Poison & Wine - Melissa Toppen Page 0,56
parking lot a good fifteen minutes before driving away. I worried that going to a meeting was a cover and that after I left he’d go looking for a score.
It’s awful to think the worst of someone, but when you’ve seen them at their worst for so long, it’s difficult not to.
When I get back to the house, I decide to take Jace’s boxes into the apartment for him. I don’t want to risk him coming to the house after I’ve brought Ellie home.
I stack the first three boxes right inside the door before I head back out for the fourth. It’s heavier than the other boxes and I struggle with it a little on my way back to the garage. As soon as I get inside the door, I all but drop it on the floor. Unfortunately, it lands too far to one side and topples over, spilling the contents onto the floor.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself, pulling the now empty box upright.
Crossing around to the other side, I look over the items scattered at my feet. There are several notebooks, some sketching pencils, a sketchbook, and an old tattered bible, among other things.
Leaning over, I begin picking the items up, placing them back into the box. I pause when I get to a notebook that had fallen open. I tell myself to close it and put it away, but the sight of Jace’s handwriting filling the entire page has my curiosity more than piqued.
Reaching down, I pick up the notebook, my eyes scanning the page. The date of February twelfth of this year is scribbled across the top.
Today has been hard. Fucking harder than any other day. I’m only a week in. A week and yet it feels like I’ve been here a year. I want to get high so bad I can literally taste it on my tongue. It’s all I want. My skin itches for it. My veins ache for it. It’s like having the worst fucking itch in the world and not being able to scratch it. I want to claw my way out of my own skin.
Dr. Bennett talked a lot about regret today in our session. He had me make a list of everything I regret since I started using. The list was pretty short because there’s only one thing I regret. Only one thing that haunts me every night in my dreams.
Oakley…
I slam the book shut, my heart beating so hard and fast it feels like it might burst from my chest at any moment.
He thought of me?
I always imagined that the memory of me had slipped into the abyss. That the drugs had erased me. That after I had left, Jace was too high to care that I was gone.
Dropping the book into the box, I pick up another. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself.
Flipping through a few pages, every single one filled from top to bottom in Jace’s handwriting, I stop on a random page that catches my eye. There’s a symbol drawn across the top. A curved arrow with Oakley written along the bent shaft, the tip dripping with blood.
I stare at the sketch for a long moment, wondering why he drew it, wondering what it means, before I turn my attention to the words on the page.
This one is dated two and a half years ago. I think back, guessing that this was probably his first stent in rehab.
I miss her. Fuck how I miss her. Every day when I wake up. Every night when I close my eyes. Every single second of every single day. She’s all I can think about. All I care about. I want her more than I want the needle in my arm. That’s why I’m here.
I don’t deserve her, I know that. But I’m a selfish asshole. And if there’s any chance I can get her back, I don’t think I could walk away from that. Even if it meant I’d end up hurting her in the end.
I need her.
I need her more than air.
I need her more than food or water.
I need her more than the high.
She is the answer to everything.
Oakley…
* * *
My name has been traced over several times with the pencil, making it dark and almost illegible.
I blink back the tears that form behind my eyes and immediately move to grab another notebook.
This one is from a year and a half ago and even though I can’t bring myself to read anymore, I don’t miss