Hooked (10 page)

"Cause they're my
family
," I respond, a little taken back by the defensiveness in my tone. Lex notices it too, and pauses, eyeing me.

"Yeah but what do they do for you? Your sister came up in there just talking shit about you, trying to run you down. That's not fucking family. You don't need them."

I breathe for a moment before I respond, taking in what he's saying...his tone...what he's inferring. And I pause longer...letting my thoughts take me over.

I mean, everyone needs fucking family. He's getting so damn defensive, like having a relationship with my family would take me away from him.

And what Aimee said wasn't even completely false...that's the worst part. My relationship with Lex isn't healthy, and if course I want more from him. But shit, I know he can't give it to me. I probably can't even give him more...but that doesn't mean I don't want it.

And I
am
reckless with him. We do a bunch of stupid shit and get into a big fucking mess...we fight and we fuck...we can't even talk without arguing. It's like yelling is the only way we open up to each other. We can't talk about our feelings, because we don't feel anything. We only feel something if we're high. I want to
feel
something from him...that's why I stick around. Maybe one time...maybe just
once
I'll get that feeling.

Shit, that's how it is with the drugs. Chasing that first high.

He's a fucking drug.

And me...I want to be clean. I'm tired of waiting.

"How do you feel about trying to get clean with me?" I don't even recognize my voice when I ask it of him. Mostly because I wasn't expecting the words to even come out of my mouth. But there they were.

"You're kidding right?" he knits his brow, shifting uncomfortably.

Before I can stop myself I'm closing the space between us, taking his hands in mine, locking our fingers. He looks down at our hands, and then back at my face, more confused than I've ever seen him. And I realize,
God dammit
, I don't even think we've ever held hands before.

"We could do it together. I'll help you, Lex," I say it softly, looking at him with sincerity, but he's looking at me like I'm a stranger.

He shakes his head in uncertainty, dropping my hands, "Leala...I can't just do that. You know how involved I am. In the business...in everything. It's gonna be impossible right now."

"It wouldn't matter if you wanted it bad enough," I answer flatly, sighing in frustration.

"Well I guess I don't then," he quips, shrugging.

"Lex..." I sigh

"No! Fucking drop it," he snaps and I jump. "I'm not going to rehab...I'm not getting
clean
. I'm not ready. I'm fine. Things are
fine
just the way they are," he rambles, shaking his head, running a hand over the back of his neck, pacing as his emotions crawl all over him. This conversation is freaking him out.

"You almost got shot yesterday," I reason with him, placing my hands on his waist, turning him to look at me.

"Yeah...but I'm still here. And I'm fine. Get over it," he commands, taking my shoulders into his large hands.

I wait a beat before responding, slowly, finality in my voice. "I want to get clean, Lex...I'm
going
to. With you or without you."

He sighs, releasing his head before looking into my eyes again. "Look...I'm not gonna stop you. But I'm not all for it. I want you to be safe. You're gonna get fucking sick, and you're gonna be miserable. I don't want you to be stupid about this."

"Then
help
me," I plead, my hands gripping him tighter. "Help me through it."

He looks away, huffing out a frustrated sigh, but I can hear the wheels turning in his brain. Fear, insecurity, change, questions swimming in his mind.

"Lex...I
need
you."

And that's all it takes. He blinks once slowly, clearing his mental slate before meeting my eyes with his and giving me a small nod.

"Alright."

You know, I'm a pretty stubborn person. But maybe I'm just not cut out for this...

After two days I'm still waking up feeling like I'm sick, constantly sweaty and flushed with fever despite all of the Tylenol I'm feeding myself; my body wrenches with aches and pains all over. My throat is fucking raw from vomiting and my stomach is relentlessly knotted in cramps. Not to mention the itch...God, the fucking itch...all over me, my skin burns and itches and I know it's just in my head, but if I sit around idle for too long I'll start fucking clawing at myself...

