With her skateboard in her right hand, I followed her off of the bus and onto a long stretch of sidewalk as I found myself in the 'rougher' part of Ely. It wasn't a "bad" area, which was made obvious by the size of the houses and the people that lived in them, it was just rough. They weren't the types of people to take crap from others, from strangers. They just simply weren't going to take anything from anyone.
"Erin, by the way." she turned around and smiled somewhat smugly, continuing to carry the relaxed demeanor she had approached me with.
Looking to my left, I saw people watching me as I followed the newly-named Erin down the sidewalk and along the wooden fences. "Lynn."
As Erin walked backwards, her eyes seemed to follow mine in the same direction and watched the people go by as we passed them. Raising a middle finger with a fearless smirk, she carried it from her left to her right as she made sure everyone looking had seen it being pointed at them, remorselessly flaunting her disrespect towards anyone who decided or wanted to look. It was awing to watch, to see someone so openly, so bravely tell the world to leave her alone.
Maybe it was because I knew I would never be like her, that I would never be type of person to come out and speak my mind. I would never be the type to openly say screw the world and anyone who disagrees with my way of thinking, my way of seeing. As much as I wanted to be like those people, it would never truly be the type of person I was. As much as I could pretend to be like those people, it would never truly be the type of person I was. It just simply wasn't who I was or ever would be.
"Pretty little name for a pretty little rich girl." she dropped her skateboard and jumped onto it as she gave a small kick forward. "So, rich girl, why're you trying to get fucked up?"
Slowly, my strides became larger to keep up with her as I eyed the splits in between the square pieces of concrete. "Fucked up? I just don't want to feel anything anymore."
Erin pulled off her hat, a smile lifting each end of her mouth. "One and the same, rich girl. One and the same."
I only wanted to feeling nothing. Nil. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I just wanted to go to a place where the pain didn't exist, where hope and misery weren't the same thing, where thinking of her wasn't every thought I had, where every image in my head wasn't of him. Had it been too much to ask for that, and to keep what happened buried? That was all I could ask for, to be free of everything that was trying to hurt me.
Stopping just like earlier, she ceased her movement and kicked her skateboard into the air as she turned to her right, pushing the fence open. Curling her finger towards herself, she motioned me to follow her into and through the fence, which was exactly what I did. But it was as soon as the fence closed behind me that it hit me like a bucket of ice water going down my back. I was in the exact situation I hoped I would never find myself in again.
I was following a stranger into a place I had no idea existed, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, with nowhere to escape to. I could have died right at that moment and no one would have known where I was. Not my parents, not Nathan, just strangers. I would have died alone with only strangers to witness it. I could have been murdered right there in that spot, and nobody would have been the wiser.
"Yo." she threw her skateboard into the grass. "The fuck are you up to?"
As Hit The Lights' "Back Breaker" blared from the house, a huge, short-haired blonde guy came out from behind a tall bush wearing a gray hoodie and sweating like a sinner in church. He wasn't overweight or even chubby, he was just flat out muscular and had clearly just finished working out not long before we had shown up as he brought a towel to his sweat-doused beard.
"Benching." his eyes turned to me. "What did I say about high school kids, Erin?"
"Look at her, Horse. This girls needs something. I mean, she told me that she wanted to feel numb." Her palms took hold of me by my jaw and lifted my head up, forcing me to look this huge guy in the eyes. "Just give her some of the good stuff. It's on me."
He threw the towel onto the table and ran his palm over his head as he looked at me. Even after she had told him that it was on her, his expression still spoke of hesitance. "Are you sure?"
It was as though his expression had been spread to me as uncertainty took over me and the thought of finally being able to get away from everything I felt. What did numbness feel like? Would it be better than facing everything, or would only the darkness I was running away from exist? Could I be numb and alive? Could I feel without feeling the pain of losing her? Could I hide while staying in plain sight? What I thought I was so sure of wanting was now at a tipping point.
Could I just be normal again?
I nodded, because I had already gone this far. I nodded, because I needed to know if there was a way to make the ghosts clinging to my back disappear. I nodded, because I was on the edge of losing my mind, because the lines of reality and hell were slipping - my lines of reality and hell were slipping. They were becoming a blurred, ugly mess. Just like me.
