Paper Stars

19

Charlotte Hollins
Before --- 3 years ago
East Hills High, Senior Year
The days after the relapse are the hardest. Nearly twelve months of being clean, gone in a second. All of that work, all of that distraction is meaningless now. I'm back at square one; laying in my bed, shivering in cold sweat despite the thick blankets that I've wrapped around myself. Staring at the wall. Trying not to think. My fingers restlessly make their paper stars, folding and bending and tossing the star over the side of my bed like I'm making a desperate wish. A small pile begins to grow on the floor. Every couple of hours, Aunt Joan will come into the room with a handful of fresh paper strips for me. She'll put her hand on my cold forehead and tell me she loves me and is there anything else she can get me? to which I'll answer with a swift shake of my head. Then she'll leave, and I'll be alone again. She's let me stay home for the past week. I haven't told her that I relapsed, but I'm pretty sure she has a good idea of what's going on, though she's too scared to confront it. She doesn't want to believe that I broke again. I can't blame her, since I don't want to believe it either.
My phone is filling up with missed calls and unread text messages from Flet. I know that I'm being a jerk by not answering any of them, but I honestly don't know what I'd say. Flet wasn't there when I went through my love affair with drugs. He'd never met that version of me, the addict, until that day. I've already seen his disappointed and pitying expression when he wiped the powder from beneath my nose. I don't need to see or hear anymore of it.
The doorbell rings Friday afternoon. My first thought is that Emma forgot her house key again, so I wrap a blanket around my shoulders and shuffle out of my room and towards the front door. But when I open it, it's Flet instead of Emma.
"Oh," is the first thing out of my mouth.
Flet's expression turns irritated and he takes a step back. "It's good to see you too, Charlie."
I rub my forehead, looking down. "That sounded bad, I'm sorry, I just—" I sigh and wrap my arms around my chest, hugging the blanket close to me. The December weather is icy cold and my pajamas feel paper thin against it. "Do you want to come in?" I ask, stepping aside. He hesitates, and then follows me inside. I shut the front door and go to my room.
"So this is what you've been doing for the past week?" Flet asks when he sees the large pile of paper stars flooding the ground by my bed. He sits down gingerly beside them and picks one up, holding the star between his fingertips.
I sit down on my bed and grab a strip of paper to make another star. "I learned it in rehab. It's some kind of coping method. Distraction."
"Distraction from what?" He's still examining the star in his hands.
Acid burns the back of my throat. I don't want to tell him, but I know that if I don't tell him the entire truth right now, the barrier between us will only grow thicker and eventually I'll lose my only friend. And I could never bear to watch that happen again.
But if I tell him and he decides that he doesn't want to be friends with someone like me, then I'll lose him anyway.
Flet shifts on the floor and grabs a paper strip from my bed, trying to replicate my folds. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, Charlie. But I really wish that you would." He looks up at me and holds my gaze.
Silence stretches out.
I clear my throat look away, dropping another paper star into the pile. I've made my decision. "I get these, um..." My voice is small and shaky. "I call them dark thoughts. Ever since I got clean, they've been there, and they tell me to do things that I don't want to do. Sometimes I listen to them, like I did a couple of days ago. Or I find some kind of outlet to make them go away. It's impossible to think rationally whenever they come around, and it scares the shit out of me." I wince. "That sounds crazy, doesn't it?"
Flet shakes his head. "No."
Every muscle in my body relaxes simultaneously. He doesn't think I'm crazy. I feel lighter now, and the room seems less claustrophobic than it did before.
He doesn't think I'm crazy.
"I found Alejandro," Flet adds in a swift change of subject. "He won't be bothering you anymore."
"What'd you do?" I ask cautiously.
"He won't be bothering you anymore," he repeats. My eyebrows raise and Flet smiles. He holds up his paper strip, which is now just a torn and folded nightmare. "Now show me how to make one of these."