Present
LIES. ALL LIES. I PAINTED a pretty picture, roses and daisies, all to seem something I was not. All to cover up the fact I was withering from this charade. I hadn’t moved on. My life was not peachy. I worked to numb the pain the way Violet and Lennox escaped with their drugs. I loved my job, but I had nothing, no one, to be in love with.
This entire journey was killing me—seeing Lennox this way; the encounter with William; watching Violet so helpless. I wanted to scream at every turn. Be shaken awake from this nightmare and find myself in my warm bed back in New York. I was one blink away from breaking, and Violet was none the wiser. My composure fooled her. Guess I was a better actress than I realized. But regardless of how put together I seemed to Violet, I knew the truth. My grip on the rope was slackening. I didn’t have much more to hold on to.
As if the world needed to remind me how unfair it was, a loud crash at the bar prompted my awareness. Lennox collapsed to the floor before my eyes, taking whatever was left of his manhood down with him.
“Fuck,” Violet cursed, as if this was a normal occurrence she was used to handling. I kept up the façade that none of this bothered me, when in reality my heart was aching.
“I’m arigh! I’m arigh!” Lennox slurred with his hands waving in the air.
Violet rushed to his aid and lifted him to a sitting position. “Up ya go,” she sang, embodying a mother caring for a helpless son. I looked on, thankful for the first time it was her and not me. Had I stuck around the way Lennox begged me to, I would not have been able to handle this as graciously and tenderly as Violet was.
“I’m fine! Get off me.” Lennox hadn’t opened his eyes yet but he was flailing his arms and dismissing a doting Violet. Scraping his limp body across the floor, he found the bar and leaned against it for support.
What a sight. It was deplorable. It was pathetic. It was heartbreaking.
The bartender didn’t so much as look in Lennox and Violet’s direction down on the floor, which spoke volumes on how often this sort of thing must’ve happened. The other patrons went on with their day-drinking and dart playing as if a former football hero wasn’t wasting away at their feet.
My stomach lurched as I absorbed every bit of this nightmare, and tears that had long since dried up when it came to this man who had owned my heart began to shed without avail.
“Eden?” Violet asked, stunned by my frozen state.
I couldn’t move my feet to walk closer to them. I couldn’t blink my eyes shut to erase this awful reality. All I could do was cry.
“Oh, my God, Eden.” Violet was at my side, leaving Lennox in a slumped over blob. “Are you okay?”
The answer to that was a resounding “no,” but I couldn’t even bring myself to speak the simple syllable.
“Sit down,” she implored, dragging me to the stool Lennox had involuntarily vacated. “Pete, get her a big glass of water. Hurry.”
In the time it took the bartender to pour me water and Violet to bring it to my lips, I’d seen enough to haunt me for the rest of my life.
I stared at Lennox as if doing so would brand the vision to my brain for all of eternity. I had no doubt it would linger there forever. It was too grave a sight to ever forget.
Even when I left them three years ago, knowing Lennox was already spiraling out of control, there was still a hint of the man I fell in love with beneath the addict. Not now, however. Once burly and beautiful, Lennox was now skin and bones. The clothes that hung from what used to be a muscular physique were dirty and stained. He looked homeless, as though he hadn’t eaten or showered in weeks. How was this the same man I once promised my life to?
“Edie,” he crooned, drool dripping to his stubble-covered chin. “My Edie is here.”
A sob wracked through me and I let my head fall into my hands. Limp and defeated, I was done for. “How did this happen? Why?”
I felt a tentative hand on my back and knew it was Violet. Rather than push her off and force her away, I wanted so badly for her to wrap her arms around me and make this all stop.
We were wordless for what seemed like hours, both of us knowing we needed the silence to allow the severity to permeate. And oh, did it soak through. It penetrated every bone in my weakened body, straight down to the marrow. This was crazy. Lennox was one drink from death’s door or a jail cell. “How could I have let this happen? I shouldn’t have left. This is all my fault.” I wasn’t sure if I thought the confession to myself or if the words had actually left my lips. Either way, nothing could soothe me but time to process this.
When my sobs subsided and my water glass was empty, I realized Violet had taken a seat next to me. I could tell by her fidgeting hands and her focus on the colorful line of liquor bottles behind the bar that she was in desperate need of a drink. I almost offered her a way out and ordered the bartender to pour us some tequila, but then Lennox starting vomiting. Right there at my feet.
“Oh, my God!” I shouted, my breathing still labored from a fit of crying induced hiccups. “Violet, is he okay?” I turned to her but she was already at his side, her hand on his forehead as he emptied his stomach onto the checkered tiles.
“Get him outside, Violet! The happy hour crowd will be here soon.” Pete didn’t even bother looking over the bar. He continued cleaning a glass with a rag, paying no mind to an ailing Lennox and an overly distraught Violet.
“He’s sick!” I defended, suddenly worried that the amount of vomit erupting from Lennox was extremely unhealthy.
“No. He’s drunk. And this is the second time this week. He’s lucky I don’t give him the mop to clean his shit up himself!” I took that as my cue to shut up and help Violet get Lennox up and out of here.
