Tweaker

xv. trying

xv. trying

     "WHAT WAS IT like?"  He asked me once I opened my eyes and looked around to see I was in my bed once again.  I didn't remember coming home; all I remember was being in those woods with Finn kneeling next to me.  I don't remember taking more meth but I could feel the detox as it set in, deeper and deeper, minute by minute.  It was killing me, just as it was killing him . . . and I knew, from that moment on, that we were in this together -- until the very end. 

     "What was what like?"  I muttered, sitting up as he turned to face me, crossing his legs.  He placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, looking me in the eyes.  He was looking for something but the problem is, I don't think he knew exactly what it was.  I sure as Hell didn't, but what was I, if not just a stupid meth junkie? 

     He continued to search, but found nothing.  I could see it in his eyes, as they burned deep into my own and it was then that I realized, looking at my own reflection in his eyes, that I hated myself more than any other monster on the planet.  There was nothing worse than I and there was nothing better than he.  How could there be?  He was pure, good in all his ways . . . and I was just the opposite; pure, but vile in the sickest forms. 

     I didn't deserve him in my life. 

     Swallowing hard, I asked, again, what he had meant.  It took another ten or so minutes of him just looking into my eyes before I turned my head down.  I couldn't take seeing the pain in his eyes; I couldn't take seeing what I was doing to him.  Everything had been my fault.  If I had just been there for him when he was struggling, he wouldn't have turned to meth for the same release that I had. 

     "Being high against after so long," he offered, causing me to swallow harder than before -- so hard, it almost didn't go down.  I could feel the lump in my throat growing, not because I was going to cry, but because I was craving her so bad right now.  I wanted more . . . but I knew, being back under this roof, everything was about to change. 

     "Tweaking," I began, my face still turned down until he placed his fingers gently under my chin and lifted my eyes back to him.  His small gesture, no matter how insignificant it was to him, gave me all the courage in the world to continue.  His eyes were no longer filled with only pain, but softness as he watched my lips move and my eyes twitch back and forth, to his eyes and lips and hands and than back to his eyes. 

     "It was like drowning in the deepest, darkest ocean, somewhere right between Heaven and Hell, right on the drawn line.  The line was the separation between my mind and body; I could control nothing, anymore.  There wasn't a single thing filling my head, there wasn't a single emotion I could feel . . . but when I saw you in those woods with me, the sadness finally took over," I could feel my voice growing shaky and I sucked in a breath before continuing on. 

     "There was no more sun; there was no more moon.  There wasn't a difference between day and night," I explained, my voice shaking even worse than it had been moments ago, "There wasn't the beauty of the spring, or the warmth in the air, or nature being reborn after death.  Only in the darkness did I atone to all the reasons why I was letting myself go." 

     I stopped, looking directly into his eyes, "But then there you were -- you were right there and I couldn't deny how beautiful your eyes looked as they swam with pain or how warm your hands felt on mine or how badly I wanted to give up the syringe . . . but she's got this hold on me.  Her talons are dug into me so goddamn deep and I don't know how to dig them out of me.  It's almost like every time I try, they break off and she finds a new place to sink them into, again.  I don't know how to escape her; I don't know what I can do, anymore.  I don't know how I lost my way with her, but I did and I don't think there's such thing for me as turning back."