Free fall

Kenny

Kenny and I are dying together. Not in that fantasy Romeo-Juliet type dying together. Think Jane and Jesse, falling into a spiral of drug and alcohol abuse, constant sleep, running to escape the world we live in.
Things weren't always this way. When I first met Kenny, he was like no other. I was young, 14, and was astonished to the idea of someone loving me. My friends poked fun at me, and rightfully so- I was obsessed with him. I could think of nothing but him, watching for his messages, his posts, yearning for his love like a lost child.
The first moment I realized I loved Kenny we were driving out to the beach. The windows were down, and I was blasting Chiquitita Ending, Kenny making fun on my song choice. A happy tune on a loop by DancingRoom. I didn't turn it off, it encompassed my new found love and joy within him.
Kenny is much different now than he was before. Better, yes, but still making reckless decisions as he always did. I made things this way, enabled behavior that deserved punishment and severance, sticking by his side despite all the hurt he could ever cause me.
Young Kenny was broken, unpredictable, toxic. He would take breaks from me to hook up with his ex, taking her to see Christmas lights I'd planned, dates I had imagined, ruining the possibility of us going together. There was a few times when, even worse, he would hook up with someone random- a friend, a classmate. Everyone was a threat to our relationship to me, yet in reality the threat then was him. He was the one screwing around, playing back and forth games with my head.
But when Kenny was normal, when he loved me, it was beautiful. I felt like I belonged on this earth, someone cared for me, someone wanted me here. And Kenny loved me more than anything, though it was never demonstrated at the time.
That was years ago, back in high school. Eventually I snapped, screaming at him to be out of my life, to give me back everything I'd ever bought him, blocking him on every account. He changed that day, perhaps the threat of me leaving finally settled into him. Since then, we'd never had a threat to our relationship- he cut off all the women he'd been with, his ex, devoted himself to bettering his life and our relationship. Most importantly, he prioritized loving me. Things stay that way to this day, yet the dynamic is different.
Irony is woven in our story. It floods into every crack and crevice, seeping in like a sponge to water. Now I'm the toxic one- I do the hurting, I'm the unpredictable one.

*****
Kenny was arrested two years ago for possession of a controlled substance. Suboxone, of all things. I told him countless times what a useless habit he'd picked up, begged him to stop buying them. His solution to my disdain for his new hobby was to have me try one of my own.
And so it began. Kenny would come home at random times with different drugs- Xanax, Vicodin, mushrooms. I began to eagerly accept a portion each time, even beginning to ask for him to go buy more than he'd came back with.
"This is getting unhealthy Val." He said, sitting next to me, his head in his hands. "You're starting to worry me."
"It was never healthy." I would always reply.
But of the vast menu of substances to abuse, I soon found my simple favorite- alcohol. So quick, so effective. Available to me at every corner, liquor practically dripping from my fingertips as every corner store screamed its existence to me. Best of all, it was normalized, and easy to hide when inappropriate. Shooters in the purse, quick gulps while Kenny slept or showered. Even a swig before entering my family's home. Chew a piece of gum, eat a small snack- alcohol stench gone from your breath, but still sitting in your system, numbing your mind to the harsh realities of the world.
Kenny began to grow frustrated with my new addiction, even pushing me to enjoy myself a few AA meetings with my dad. He would hide any liquor of his own, dump mine down the drain when he found me drunk on a work night. I screamed to him that my desire for alcohol was no different than his desire for pills, he pushed back that his use was rare, that mine was chronic. Maybe there was a difference. I don't quite care.
Eventually I began to manipulate him into letting it slide- say I would only have one drink and sneak a few, just enough to enjoy the numbness I searched for but to pass by as merely buzzed when he was awake. I would buy my own alcohol and hide it in my work bag, so when Kenny woke and checked the vodka in the freezer to see if I'd gotten myself wasted, there was nothing to arouse suspicion.
And so, as the time passed on, my brain began to rot out, my hopes and dreams spilling from me as I blew each paycheck on booze. Broke, drunk, and empty, a sunk deeper into my own pit of despair.

*****
I had wanted to be a psychiatrist once. College, however, is quite harsh. It smacks you in the face and makes you realize you aren't as smart as you'd always thought you were. You learn that no, you can't make it into medical school, no you can't pass organic chemistry. No, you won't make it.
I settled to be a psychiatric PA. Still a difficult path, but one I could do. So long as it meant pursuing my dreams of helping others- helping people like Kenny, like my father. Everyone is broken in their own way, and everyone deserves someone who gives a shit.
But now that truly feels just as it was stated- a dream. A far fetched story of what could be.
"Pour me one, would you?" Kenny asks from the couch. "You're making the pineapple drink right?".
"Sure." I reply, pouring one shot into his pineapple juice and three shots into my own. I sink into the couch, handing over his cup and clicking House onto the TV. "This show makes me think I still might become a PA one day."
Kenny nudges me with his toe. "What do you mean? Of course you'll still become a PA. You're just still in the schooling portion. It'll be over before you know it, and you'll be changing peoples lives."
I smile in return.
"You're the smartest girl I know Val." He continues, nudging me again. "And I'm so proud of you and all you've ever done, you're the strongest person on this earth." Ironic of him to say, considering what he's gone through.
But we won't get into that right now.
"Why would you think you can't do it?"
I shrugged. "I dunno. Just feeling insecure I guess."
"I believe in you, you know that right?"
"I do."
He nestles back into his sunken couch corner. "Good."
I wasn't lying- I knew he was proud of me, I knew he thought I was smart, strong. That didn't mean that I was.
I'd also wanted to be a writer once, and Kenny encouraged that wholeheartedly. He would egg me to write my stupid little stories, any little fiction that came to mind. When I was younger I was passionate for writing. I wrote stories on wattpad, getting thousands upon thousands of views, comments, likes. This was not a reality, as I was reminded by my parents. Writers don't make it far, they said.
I suppose I'm no longer telling you about Kenny, but myself.