Arizona
May 20, 2020
I don't like when other people drive me places. But I was high so I let Hunter drive.
"Promise you'll be safe," I told him.
"You know I'll take care of you," he responded.
I believed him.
But when we got to dinner he disappeared to Taylor's car for a few moments. Probably just taking a couple hits no big deal, he'd be sober by the time we had to leave again.
Dinner came and went. Our waiter hated us. Or more so hated Hunter's roommate, who was drunk and obnoxious. I've rarely been more embarrassed in public.
I sat in the backseat with my to go box in my lap as we drove back to Hunter's air bnb.
I wish I had driven.
We were on the highway. If anyone saw us from their cars as they drove around us I doubt they would have noticed anything wrong. But inside, it was obvious Hunter was struggling to get us home. He kept saying he was just tired. He would say, "I'm just so tired," and then vigorously shake his head before leaning unnecessarily close to the wheel to read the exits. I was scared, but somehow I managed to hold my inner panic at bay. I told myself I would be fine. Hunter said he would take care of me, and I knew he would, just in his own way. I paid close attention to him the rest of the ride as he slowly lost more control over himself.
We parked back at the house.
Relief rushed through me. I got out of the car and walked into the house, glad that we actually made it.
Call me dramatic, and I know I am, but I'm a control freak and when I'm not in control I panic.
I flopped on the couch in the living room and reached for my Miller lite from earlier.
If you've never had Miller lite, you're not missing anything. It tastes like dirt water, seriously.
Hunter disappeared to his room.
His roommate was chatting up Taylor and Dani in the kitchen but I didn't care as long as he wasn't talking to me. He wasn't awful, but I could tell he was happy to be around female company and I wasn't about to entertain him. Luckily, he seemed to have pegged me as Hunter's for the night and was more or less leaving me alone. I didn't care what he thought about me as long as the conversation stayed on the other side of the room.
It wasn't long before Hunter started making noises.
Hunter does that sometimes, where he'll randomly yell, "Yee YEE!" and if you think that sounds ridiculous, it is. Now imagine hearing it in person.
Normally it doesn't mean anything because he'll do it a couple times during a relevant conversation and it makes sense. But tonight he was alone, shouting these noises from his room.
A little background: it was 10:30 and we were in a strangers house in a strangers neighborhood, and I had smoked a blunt with Hunter a couple hours before. What I mean by this, is that if the cops came, I was hosed.
So I made my way to Hunter's room.
He ran across the room in front of me and fell to the floor before getting back to his feet again and jumping, landing on his bed. I didn't register him squirming and jerking in an unusual manner at first when I snapped, "are you trying to wake up the neighbors?"
When I actually took in the scene before me, I asked, "what are you doing?" To which he responded absentmindedly,
"I'm tired I'm just really tired I'm tired"
I remember feeling as if this wasn't actually happening to me, but to someone else as I witnessed it from her body. Or that I was dreaming and this was just a weird story my brain came up with to get me to question Hunter.
But then he looked at me. And he wasn't seeing me. He wasn't registering that I was only a couple of feet in front of him. It was as if he was looking through me, not seeing me at all. Or that he couldn't even see past his own eyes, and he was trapped in his mind. His pupils were constricted and his eyes looked shattered. I had never seen him look like that, and it scared me. Hunter was always so gentle in my visions. I knew he'd messed up in the past, but I only ever wanted to see the goodness in him. To see him like that broke every mental image I'd ever had of him.
See, even when Hunter was high out of his mind he always seemed relatively composed. He always knew how to handle a situation. And he was always careful when he was around me, because he knew I was easily scared.
But in that moment he was feral. He didn't even seem like a real person anymore, just an animal that was trapped in mental terrors.
I turned to leave the room.
Normally I am a very reactive person. I live my life thinking things are constantly out to get me, out to attack me, grab me, carry me away. I can't watch scary movies because the suspense gets too intense. And when it comes to fight or flight reflexes, I always think I'm going to overreact, panic, and resort to flight. And when I reach such a response I imagine my heart going so fast it bursts through my chest and I'll die of fright. I view myself as so fragile I can't handle any stressful situation because I assume the moment I'm put in one my whole body will short circuit and fail me.
Fortunately, this night I realized I have more to me than that.
I got halfway down the hall when I realized Hunter was crawling after me. He reached for my ankle as I was turning to face him. He missed, and said, "you're not going anywhere."
Looking back, it was a threatening statement. It was scary, controlling, and wild. Looking back I wonder how I didn't register it all sooner. But in the moment I just said, "I can go wherever I want," before walking back over to the couch.
A few moments after I sat down, Hunter jumped over the back of the couch and landed next to me. He was on his back, his feet over his head, switching between mumbling to himself, and yelling random noises. It was then that I forced myself to acknowledge the reality of the situation and that all of this could end terribly if the neighbors got fed up with the noise.
In the background I heard Hunter's friend say in a hushed voice, "I've never seen him like this," to which his roommate hesitated before responding, "he has his moments."
Something in Hunter's friend's statement forced me into clarity. I got up from the couch, leaving Hunter to babble to himself before he got up, jumped over the back of the couch again, and ran back to his room, yelling the whole time.
I walked over to the kitchen island and told everyone, "I'm leaving before the cops come." As soon as the words left my mouth, Taylor and Dani stopped their conversation, grabbed their keys, and stopped there. As if they were waiting to see what I would do. Waiting to see if I was going to follow through with it, or if I was just making a dramatic statement for the sake of attention.
I turned towards the door. Hunter's roommate, drunk and slow to realize that I was serious, followed me and threw his arms around me saying, "well it was nice meeting you."
And it was then that I felt my flight reflexes kick in. And it wasn't because I didn't want to be hugged (though I most certainly did not) but with Hunter's roommates arms around me I felt trapped. My window to leave before Hunter noticed or someone tipped him off was closing. And I knew if I didn't get to my car before then that Hunter would come after me. And I always thought of Hunter as gentle and broken. But just as glass is beautiful when it's whole, it can be dangerous when it's broken. That night, Hunter was broken, and I wasn't about to stick around to get cut.
I pulled free from his roommates arms as he said, "aren't you going to say goodbye?" and glanced over his shoulder towards Hunter's room.
Looking at no one in particular, I said in a level tone, "I'm really uncomfortable. I'm leaving." It was then that I made eye contact with Hunter's friend across the room. He was seemingly the only sane person in the whole house, and was the only one I trusted to actually make sure nothing truly awful happened.
"Take care of him," I said to him, and as I walked out the door I heard, "I will."
I won't say I ran to my car but I definitely didn't take my time getting there and getting inside. I took no time to organize things as I usually did because my only thought was to get the hell out of there. The look on Hunter's face when his eyes met mine was stamped behind my eyelids. Every time I blinked I saw him there. I turned on the car, ripped my sunshade down, tossed it in the back seat, and threw the car into reverse as I tore away.
Of course I didn't look back.
I headed to the Walmart my friend Ryan worked at, texting him:
U dont have to come or bring anything I already left
When I got in Ryan's truck I hesitated for a moment as I recalled what happened. I felt betrayed. By Hunter and by myself for being so ignorant. He came to Arizona a couple of years back to better himself. To get away from the hard drugs. And he did. I met him when he was clean and I'd never known him to be any different. But when he moved back to California I should have known he'd relapse. I was harshly reminded that I can't help but see the world through rose colored glasses. And with every rose, comes several thorns with it. I broke down.