Jesus-fucking-Christ.

Have you ever done a full day of hard manual labor and gotten muscle pains so bad that you couldn't sleep? Imagine that all over your back, shoulders, neck, in combination with a splitting headache. I can't believe I did this shit by choice...what a fucking moron I must be.

This is the absolute worst feeling ever.

Then at the same time I'm shivering like I'm cold but I'm actually hot and sweaty. Though if I try to cool off, my muscles tense up and start to hurt more from the chilling breeze of the air conditioner or a cold shower. Sometimes I just lay in a fucking bathtub full of room temperature water...floating like a goddamn fetus in the womb...then I start to wonder how differently I would do shit if I could just be born again...

If only it were that easy.

I don't feel nausea but my stomach hurts...it fucking kills me, and throwing up is no relief. You'd think eating would help but that kinda makes me feel worse. I can hardly sleep and when I do manage to doze off the fucking nightmares are so vivid I wake up screaming my damn head off. And of course the next day it starts all over again with the splitting headache like a hangover.

Maybe Lex was right...

No.

I'm quitting. I'm going to quit.

When I decide to stop using, my body automatically wants more cocaine. At this point it's possible I'll do anything for a dose of the Big C. I want it so badly, I would kill for it. I would murder, lie, steal, cheat. All for that little white bump. I hate shooting up, but I'd make tracks in my arm that a fucking locomotive could run down if I could just get high. Just one more time.

Lex comes by every day. In the mornings before he goes out for the day and then at night. He's even put out more runners so he can drop in every few hours. I've never really seen this side of him before. I mean, he always has those...I call them soft moments...and I know he doesn't have a hard heart, but he can be so cold sometimes. I wish I could appreciate him more during all of this, but I'm in such a haze I honestly never really know when he's there and when he's not. Sometimes when he's gone I just think he's in the next room still. I guess in my mind I like to imagine him never leaving.

He comes to talk to me, even if I don't respond much, and he lets me tell him how I'm feeling on those rare occasions when I can find the words, and I beg him, I fucking beg him for drugs but he keeps talking about something else like he doesn't hear me. He wants to take me home with him, but hell if I could ever think about getting clean in that house, so he just stays with me. He takes care of me.

He doesn't get too close most of the time because I think it really scares him when I'm sprawled on the bathroom floor with my cheek pressed against the tile, bawling my eyes out. But he sits outside the door, peeking through the crack at me.

"Lex..." I sob and sob and he stiffens uncomfortably, pushing the door open gently with his hand and sliding into the bathroom to sit next to me on the floor, legs crossed.

I curl around his body on my side, forming my shape around his legs the best I can, just wanting something to hold on to, and he rests his hand on my hip gently. I just cry; I cry and tremble and pant and he just keeps his hand on me, trying to comfort me.

He sucks in a breath and stiffens when I begin to crawl into his lap. Dammit, I just need something to hold on to. I need him. I clutch his shirt and my shoulders shake and no sound comes out but he can feel the wetness on my face as I press my nose into his neck.

His arms hang at his sides and he pants for a minute, scared. Scared to touch me. But I finally feel his large hands skim up my back, holding me clumsily against him, trying to comfort me though he really doesn't know how. He breathes out a shaky sigh.

"Shit, Leala...I don't really know what to do..."

But I don't answer back, because what he's doing is just fine.

Right now, it's all I need.

_______________________________________________________________

After a week I'm still miserable, and now I'm scared because I don't think I'm getting better. I cry all the time, and Lex just sits outside the door. I think he knows he can't really help me anymore.

He really thought he could those first few days, washing my face with a cool rag and holding my hair while I wretched into the toilet, feeding me when I wanted to eat and holding me when I wanted to sleep but was too afraid because of the nightmares. I needed him. But I think now he knows it's time to let me go.

This is bigger than both of us.

