Me- I am caving here inside my head. I am so lonely and all you do is harass me, break me, want me, kill me. I’m screaming here and not one of you can see past your own selfish ways to save me from me.
Instantly a reply from Jayden – What do you mean not one of us? I’m on my way.
FUCK I scream out as I flick to Blairs
Blair- I tried, you pushed me away, ignored the fact that I could love you and I would burn for you.
Twist the knife into my bleeding heart some more why don’t ya.
Replying to the two whack jobs that think it’s all about them.
Me- Whatever.
That is all I managed to get out before the Vicodin took effect. That is the one thing about multiple drug dealers, they all have different drugs, all on tap and all wanna deliver to the girl who’s granddaddy fucked God to sleep with the devil.
Crawling along the floor of my apartment, my legs are weak and jelly like. I slip an LSD under my tongue as all I wanna do is numb it all and kill the voices inside my head. I have slipped from dignity and grace into the burning heap of addiction and loneliness.
There is shit everywhere, clothing and bottles, empty food bags and pill bottles. It’s been what? 18 days of this latest drug bender and I have slipped in and out of this realm more times than I can count. I have tried to slip out permanently many times, to exit the feelings he brings to my soul but not even 100 bottles of the good stuff could take his eyes from my brain or his taste from my lips. I tried, baby. Oh God, I tried. Making it to the bathroom I need a shower or to spew. Maybe I need to spew more. I have to, I need to wake up as I feel like this time, I may just take my last breath. I have danced with the devil one too many times for something bad to not happen and I feel like this time no one will appear to save me. So, I allow the waves to take me to him. It’s his eyes I see as the dark comes but it’s my granddaddy’s voice calling out to me to stay, to seek out the vial under the basin taped to the back of the water pipe.
“Baby, save you to save me.” is what I hear him say.
“You don’t belong here, my love,” he calls out as I scream to him, “Why the hell haven’t you answered each time I have screamed out your name? You’re on the other side of this world, is this the illusion that you loved me and that all I tried to seek? Now look at me! God, please have mercy on my soul because I’m committing murder, not only to me but to two other men,” I slur out as the world fades and pings around me. It’s like a twisting ring of fate. All the lights and dark molding and meshing. It’s like a roller coaster and I kinda wanna get off.
“Tru Monroe,” he screams to me, his voice booming. I laugh at my full name. Wow, he’s mad. It’s refreshing a little like old times laced with the taint of death.
“Don’t you dare break your heart and his to punish me. Don’t you dare take your life to be with me because I loved you too much. That’s why I had to leave you. See, baby girl, love is blind. It’s a feeling that will take your breath away and break you, but also mend you in the same breath. It’s like a bullet going right through you too fast. So, baby girl, take the vial and stay on this side of heaven because honey, that boy is coming, and he loves you like the love that killed me. Tears streamed down my face as the black spots formed behind my eyes. Truly, Tru, my sweet angel, have mercy baby. Allow the love to find you. His kiss will save you. The dark is coming. As his voice fades tears fall hot down my cheeks drying to a stinging cold. It’s painful, it hurts. All these feelings all these lies and the truth of the haunted voice of my past, a man I had sought so many times inside the dark and never found until now. I have tongue kissed with death more times than I can remember and now I think the reaper will take me down into the enteral fire. Crawling along the cold bathroom floor, the smooth cool tiles rubbing over my skin as my shirt peels up and my hands seek the basin cupboard. I try to pull the door open while the effects are at their fullest. My movements are slow and blurry; not all there, not at all fluid. I can see the vial and taste the drug on the tip of my tongue as my life balances inside the palm of my hand not wanting to spend the rest of my days inside the emptiness I push past the daze reaching for the vial missing not once but three times. The fourth attempt is a success but before I can empty the contents into my body, this lifeline to living, I fall slipping past the point of knowing how to save me. Past the point of here and lucid. I fall into the white out stage, which is just before the OD stage where you see, feel and watch it all but no matter how loud you scream, how much you reach out you’re unheard and unseen. So, I lay, and I watch hovering over my body praying to a God that I just broke up with to come and keep me company because no one wants to die alone on a dirty bathroom floor.
Sitting on the edge of my subconscious I hold hands with my granddaddy as he sits with me in the final moments between there and here, that little part of the realm before God or the devil calls you to the afterlife or the nightmare that is hell. I look at my body lying there, passed out, hair a matted mess on top of my head.
I open my mouth to talk to the one man I have only really truly loved.
