High For This

Chapter 1

          I opened my eyes as far as they could go. The dope always made my face pink and my eyes swell. You'd think I'd fucking stop right? That I need to get the fuck up off my ass and get my shit together, right? I laugh like the crack head I am when people try to tell me shit like that. So they stereotype me as the latest fuck case; a whoring addict with daddy issues. Whatever. I licked my lips as the hunger for my drug kicked me hard in the ass. 

          I tried to get out of bed but an arm was pinning me to the bed. I turned to see Chris McAllister, my next door neighbor sleeping like a drunk puppy. If I had to describe this dude in one word, it would be wimp. I mean, don't get me wrong he has all the good works, dark hair and golden eyes, muscles everywhere, athletic, yada yada. But he was always trying to save me. Save me from what I didn't know. Myself maybe? My demons?  For this, for trying to understand me when I couldn't understand myself, he was a wimp. He should know better than to fall for my type. His meager and unwanted sympathy made him oblivious.  

      He couldn't. Save me. He couldn't.  The needle did a fine job already. All he needed to do was look cute and fuck great. Of course he was always trying to make love to me, but I'm way beyond that. Heroin, sex, a few headache inducing drinks... that's all the love I need. I thrust his arm to the side and got up. I was too lazy and too frantic for my "medicine" to find my clothes - not that what this whore wore made a difference - so I threw on Chris' T-shirt and went in search of my high. I turned over his table, fucked up his closet,  deliberately making a lot of noise not caring one bit that his parents were probably home. What the fuck were they going to tell me? Be happy? Get the fuck out? How can we help? They didn't have the balls, and I didn't have the patience. So the McAllister's and I avoided each other like The Black Death. 

      I threw up my hands in the air, exasperated. Where the hell did he put it? I was seriously contemplating killing this asshole. It was with that thought that the withdrawal kicked up a few notches. My body started to convulse. Shit. My brain began popping and the silence became deafening. My skin was bubbling up, boiling, on fire. I knew it was all in my head. I knew the drugs were owning me. But I couldn't help myself. It was freaking three in the evening in July, the sun bright and hot as fuck and yet I felt so cold, it seemed too dark for my comfort. Because it's always in the night that bad things happen and the good ones go. And fathers enter your room with your dead weight in his arms, your teenage self drugged to oblivion, confused to enlightenment. Always in the dark. And then it was dark. 

                             ***

          A familiar scent brought me back to my fucked over life. Weed. Not my favorite cup of tea but high was high, it was all the same to me. I shot up.

 "Woah, easy. You need to stay down." Chris pinned me to the floor with his knee in my esophagus. Not hard enough to make it hard to breathe, but with enough pressure to keep me down. 

"I'm not a freaking puppy. Get the fuck off of me and give me my stuff so I can go home." My voice sounded raspy, slutty, to my own ears. 

       He looked at me with his emerald-golden eyes with such sympathy that a violent rage erupted inside of me, but I kept myself in check. Hopeless -daddy- whore or not,  I got tired of being tired sometimes. It's this constant cycle. Wake up high. Go to sleep high. Fuck in between. Tell the hot next door neighbor with a big dick trying to love me, to fuck off. Life goes on. Amen. I sighed and took my shit easy. 

        He eased up off of me and slowly, so slowly my lungs hurt and my brain raced, gave me what I loved more than myself. 

       "How do you love a drug more than you love yourself?" I paused with my expertly rolled blunt between my two middle fingers. The crave was gone for a minute, but my mouth was terribly dry. I looked at him perplexed, wondering if he really knew me. For a moment I thought... no, that's crazy. But I thought, I thought, he... No, fuck that. He couldn't. And he wouldn't have done that to me. This fucking basic ass weed wasn't going to erase that shit and I knew it. 

 "Fuck you." I said. 

 "In other words, I am right. Look-" He replied. 

 "Your role is to fuck me good, pull my fucking hair and tell me I am a worthless bitch. Okay? Not to preach this bullshit that you know I won't listen to."

"Alex-"

"I already have my parents to treat me like shit. I'm seventeen and I've had three abortions, my stomach pumped four times in the past month, and I overdosed on cocaine about a week ago. My mom looks at me like the piece of shit I am and my asshole father does the same, and I am okay with that. I ain't wife material Chris. You want a wife? Go fuck a cheerleader. One of those bitches can be your trophy wife and pop out your two point two kids with the freaking good hair and super human athleticism."

"Would you just-" I could tell he was getting pissed, so I kept at it. 

"Would you just go find another whore who can at least hold her liquor and handle her high?" He clenched his fist and worked his jaw. We always did this. I learned long ago how to shut him up when he got all in my head and all in his feelings. He started talking and I interrupted him with things about myself he didn't like to hear. I liked seeing him angry. A part of me wished he would hit me. Just lose his shit and fuck me up and lick away my tears and fuck away my pain because sometimes the drugs and the alcohol and the all of it just wasn't enough. And believe it or not, I wanted to stop. I wanted to be normal. I wanted to be happy. I wanted my friends back. I wanted this boy to love me. But I wanted all of these things for the wrong reasons. 

He sighed and walked out of the room shaking his head. I won but I lost and I wondered if it would always be like that. Me winning but losing.