the gut with the memory of our first time together, the time I'd taken her rough and hard, with too little regard for her feelings. I remembered the first time she got high, the first time she said she loved me. And finally, in a more recent memory, I heard her say 'I do.'
It felt so wrong. I felt like a thief, the robber of her potential and life, and I hung my head in shame.
“What's wrong, baby?”
“You never should have been with me,” I whispered, swaying with her lazily.
She pressed her fingertips to my lips. “Shhhh. Don't say that.”
“No,” I disputed, moving my lips against her fingers. “I'm a fuckin' wreck and I pulled you down with me.”
“Shhhh,” she repeated, tracing my bottom lip with her fingernail. “We're not talking about the bad stuff right now. There's too much bad in the world, too much to think about, and right now, I'm going to pretend that all of life is good. Because you and I are perfect, we are meant to be, however long we're meant to be for, and I don't want to waste a second of our wedding night on thinking about anything other than that. Okay?”
I agreed to not talk, but I never promised that I wouldn’t think. And so, as we danced and as she hiked her leg up around my waist, drawing me closer and, eventually, drawing me in, my thoughts circled in an endless loop.
I was never perfect, but she was.
And I ruined her.
***
We stayed past check-out and slept off the drugs and booze. I awoke with a skull-splitting ache pounding in my brain, caught somewhere between starving and never wanting to look at food again. Andy was already awake, laying beside me with her hands tangled in her wild nest of blonde hair, and when I offered to order some aspirin and food, she shook her head.
“I don’t need food. I just need drugs,” she whined, squeezing her eyes shut tight.
Andy had always been thin, but I couldn’t recall her wrists ever being so pronounced. I reached for one of them, capturing it in my grip, and ran my thumb over the protruding knob of bone.
“You need to eat something,” I said quietly. “I’ll order food and you just eat what you want, okay?”
“Yeah,” she agreed, sniffling and wiping a hand over her eyes. “Sure. But will you get more coke later?”
I didn’t want to be sober any more than she did. I wanted to shut out the world, and I was just as addicted. Yet she was scaring the hell out of me, and still, I couldn’t say no.
“Yeah. Later.”
And I kept my promise. I found Moe’s old friend, bought another eight ball, and when I got back to the apartment, I made Andy promise we’d make this one last. A line or two every night didn’t freak me out as much as it probably should have, but a whole eighth of an ounce in one night wasn’t okay. Never had I ever done that much, sharing or otherwise, and I was dead set on never doing it again. Especially with her.
After all, I had promised to protect her as best as I could.
We headed to work the following morning, two days after we’d been married, and although I stumbled in late, I felt it was better than not coming in at all. But the constant nights of using had begun to screw with my body and mind, and I had to drag my weary, jittering bones to get through the day.
Jenna approached me outside after I’d finished my tenth cigarette since clocking in.
“Long night?”
I dropped the ash-ridden butt onto the ground and crushed it beneath my boot. “Yeah.”
She offered a pinch-lipped nod, keeping her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “What, uh, what were you guys up to?”
Snorting, I replied, “Are you askin’ seriously? Or just makin’ conversation?”
She shrugged. “I’m just wonderin’.”
“Why?”
“Why can’t I ask my little brother what he’s been doing?”
“Because you’re askin’ me what I’m doing with my wife. That ain’t okay. It’s fuckin’ weird. What’s next, Jen? You wanna sit in and watch?”
“Wow,” she huffed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “Defensive much?”
I groaned, pushing the hair from my eyes. “We ate dinner, watched some shit on TV, and fucked until we went to sleep. Okay? Do you approve?”
“What shit did you watch?”
“I don’t know!” I shouted, exasperated at the very thought of coming up with another lie. “Uh … Breaking Bad, I think,” I stammered,