After the End: Book 4

1. Nobody Likes Mondays

Harry's POV

When I am intentionally trying not to think of something, I tend to think about it more. I tried to turn my brain off immediately when I realized what was happening, but it didn't matter. The more I tried not to think about it, the worse the feeling became. Distractions worked better than avoidance on its own.

Don't think about getting high. Don't think about it. Don't do it. Don't. Think about getting high. Getting high.

"You've been pacing a really long time," Phoebe informed me.

I paused my motion and looked at her. She was sat on the sofa watching me as I walked lines infront of her, back and forth across the living room of Jays house. I'd been doing it for a while, or a really long time as she put it.

I hadn't been intending to pace. I probably shouldn't have been pacing on account of how awful every joint in my body felt. I would probably have done well to stay in bed, but I couldn't do that. I was too energized with anxiety about what they were doing to me. It propelled me to keep moving.

I'd woken up that afternoon in Jays house, disoriented and confused and separated from most of my personal belongings. The story of what had happened to land me in that position was told through a mix of my own fuzzy recollections, a note from Louis, the note left on my left forearm in sharpie by Cory that urged me to remember that I didn't have Nothing, Phoebe's helpful narration and the brief phone call with Louis.

I was being dried out and I'd asked for it, one way or another. I'd been agreeable, apparently right up to helping walk myself up the path to the house. I didn't remember that at all, but I also didn't remember how I'd gotten the blown out vein in the crook of my right elbow. Phoebe told me that Cory had told Louis it was morphine. That filled in the next part for me. I'd asked to be put to sleep. I must have. That was the only time Cory had ever offered me intravenous morphine. She gave it to me once in Vegas when I hadn't slept in several days because of panic attacks and another time in France for similar reasons. She used it to put me to sleep, but only when I begged. I must have begged.

I wanted that little mark in my elbow to calm me down. I wanted to look at it and understand why everyone was afraid, and I wanted it to be grounding. If I was that bad, then I needed to stop. That was the logic. I was there, closed in Jays house alone with the meaner of the two tweens because I needed to be stopped. I'd asked to be stopped. I was there because I needed help and it was the alternative to hospitalization.

And all I could think about was that backpack that was missing and the fact that I hadn't taken substances since whenever Cory had dosed me and that meant my mind was clearing and the fog was lifting and I was not ready.

Stop thinking about drugs. Please stop thinking about drugs.

I was still staring down at Phoebe. She'd followed me out of Louis room after I'd stormed away from our phone call. I didn't know what he was thinking, but I was absolutely livid at his cavalier tone. Then I'd walked out into the living room and I'd seen the stacks left on the coffee table. Someone had cleared out some of the game closet in Lux's art room at home. I was staring at a portion of her board games and card games laid out as a means of potential entertainment for my week of sobering up.

The sight of them stacked brightly welcoming me, made my world spin. I wanted to be angry or sick or both, but instead I'd started pacing as my brain tried to wrap itself around how ridiculously organized this all was. Phoebe had sat on the sofa to watch, and now we were staring eachother down.