Dirt

Good Vibrations

    The sun pierced my eyes as I made the short trip from the garage to the tailer door, the rays of light warmed my body enough to intoxicate me further and my surroundings began to blur and spiral around my head. This was nothing I couldn’t handle, only slightly worse than being completely and utterly drunk, but much more disorienting and the heart palpitations weren’t doing much for my case either.
    I grappled with the door handle for a moment before it swung open, Trevor having opened it from the other side and was now eyeing me with some distaste, “I should have never believed for a minute that you could handle that shit,” he bent down and warped his arms around me, lifting me from the ground as if I weighed about as much as an ounce of cocaine.
    I allowed myself to rest my head on his shoulder, not that I had many other options with my head feeling heavier with every passing minute. The interior of the trailer was dimly lit and I had little time to observe what it contained before I was set down onto a bed, which squeaked loudly in protest as my body came into contact with it.
    As I lie there my eyes began tracing constellations in the discolourations on the ceiling, the only thing I could manage to keep my focus on before Trevor waved a hand above my eyes, “Listen to me, try and get some sleep, you’re brain’s fucked enough anyways.” He threw a tattered blanket over me, “I’ve gone through enough O.D.’s to know you’ll be fine in a few hours. Now go to sleep okay?” He spoke to me slowly and then covered my eyes with his hand.
    Whether it was sleep that had overcome me or I had simply passed out I did not care. When I awoke my mind was clear but my body still shook and by the lighting in the room I could tell the time had now passed into the evening or at least the late afternoon. I could now properly admire the minuscule bedroom, with peeling wallpaper and bent blinds all symptomatic of Trevor’s presence.
    I found Trevor himself to be sleeping along side of me, face planted into the mattress and an arm outstretched around my torso, once again snoring heavily though slightly muffled through the mattress. I ran my fingers along his forearm taking notice of every old scar that had caused his skin to rise in various spots. I traced the outline of a spade tattoo and then the crudely written F U C K on his knuckles, I had assumed this had been an experiment in self modification at best. I turned to my side to observe him sleep, back rising and falling with every deep breath and slight movement of the limbs every few minutes; I wondered how he had managed to fall asleep with his face buried so deep into the mattress and with little to no air making its way into his lungs.
    It occurred to me at that moment that I had likely gone insane, having completely abandoned my companions, come to the home of someone who I could still call a stranger and accept tiny white pills onto my tongue. Nonetheless I felt no fear, I felt no discomfort, I felt no anger, which was something I could not have said about myself for quite some time now. I felt strangely whole, and this was the only way I could think to describe it.
    I wondered if this was what love felt like, or if I had ever even been in love before. It seemed very peculiar to me how many times one can throw around the term love, even on a daily basis, and not ever be aware of its meaning. How does one know when they’re in love if they’ve never felt it before? I wished with all of my might that there were some litmus test, a piece of paper you could spit on and then it turns pink and presto, there you are, love, with 100% certainty.
    I tried to recall a time in my life where I had felt as whole as I did at the moment but kept drawing blanks. I had experienced the full range of human emotions in my lifetime: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and ever small variation in between but was wholeness an emotion, and could it be counted on that list? The uncertainty I felt drilled holes in my stomach and caused me to shudder.
    I asked myself a number of questions that I knew to be related to love. Does Trevor make me happy? Yes. Do I want Trevor to be happy? Yes. Do I enjoy his company? Yes. Would it upset me to be away from him? I suppose it would. Would you do anything for him? No, but I would do a great deal more for him than many of the people I’ve considered to be close to me in my lifetime. And still I couldn’t say anything with certainty, and it was possible that my subconscious prevented me from doing so.
    The one conclusion that I could draw was that Trevor had treated me with more kindness than anyone I had encountered in my lifetime and I had hardly even gotten to know him. The thought of going back to my ‘friends’ sickened me and the thought of going home with them only sickened me further. I could have easily been confusing love with a deep appreciation for him mixed with some dependancy, but I decided not to convince myself of either for the time being.
    I had become so immersed in my own thoughts that I hadn’t noticed that Trevor’s snoring had stopped or that he was now examining me with one eye, face half lifted from the sheets. I turned to him and let go of his forearm, which up until now I had still been clutching, and now wasn’t sure whether I wanted to smile or cry. “How are you feeling?” He inquired, still partially muffled before propping his head up on one hand.
    “Better.” I replied, deciding to go with a smile rather than tears of happiness and confusion and give away the reality of my hysteria. Every part of my being itched to kiss him again, the kisses that had seemed so ordinary upon first experiencing them were now held on a pedestal in my mind like some heavenly messiah.
    Trevor returned my smile with a patented grin and brought himself into a sitting position with an exaggerated yawn. “Well, it’s 4 o’clock. Do you want some water or a beer or something? Are you hungry?” My stomach continued to do pirouettes and so I settled on a beer, hoping the carbonation might help my situation; on top of this I was not completely convinced that the water in Sandy Shores was all that drinkable.
    I sat upright, wrapping myself in the odd smelling blanket I had been sleeping under while Trevor fetched my beverage. I gazed up at the ceiling and concluded to myself that the discolourations were in fact some new form of life beginning to thrive there; I imagined tiny little bacterium families moving into their new homes and making tiny little bacterium babies, the thought of which made me both happy and disgusted at the same time.
    As I made Darwinian observations on the new life I had discovered Trevor returned with 2 beers. He handed one to me and as he did our fingers brushed, “Cheers.” He proclaimed, then lied down on the bed beside me, cracking his beer open and guzzling down about half of it in his first sip. I opened mine and sipped at it hesitantly, trying with all of my might to stomach it and not embarrass myself any further.
    Silence overcame us for some time, the comfortable quietness one experiences after a well needed rest. I kept my attention focused on the families of bacteria I had imagined, taking small sips of my beer and naming their towns and families after movie stars. I felt strangely sentimental as I stared and felt the need to lie down as well, taking deep breaths and preventing my emotions from getting the better of me.
    Without very much thought at all I allowed myself to lean my head on Trevor’s shoulder and tell him, “Thank you for taking care of me.” with a bothersome lump rising in my throat that I continued to hold down.
    “Don’t start crying on me now again.” He stated mockingly as if he had once again been reading my mind, but then lifted his arm behind my back and held my shoulder with a slight squeeze I could only attribute to tenderness. There was something serene about the moment that caused my eyes to water, once again making me seem like a fool.
    I let out a sigh of exasperation, “I’m such a fucking idiot.” I stated, mainly to myself but still aloud. Though I could now think with clarity all of the terrible thoughts the speed had brought on still lingered in my mind like the smoke after a fire.
    “Don’t worry about it sugar, so am I.” Trevor laughed, “Lighten the fuck up okay? I know I probably fried your brain with the speed but cut the crap.” He continued laughing so that his chest shook, throwing the vibrations of laughter my way. Whatever clouds had been trapped in my mind seemed to be shaken out with his laugh and I realized at that moment how difficult it would be for me to have to make my way home in a weeks time. In fact the very thought of it brought a heaviness over my entire being, so I decided to push it away for the moment.
    I was surprised to find myself now laughing quietly as well, and as though I had lost all control of my personal filter the words, “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met.” flew from my mouth without having consulted my brain prior.