Paper Stars

23

Present

"What's wrong? What happened?" Flet asks.

"I - I don't know, I - " Whatever words I was going to say become incoherent, swallowed up by the swelling lumps in my throat. Emma's voice is ringing in my head like an explosive car alarm - each statement a punctuated knife in my chest. The sobs rise up from my lungs and I have to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep them from bursting into the air. Warm tears blur the world, gush from my eyes and drench my cheeks, burning as they slip down my skin. I'm so sick of it, the crying and the emptiness.

"Charlie?" Flet prompts after my prolonged silence. "Charlie, talk to me. Are you all right?"

"She hates me." My voice trembles, thin as a thread and just as easy to break. "Emma hates me and I can't - I can't do anything. Whenever I try, I just fuck it up and make it worse. I can never say the right thing, and she never gives me the chance. She doesn't talk to me, Flet! She can hardly stand to be in the same room as me!" I look up at the night sky where the stars are supposed to be, but all I see is black because this city is too damn bright. "You were right. All I do is make messes, damage the people around me - that's why Emma despises me, why Aunt Joan and Uncle Kenny can't look me in the eye, tip-toe around me like I'm made of glass. It's why you haven't talked to me in 6 months." A frail laugh escapes my throat. "I get it, I really do. I can't stand to be around me either." I wipe the tears from my eyes with the palm of my hand. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called."

"Don't you dare hang up." Flet threatens just as I'm about to end the call. "You think you can just dump all of that shit on me and then hang up? You're out of your mind." He sighs. I can hear the frustration in his voice; I don't have to see him to know that he's anxiously ruffling his hair, or that his eyebrows are scrunched together so that a small indentation appears at the crown of his nose. "She doesn't hate you, Charlie, she's angry with you. At what you've done to yourself."

"I've been clean for 3 months," I say. "Almost 4. That's got to mean something."

"The numbers don't matter. Emma knows that as soon as Aunt Joan loosens her leash, you'll relapse again, and we all know the dangers of a third relapse."

Overdose. By third relapse, it's almost guaranteed. The body has built up such a high resistance to the drugs that it takes a deadly amount to feel anything, and that moment of weakness is more than often fatal.

I sit down on the cement, leaning against the wall of the gallery building. "You think I'd relapse?"

My question is followed by a moment of silence, before he replies, "I don't know what to think anymore."

I wish I could tell him that he's wrong, that I've cleaned the itch of addiction out of my system. He wouldn't believe me anyway, no matter how confidently I said it. I don't blame him, I wouldn't believe me either. The itch is still there, tainting my words, my thoughts, persisting like sandpaper against my brain - a constant reminder of what I can't have. No matter how much it fades, I will always be aware of it, either through the dark thoughts or the tremors.

"Do you still make those stars?" Flet asks. "The paper ones?"

I blink. I'd almost forgotten about them. Jars overflowing with them probably still occupy the area beneath my bed. "I haven't made those since high school."

"Why not?"

"Didn't think I needed them anymore." I shrug. "Guess I was wrong."

I tilt my head back and look at the moon, partially hidden by the clouds, feeling the glean of an old memory break through the surface of my mind. "Do you remember Fidel's?" I ask. "That dirty counter that never seemed to get clean, no matter how much you scrubbed it with that awful rag." A warm feeling of nostalgia overwhelms me for a second, building a lump in my throat. I close my eyes, and a smile lifts the corners of my lips. "Do you remember that day Nadia Ganesh came in? I've never seen you so nervous."