Tweaker

viii. bitter change

viii. bitter change

 

     WALKING BACK INTO my room after a beer with Preston and saying my goodbyes to him before he left, I took a good look at Finn’s sleeping form.  This was the first time I’d ever really taken a “good look” at him the entire time I knew him.  I hadn’t really cared about what he looked like before this but now, after finding out about the meth, it seemed important to me.

     Even with his eyes closed, he looked distressed.  His eyebrows were slightly pulled together, creasing in two slits on his forehead.  He always seemed to look confused to me, even if he was angry or upset or worrying -- which he rarely ever did -- unless he flipped the switch and showed no emotion at all.

     Walking a step closer and smiled through my bitterness, hatred, anger and pain, I took in his perfectly shaped lips.  On the right side of his bottom one, he had a loop ring in.  I knew he’d pierced it himself, as he’d always done with piercings.  It didn’t close together; there were two little metal balls on each end, with small spirals wrapping around the balls.

     Finn didn’t only have his lip pierced; he also has his ears gauged.  He often times switched out the gauge he had in, but today he was still wearing his black triangles that I’d picked out for him when we’d went out and treated ourselves to different piercings.  He said he hadn’t liked the circles much, anymore, because they were common and Finn wasn’t common.  He hated being average as much as I did, perhaps even more, so I offered to find him something different and of course he’d accepted, because we always accepted each other’s opinions.

     At that moment, while I was looking over Finn’s sleeping form, I noticed he’d lost some weight.  It wasn’t as bad as it had been for me, but it was noticeable.  His wrists were thinner, his biceps had lost some muscle, his pants were sagging lower than usual, his shirts were slightly more loose on him and his face was more bony.  The biggest thing that got me was I could more clearly see the outline of his collarbones, which made me wonder how much I could see his ribs if I wanted to look.

     I didn’t want him to be like this and I definitely didn’t want to see him in that condition -- I wasn’t ready to deal with that much of a change -- so I turned around and walked out of my room.  I knew I couldn’t leave the house, in case Finn woke up or my parents happened to come home, so I headed down to the basement and smoked a couple cigarettes, making them last me until morning.

     As I headed back up the steps after a night of no sleep and smoke to kill my lungs, I saw Finn walking into the kitchen at the same time I was.  His eyes looked more hollow than before; his pupils still dilated all the way into his irises.  I couldn’t see the heartwarming color of his beautiful orbs and I frowned deeply, wanting my best friend to go back to the way he was before this.  I wanted him to be the Finn Fintry that I remembered, not some hollow version of him.  It hurt more than I was willing to admit and I think he saw that on my face.

     “That bad, huh?”  He asked, frowning a little.  I could tell from the slight strain on his voice that he felt like shit, but I didn’t address it.  I knew how addiction and withdrawal felt; I knew the come down was hard but Finn could handle it -- because I had before.  I’d handled it so well . . . and to this day, it still surprises me that meth hadn’t killed me and everything anyone remembered about me.  

     “So,” he said as I turned away from him, “You aren’t talking to me, now?”

     “It’s not that, Finn,” I sighed, raising my eyes back to his face.  I couldn’t look into his newly blackened orbs because I couldn’t, nor did I want to, deal with his addiction right now.  I just wanted to get through the weekend; I wanted him to detox and then refocus.  I needed him to get better, because I needed Finn in my life.  I didn’t want him to drop dead in front of me -- let alone drop dead at all.