Quietly, I lied on top of the roof as I listened to the music that pumped into my ears. It was as though the music was coming from every angle and in that blackness around me, I had become the notes themselves. So beautiful, so calming as I let numb serenity take over my body. I could lie alone and breathe, I was able to feel like I owned myself, even if it was only momentary. There was no fear or pain, just the ever so calming numbness that the drugs in my system provided me.
Opening my eyes, I was somewhat unsurprised to see Nathan sitting next to me. Mostly because I invited him to this roof just bit earlier. He had always been there for me. Whenever I called, whenever I came to his window, he was always there. Ever since that night a year ago, he acted like I was a frail piece of glass and treated me like some kind of royalty. While I was likely the former then, I was far from it now. I hadn't been royalty, either, nothing near it.
I was simply a drug addict with nothing else left to lose.
Nathan pulled out my headphones and dropped them on my shirt, all while his bangs hung over his eyes. After that night, he had changed. He became so much quieter, so much more reserved than what he was before. He had let his hair grow a little and now always hid his eyes behind the long bangs he adorned. Even if it sounded dumb coming from me, I tried talking him out of quitting football. He was talented. He shouldn't have had to quit because of me. In hindsight, it was obvious why he quit. I just refused to think about why.
"What are you on right now?" he asked, likely catching the small smile I wore while I had been listening to music.
"Special K and a Bar." I muttered, burying my finger into his ripped jeans. "I want some Apache, though."
"I'm not letting that happen. Not after what happened." Nathan stared at the ground. "I'm already letting someone I care about hurt herself with all this bullshit, can't that be enough? Just don't do that shit again."
A lot of shit happened over that past year, and that hadn't been an overstatement. Drugs had become a mainstay inside my body, and I spent all my time away from the people I loved. I ran away from everything, that much was obvious to even me. As Grace's life slowly burned away, I was out burning a fucking bowl and giving my soul away. My life had become so simple, so predictable without her in it.
The drugs had become my life support.
The numbness I felt was like the moments I could actually fall asleep without nightmares, beautiful. Those were the moments I could take a full breath and not be choked, those were the moments I thought about everything else, and those were the moments I found myself happy. In my high, little wonderland, I was able to find peace. I finally found the very numbness I was looking for and decided to keep it.
Nathan's room had been always been the place where I would smoke or snort something, where I would shoot myself up. His room was also the place I cried myself to sleep on so many nights. The bed he slept on had absorbed just as much of me as it had him, and maybe that was what Nathan wanted. His room had been my home and release for so long. If I was sure of anything, that was it.
I felt alien to the people around me, the people I had once been so close to had become so distant. My parents felt like distant relatives and my friends only laughed at me, like the loser I had been and become. It only went to show that people didn't know what being alone felt like. They never had the slightest idea of what the darkness of being alone felt like. They hadn't known the loneliness of the darkness that held me so tightly.
"Fine. I'll just do some H later, then." I pushed myself off of the ground and onto my feet. "Buzzkill."
"I wish you wouldn't." Nathan, somewhat hypocritically, lit a cigarette. "Benzos should be enough for you."
I jumped onto the ledge of the roof and very slightly fell forward to be met with the sight of a car directly below me. That was a brilliant move on my part. I had just given myself a massive punch to the gut as I realized where I was - the very same roof Grace jumped from. Had I been so far gone that I hadn't remembered? Had I been so high that I hadn't cared? Jesus, I was such a fucking loser. High and in permanent mourning - what a sight I must have been.
Reaching into the back pocket of my jeans, I pulled out the small baggie that carried the last two bars I had. As I collected spit in the back of my mouth, I pulled one of them out and took a glance at Nathan. He had been in the midst of exhaling the smoke as his face pointed at the ground. When was the last time he took the energy to look up at anything? I had long realized that there was nothing he could have done at the time, and I hadn't blamed him for anything. I mean, he was the reason I was alive at all.
I threw the bar into my mouth and swallowed it with the spit I had collected.
"Hey, Nathan." I tossed the baggie at him. "You remember that night when I came to your window soaked from the rain?"
"Why would I want to remember that? You were crying and you were bleeding like crazy." Nathan answered as he tossed the baggie back. "That was horrible. You looked like Samara or some shit."
"You didn't say a word. All night, you just lied there and held me." I walked along the ledge of the roof, trying to keep my balance. "...I almost fell for you, I think."
Nathan hated the drugs, and he hated everything I did with them. Yet, he hadn't hated me. He still let me in and do them all, he still let me in and take advantage of the hospitality and kindness he gave me. All I had ever done was use him, yet he showed me the same kindness time and time again. He treated me like everything I wasn't, a good person. I hadn't deserved Nathan as a friend, or anything more.
