Category : Books-Non-Fiction

Sub Category : Biography

*The next chapter of my memoir, Edit the Sad Parts: Love and Loss in Addiction. 

June/July 2009

     In the Texas Hill Country, one doesn’t need a flashlight to walk around at night. The moon and stars are so extravagant, they would light up the entire grass field we would lie under in Arcadia. 
     It was the first time I had entered treatment, a year after high school, when I had met Mickey, Randall, and Eric. But they weren’t the only ones I had gotten close to. There was the sweet, blonde, meth-addicted Annie, who had caught my attention towards the end of my stay. Tall, skinny, with a face healing from tweaking on meth, she had warmed up to me. 
     Before rehab, my ugly self would’ve thought it too good for someone like her. After I had been in rehab for a good while, my head cleared up and reality made its way back to my thought process. Who was I to judge this person from their looks and looking down upon her because she was a meth head? The more I looked past her shortcomings, which was only her scarred face from constant picking, the more I had gotten to know her. This all adding to how attractive I had found her. 
     By the end of my stay, on one of those magical nights, we had laid there under the millions of sparkling diamonds scattered along the black canvas of the night sky. No words were necessary, our eyes had spoken of our secret intentions for us. All it had taken was that brief gaze into each other’s eyes for us to physically show how much we had meant to each other. 
     The next morning, there had been an old and familiar pep in my step. A feeling I had known, but hadn’t felt since high school, it had seemed. Annie and I had seen each other from across the cafeteria, where we nervously glanced at each other, smiling. However, it wasn’t until mid-afternoon when we had the chance to speak to one another. It was a conversation I had been excitedly anticipating, but upon speaking, she wore a look as if the feeling I had wasn’t mutual. I couldn’t tell with her sunglasses shielding them, but she had been crying. A tear had escaped and fell down her reddened cheek.  
     “What’s wrong?” I asked, even though I already had an idea of what she was going to say since she had just seen her counselor. 
     “I’m leaving today.” I had called it. 
     “Then why are you so upset, sweetie? You should be excited! You’re getting out of here,” I said then paused. “And you know we’ll see each other in Austin.”
     She shot her gaze right at me, then with her right hand, brought down her glasses to where they were sitting at the tip of her curved nose. “Are we?”
     I gave a confused look. Of course she was worried. She was a troubled young lady, not but a year or two older than I had been. 
     “You better call me.” Her sappy voice had become more serious. 
     “Of course I will. There’s nothing in the world that could stop me from not seeing you.” I was sincere and kissed her again, trying to bring back any magic from the previous night. 
     I did plan on calling her. But this had been before anyone had ever mentioned the possibility of staying at a halfway house. 
     When I was in Kerrville, staying in my halfway house and working the steps with Donnie, my sponsor, I did call her. I was on step eight, where I had to make amends to people I had harmed. I had put her on the list. She had always been on the back of my mind after she had left that day. Until, Scarlett entered the picture. 
     Annie never answered when I had tried calling. I didn’t know if she was angry with me or if she had a new number or what. But life is a funny thing in the way it works. I call it fate. 
     In the new apartment complex with Brianna, I had met most of my neighbors surrounding me, except for the new tenants who had just moved into the place across from me but on the second level above. 
     I took the trash out one blazingly hot day, when I noticed this blonde coming down the stairs. Her long, yellow hair had obscured her face but I kept staring to see what she had looked like—I was single, twenty-one years old, and living in my own place. My heart began its inevitable quickened pace before her face was in view. I could already tell who it was, so I had a big smile when she had faced me. 
     “Oh my God, is that really you?” She was shocked. 
     I could feel the blood rush to my face, giving my cheeks a slight burn. “How are you?”
     Her smile and bright, blue eyes had told me everything. She affirmed it with her cleared up face and by telling me she was clean and had been for a while. She was also engaged. Her and her fiancé, Micah, had just moved in next door on the second level. I was happy for her and happy for myself—I thought she had hated me.  
     We would see each other every now and then while Brianna and I were inseparable. But after the Vegas trip, when she and I had a sort of fallout, Annie would come over and hang out. The magic we had between us was gone, I felt, but we remained friends and watched movies and drank together. She would always come over when her fiancé wasn’t home. He’d be out of town on business, she would tell me, which must have been every week with how much she was at my place. 
     Although, we were drinking and sitting close on the couch, nothing ever happened. I never made any move and remained oblivious if she had, which I don’t believe she did. 
     I was still knee-deep in my addiction, so when she was over, I would have to sneak to my room or the bathroom to fix. Until, one night when her curiosity had gotten the best of her and she caught me. 
     “I knew what you were up to. I was just waiting for you to come out and tell me,” she said, while sitting on the couch across from me. 
     “I’m sorry. Yeah, I’m still using, but it’s heroin now.”
     “I figured.”
     I stared at the ground, ashamed. “You probably shouldn’t be hanging around me anymore,” I told her.  
     “That’s ridiculous. Actually, I said something tonight because, well, Micah and I are fighting and… I kinda want to get high.”
     Before any thought or hesitation, I said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. There’s no way I’m letting anyone get hooked on this shit. Especially, you, who I know has an addictive personality.”
     I was dead serious and said it with a grave tone in my voice, accompanied by a stagnant stare. 
     “I appreciate that, but… it’s already too late.” She paused for a minute, then said, “I lied to you, I’m sorry. I’ve been using off and on for some time. But my fiancé, Micah, had no idea.”
     “Meth?” I asked. 
     “H,” she answered. 
     Great. Just great, I thought. 
    I should have been angry with her. Should have told her to leave and stay away for a while. It would have been for her own good. But my addiction was lonely. It had wanted a friend ever since Mickey left. 
   That night, we drove to meet up with Josie somewhere up north. She bought her own but only half of what I bought, saying it would last her days, while what I bought would only last a day, at most. We went back to my place and used together in the living room. Though she didn’t shoot it—I was thankful—just smoked it. This had always angered me, thinking it to be a complete waste. When smoking heroin, you waste a good bit of it, while shooting it, you get everything. 
     This had all happened before Bubba moved in. When he did, him and Annie were cool. Bubba told me he even liked her and wanted to do something about it. I told him he couldn’t, and she was engaged. 
      “Oh, okay man. That’s cool,” I remembered him saying. I should have known better. 
     
