Tsunami Shorts (Kehlani One Shots)

Withdrawals

Lelani

"I said get out Lelani!" My mother screamed. 

"I can't take it anymore. You promised me you'd stop, but what's this?!" My mother yelled as she held up a small baggie of cocaine that I had been hoping to keep hidden in my room for awhile until I could get around to using it.

I promised myself that it was gonna be my last one.

I told my myself I could stop whenever I wanted to, but I can't. I want to stop now, but my body won't let me.

I hate disappointing my mother like this. I hate seeing her screaming and upset at me, and all I can do is look back at her with a somewhat blank expression on my face and a runny nose.

"Bebita, (Baby Girl)  I've tried with you, but it's clear to me that you are not in control of yourself. Rehab is the only way. I can't keep living like this, and I'm sure you can't either."

"No, no madré please!" I begged.

I tried to stop using the first time my mother caught me, but the withdrawals were too much.

Every night I woke up in cold sweats, itching for a fix.

I felt like walls were closing in on me. Almost as if I was suffocating.

I would sit in the center of my bed and rock back and forth for what seemed like hours.

My body craved it, and I couldn't tell it no.

"I'm sorry bebita, but you must do it. Those doctors can help you in ways that I can't." My mother came closer to me and brushed the back of her hand against my face.

"Aye mami," she started, "why didn't you listen to me? Why didn't you just do as I said?"

My mother warned me about drugs when I was young.

"You're becoming your father." She whispered.

"No!" I replied sharply swatting her hand away from my face.

"Don't you ever say that to me again! I don't want to be him!" I shouted falling to my knees and weeping because I knew my mother was right.

I was becoming my father.

Every snort of cocaine did nothing but push me closer and closer to my drug addict dad.

He overdosed before I was even born.

My mother told me all the stories about how he beat her and stole from her to buy more drugs.

I don't want to be that.

Yet, that is what I am allowing myself to become.

Truth be told, a part of me doesn't want to stop. A part of me is not ready. The high is like nothing I could ever describe.

It's like entering a whole other world of bliss.

Temporary bliss.

But that bliss has a dark side. That bliss costs you your life. Your health. Your family.

It's costs you everything.

Yet you continue to let it rule your life because the pleasure far outweighs the love you feel from your family. The feeling of success.

It feels even better than sex.

And that's the dangerous part.

My mother bent down and held me as I cried in her arms.

"You're right madré," I choked out, "Rehab is the only way. I'm tired of living like this."