Life of the Party (66 page)

“Uh, no. This
was a rehab or jail check in.” I looked up at her. “You?”

“Yeah, about
the same. You know, rehab or no place to live, no money, no car, no
friends. I chose rehab, but only barely.”

“How long have
you been here?”

“Three weeks,
two days and six … no, seventeen hours. Not that I’m counting.” She
sat up on the bed and stretched her arms, revealing the light blue,
dead-happy-face Nirvana t-shirt she was wearing. “But the moment I
get out of here, I’m getting high. That’s the only thing that keeps
me from totally freaking out, knowing that. I hear that it’s better
too, after going without for so long. Rinse cycle.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” She
stood up then and smiled at me. “Come on, let’s go eat.”

“Eat?” I
frowned and looked up at the clock. “What time is it?”

“It’s five.
Come on, I don’t want to be late. This is the best part of my
day.”

“The food’s
that good here?” I wondered, raising an eyebrow.

“No, it’s not.”
She laughed again. “That’s how shitty the rest of the day is.”

“Oh.”
Reluctantly, I got up off the bed to follow her.

“And
Mackenzie?” Allison stopped at the doorway, eyeing me
knowingly.

“Yeah?”

“I’d just eat
if I were you. I’ve never actually seen them do it, but I’ve heard
them threaten the tube on the other girls. It doesn’t sound
pleasant.”

I stared at her
a moment, blinking in confusion.

“Well … I mean
… you’re anorexic, right?”

“What? No.”

“You’re not?
Come on, you must weigh, like, eighty pounds.”

“I’m not
anorexic.” I declared defensively. “I just … I don’t really
eat.”

“No offence,
but isn’t that, like, exactly what anorexics do? Or don’t do, I
guess.”

“I don’t know.
I’m not purposely starving myself, it just ….” I shrugged. “It
never occurs to me, you know, I’m just not … hungry.”

“Well, you will
be here. Trust me.” She smiled again, opened up our door and led me
down the hallway. It wasn’t very busy; there were a few people here
and there, coming and going. It was an odd atmosphere. Sort of like
summer camp gone horribly, horribly awry. Most of the time, when
this many different people were together, it was for some kind of
fun. But here the air seemed gloomy, thick with struggle, almost.
Everyone I saw was fighting some kind of battle with addiction;
they all had their own story, their own set of circumstances.
Fleetingly I wondered how many of them would actually conquer the
monkey on their back. And if I would, as well, by the end.

Not that I
wanted to.

Allison led me
into the cafeteria-style dining room. Plastic tables, plastic
chairs, plastic trays, buffet line. I raised my eyebrows at her as
she handed me a tray.

“Man, if this
is the highlight, your day must be really shitty.” I quipped.

“You have no
idea.” She laughed.

After supper,
Allison took me on a short tour of the facility. I liked her,
almost immediately. She was a wonderful distraction from the
constant burning pain in the pit of my soul, and I welcomed her
mindless chatter and her quirky, jaded energy. She showed me to the
therapy rooms and the TV/games room. There was ping-pong and pool
and shuffleboard and a huge flat screen TV surrounded by faded old
couches. It wasn’t bad, actually. After that she took me to a huge
old gym at the back of the building, for playing volleyball and
basketball and all the other sports I’d effectively avoided for the
duration of my high school career.

I let her do
most of the talking. Slowly we made our way back to our room, and
as we walked Allison told me how she found herself on the dark road
to addiction.

“We were at
some party, you know, the usual. But there was this guy there, and
he had these pills, Oxy’s or something. Of course we tried some. I
was only fifteen, and when you’re fifteen, shit can’t touch you. I
did one, and it was so good. So relaxing, so … ugh, I can’t even
tell you how much I loved that first one. So me and my friend, we
start doing them, first just on the weekend, then maybe like, once
during the week, you know … the whole, downward spiral thing.” She
lifted an eyebrow at me. “It wasn’t long before we were doing them
every day. But these pills, they cost like eighty-dollars each. We
were stealing car stereos, like, anything we could get our hands on
just to afford them, but it was getting really hard. It was only a
matter of time before we got busted. And that’s when we heard about
heroin.”

I nodded for
her to continue.