     The three of us were watching a movie one night. I had taken Xanax and shot a good amount of dope, making me exhausted and on the verge of passing out. I had been laying on the couch, while Annie and Bubba were under a blanket, lying on the floor. 
      Before I told them I was going to bed, they were spooning each other. I thought it odd, but she didn’t seem to resist. Until I caught him trying to kiss her. Then she would stop him, but in a friendly way. I thought nothing of it and my eyes wouldn’t stay open for much longer so I went to bed. 
     The next day went as usual, I went to class while Bubba slept in, but Annie had left. The whole week went as normal, except I never saw Annie. She wouldn’t answer any of my phone calls or text messages, either. 
     I was doing my laundry in the designated place outside my apartment when I saw her car pull up. I watched her walking quickly to her place. I had been worried and wanted to know why she was avoiding me, so I ran out and stopped her. 
     She said she’d been meaning to talk to me, but she wouldn’t say why she never did. I told her to come inside but she refused. Her eyes had been darting around, like she was looking out for something. I sensed terror in her voice. She grabbed my hand and led me up to her place. 
     It had taken a while for her to get it out, but when she told me, I nearly threw up. I felt to blame. 
     “Oh my god, I am so sorry. I should’ve never gone to bed that night. I left you alone with him. I can’t tell you how—.”
     “Shhhhhhh.” She cut me off. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Not at all.”
     I didn’t believe her. I put both my arms around her and held her. Her body began to quiver. I could feel and hear her sniffling as she let out her tears of shame. I didn’t know what else to do. I gave her a gentle kiss on the head and continued to apologize. 
     Any respect I had for Bubba was gone. I wanted to kill that bastard. Any trust in him, which wasn’t much, disappeared. I wanted to call the cops, but Annie wouldn’t let me. Not to mention, I had a complete heroin operation going on inside my place. I didn’t know what to do. My dealer roommate had raped my good friend and neighbor. But I couldn’t kick him out because I couldn’t afford my habit without him. It was the Scarlett situation all over again, but much, much worse. 
    I was terrified.