FicWad

Another night and I’m here again. Why do I always end up here? Always in the same position, with my chin on my knees and my back against the wall, and I’m staring at the clock and every tick of the second hand is forever. My fingers keep themselves busy, tapping, curling up, running through my hair. Because I know that if I don’t occupy them, they’re going to go where I don’t want them to. They’re going to find their way from the floor up the slick leather plain of my leg, and then they’ll shift to the rough denim of my jacket and the thumb’s going to run over that cold, metal button, the small, hard disk that has become my existence. And it’ll mock me, because we both know that I’m going to open in it. And then I will, and the pocket will be open, and it’s only downhill from there. I squeeze my eyes and my fist shut until dark red clouds bloom on the inside of my eyelids, shifting and changing from scarlet to yellow to purple. And my nails are digging into my palm, and I’m only mildly surprised when I finally unclench my eyes and ruby drops of blood, dark in the poor lighting, shine up at me from the cheap linoleum floor.
No, I’m not surprised.
I sigh for what seems like the millionth time, knowing my defeat is imminent, knowing I’ll give in, and just wishing he’d get home. So many nights I’ve sat here, waiting for him, resolving that tonight’s the night. And then it never is. And this waiting, surely, must be eternity? It must be. I shake my head, and sweat slides down my face, tickling my neck. It doesn’t matter, because it’s eternity to me. I need my fix, need it now. But I can’t have it, can’t use it, can’t stop this shaking in both my shoulders and my brain until he gets home. No, I can’t have it.
But I can touch it.
So just as I knew I would, as I always do, I slide my hand into the pocket. The fingers that seem to be beyond my control worry at the seams, stroke the weave of dark blue, before extending. And I’ll touch it. It’s cool to the touch, hard and round. And I draw it out, holding it up to the light of the window. It’s cheap and dirty and crusted, but it’s what my world revolves around. I heave a breath, more sweat dripping down my back. It’s getting bad and where is he and why won’t my fingers stop moving? They’ve set down my old spoon, and it’s shining by my boot like a knife, like the barrel of a gun, like an executioner’s guillotine just before it drops. And my fingers have drawn out the bottle and there’s not much left, maybe enough for three times, and I can hardly breathe, shaking it up and down, hoping that it’ll miraculously refill itself again and feel heavier, less hollow in my hand. But more never comes. And now my vision’s fogging and there’s a catch in my breath and the bottle’s dropped to the floor and I’m on my knees. And the last thing’s in my hand, col and cylindrical and smooth and controlling. It’s got control over me and it knows it, it must, because it’s shining at me from my trembling, betraying fingers and no matter how hard I’m clenching my left hand, I’m keeping it loose in my right. Because if I squeeze it, it’s going to shatter against my palm. Curled up on the ground, staring at that glass syringe, I’m almost wishing it would shatter. I’m wishing it would crack, fracture, explode against my hand, slice through my skin, and draw blood deeply and excruciatingly.
I’m wishing that.
Just so I could feel something.
Something, anything, besides this wracking feeling of overpowering need and dependence. It’s taken over every part of me, my mind, my body, my very being. But the one part it hasn’t yet taken from me is the one I wish that it had, the one I keep praying it will.
My heart.
It hasn’t yet taken my heart; it hasn’t stifled what I feel. I shake silently on my knees, waves of pain and exhaustion washing over me.
No matter how I get fixed, it hasn’t taken what I feel for my best friend. It can’t take it, and, I realize now, never will. In the beginning, I had told myself it was dirty, disgusting, even sick, the things I was thinking and feeling. That it was disgusting and weak. I’m wondering now, sitting here as a broken shell of a person, what’s so wrong and disgusting about wanting to feel the lips of the person you love on yours?
Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing.
The clock strikes one in the morning and I’m reaching for the bottle that has rolled away from me, wiping my sweat-soaked hair off my forehead. It’s alright. It’s alright, I tell myself, fingers finding the ridged cap edges. I can’t wait for him to come home any longer, I need to not think. And in a moment, it’ll all be alright.
My shaking fingers are nothing but pale bones, as if the moonlight has stripped them of flesh and human warmth, leaving behind only death’s mementos. I fumble with the spoon, tipping the bottle and filling it. I drop the glass without sealing it, and it hits the floor with a loud clink. Brown liquid oozes out slowly, like blood, spreading across the kitchen floor. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. It doesn’t fucking matter because nothing matters anymore.
Some part of me is still thinking, still hoping. “Where are you? You should be home.” It’s not my brain, because my brain has ceased to function, short-circuited by numbness. It’s not my body: there’s something more than lust that makes me want him, need him home. It’s my heart, and it’s pounding, burning the tattoo of “Where are you? I need you.” into my chest. It beats on, stubbornly refusing to quit, refusing to stop feeling just because of my fear of it. It refuses to stop short, telling me again and again what I already know to be true.