“I would have followed you. You know I loved you so much that I stumbled so far that I couldn’t even find my feet ever again after that day. You gave up on me when I was screaming at you to hear me. I’m so sorry, grandad, that I couldn’t get to you in time for you to see that I loved you more than the sun loved the moon.” Tears are falling down my face. It’s a weird sensation, so different from any other time I cried. His eyes seek mine. The pads of his thumbs still feel the same from when I was little, and he would wipe my tears from my face.
“I have no excuses for all the pain I left you, my love. For all the sleepless nights and drug overdoses. Love blinded me; I could never give you what you needed.” His voice is so soft. “I took it all though. All the pain, need, empty longing that came with loving a ghost.” My words are heavy between us. “It wasn’t right, bringing you into the way I left. I loved her so much that it tipped me over the edge.” Squeezing my eyes shut. “It wasn’t fair, and it’s not fair the way it is now. Looking down at myself, I don’t wanna die. I wanna be there to fill the empty space that I know will be inside his chest when he walks in and sees me.” “He loves you, Tru. He really does. The way he left you wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, but you see, my love, this kind of love only happens once, and he got scared. I watch you and I see inside his eyes that he thought his life and the addictions, the malice of the fans, would kill the spirit inside of you and he didn’t know what to do.” I shake my head as I listen to his words. “I was so drunk on him and his smell that I couldn’t even see he was drowning in more than lust for me.” The warmth of my grandad’s arm wraps around me. “He wants to give you it all, my love. The world and all the diamonds and promises if you can allow him in.” I laugh as I bury my face into his chest and the familiar smell of home hits me, warming my body and easing my mind. “I will never know though will I because I can feel the cold coming in seeping into my bones. I’m dying, Granddaddy. I’m fading and he won’t be able to save my broken self in time. So, it’s here right now that I will have to say goodbye inside my head as I watch my body as I lay there on the bathroom floor a wasted mess. “Again, Granddaddy, I am sorry for the mess I have become. I’m sorry for all the mess on the floor… all the empty bottles and broken promises. I have become nothing at all but a stumbling mess when all you wanted was a strong woman who knew how to fly not fall.
Call me when it's over please because standing above my body watching as I shake and spew while so high is unbearable. I can’t even remember how long I have been there for. I'm dying inside. Look at me.” I scream to him “Look at me please. Wake me up now when the shakes are gone as it’s too much to bear.” My grandad’s strong arms wrap around me pulling me into him as I close my heavy lids shutting out the bright light. All I beg for is the cold sweats to fucking disappear and for me to feel like more than this weak broken mess that I have made myself into. I know I don’t belong. I never will believe him, no matter how much he says I am worth it. That I am worth the love and that I need to wake up and see that he is here standing over me, tears falling from his own eyes. He falls to his knees scooping me into his arms.
“It’s only when I'm lonely and my heart is broken. Falling for a guy when I wasn’t healed was a dick move. I knew I should have stayed away and not believed the sweet lies coming from his plump and delicious lips.
Sometimes I just wanna cave, fall because I am tired from the fight. Staying sober is harder when sober isn’t what your mind wants but your body needs. I tried to love me so he could love more than a shell but as I begged him to love me, I fell back down as the voices took hold.” I cry into my grandad’s arms as my eyes blurred and raw look at the pain washing over Jayden’s sweet face. His hands are shaking as he screams into his phone for help to come and save me from me. I am dying before him, inside of the arms I have longed for. Will they be the ones to save me?
“All I wanted was for them to love me, someone to hold me. I'm so sorry, I'm not sober anymore but you were never there. I’m sorry for running to the dark when I should have stayed in the light.
Grandad, I am so sorry for the drinks spilled on the floor, the pills on the table and the knots in my hair. I tried, Grandad, I really did to break the cycle and rise above all the fear.
To the ones who left me thank you for not caring enough to stay. I would never have left you in your hour of need. Yes, I know it was years of need for me, but still.
To my soul, I’m sorry that we've been down this road before but I'm only human and I was counting on a future of love, but his world broke me, and I wasn’t strong enough.
To Jayden and even Blair as I lay here in the arms of what love feels like as the dark takes away the light, I’m so sorry I let you down and I don’t know what to do. I can’t seem to shake the sweet taste of the pills for either of you. The pills I love the most and the drink that washes them down are like a demon. It has me and I can’t seem to find solid ground. Goodbye world you were a blast. I’m sorry I will never know what it felt like to be at peace before I left you with open wounds and broken dreams. My eyes fall shut as my grandad’s voice coils around my memory and Jayden’s screams laced with heartbreaking sobs travel with me to the depths of the unknown. Inside the grasp of addiction that I can no longer live in or hide within, I am exposed at my worst for my love to find.
This is what broken is.
Behind closed doors.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jayden