He lays me in the bed, holding my head until it hits the pillow, and I reach up for his shirt, twisting it in my trembling hands, tears welling in my eyes, "I can't do this anymore..."

He shakes his head slow and pulls the covers over my body, watching the sheets raise and fall as I lay there breathing, panting, but I need him to hear me out. "Lex...it hurts. It's bad...it's not getting better."

"You just need to give it more time. It'll get better." He pries my hands from his clothes adamantly and tucks me in fully, his warm hand pushing my hair back from my forehead.

"No, I'm fucking miserable. Please..." I thrash about a bit under the covers, wiggling free from them and sitting up a bit.

He huffs out a frustrated sigh. "Please what?"

"You can't help me anymore, Lex. You can't fix me." My palms hit against the comforter in frustration. I furrow my brow at him, my voice pleading, begging him for something that I'm too afraid to just ask for. I know what he'll say if I ask him to take me. If I ask him to let me go.

"I've been taking care of you for a fucking week! You act like that shit's not good enough. I'm doing all I can, Leala! Damn!" His warm tone finally leaves his voice as he becomes offended and rather impatient with me. He wants to feel like he can take care of me, he really does. He doesn't want me to need anyone else.

"You're not a fucking doctor! I should be in detox, shit, something. We're being fucking stupid about this," I groan, panting as I roll over putting my back to him and I feel a surge of fever hit my body again.

"I don't even know how to act when you fucking get like this," he mutters, swiping a hand out in a frustrated gesture.

"Get like what?" I snap, violently twisting my body back to face him, pain shooting down my arms and legs, but I push past it. "Trying to talk some sense into you? Being emotional? This isn't just some way I get, Lex...this is fucking reality. I can't do this. I need help."

"Yeah, you said that shit already..." he replies flatly, eyes dead and full of hurt.

"Take me to rehab...Lex, please." I reach for his shirt again, finally just coming right out with it, the words barely croaking from my throat as the fucking tears well up yet again. Right now I'm really just tired of crying more than anything else, frustrated with myself for being such a damn emotional wreck. He doesn't respond.

"Lex..." I start, my voice low and insistent. He has to know how important this is...

"Stop it."

I tense a bit as he scolds me curtly, coldly. I let go of his shirt dejectedly and he sighs, hanging his head in frustration and regret for being so harsh with me, but I can tell that all of this is wearing him down.

"Listen, I'm not turning you over to a bunch of fucking quacks. I'll sit right here and we'll do this the hard way, but we'll make it."

Despite the fact that this is exactly the response I was expecting, it still hurts. It reaches right down inside of me and stirs my fucking insides up, turning me into a mixed up mess of hurt and anger and frustration, and dammit, why can't he just understand that this is what needs to be done?

"I can't do this by myself...I fucking can't." Shit, I'm crying again.

He folds the covers back with a sigh and slips between the sheets, taking me against his chest. "I'm here," he says it softly, and fuck, I know he wants to be the man in this situation and take care of me but he's being an idiot.

And I'm still crying, begging, "please...please..." but he just shakes his head. Then I say it. God, I know it gets him every time, but it's the only way he'll listen.

"I need you to do this for me."

He winces at my words, but he knows that's it. That's fucking it. It's time.

He holds me tight until I give in to sleep.

The next morning we barely speak a word as he packs me up in his truck, and drives me to the clinic.

_______________________________________________________________

"And this is your room..."

She pushes the door open and I give her a polite smile as I brush past her. Ava, her nametag says. She had given me a tour of the facility and sat boredly in the corner of the front office while I filled out pages and pages of paperwork, but she seems nice enough.

I walk around slowly, taking everything in, my legs still wobbly and weak, my mind still a bit foggy having come straight here from the social detox center which is an affiliate of the rehab facility. Two weeks in fucking detox...that's pretty average for a long-term cocaine addict. But it was two of the longest weeks of my life...it feels like it's been two years.

God, I'm so exhausted.