"Even if I had feelings for you, I don't deserve you." he took a drag as an eye peeked through his hair. "You were being raped, and I couldn't do anything but get knocked out. Now you're doing all these drugs? I'm not a man, I'm just a fucking loser."
"Hey, at least we can be losers together, right?"
It had been obvious, even if he never said it. Nathan had blamed himself for another man's actions. After I had seen his eyes that night, I held no blame towards him. Nathan hadn't done a thing to me, and he had no reason to be blamed. I didn't blame him for anything at all. He couldn't have helped that he lost a fight. He couldn't have helped that Devin was stronger. Nathan, unlike anyone, had been there. Through every last night, through every last tear, he had been there for me.
When he decided that he was fed up with me, I would have understood.
"Stop."
Bouncing off of the ledge, I made my way towards him as he took another drag of the slow-burning cigarette. Nathan hadn't looked up at all as I approached him, which had been typical. Finally reaching Nathan, I let my fingers fall into his hair as I sat myself down onto the ground next to him. Reaching forward, I tried to move his hair out of his eyes only to have him turn his head the other direction. He had always let me do that, whether he hated it or not. He had become so distant within minutes. Had what I said been wrong?
It kind of stung, and that sting had caused me to jump conclusions. In that moment, I thought he had finally given up on me. That he had enough of all my drugs and games, the poison that I put him through daily. All of the smoke, the awful smells, I had put him through all of those and this was the day he had enough of it. He wanted nothing to do with me or the drugs any longer. I said I would understand, and I did, but It wasn't something I wanted.
"Are you done with m-"
"Lynn?"
As the familiar, deep tone echoed through my ears, I shot up to my feet before I could even think of doing anything else. Looking up had only confirmed that suspicion. Why had he been on this roof? How did he know about it, and how did he know I was there? I looked down at Nathan again, who still looked in the other direction with his eyes covered. He knew? Stepping backwards, I had made it clear that I wasn't having any part of it.
"I'm sorry, Lynn. I didn't have a choice." Nathan's hand took mine, forcing me to stay where I was. "Your parents knew something was wrong and asked us to help you. All we want is to see you healthy."
"He's right, kid." Brian's look had bordered on a glare. "Why did you start doing that shit, Lynn? You know how many times I told you to stay away from that shit, don't you?"
"I don't need either of your help." I tried to pull away. "Nothing happened, Brian. I can make my own choices."
Brian traveled a few steps forward and then leaned inwards, staring over me. Brian told me time and time again when I was growing up, to stay away from drugs. They messed people up and changed who they were. Drugs turned people into monsters, criminals, and slaves, turning them all into something they never wanted to be. He had made that clear to me, and I had never planned on doing them.
"You aren't my little sister. She would never look at me like this." Brian ripped me up by my shirt. "I heard about Grace, but this has to be more than that, Lynn."
There was no way he could've understood that I felt at home in this numbness. There was no he could've seen that this was the only world I could see clearly in, that this was the only world I could take a full breath in, and that this was only world I could be myself in. Of course, I hadn't seen him years. I wouldn't and couldn't have been the same innocent, little runt he remembered. I had turned into everything he hadn't wanted and that wasn't going to change.
No matter what he or my family did. I was fine being high and alone, numb and empty as long as I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't live without the numbness in me. There was no way I could have gone into the world sober and breathing without the numbness taking over me. I was sorry for what I had done to my parents, and everyone else, but this had been the person I was and the person I had become. The girl they remembered was gone. Only one person could have saved me from what I was becoming, and she hadn't been around to do it.
She was burned alive in her own hell, forced to choke on her own skin and oxygen.
"I'm s-sorry, Brian."
My knees went slightly weak at the sight of his expression. His eyes had slowly become red, bulged outwards. He was sad, and angry, all at once. I had known that if I told him what had happened, he would've done something. It hadn't been for my sake, but for his and Grace's, my parents, they hadn't needed that in their lives. They hadn't needed another burden from me, because of me.
It wasn't fair, just because I hadn't been her anymore, hadn't meant that I didn't love my brother. He had always been a huge part of my life, and seeing that expression on him almost killed me.
"I can't force you to tell me." a deep breath had come from Brian, which was followed by him setting me back down. "Mom and Dad lined up the best rehab available here for you, Lynn. If not for you, then do it for all of us. Your friend here, Grace, me, mom and dad. We love you, and we're doing this only for you."
"Sorry, Brian." I walked around him. "I love you, but I just can't be that girl anymore. I tried and tried and tried to be, but it wouldn't go away. Nothing stopped and I just wanted to hear and feel nothing. These drugs, bad or not, give me what I need to wait for Grace."
Brian put his left hand on my shoulder, and then everything went black.
"I didn't say there was a choice."
ns 172.71.194.114da2
and then Add to home screen.