1
Hound
AN INTENSE BACK spasm pulled me from my sleep. Reflexively swatting a hand across the nightstand, I reached for relief. There was nothing but air where the pill bottles should be. Flashbacks filtered through my exhaustion: me stumbling, waking up on a street corner, being handcuffed and stuffed into the back of a police car. Scenes of my medicine-induced mistakes played like a movie trailer in my mind.
The shit that was supposed to bring me relief had only brought me trouble.
No more pills. Ever.
Remembering the promise I’d made to myself and the handful of people who gave a fuck about me, I sat up, sucking down deep breaths as fire raged down my back. Someone once told me that God wouldn’t give me more than I could handle, but if God existed, the big man had to be one hell of a sadist togive methis level of torment.
A particularly sharp pain dragged a curse from my lips. “Fuck me.” Clenching my fists, I pounded on the mattress until the pain eased.
My eyelids felt like sandpaper scraping away my corneas with every blink. The clock on my nightstand read two-thirty-four a.m., which meant I’d barely gotten two hours of sleep. Stomach unsettled, brain foggy, body tense, this was how I spent way too many nights lately. Hell, I couldn’t even remember what well-rested and pain-free felt like anymore. You’d think I’d have grown used to it but dealing with the pain never got easier.
Another wave was rolling in.
Needing to focus on something else, I grabbed the remote and clicked on the television. Nothing worth watching was on, and flipping through channels didn’t do shit to distract me. My muscles kept tensing, bracing for the onslaught I could feel coming on.
Sometimes deep, measured breaths helped, but not this time. Each gulp of air only increased the swell. What had started along my backbone spread through my core and down my legs. It raced over my shoulders and spread through my arms, overtaking my entire body like a tidal wave.
I was drowning in pain.
Holding still, I waited for the agony to pass, but it only intensified until my stomach clenched and bile rose in the back of my throat.
Shit!
It was too much. Too intense. Scooting off the bed—and swearing every inch of the way—I pulled on a pair of sweats. Hobbling out of my door and down the hall, I swallowed back bile as each step jackhammered the shit out of my spine. By some miracle, I made it to the bathroom without blowing chunks all over the hallway.
Stumbling through the door, I hurried to the nearest stall and dropped to my knees where I heaved my stomach up to the porcelain god, praying for relief. Each move tugged at the muscles in my back, causing even more pain. My vision went white. Sweat and tears mixed with vomit as my body tried to expel my goddamn toes through my mouth.
I couldn’t tell where I ended, and the agony began.
Iwaspain, vomit, and tears. There was nothing else left of me.
Then finally—just when I couldn’t take one second more—the wave receded. I could still feel it, but I could finally fucking breathe.
With the cool porcelain toilet beneath my cheek and the slow, steady dripping of one of the showers in the background, the world came back into focus.
I’d survived.
Somehow, I always did. For now. The tide would roll in again. Maybe next time, it would take me under for good. Maybe I would never resurface again.
What would that be like?
Would I finally get some fucking relief?
Unable to determine whether my death would be a blessing or a curse, I used toilet paper to mop off my face and the splatters on the toilet seat before flushing the mess away. Little pulses of aftershocks reminded me I wasn’t out of the woods yet, but I could handle them. They were nothing compared to what I’d just endured. Pulling myself up on unsteady legs, I headed for the sink.
The cold water felt incredible. I dunked my head under the faucet before splashing it on the back of my neck and rinsing out my mouth. Glancing at the shower stalls, I considered trekking back to my room for a towel, but I didn’t have that kind of energy and needed to get my ass back to bed. Tomorrow was an important day that would require me to fire on all cylinders, not just the fumes I was currently running on. Turning off the faucet, I dried off my face with a paper towel as my reflection snagged my gaze. Staring into the mirror above the sink, I noted the dark circles surrounding my dull eyes. They say you can see a person’s soul through their eyes, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell anyone would see in mine.
I looked hollow. Empty.
I felt worse.
At thirty years old, I didn’t have shit to show for my life. Sure, I’d served in the Navy, but as soon as I started to make something of myself, I was injured and sent home. Estranged from my family, with no woman, no job, a criminal record, and an addiction problem, I couldn’t be further from the man I’d set out to be. How many nights had I spent with nowhere to lay my head? How many times had I been so fucked out of my mind on morphine I didn’t even know where I was? I’d felt the bone-chilling cold of a jail cell, and had become well acquainted with the lonely desperation of rehab. Detoxing had been no joke, making me feel like my body was being eaten from the inside out.
Turned out sobriety wasn’t much better.
