We had both managed to get to our feet at the same time, as I rushed to reach for the door, he slammed the side of my face into the wall and tried to restrain me. Frantically, I had been able to turn around but in methy speed, he slammed me back against the wall, ranting again about me putting something under the baseboard.

I couldn't move or fight back, my wrists were gripped in his hands so I did the only thing I could, I spit in his face which enraged him. The next thing I knew, his hands were around my throat, strangling me. I remember pleading with him to stop, that I couldn't breathe.

Next thing I remember was pulling myself up from the floor and him sitting silently on the bed, staring at the baseboards.

Wordlessly, I went to the bathroom, closed the door, and sat with my back against it so he couldn't come in. I couldn't lock the door because Bitch Ass had busted the door down, damaging the frame.

I stayed in there for a few hours, knees to my chin, and quietly cried to myself. I was so fucking stupid to let him come back but the whole being in love and all. And I knew the person he was in the apartment at that moment was not him. It was like he was possessed and the demon had overtaken him completely.

Yes, I know it was technically a drug psychosis but if you saw that vacant, evil look in his eyes, you would think the same thing.

I guess that's probably why people refer to addiction as battling your own personal demons because that's what they were. And not everybody gets like he did. I never did. Madi never did. Heck, Fernando did more dope than most of us and he was legit the same fucking dude the whole time.

Krist though. Krist on a bender was a fucking monster who terrorized me...and then he would come down and be so sweet afterward. The real him.

He was gone when I left the bathroom, I don't know where he went and I was so tired but also too scared to go to sleep so I stayed up and waited.

And as predicted, he was back a few hours later. He didn't say anything about where he had been and I didn't ask. I didn't really care.