You've Changed

Chapter 4

Two days later, I received a text from an unknown number asking me to come back. I knew who it was, despite not answering or asking. A part of me had been expecting it. What I hadn't expected was what I was greeted with at the hospital. His shaggy dirty blond hair was stuck to his face from sweat, the room reeked of vomit, his entire body was trembling, and he was sobbing. Harder than I had seen since we were children. Snot came from his nose, and him wiping it reminded me of when I thought coke was the worst thing he could do. Without a word, I knew what to do.

Approaching him, I sat beside him on the bed and let him collapse onto me with force. His skinny hands gripped onto my back, and his nose was buried into his jacket. For a moment in time, I was eleven years old in the middle school bathroom and Eli was just a bullied little boy. Of course, that wasn't reality. Without a second thought, I put my hand in his hair like I had done back then. It was so knotted and filled with sweat, but I didn't move my hand.

"I don't want to feel like this anymore." He wept, and I felt how much his body was trembling under my touch.

"It will only last a couple of days more."

"You don't know anything." Eli told me and he was right. "This isn't even the worst of it. It gets worse. A lot worse."

He had become leas hysterical, so I pulled away and looked him in the eye. "Not your first time?" Eli didn't answer when I asked that, but he hung his head down.

***

It did get worse. The vomiting, the headaches, the pains, all of it got worse. Eli would complain and cry in pain for over a week, constantly something dripping into his IV. Once the symptoms started to subside, the talk of rehabilitation centers came around.

Despite how I insisted he go and that it was the only way, he would rather crawl back into whatever hole he came from. When the nurses had brought in the pamphlets and papers, he was forced to make a decision.

"What's your big plan?" I asked him when he was refusing to go to rehab. "To run back out there and just shoot up again."

"I don't get why you fucking care." He spat. Once the withdrawal symptoms subsided, Hawk reared his ugly head. "Go run back to your fancy school with your little girlfriend."

"Why attack me? Why attack the one person left?" The young man didn't respond to my question, instead he turned away with a scowl. "Where were you even staying before?"

"I-I've been going from place to place. Staying with friends."

"Oh, so you're homeless?"

"Fuck you!"

***

The air mattress I had bought reminded me of the one we used to have at my house. Setting the air mattress up reminded me of helping my mother do the same when Eli would sleepover. Jacky, my roommate, was barely around and didn't mind an extra body around the apartment. I think some of it was how they watched as I was screaming Eli's name, and Jacky knew I was in a fragile state. Which, I hadn't been in such a long time.

Upon reaching the hospital, I parked near the entrance and waited. As expected, Eli was walked out by a nurse, and they both looked a bit peeved. Hawk wasn't easy to deal with, so I understood. He was wearing a hoodie of mine because his shirt had been cut to resuscitate him, and it was too long on him. He opened the door, flipped off the nurse, and got into the passenger seat.

"Fucking bitch." He muttered under his breath, and I didn't argue because I didn't feel like fighting.

The car ride was awkward enough, but arriving at the apartment was even worse. I didn't have a single thing to say to him. Instead, I showed him where the bathroom and toiletries were when he asked, then retreated to my room while he showered. Opening my laptop, I worked on some lab write up I hadn't finished yet. It was impossible getting any work done when an all too familiar stranger was showering in the next room. Silently, I asked myself what I had gotten into. Even Mrs. Moskowitz was no longer involved with him. He was so bad that his own mother left.

That was all forgotten when he had entered my bedroom a few minutes later, looking vulnerable with only a towel around his waist. I could tell he was embarrassed, and shrank a bit when I stared at him. To be more specific, stared at the scars, new tattoo, and bruises. A part of me wanted to ask what some of the scars were from, but another part was afraid to know. When I was staring at his chest and abdomen, he cleared his throat. "Can I borrow some clean clothes?" He asked, sounding like Eli, not Hawk. He sounded vulnerable, scared even.

Caught off guard, I scrambled from my desk and pulled out the first things I found in my drawer. Unbeknownst to me, I had pulled out an old convention shirt. He examined it when I handed him the clothing. "Wow. You still have this." He asked, and the we went there together was unspoken.

"Old shirts are good for pajamas, you know. Plus, I-"

Before I could nervously ramble, he cut me off. "I gotta change." And exited my room.

Dinner was even worse. It was mostly silent as we ate leftovers I had from a date with Steph, and I let a rerun of an old episode of The Clone Wars play. He seemed pretty interested in it, so I didn't change the channel. Halfway through the episode, I looked over towards him and realized what was happening. Eli Moskowitz was wearing my clothes and sitting on my couch in my apartment. The whole thing seemed like an odd fever dream. He must've noticed I was looking at him because he looked towards me, then shifted uncomfortable. I got the feeling that he thought I was examining the effects of the drugs whenever I looked at him, but I wasn't. To be honest, I tried to avoid looking at the things that the drugs had changed.

Just over a week ago, he was dead on the bathroom floor of a bar. Can you blame me for staring in disbelief?

"Please stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Just...never mind."

Instead of telling him I wasn't looking at what he was insecure about, I just sat and let us watch the show.

"I need a haircut."

"Okay. I can take you when my classes finish tomorrow." That was the last of us talking for the night.

The air mattress was set up a bit away from my bed, but the room was small so it wasn't too distant. The Pac-Man light on the dresser lit up the room with a blue glow, making the room not pitch black. Classes started early. I need to go to bed. I didn't...I stayed up and watched Eli breathing.