“I fucking hate this lonely feeling,” he bites out. I hear him shuffle in the bed trying to get up, then falling, knocking over what I presume is the light on the nightstand beside his bed. It smashes on the ground as he falls with a thump.
“Fuck! Now it’s all dark and shit, Tru, it’s like it is when I’m not with you. See what I do when I don’t have you?” he screams out at me.
“I wanted you to hold me,” he bites out again. “I’m so addicted to all the things you do. The way you look at me and see past this façade, this mask.” He has tears in his voice. I know he is speaking the truth. “I wanted to make this love something better than all the bullshit that I had before. And look, I just fucking ran away.”
“I wanted you to stay,” I cry out. “I wanted you to want me more than them, than the feeling they give you.” The tears fall and my voice breaks. “I told you that I will always be right there holding you, you just have to feel it, Jay. I am with you inside.” His sobs break me and mine cry out meeting his. As he tries to get back up again he falls knocking something else over.
“I just wanted some sort of love. Any love,” I say to him.
“I know you wanted the same, Jay. You had it and lost it when your brother died, so you know what it feels like to have it. Me, well, me I didn’t have any type of parental or sibling love like you had. I had my grandfather and that was enough, but that always lead me to some really fucked up shit. Being abandoned when you’re a child still hurts when you’re an adult. He was all I had and then the drugs came, and I broke him. I lost the family I knew I needed but couldn’t keep. Then, Jay, then there was you. A devil with a halo. Your demons made love to mine and I fell.”
“I’m tired, baby.” His voice is a blur of tears and slurs.
“Pull the blanket off of the bed, babe. Wrap it around yourself. I will stay on the other end of the phone till you’re safe and asleep,” I say to him knowing that no matter how much I hurt right now, or how mad I am, he needs me. He is lost and needs saving.
“Stay. Promise me you’ll stay,” he begs me as he wraps his body in a blanket. He mumbles out in pain as something else falls hitting him.
Taking me by surprise he begins to sing me Chris Kläfford’s Version of Wicked Games.
My body breaks for us in this moment. I know that we will end up more broken than we initially thought would be possible. He pours all he has into me in that moment and it breaks me. It really stings how much you know you wanna be with someone but know that you’re deadly bad for each other.
He’s right, this world is only going to break our hearts
He falls asleep while I hum him Aerosmith’s I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing. I don’t wanna miss a thing, that is us, but it’s not safe for my sobriety to be with him in that volatile environment. Yet, it’s all I want. I know I need to be with him, yet my mind is holding me back. There is only so much a heart can take. I have taken pills after a long road of sober living and now I have to start over again. I fell into a vortex of emotions that clouded my own judgment with excuses of why I needed the drug. I am living a cruel existence and I am living with something that is going to give me nothing but heartache. I don’t wanna live in vain. I want to live forever, yet the drug is calling me back home.
He is like a habit that I can’t break. I just need to dodge the bullet from losing a love that could have been my whole world. I gave him something and he gave me nothing.
“Baby, please just remember us in the morning. And when the night comes, just remember the us without them,” I say into his ear as he murmurs into my ear.
“What is happening to me? Without you I am a mess, yet with you I can’t breathe. I need you to be my home, yet I need you to get high with me and feel me from the inside out.” His voice is slurred, his breathing laboured. I hope that he wakes come morning and doesn’t slip into a coma from way too many drugs and liquor. He is his own worst enemy.
His breathing grows heavy as sleep begins to slip over him. I hit end before my heart breaks more than I actually think is possible for a human.
I hit Mike’s name to call him.
“Tru.”
“Yep, it’s me. Look, he’s asleep. I think his breathing is laboured as he is so high. I don’t know if he will wake up from this, so can you sit with him?”
Pulling my body from the floor that I was sitting on I walk down the hallway to my bedroom.
“He needs you, Tru. I have not seen him this bad since I met him just as they were starting out. I picked him up from a dark alleyway after a night where he tried to drown his pain.”
I think over what he is saying I would rather hurt than feel nothing at all. With him I know I feel, but I also know the hurt causes scars I can’t heal.
Taking in a breath I say to him before I hang up, “I can’t help him. The world needs to disengage emotionally from him before he sees he has to help himself.”
Chapter Nineteen
Tru
Two weeks after that night my heart is still sore.
Eye contact is more intimate than words will ever be and when he video called me that morning after his epic fail of the night before he couldn’t look me in my eyes. He looked everywhere but.
“Our almost will always haunt me.”
I said to him as I ended the video call, I wasn’t going to subject myself to any more pain from him. He had shamed me enough in the last few months than anyone had in my lifetime.