“Let me help,” I said, bending down and breathing through my mouth so the stench didn’t cause me to also hurl all over the place.
It didn’t take much manpower for the two of us, both small in stature and weighing no more than one-ten each, to get Lennox to his feet and usher him through the closest exit. He was so frail and bony, not much meat to his once two-twenty build. Comparing the football player Lennox of the past that I loved with all my heart to the drunk and fragile Lennox of the present who was breaking my heart all over again, only brought on more tears.
“Don’t cry, baby,” Lennox whispered when he caught sight of the gush of sadness spilling down my cheeks.
I didn’t answer him and I certainly didn’t make eye contact. I was afraid if I looked deep enough I’d recognize that old glimmer of life in his rheumy green eyes. As hard as this was, it was easier to imagine that part of him was gone for good. As long as I kept telling myself he was a stranger, I wouldn’t completely fall apart. He was no longer the love of my life. He was simply a lost soul in need of saving.
Once we were outside, the warm air was no reprieve, offering us nothing to refresh our senses from the staleness of the bar. Lennox’s arms dangled around both my neck and Violet’s as he steadied himself. After he hocked a disgusting loogie across the alleyway we’d wound up in, he unraveled his arms and stood upright as if he hadn’t just been dying in there.
“I’m okay. Much better. Thank you, girls.” He dug into the pocket of his loose denim and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Another habit I couldn’t believe he’d taken up. But what was nicotine in the grand scheme of things? His bloodstream was already diluted by poison far more threatening than that.
“Lennox,” Violet started, “we need to talk. Here’s as good a place as any.” She looked at me for approval. I personally thought the alleyway of a dive bar was not a prime spot for convincing Lennox to go to rehab, but who was I to judge? From the look of things, this bar was Lennox’s home away from home. The alleyway was an extension of its familiarity; he’d probably spent plenty of his time passed out against the rank dumpsters and rust covered walls.
“Not again, Vi. Not now.” Running his hand through greasy overgrown hair, Lennox’s eyes found mine. He smiled, revealing unkempt teeth and a grin that once made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. “I’m so happy you’re here, Edie. I’ve missed you so much.”
He disregarded Violet’s presence and inched closer to me.
My first instinct was to back away, but once again the craziness of the situation froze me in place. I couldn’t move as he came closer. I couldn’t breathe as his hand reached out to cup my tear stained cheek. I couldn’t stop my heart from thundering against my ribcage as his deep green eyes bore into mine, summoning nostalgia and anguish and too many other feelings to keep track of. I almost melted right there on the puddled ground, surrendering to this man and telling him I’d do anything to reform him into who he used to be.
But he was too far gone for that. There was no use in pretending things could ever go back to how they were. That dream died the moment he and Violet decided to team up on this journey through hell.
Swallowing hard and covering his hand with mine, I closed my eyes and mustered every ounce of strength I had. “You need help, Lennox. That’s why I’m here.”
His hand fell from my face faster than I could finish the sentence and open my eyes to witness the retreat.
Lennox’s laughter burned my ears and echoed off the walls of the alley. “I’m fine. I don’t need help. Now that you’re here, you’ll see. We’ve got this under control. Don’t we, Vi?”
Violet was behind him, her face a canvas of fluctuating emotions. “No, we don’t.” Her voice cracked when she admitted the painful truth, and so did her reserve.
What a fucking mess. This wouldn’t be easy. We had our work cut out for us if we’d ever get Lennox to come to his senses. I was too busy concentrating on Violet to notice he was about to prove how insignificant our efforts were.
When I caught sight of him from the corner of my eye, I was shocked. “Are you out of your mind?” I screeched. “You can’t do that here!”
“Why not? I’ve done this in this exact spot many times before, babe.”
I watched in horror and disbelief as Lennox took a needle of God knew what and tugged the cap off with his teeth. Before he could inject it into his arm without a single care in the world that it was still daylight, that anyone could see him at any moment, and that he was about to shoot up in front of me, I screamed.
“Stop him! Make him stop!” I begged Violet. This might have been an ordinary occurrence to her, but to me this was the nail in the coffin that my hope would be buried in.
“I can’t. Don’t you see? I can’t.”
Then I have to, I thought, and lunged for a clueless Lennox. I slapped his hand and the needle vaulted into the air, flying into the dark shadows of the alley, and landing somewhere out of sight.
“Why’d you do that?” Lennox whined, his sleeve still rolled up, exposing the skin he would have pricked with his beloved poison.
We stood at a standstill, the three of us silent, two of us shedding unrelenting tears. Lennox’s eyes went wide with disbelief, but his body still teetered out of balance from being plastered. Violet and I stared at each other with matching expressions of defeat.
The moment could not have gotten worse if we tried, yet somehow it did.
“There you are, you sorry mother fucker! You better have my money, asshole! It’s time to pay up.”
My eyes darted to the man exiting the bar from the same door we had. He was dangerously good-looking but the mere presence of him and his demands terrified me.
“Who’s that?” I dared to ask Violet, not really wanting to know.
She shuddered and her breathing grew rapid and fervent. Fear was evident in the way her face contorted and how her voice quaked when she said his name. “That’s Denver. We’re fucked. It’s all over now.”