“Heroin, the
poor man’s Oxy. It does pretty much the same thing, right, but for
like, fifteen-dollars. We started sniffing it, and it was good.
Really, damn good. Then we started injecting.” Allison sighed
fondly. “And never looked back.”

“How old are
you?” I wondered. I was desperate for her to keep talking. We made
it back to our room and she sprawled out on her bed, cuddling the
pillow. I sat on my saggy old mattress, my back against the wall,
and looked at her expectantly.

“Nineteen.”

“You’re only a
year older than I am.”

“Yeah?” She
looked at me a moment, her blue eyes narrowing. “What’s the deal
with you, Mackenzie? When I first saw you, I was like, no, they’ve
got the wrong girl. I’d never place you for a heroin addict, not in
a million years. You’re too … pure looking.”

Ah … that hurt.
Grey had said that about me once … it seemed like ages ago. I
pressed a hand against the sudden stab of hurt in my chest, hugging
myself around the burning wound, blinking back tears. I turned my
face to the wall so Allison wouldn’t notice.

“So what’s your
story?” She asked.

“It’s not very
interesting.” I lit a cigarette, taking a deep drag of delicious
smoke, letting it relax me. “I just liked to party. I really liked
to party.”

“Go on.” Her
blue eyes sparked with interest.

“It started out
harmless enough. Weed, ecstasy, whatever anyone had that weekend.
Mushrooms. I did Quaaludes once too. Booze, you know. Typical
teenager.” I shrugged. “When I tried cocaine, I thought I’d found
the answer. But then heroin came along. And it was … it was like …
what I’d been searching for. ” I shut my eyes and remembered that
first time. Sitting with Grey in the hotel bed, waiting for the
waves to crash over us. I remembered holding his hand, resting my
head on his chest, being with him.

I shook my
head. This was a one-way ticket to a meltdown, one I wasn’t eager
for Allison to witness.

“It was so
good. At first we tried to be … responsible with it, I guess. But I
loved it too much. As soon as I did it, I thought about the next
time. If we ran out, I obsessed with getting more. As soon as I had
more, I wouldn’t rest until I’d done it.” I looked down at myself.
“It was perfect. I’d do heroin when I wanted to relax, cocaine when
I wanted some energy. I didn’t realize things were getting so out
of control.”

“Yeah. You
always feel like you’re on top of it all, don’t you? Like, it’s no
big deal, you’re just having fun, you can quit when you want.”
Allison sighed heavily and stared up at the ceiling. “Right now,
I’d give anything for some tar.”

“Yeah.” I lit
another smoke, but it didn’t help to quench the craving inside of
me, coming from somewhere in the very pit of my stomach, demanding
to be fed. I bit my lip and tried to ignore it.

“Well.” Allison
yawned. “Looks like story time is over.” She pointed to the clock.
“Lights out at ten o’clock.”

“Lights out?” I
grinned wryly. “Are you serious?”

“Unfortunately.” She rolled her eyes. “
Hotel
California
.”

I grimaced as
Allison got up and started getting ready for bed. For some reason
the thought of bedtime made me anxious. It felt like summer camp
all over again. I was one of those children who’d suffered from
near crippling homesickness, but my parents still insisted I spend
at least two weeks of the year at this camp a few hours away from
home. I think they did it so they wouldn’t have to feel guilty
about leaving us all alone for the entire summer, even after every
year when I begged and pleaded not to be sent back. I’d always be
fine during the day, when crafts and canoe rides would distract me
… but at night, in the dark, with the quiet pressing in, I’d always
been plagued with the heaviest kind of loneliness.

I felt that way
again. I went through the motions normally enough, putting on my
pyjamas, brushing my teeth. I crawled under the unfamiliar covers,
tried to get comfortable on the old, lumpy mattress. Allison got
into her bed and then reached over to flick the lamp off.

“Goodnight
Mackenzie.”

There was a
sudden lump in my throat as the room was blanketed in darkness.

“Goodnight.” I
managed.

“Hey, can I
tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“I’m glad
you’re my roommate. I thought maybe I’d get stuck with some … I
don’t know, some lame-o that just wanted to read books all day or
something.”

“Are there many
book-worm heroin addicts here?”

“No.” Allison
laughed. “I guess not.”

I managed a
slight smile into the darkness. Allison rolled over.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”
And then it was quiet.

