MY ROCK #3
Chapter One
Elly
Molly and I were setting up for round five. As we were stringing electrical cords across the room to plug in the sound systems, she was gushing about her new boyfriend. He was fairly new, anyways; they’d been seeing each other for about three months, but it had only recently begun to turn serious. He was a guy named Rob who, of course, sounded like a saint. Why was it that when I was having the worst time with a man, everyone around me chose to be so happy? It was annoying. I didn’t begrudge Molly her happiness. I really liked her and it was good to see her so happy. I hoped that it stayed that way and she had truly found her Mr. Right. I just wondered why I couldn’t be lucky enough to meet a nice guy and actually be attracted to him. Perhaps I was just a glutton for punishment. Back in my high school days, my mother used to tell me that the reason I was attracted to the bad boys was because I had a drive or a need to fix them. She also tried to tell me that everyone couldn’t be fixed, and that some people didn’t want to be. I probably should have listened to her more back then.
“What does he do?” I asked Molly about the new boyfriend.
“He’s a cameraman for an independent film crew. They make YouTube videos, mostly, but their movies are getting literally millions of hits. It started out as an unpaid internship. He just graduated from UC San Diego in June, though and they hired him right away. I met his boss last week. He alluded to the fact that he might have a position for me when I finish this internship.”
“Wow! That’s great,” I told her. “Dan sounds ambitious, and kudos to you, too!”
“He is, and thank you. I‘m so happy about his drive to succeed. I’m not worried about whether or not a guy I’m seeing makes a ton of money, but the last guy I hooked up with couldn’t even keep a job. He’s nearly thirty now; the last time I saw him, he was still sponging off his parents. He was a jerk, too. Not Dan, though. He’s sweet and smart and sexy and funny and drop-dead gorgeous!”
I laughed, “I think somebody is in love.”
“Not quite yet,” she said. “But I’m headed fast in that direction. Speaking of in love, what about you and Tristan? How’s that going?”
I curled my lip and said, “That’s far from love, trust me. Not even in the same ballpark,” she laughed.
“That bad, huh? Is it because of the show?”
“No….I mean, I’m always conscious that seeing him is a problem because of that. But that’s not the real issue. I’d more or less decided that I’d be okay with seeing him on the down low, which I was doing. I was at his house the night of the party…and we were….”
“Naked and nasty?” Molly said with a laugh.
“Shut up! No!” I could feel my face turning red, possibly because I was lying. She actually had it right. “We were kissing, I happened to glance down and there was a crack pipe and a bong on the floor, mixed in with a pile of laundry he’d swept off the couch.”
“Ew, a crack pipe? That’s a little….ew…” I was glad she understood.
“Yeah, I know. I may have not been so upset about the marijuana, but crack is a whole different ballgame. I’m pretty sure that’s it for us. I have history with an addict boyfriend and I’ve had some problems myself….I’m not up for doing that again.”
“What did Tristan say about it? Did he try to say it was ‘a friend’s’ or something? Or did he admit to it?”
I was embarrassed again. “I didn’t even ask him about it…I just left.”
“Wow, you just literally walked out?”
I didn’t think telling her that I had to stop and put my clothes on was important. I just said, “Yeah, I just wanted out.”
“Did he come after you, or at least call you and find out what was going on?”
“He chased me out into the hall. He was….okay, fine, we were naked,” I said, mortified yet again. Molly laughed; I could always count on her for that.
“I’m sorry. It’s not funny…okay, it’s a little funny. I’m assuming you were dressed? I just have a hard time imagining you being okay with running home naked.” She could not suppress her giggles.
“Yes, Molly, I was dressed,” I said, rolling my eyes. “But I got dressed fast and he was a little surprised. I should have talked to him, I know. I just suddenly felt like history was repeating itself and I couldn’t breathe…I could hear him calling after me and I even heard him tell one of his neighbors to mind their own fucking business. As usual with me and Tristan, it was a lovely evening.”
Molly was busting up laughing now. With my eyebrow raised and my arms folded I waited for her to calm down. She apologized again as she wiped the tears from her eyes, “I’m sorry…I’m just thinking what fun it must be to live in that building.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “It’s not all that, trust me.” I was lying. The sight of him fully clothed set my soul on fire. Molly acted like she didn’t hear that anyways.
She went on to say, “I heard a lot back when he was famous about rehab and all that. I mean, I didn’t really hear it, but I read a lot of those teenage rags they sell at the supermarket. Who knows how much of it is true. I did always wonder, especially in a case like his where he’s so talented, what makes someone think the drugs are more important than everyone and everything else in their life. You kind of wonder what the trigger is for some people, you know?”
“I do know, from experience.” I didn’t talk about my past much, but I trusted Molly. “My first really serious boyfriend died a couple of years ago. I was devastated. I started doing a lot of coke, getting so wound up that I’d have to take pills or smoke a lot of marijuana to come down. I was a mess. The trigger for me was his death…but the drugs quickly took control. Then the coroner’s report came back and I found out that he’d overdosed on meth; I realized then that I was hurt, but if I lived, I’d get over it. I didn’t want to die, so I told my parents what was going on; they helped me find a rehab facility. Thank god for their support. It was a good place and I learned a lot. I wonder sometimes how someone like Tristan could have gone to facilities like that so many times and still choose to use.”
Molly put her arm around my shoulder and gave me a quick squeeze. “Wow, I’m sorry for your loss, Molly. That had to be tough. Good for you though, cleaning up your act—you’ve got a lot to be proud of. As far as Tristan goes, maybe whatever was driving him to use was still a problem when he got out of rehab. It’s about forgetting things and being numb right? It’s easy to not use when you don’t have to deal with the situation, but if you put someone right back into it, well, you know. You used because you didn’t want to feel the pain your boyfriend’s overdose caused you. You were able to find a way to cope with that and you moved on. He has to have something in his past, or even something that’s still going on now, that still hurts him, don’t you think?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I guess it’s easy to look in from the outside and think someone has everything and shouldn’t have a worry in the world yet have no idea what they’re really going through. I try really hard not to judge people, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that.”
“I also read stories about his parents mismanaging his money and giving him pills. If that’s all true, it’s really sad. It sounds like he didn’t have any kind of support system growing up. You sound like you have great parents. My family is pretty good, too. Tristan’s family doesn’t sound so put together. That is, if what you read in the gossip columns are true.” Molly shrugged her shoulders. She had some good points.
“Yeah, it is sad.” I suddenly felt like a terrible person. I had judged him based on some paraphernalia I saw on the floor of his apartment. I should have stopped and talked to him. I should have given him a chance to talk to me. I had run away from a guy who, more than likely, really needed a friend. Molly had made some really good points. Maybe if he had some support, he wouldn’t be so messed up. Maybe I was too worried about myself and what I’d gone through to be a good friend—or any kind of friend at all. I needed to rethink walking away from him. I suddenly wondered how I would feel if I read about his overdose in the paper someday and I hadn’t even offered him a friendly ear to talk to.