That scream was like black calling black, loneliness calling loneliness. I didn’t understand it, but I needed to find the source of it. Opening two doors, I’m punched in the gut hard by what I see. There she is, the girl I thought I loved ten years ago. She’s on the floor with a band wrapped around her arm. A syringe left in and blood pooling at her feet. She was sitting up, her back against the wall.
Looking up, and looking at me, like she recognizes exactly who I am. Her skin’s covered in marks, her body’s skin and bones, her ribs poking through her skin tight dress which is wrapped around her body. Her eyes are dull. Her once bright, vibrant blonde hair is now lifeless. I look around. Other girls are passed out or are high on drugs. I start pacing, wondering what to do. Should I just leave her where she is? I don’t know this woman, I don’t know who she is now. Then she looks up at me like she knows who I am, and a roar rips from my throat.
I can’t leave her, but I don’t take in strays either. Her eyes are glued to mine like she’s trying to gauge my reaction. But I know the real reason—she’s soaring fucking high. Whatever she’s inserted in her arm is playing with her head.
I stand there, not moving. Standing quite still, unsure of what to do, or how to go about it.
I thought I had loved once, but now I’m unsure. So the feelings I have for her are unusual. She makes me feel things, makes my heart pitter patter when I thought there wasn’t a heart there that could do that. She’s unusual and unique. Strange, but beautiful.
She moans, pulling me from the thoughts I have of her. She doesn’t recognize me, that I know for sure. She would have said something, anything if she did. But no words are spoken. I know she can speak, know she can scream. Because she turns to the girl next to her, who’s currently placing a needle in her arm, and she screams at her to give it back. The girl next to her doesn’t hear, or chooses not to listen, as she empties the syringe into her arm. Rose launches forward, her hands slapping on the floor, picking up any drugs she can get a hold of. I shake my head, having no idea what to do.
“You here to fuck us?” Her voice is dry, unlike what I’ve heard before. There’s a scratchy noise to it. She looks up at me, her body now lying on the dirty floor, covering herself in her own blood. Then she smiles and passes out. I’m not sure how much blood she’s lost, but her eyes hide the fact that her soul is dead.
I turn and walk out, the brunette I’d fucked only minutes earlier leaning against the wall outside the door. She puffs a breath out, pulling smoke from her mouth, and smirks.
“You a junkie?” she asks, looking over my shoulder back to the girls in the room. Rose has passed out on the floor, blood surrounding her, a band wrapped around her arm. I shake my head, not bothering answering her.
“Them girls would do anything for a hit…” more smoke curls from her mouth, “…and they do,” she says, stomping on the butt, putting it out and walking off with a sway in her hips.
She’s a hit it and quit it kind of girl. I like that and I want another taste.
I turn back one last time. Her eyes are open, and she’s looking at me. They blink once, then twice.
Fuck it!
I pick her up, throwing her over my shoulder. She’s light, as light as a child. She doesn’t make a noise when I carry her out. Jake spots me straight away and walks over. He looks to me, then to her.
“I need your car,” I tell him.
“That bitch is bleeding. She’s not getting in my car.” He shakes his head like he can’t believe I’ve just asked that question.
“I’ll pay for it to be cleaned. Now give me your keys.” I shove my hand out, and he reluctantly pulls them from his pocket.
“Who’s the bitch?” he asks, nodding his head to Rose. I snatch the keys and walk to his dual-cab pickup truck. Unlocking the back door, I throw her in. I’m not nice about it, she doesn’t need nice.
No noise came from the backseat, not even a whimper. When I finally make it home, I have to check to make sure she is still alive. Her breathing is hard and staggered. I pick her up, hating the smell that emanated from of her, and walk to the house.
I have a bedroom downstairs, if you can call it that. It don’t have much—a single steel bed, a toilet, shower, and nothing else. The walls are plain and boring.
I drop her again, my white shirt now a darkening red from her blood. She rolls over when I place her down. I walk out, grabbing cuffs and rope. Her head is now hanging off the bed and she vomits on the floor. She doesn’t have much to bring up, so she’s more dry-retching. I push her back forcefully. Holding her in place, I grab the first wrist and snap the cuff to the bed, and repeat it with the second. I rope her legs to the end of the bed, then position a pillow under her head in case she vomits again.
Walking to the door, I turn back to look. The blood that’s coming from her leg has stopped, and it looks like she has a deep laceration. Her dress is short and dirty, and her appearance is that of a hooker living on the streets not making pay.
My head hurts, it’s pounding. Too much to deal with, too much work to get done, and I don’t have the time to be babysitting a drug addict. Especially one who’s a ghost from my past.
I leave her where she is, tied to the bed with no escape, and trudge up the stairs to my room. All the lights are off, but I know there’s someone in my kitchen. They try to be sneaky, trying to see if I can pick them out. And I can, I just choose to let him believe he can sneak up on me, that he can somehow beat me at what I do best.
“Go home,” I mumble to him. He steps from the confines of the darkness and I see his face. It reminded me of me when I was his age—battered and bruised. I choose not to acknowledge it and just shake my head. I don’t need this. Why is everything so fucking hardcore today?
“You can sleep on the couch, but if you so much as go into the room downstairs, you’ll wish death upon yourself.” He nods his head, blond curls bouncing up and down.
“You got a woman tied up or something?” he jokes. Little does he know what he’s just said is true.
“Leave in the morning. Go to school.” I throw twenty bucks at him. He smiles, and as soon as I sit down he lays down and turns the television on.
I found Hayden one day trying to break into my house. The local kids told him if he did they’d pay him one hundred bucks. He did it, not knowing whose house it was, but the kids did. And as soon as he was in, they ran like scattering cats.
He made it to my kitchen before I picked him up by his collar and he screamed. He didn’t think anyone was home, the house was dark. He thought he was earning points, trying to get in with the cool crowd at school. He got neither, except kids that bully him and possibly a father that beats him. Could be worse. I know a lot of people who’ve had worse.