My Love, My Drug, My Release

Chapter 54: Jackson

As soon as I escaped the field, I began to obsessively search for somewhere to hide. I wouldn't make it out of this school; I'd be discovered hobbling down the road and mobbed like a witch, stoned and beaten to death for ruining Spirit Day. My best option was to find a cubby or a table crawl underneath and wait out till everyone left- and until my high wore off. It was already slipping away into nausea, light-headedness, and, for some reason, a strange itching sensation as though a particularly nasty sunburn was starting to peel.

But before I could find a secluded area to stow away, a hand wrapped around my upper arm, anchoring me to the middle of the main building's center hallway. "Where the bloody hell do you think you're going?"

I tripped over my own feet, but he kept me standing, and I reached out to poke his cheeks- still a tad chubby even after all this time. "You are real; I thought I might have imagined you."

"I'm real alright, and you're in real trouble."

"What are you going to do, take me back to Paul's?"

He hesitated, the ceiling swirling above me like Stary fucking Night. "I could take you to Jean's, that's where I've been crashing since I got back in town, but there isn't really a ton of room." He touched my brown carefully with his forefinger, thumb brushing some dried vomit from the corner of my mouth. "Honestly, it's not a good place for you to detox off... whatever the hell you're on. I hate to crawl back to Paul and Linda, but we might not have another choice."

"Actually, we do," I slurred. "Do you have money for a cab?"

In the abortion clinic, I felt the most extreme physical pain of my life. When Brandon left, that was the worst emotional pain of my life. And finally, losing Thelma and my reputation caused me to feel something new- dark and black- utter emptiness. But this- this was a different beast altogether. Instead of pain tearing me to shreds, I was filled with a sense of discomfort; an itching, swirling, pounding feeling in my head and stomach and up and down my arms and legs preventing me from getting comfortable. 

At some point, my muscles constricted so violently, blood and brain so full of toxins, that my body forcibly shut itself down. I woke up as a final wave of vomit pushed itself out of my inflamed throat, the orangey fluid joining the rest of the contents of my stomach in the bottom of an opaque, blue bucket.

I flopped back onto the bed, a gentle hand dragged a cold compress across my forehead.

"Are you okay?" a familiar German-Italian accent asked. 

"No, I feel like shit."

"You look like shit."

"Thanks."

Anika chuckled, moving the bucket far enough away that I could no longer smell it, but my own sweaty skin reeked like rancid yogurt. She sat down on the foot of the bed, her blonde hair smoothed back from her face by a bright pink bandana, blueish shadows spreading from the very inner corner of her eyes down to the tops of her cheekbones. "I was poking fun; you're always beautiful."

"Now I know you're a liar." I shifted on the pillows, my head throbbing like a motherfucker, but my stomach blissfully stable. "I've never looked worse in my life."

"I meant what I said. You don't look bad, you just look like... one of us. It's probably all the junk."

Rather than respond to that horrifying implication, I asked. "Is my brother still here?"

"Yeah, in the living room. Keith thought he was one of your boyfriends and he started grilling him- hey, where are you going?"

The world listed from side to side as I pushed myself out of the comfy, queen-sized bed. It tried to suck me back in like quicksand, but I persevered on to the living room. "I need to see Jackson right now."

"You need to rest."

"I need to go back home tonight or Linda will pitch a fit; I'm already on thin ice."

I'd barely entered the main room of the flat- saw Keith sipping a glass of scotch or bourbon or something and Jack smoking a cigarette, the two of them avoiding eye-contact- when the Rolling Stone jumped out of his seat, dragging me back into the bedroom.

"No, I need my brother-"

"You need to talk to me first." When Anita tried to stick around, he shoved her out, locking the doors in front of her stunned expression. "Sit down."

I wanted to protest, but he'd made me go dizzy again, my gag reflex going off, but empty stomach only spasming aggressively. "What do you want."

In lieu of responding, he pushed up the sleeves of my cheer uniform, revealing the track marks scattered across my skin. I didn't have the energy to attempt to hide them. "I knew it, that fucking git gave you H even after I told him not to." He shoved me flat onto the bed making my head ache so bad I swore my eyeballs would pop out of my skull and examined my ankles. "And he shot you on the leg. He did that to Marianne and Anita- all the girls he fucked, actually. Which is why- I assume- you havn't been by to see me."

"I'm sorry-"

"Oh, I'm sure you are, judging by the look of you. And you're only going to get sorrier. You're done with junk, from anyone."

"No, no," I said, sitting up. "I'll be better, I'll take less-"

Keith took my face in his hands, leaning like he was going to kiss me, but thinking better of it at the last moment, contenting himself to stare into my eyes. "I don't want you to end up like me, or like Anita, or Mick or Paul or any of us. You deserve a better life."

"Than why did you kiss me at my birthday party? Why sleep with me, why bring me back to your apartment, why give me acid if you were just going to reject me in the end."

"I did all those things when you were just a beautiful girl who blushed easily chewed her bottom lip when she got nervous. Now you're so much more to me, and I can't bear to see you get hurt." His thumb brushed over the tip of my nose and then my lips, tugging on the lower one ever so slightly; the scent of his flesh infinitely more appealing than my own sickly odor. "And I'm not rejecting you; I'd soon saw off half my toes than let you out of my life."

"That might make it difficult to walk."

After a beat, he laughed, a good hearty laugh, placing a brief peck to my forehead. "Alright, it's almost seven, you need to get back home before Paul starts missing you."

Something about the way he said "missing you" gave me pause. It wasn't malice or derision, but a sharper, colder emotion. Unable to make sense of it, I shook it away. "Can we take your car, I don't want to make Jack pay for another cab."