I tried to talk
myself out of it. I was tired. I could’ve slept. But the moment
there was nothing else to distract me, my mind started racing, like
it needed to go over everything I’d been avoiding all day, to make
sure I didn’t miss what it was trying to communicate. As soon as I
shut my eyes, I saw his face. Grey’s gorgeous, handsome face, dark
and tan; his stubbled cheeks; his perfect lips curved into the
constant smirk. His blue eyes shining happily at me; his messy,
dark hair. I bit my lip to stifle a sob.
Grey, Grey, Grey …. I
wish you were here with me. I wish we were together.

I wouldn’t feel
lonely if he were here, holding me in his warm, strong arms. I’d
never be sad again. I would hold his face in my hands, and tell him
in a hundred different ways just how much I loved him. How I needed
him, how I couldn’t be without him.

He’d smirk and
he’d kiss me, and then maybe, he’d sing me to sleep. His voice a
raspy whisper, low and melodic, breathy in my ear. I’d hold onto
every note like a precious gift from heaven, every fan of his
breath against my cheek like the rarest treasure on earth.

It’s hard to
stay completely quiet when crying, but somehow I managed it. I
didn’t make one noise as the tears streamed from my eyes—my
swollen, broken heart pouring out all the overflowing anguish, all
the aching hurt, all the injustice. The utter loneliness pulsed
through me with every beat. The dark pressed in—the quiet, the
strange noises in the unfamiliar blackness, the groaning of the old
pipes, Allison stirring quietly in her slumber. Please, let me go
to sleep, I beseeched my tortured mind. Let this all be some
terrible nightmare. Let me wake up, safe in Grey’s arms.
Please.

The night
dragged on.

Finally, the
first rays of gloomy dawn began to lighten the weary bedroom. It
was a relief to me, the light, and my mind rested enough to allow
me a few hours of fitful, restless sleep. But I found when I
awoke—staring up at the strange ceiling with swollen, puffy
eyes—that this was real. It wasn’t just some nightmare. This was my
life now. Grey was gone. He was never coming back. My life was
empty, meaningless, hollow.

And for the
third time in only a matter of days, I wished for death.

I fell quickly
into a drear, monotonous pattern over the next little while. I had
no enthusiasm for anything; I just went with the flow, not talking
much, not contributing. Just existing. In the morning we’d get up
and go for breakfast. Shortly after that came group therapy.
Allison was in my group, which I was grateful for. It was nice to
have someone I knew there, even though most of the time I’d just
stare off into space, not really paying attention. I’d give
one-word answers if ever asked a question. It was frustrating, I
could see the therapist trying to draw me out more and more every
day, but stubbornly I refused to participate. I wasn’t interested
in getting better. I wasn’t interested in anything but getting the
hell out of there.

Next came
lunch. Allison and I would always sit together; sometimes we were
joined by other girls but I didn’t bother to even learn their
names. What was the point? In three months we’d all go our separate
ways and I’d never hear from them again. I just sat silently and
ate as much as I could so people would stop thinking I was
anorexic.

After that we
had some free time. There were usually scheduled group activities,
like cards or games or something, which I went to but wouldn’t get
in on—just being there was enough to distract me. Once a week I had
to suffer through an hour or two of one-on-one time with my
therapist. This guy was like sixty years old, he reminded me of
Greg. I was even more closed up with him than I was at group.
Seriously though, how could a greybeard like him expect to relate
to me? Back in his day, the hardest thing they had around the place
was firewater. He was smug though—I could tell he kept trying to
crack me, like I was a challenge to him or something.

After supper
we’d usually go hang out in front of the big screen. I liked
watching TV, it was mindless, a good distraction. But then, when
the time started winding down, when people started leaving and it
was time to go back to our rooms, the anxiety would start. I knew
what awaited me in the dark reaches of the night—the longing, the
sorrow. I dragged my feet the entire way back to our room, trying
to prolong the inevitable.

But it caught
up to me as it always did, and I spent nearly every night
sleepless, sobbing silently into my pillow, hoping for an end. I
knew I couldn’t last like this. It was only a matter of time before
I went really insane. My sleepless nights were beginning to affect
me. If it were possible, I became even more zombie-like, walking
around in a trance with heavy purple shadows beneath my eyes.