I hate it.
I hate that muscle that thumps inside me, with every beat like a knife wound. When I’m around him, my heart is unbearable. Without him, unendurable. I bow my head over the full spoon, my insides slashed with a hot cleaver and my goddamned heart ripping open. How much can a man take? Rocking with silent sobs, I finally allow the hot tears to flow freely, like a broken dam, because it doesn’t matter anymore.
It doesn’t matter.
I pick up the bottle from where it fell, and hurl it with every ounce of strength in my drained body across the room. It explodes against the wall, shattered glass raining down and the resulting huge dark stain now creeping down the plaster. Tonight should have been a decisive night. If not good, at least decisive. I pick up the needle, careful not to let my salty tears splash onto it. Tonight was the night I would have told him. I would have looked him in the eye and told him like a man, and either my dreams or my nightmares would have been realized. That, I could handle. But this, this indecisive medium, going neither right nor left nor up or down, is what I can’t handle. I can’t fucking hang in limbo for the rest of my life, wondering forever if he might feel the same way, always wishing for what can never be. I had resolved tonight to go either one way or the other, make a decision, choose a path. I would have told him, this I’m certain of. I had promised myself before, but tonight was different.
I was at the end of my rope.
But then he’d gone out. That had been okay: I could work around that. But it was what he had said when he’d stood in the door, tossed casually over his shoulder while I stood there with my heart on my face.
“Yeah. . . I didn’t tell you, but I met a girl. Name’s Elaine.”
I had grunted, made some offhand comment. And then. . .
“I really think. . . I really think I might like her. A lot.”
It wasn’t what he’d said, but the way he’d said it, the look on his face. Tender-like. Loving. Thoughtful. And that was a look I’d never, ever seen before. I’d choked and he’d left unaware, leaving me just like every night to battle my demons alone.
I stare at the needle in my hand. It’s sharp and shiny, and I can see that look on his face in my mind’s eye. So I dip it in the spoon and pull back the plunger, watching the mud-colored fluid being sucked up, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
Because he loves that girl. I know it and he must know it and so there’s nothing left for me. I look thoughtfully at the syringe in my fingers, glinting in the moonlight.
It’s not enough, not enough to make me forget for tonight.
So I fill the spoon again. I can’t even feel my fingers: I’m numb all over. I’ve sucked up all that’s left in the spoon. I’ve never taken this much before.
Still, is it enough to stop the whirling of my thoughts?
And, like a whisper in the back of my mind, I see the look on his face.
No, it’s not enough, I decide. It‘s not enough tonight and it won’t be enough tomorrow and it won’t be enough ever, for the rest of my life. Because my thoughts, my brain isn’t the problem, and stopping them won’t make any pain go away.
It’s my heart that’s killing me slowly.
If only you had come home.
So deliberately, I pour a third spoon and suck every bit of it into the needle. It’s far more than is smart, and I know this.
And then all at once, I hear it. The footsteps coming up the stairs, the jangling of the key in the lock, and all over again I can’t breathe. Too soon, to sudden. But I know what to do. I know deep down, what I want to do and what I’m going to do.
Because I’m done.
So when you stride into the room, I’ve got the needle just poised above my arm.“What. . . what are you doing?”
That voice. . . I’m glad to hear it. Your face is shocked, worried, horrified: I must look a mess, with tears all down my face. I’m as pale and skeletal as I’ve ever been, and when I see your eyes dart to the syringe in my hand, I know you’re no stranger to measuring reasonable doses, either. So just look at you.
“I’ve got something to tell you.”
My own voice sounds unrecognizable in my ears: raw, hoarse, choked.
Broken.
“What is it?” Your beautiful hazel eyes are boring into me, and you haven’t moved from the doorway, almost as if you’re scared of me, what I’ve become.
I can’t blame you.
I feel tears start once again, but this time I won’t let them fall.
I take a deep breath.
“I wanted to tell you . . . that I’m in love with you, Tommy. I have been for as long as I can remember, and I love you madly. And I’m sorry.”
And when the needle pierces my skin, I don’t feel much anything at all, just anticipation for relief of this ache that I’ve carried for so many years.
And as your face splits into shock and fear, I’m just glad that you finally know, because blackness is traveling from my arm to my head, and it’s already in closing around you.
“Nikki, no, Oh God, I want-”
And I don’t feel sorry or stricken that I didn’t get to hear your last words to me, that I didn’t finish your final shout. All I can think, as I feel the burn creeping through my veins, is that it's probably for the best, if the only way I can tell someone I love them is with a needle buried in my arm. And because as I lose consciousness for the last time and the haze over your face becomes a black, black wall, all I truly feel, if only for a moment, is the blissful silence of a heart that's finally stopped.