Speeding too fast around a too tight corner as tires screech through 1 AM darkness and I'm too spun to care. We're both laughing hysterically as I glance over at the dark haired beauty beside me. Her eyes reflect in oncoming light and they shine clearly like the thousand stars above us. We have been doing lines for hours and I glance in the rear view looking at my eyes now solid black and shiny like polished stones. We have known each other a week and it feels like I've always known her.
I smile back at my new friend.
Sara: "am I talking fast?"
K: "yeah"
Sara: "people tell me that but I'm not high."
K: "are you sure?"
Sara: "I just get excited about stuff."
K: "It's cute. I love listening to you talk. Your eyes get wide and you
always look like your right on the edge of discovering something.
Words flying at the speed of light and sometime I feel like someone
has spun me around a few times and I'm dizzy trying to take in
everything you say."
Sara: "wow. You said that really fast." (laughing both of us)
I accelerate and I notice I'm hitting 95mph. The freeway is mostly empty and I
start to slow as I pull up the ramp and turn towards her apartment.
And now its hours earlier and I'm playing with my food, making little swirls in rice noodles. Not hungry. I sip some overpriced bottled water that came in a giant tube that reminds me of an oversize vial. Sara is sitting across from me and were laughing about something. I start to make faces out of my mountain of pad Thai and she flashes me a curious look. She's talking about her family and how close they are and she is smiling as she says this. And I suddenly get it. I suddenly realize by her expression, her animated wide eyes, and the tone of her voice that she feels loved and accepted by them and more than that she feels part of something bigger than herself.
I'm happy for her and I ask her curiously about her sisters, her parents, what it was like growing up with them all. She is confident and radiant and I feel very lucky to be sitting here with her this instant. And almost to counter-balance my emotion, a sudden feeling of slipping over some invisible ledge. I'm trying my best to suppress this emotion and I refocus on what she is saying. I wonder what it must be like to have siblings. To grow up around others. To belong.
She is sipping some imported beer I don't recognize and I take the pause to excuse myself to the restroom. I quickly lock the door and throw my purse on top of the sink. I grab some ativan and chew it up quickly as I look for my contact lens case which is actually holding about 20 pills on one side and about 100mg of prescription amphetamine which I pre-crushed into a fine powder. I unscrew the lid marked with the giant R and pull the stylus out of my smart phone. I've learned this makes an excellent tiny shovel as the non-pointy end is molded to a slightly curved plane as acts as superbly as a tiny shovel.
Although I have not used it, I flush the toilet with my foot and proceed to turn on the water hoping if someone is waiting they will not hear me repeatedly scooping and snorting the tiny mountain of orange tinted powder. I pinch my nose together and look in the mirror making sure I've left no tell-tale trace. Then unscrewing the other cap I swallow a 20mg tab of the same substance, knowing it will not take effect at the same time. Someone is knocking on the door and I quickly pack it up. My nose is red but I don't care and I'm pretty sure it will not show in the dim light of the restraint. When I return I'm smiling and feeling much better until I sit down and realize she has paid the bill while I was in the bathroom getting high. I feel quite terrible now but despite my protest she simply smiles back.
And suddenly its morning now and I'm answering my cell to let one of my sub-contractors in. We simultaneously flip open laptops and I toss her a flash drive with my wifi keys. I'm thinking about what I should wear tonight when I see Sara. I think about wearing a dress but if she is not aware of me dressing up she might feel uncomfortable. I debate this as I go over the work plan and start setting up FTP connections to the server were working on. She was nice enough to stop and get me Starbucks on the way over and I'm grateful as I did too much Xanax last night and my 6am wake-up didn't come until 9:45am.
My mind struggling to find words which might make full sentences eventually if I get enough junk in my system to feel normal again. I finish the venti triple-shot coffee in the span of 5 minutes and proceed to pop open a red-bull and walk into my office making some excuse about forgetting my cell phone in there and quietly close the door and suck down my usual breakfast of lines and pills.
I'm actually going out to dinner tonight with a friend of hers although I never tell her this. What I do say is that I'm meeting a friend later and then ask her if she thinks I should wear the dress or just go casual. Shes looking at my closet full of clothes, half of which I have never worn when I pull the 9mm out from my bedside table and cheerfully say 'check out my new toy'.
Hanna: OMG Kristen.
K: it's not loaded. (rotating my wrist to show her the clip is not in the gun and then pulling and locking the slide back to show there is nothing in the chamber).
Hanna: That's Crazy.
K: well I have to move it before my housekeeper gets here and it scares the shit of of her and I didn't want to surprise you if you saw me carrying it to my office. Wanna hold it? (grin).
Hanna: Thanks, but I always tell people I've never even held a gun so that would
kinda ruin my streak.
K: You never held a gun? Don't be a pussy. Here. Catch! ( I'm acting but I never throw it)
Hanna: Kristen!
It's 2:03 AM. Seven hours and fifty-five minutes before I wake up to my cell ringing to let Hanna in. Thirteen hours and 17 minutes before I ask her what I should wear later that night. I'm curled up into a tight ball crying but not crying. A bottomless pit and the darkness trying to claw its way out of my body. I sit there catatonic not moving an inch yet the overwhelmingly sadness is manifesting itself in an almost constant unending stream of tears down my face, my neck, dripping onto my forearms crossed in front of me which are hugging my knees tightly as teeth grind and eyes are forced shut. I am shaking and my hand reaches out for the Xanax bottle beside me before I chew it up and finally letting it dissolve into my mouth...darkness follows and I'm falling, falling, falling. I wake up an hour later and cannot fall asleep until just after dawn.
I pull the slide to the Glock 19 back and lock it in place as the dealer asks me if I want this accessory or that accessory. I tell him I want two extra clips but they are out of stock. I ask for a box of hollow point bullets and he places them on the counter as I sign the receipt. I'm so tweaked out that I don't dare take off my sunglasses the entire time. Before I left the house I looked in the mirror and my eyes were solid black, a dead giveaway. I've been up for almost 3 days and I have no idea what happened other than staying up one night led to trying to fix myself for the next day which led to the second night being pure insomnia and here I am. It's twelve hours before I will come down. Twelve hours before I will shake and cry and wish anything could take this horrible and depraved feeling from overtaking me yet again. Too many lines, too many pills, too many hours, watching the sun rise too many times, and sleeping through hardly any of it. I pull back and flip the slide lock down and the gun violently coils back in a fraction of a second with the loud metallic snap. I place it in its case as the dealer puts the hollow points and the gun in a paper grocery bag, carefully folding the top down like I just bought some delicate cake from Ralph's and this will now protect it.
Time blurs into a panic of racing heartbeats and occasional shadows that mock me. I'm still traveling backwards and in this in between space, in this non-existence, nothing matters and everything matters way too much.