Tweaker

x. no word back?

x. no word back?

     "HAVE YOU HEARD anything back on Finn, yet?"  Preston asked, sitting with a sleeping Benji on my living room floor.  I shook my head, not wanting to talk about it.  He just nodded, understanding -- in an odd way for Preston -- that it was a touchy subject. 

     Finn's been gone just shy of two weeks now and I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing.  I want him home, I do . . . but at the same time, I know I can't help him unless he wants to help himself.  I guess that's the shitty part about all this.  An addict will always be an addict, and you'll always be recovering after you get off -- until you relapse, that is, and I think that's what I'm most afraid of him doing: relapsing.  I saw how hard it was for him to get off of the meth.  I see how hard it is to keep recovering whenever I look in the mirror . . . and part of me wants to just let him go make his own choices, but that's not the kind of friend I am.  Somewhere inside me, I'm fighting back against all that shit that says he's going to fail, because if I know Finn Fintry -- and I do -- I know that if anyone can do this, it's him. 

     Swallowing hard, I stood and headed to the fridge.  My parents, oddly enough, haven't been home, but I did find a check in the mailbox from my father with a note.  They're travelling down to Georgia to see some distant relative I've never heard of -- or so they say.  I know they're probably just renting a motel room a few towns over to fuck, since they think they don't do it enough here. 

     But believe me -- they do plenty. 

     Sighing, I grabbed a beer for me and one for Preston before heading back over to where he was.  I opened it, handed it to him, and then took a walk to clear my head.  I told him if Benji woke up hungry, which he probably wouldn't since he hasn't been able to keep anything but chicken broth down, then there was food in the kitchen and to make whatever -- my treat?  I'd do the dishes and clean up, since I knew I wasn't going to be sleeping, again.

     That's the weird thing about this to me; Finn's dying and even though I'm trying to prevent that, I know what I'm doing to myself to killing me, too.  I feel a bit hypocritical for it, but I can't stop it, because every time I try to do something beneficial to myself, it gets thrown out the window when I realize Finn could drop any day and I couldn't be there to do something to try and help.

     I took a swig of my beer. 

     And then another. 

     And another. 

     And then, I looked down at my bottle to see there was nothing left in it.  Groaning and mumbling to myself about how I was going to become a drunk like my father, I threw the bottle off the bridge I was standing on.  I didn't know where my legs had taken me, nor did I pay attention to my surroundings, but before I knew it, I was standing up on the ledge, looking down at the rocks being crushed by the rushing current.  It was unusually fast and I nonchalantly wondered to myself how hard I would have to hit those rocks for one to drive right through me. 

     That's when I heard it: familiar coughing, a wheezing, gargling from the throat . . . and a cry.

     If I had known any better, I would've kept walking, but that's just not in my nature. 

     Swallowing hard, I climbed down from the side of the bridge and walked under it . . . and that's when I saw probably the worst thing I could ever see.  It devastated me and if I hadn't been choking on my own tongue, I probably would've screamed and cried out in pain.  It physically hurt my eyes and head to see what I did . . . and I knew that it would scar me for the rest of my life.