Fragments

8.5

8.5

It had just stopped raining when I arrived at the train yard. The air was fresh, the kind that made me close my eyes and breathe it in. I looked around in the mist, searching for Trevor. I wasn't sure if he would show. He knew why I wanted to talk, and Trevor never liked confrontation unless it was on his terms.

I had hit my rock bottom - or so I thought - and believed that confronting Trevor would somehow rid me of my demons. I was sobering up and decided enough was enough.

"So what are we doing here, Piper?"

I turn around and face him. His greasy hair and dirty hoodie revealed he hadn't showered, and finally I began to wonder what I ever saw in his looks.

"I'm done." The words sounded shakier than I wanted them to. "Done with the drugs, done with you, done with everything. I know about you and Lane, Trevor."

Trevor waited, eyebrows raised. "That's it? That's why you called me out here?" He kicked a stone and watched it roll away, temporarily leaving me from the glare of his eyes. When he looked at me again, I took a step back. "It's damp and fuckng cold out. Maybe if you weren't so fucking stupid all the time I wouldn't have to hangout with Lane to get away from you."

Part of me wanted to fight. I wanted to yell, to cry, to call him the worst string of names I could have possibly thought of. But instead I turned and tried to walk away.

"Ah, no," Trevor said, his voice loud and firm. "You called me all the way out here in the rain." It had stopped raining, but I kept my mouth shut. "I need your help."

"I'm not helping you with anything, Trevor."

"Oh really?" He pulled out his phone and moved his finger across the screen. "I have something of yours that might change your mind."

"I took all of my things," I objected. "You have nothing of mine."

He smiled as he held out the phone to me, screen moving as a video began to play.

"You didn't take this," he said.

In the video Trevor walks into a living room, filming me. I'm sitting on the couch, half hunched over yet appearing as stiff as a corpse. It's scary, how dead I looked despite being alive. My hair was a matted mess, my clothes filthy. But I couldn't stop staring at my face. My eyes were struggling to focus as my eyelids remained half shut. I opened my mouth in the video, trying to speak. I was trying to say help.

"Why do you have this?" Every part of me was shaking. I was angry, scared, upset. Trevor had filmed me overdosing. I'm disgusted. "Why didn't you help me?"

Trevor took his phone back before I could even think about taking it. "Well, you're alive right now, aren't you? So clearly I did." I couldn't believe him. "Let's just talk for a minute, okay, Pipes?"

I wanted to leave more than anything. But he had something my parents could never see.

"Why are you blackmailing me?"

He laughed, shaking his head as he backed towards the train tracks. He was happy despite my words and shoved his hands into his jean pockets.

"Piper."

He shrugged as he said it.

"You get what you deserve."

He lead me to a concrete wall across from the train tracks. As he sat down on the pavement beside me, I glared straight ahead, trying to pay attention to the rusting warehouses instead of my thoughts.

I was so tired. All I wanted was out.

"What do you want, Trevor?"

"I can't find a vein," he admitted. "I need you to help me."

My lips curled up in disgust. "I can't believe you."

He pulled his tools out of his sweater pockets and started preparing the drugs before I had even agreed to help him. I looked away. When he's ready, he handed me the needle, desperately trying to meet my eyes.

"I won't see Lane again," he said. "I'm sorry."

He didn't know how right he was.

I didn't say anything as I took the needle between my fingers. He pulled down the collar of his sweater, revealing the back of his neck to me.

"But I can't lose you. I'm not gonna lose you, Pipes. You're mine."

I ran my fingers along his skin in search for a vein. Touching him was like touching coals now - I only ever got burned.

"What do you mean?" I asked. I had found a vein and was lining up the needle.

"I won't let you leave me. I won't delete the video."

I pricked him without warning. He slumped as the heroin entered his system, slouching him against the concrete wall before I was finished.

"You have to delete the video, Trevor."

He closed his eyes but I could see them move under his lids.

"I love you," he said, words slurred. "I'll make sure you're always mine."