This flat had always been safe. A space where I could just exist with nothing coming for me. Nothing to worry about. No need to hide. And that was the problem here, because this flat? It no longer felt like…
Fuck. Double fuck.
Okay. Breathe.
I needed to make a plan, but I hadn’t managed to even get myself off the floor today, still sat here in a heap trying to figure out what to do…about everything. Laptop on my lap. Phone in my hand. All the tools I needed to get my life in order.
Yet I did nothing, sitting here like a paralysed amoeba with no ability to use my brain.
I wanted to do what I always did. Get my flash gear on and walk myself down to my usual place of choice. Tap my card on the reader. Get myself messed up to the point where I no longer cared. The temptation was nauseating. Alluring at the same time as it made me sick to my stomach.
I wanted it. Badly.
Just the hit. My nostrils flaring in anticipation. I wanted someone’s hands on me. I wanted to be manhandled and pushed and made to do things. I wanted.
And my vision once again went dark, even before I closed my eyes, trying to handle the wave of fear that engulfed me.
I had worked so hard to get away from this. To change things. I had done everything right, and what had it been? A couple of weeks? I hadn’t even been tempted when that Thom had whispered secrets in my ear. That there was some runner downstairs who could score stuff. Whatever I wanted.
I hadn’t because.
“Fuck,” I breathed out into the room.
I hadn’t. Because. Fucking hell. My heart was racing again, and I was sweating profusely. My body reacting to all the things it needed that I refused to give into. I needed water and food. I needed a baggie of coke and some little pills. Something to take the edge off all my paranoia and anxiety.
Yeah, I knew how deranged I sounded in my head, and how insane this was. Every little part of it. From me being sat on the floor here to the very real fact that the notification was blinking on my screen. New episode now live, it said. Like I’d been sat here waiting for it.
Truth. I had. I had watched the first three episodes. Over and over again.
To be honest? The hit I got from it was way stronger than the surge in my stomach for nutrition. And the drugs? I was stronger than the shivers roaring through my body. Braver.
I was an absolute idiot. But for now, it was the only thing that worked.
Now I was fully aware that I was trying to excuse my obnoxious behaviour with stupidity. Telling myself it was addictive television, visionary reality TV and all the other things the screen was telling me.
I believed it. I had to, because the alternative was terrifying.
The fact that I was sitting here watching myself make an absolute pig’s ear of my life, for everyone to see? People who knew me? Like?
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
People at work would see this. It was better if I didn’t. That way I could just ignore anyone commenting. I could pretend I didn’t notice people’s looks. Clients. Would people recognise me at work? Would old hookups come crawling out of the woodwork to spill all my secrets?
And then I would remember that I was actually…probably. Not returning to work. Another small detail that made icy shards of reality stab me on the inside.
I lied. I lied so much to myself that even that had become a blur.
I shuddered and let my finger dance over the touchscreen. Because I had to. Because the alternative was unbearable.
Press play. Watch the stupid ads. I closed my eyes and let the introduction play. Some stupid jingle with a wedding march theme crawling through me like the earworm it was.
Gina. Her boobs on display in that thing she was sprayed into. Eyelashes so long I was surprised she could actually see through them.
And a convenient recap. My face filling the screen as I was laughing at something, sat on…
I almost said it in my head.Our bed.
Me. Smiling like… Shit. I was looking happy again. I hated it. Hated it because it was so obviously fake. Everything was fake, down to the way the camera zoomed in on my fingers, nervously fiddling with the hem of my jumper.