Ava continues standing in the doorway and I give her another nervous smile before dropping my small bag onto the bed which is pushed up against the wall, my other suitcases already stored neatly underneath. I guess my parents had them sent over.

I sit slowly, nervously on the edge of the bed. Scooting back a bit, I feel the mattress is a bit lumpy beneath me. I shift a little.

So this is what a college dorm room must've been like...

Not that I would know.

Maybe someday. If things go well...

"Umm, you have a roommate," Ava's voice in the doorway shakes me from my thoughts, "Cara...she's obviously not here right now."

Upon her gesture, I glance over at the bed opposite mine. Same drab off-white blanket as the one I'm sitting on; one lonely pillow draped in a baby blue pillow case is poised atop the neatly-made bed, a plush rabbit stuffed animal resting below it. I nod slowly.

"So I guess I'll just let you get settled. Don't hesitate to come find me if you need anything. And dinner starts at six."

"Thanks," I reply flatly, wringing my hands, and when I glance up to the doorway she's already gone.

I push out a deep sigh, tipping back onto the bed exhaustedly, laying sideways across it, my head almost touching the wall as my legs dangle off the other side. My eyes trail slowly down my arm, the burn in my stomach intensifying at the sight of the scars in the crook of my elbow, reminders of the life I am supposed to leave behind now.

My gaze wanders further to the wristbands perched just atop my hand, boasting my name and patient status from my visit to the detox center, a small bruise decorating the thin skin on the back of my hand where my IV had been administered. The past and the present, spelled out right there in such close proximity on my body...but I know the journey will be much longer than that space between my elbow and wrist. Yes, that was only the beginning.

I don't know how long I lay here, staring up blankly, watching the ceiling fan spin slowly in the center of the room. My mother always told me that was how I used to fall asleep as a baby...watching the ceiling fan, being hypnotized by its motion, tricked right into a deep slumber. My eyes dart away from it suddenly at the thought.

"Hi!" a cheerful voice greets me and I snap my head up unexpectedly. "You must be Leala!" She bounds into the room...God, how can she be so fucking chipper? I sit up slowly, faking a smile and I wonder if she can tell. "I'm Cara!"

I take her extended hand into mine weakly. "Hey."

"How long have you been here?" She turns abruptly and frolics over to her bed, throwing herself down upon it with a bounce, pushing up on her elbows to look at me expectantly.

I look around the room clueless for a clock or something when I realize I don't even know what fucking time it is, but I finally just sigh dejectedly, "I don't know." My voice is thick from lack of use. I've barely spoken any full sentences since I arrived, still slightly overwhelmed by it all.

She just giggles a little. "I've been waiting for new roommate, my old one just moved over to Sober Living. It's just not the same being in this room all by myself."

"How long have you been here?" I pull my legs up onto the bed, crossing them, crossing my arms over my chest. I don't mean for my body language to be so shielding, but I'm still a bit unsure of everything around me.

"Two months."

I lift my brows in surprise. "Wow...well, I'm fresh off the truck from detox."

"Ohh, your best days are still yet to come then." She laughs and I sense the sarcasm in her statement. I smile a little.

"It's cool here, right? I mean...you like it ok?" I ask, nervously stumbling over my words a bit.

"Yeah, it's a good place...you kinda go on autopilot after a while. There's plenty of stuff to keep you busy, and everyone is nice. I mean, we all have our days, you know? You'll wanna run away screaming eventually, especially during the first month. But just...stick it out. I can honestly say I'm glad I did."

I nod at her response, sliding my legs back out slowly and scooting off the edge of the bed until my feet touch the ground. I turn back toward the bed and bend down, reaching for a suitcase to begin unpacking when I hear her voice again.

"So what are you here for...if you don't mind me asking?"

My hand freezes in its path and I stand up straight again, looking at the floor for a moment. I twist my mouth as my head searches for the words, a way to explain myself, but then I realize that it's a simple answer.