"All right, then." he pointed at the sliding glass door and began to walk. "You can just call me Horse."
"Lynn. . ." I repeated my name for the second time that day as I followed him into his house, and the nearly deafening music.
Looking around as I trailed behind him, the house was spotless aside from a few loose bottles and cans that were lying around. He clearly put time into keeping it clean, and had not at all resembled Erin. Even he, himself, was clean cut and very obviously took care of himself unlike the image Erin had tried to create for herself. She was clearly trying to keep people away, while he was trying to look as normal as possible.
After leading me down the hallway, he took the last door to the right and went into the room, a room that Erin was already smoking a cigarette in as her head bobbed with a breakdown that the song was currently on. She patted the spot on the bed next to her as Horse opened his closet to reveal a rather large safe that his upper body covered the front of.
He closed the safe, bringing a brown box to the table in front of us. My eyes slightly widened as he pulled out a syringe and a tiny container that looked like it was filled up with water. A tiny silver tray that looked like a pot and three or so small baggies were brought out of the box next. The only thing that even looked familiar to me was the needle, and that alone kind of scared me a little, but not enough to make me leave.
Erin sat up with her phone in hand and pressed something, sending the music down to a volume where I could finally hear myself think. "Do you want me to show you how?"
I nodded as I found my hand on my shoulder, rubbing it roughly. "I haven't done anything like this. . ."
"Don't be so nervous. Horse had a first time, and so did I." Erin pulled the table closer to herself and began to reorganize everything that he had taken out of the box. "He's all about that sanitary shit, you know? If you ever need clean needles or something, come here."
Erin stood up for a quick moment and ripped off the belt she was wearing before setting that down on the table, as well. A glance at Horse said that he had agreed with the belt, yet he kept himself distanced. He hadn't said much at all, and I understood that, to some extent. I was a stranger and he had every right to not trust me or even let me in his house, but Erin seemed to force his hand to a point where he couldn't say no, to a point where he didn't have a say in the matter.
Ripping open the clear plastic package, she pulled out the pot-looking tray that had an orange piece inside of it. After putting the orange piece over the handle of the tray, she took one of the small baggies with a brown powder and poured it in. She poured a small amount of the water in and then looked at me, where I saw her eyes for the first time - or rather, eye. It was blue, sharp, and vacant. Her eyes, surprisingly, had been the complete opposite of how she acted.
"This spoon thing is a cooker, and what I put in it was the heroin and water." she picked up her lighter from the pillow and brought it under the cooker, lighting it just like she would a cigarette. A few short moments passed as the lighter circled the bottom of the cooker, and soon the powdery substance disappeared. Then she picked up the syringe and brought the bottom of it to the now brown liquid, lightly stirring it for what seemed like just a few seconds until she set them both down. "Basically, you just cook it in this until it dissolves and stir it up if you need to."
She ripped open another piece of plastic and then let something white and circular fall into the cooker. As the white, foamy looking thing turned to a dark shade off-white, Erin stuck the syringe's needle into it and began to pull the handle back. In a short minute, the syringe began to fill with the brown liquid until the cooker was sucked completely dry of any heroin. She pointed the needle upwards and flicked the syringe twice before pressing up until the heroin began to very slightly leak from the tip of the needle.
"The thing in the cooker is a filter, it just kind of stops the stuff that shouldn't be taken, and flicking it like that is just getting rid of the air." Erin bumped me with her shoulder, smirking as she grabbed her belt. "Ready for the fun part?"
Erin took my right hand and began to open and close it for me as her free hand started to wrap the belt around my arm. By the second, it grew tighter and tighter while she reached for the syringe on the table. That was fine, and I was okay until she brought the needle to my arm. It was in that split-second that a tidal wave of nerves suddenly hit me as she stuck the needle into my arm and let it pierce my skin. I had suddenly become scared with no answer as to why.
With shaky breathing, I tried to calm myself as she quickly undid the belt and let the heroin flow slowly into my veins. A few seconds passed with nothing, but then it hit, and it hit hard. There was and still is no feeling that could truly state the pleasure, the euphoria that rush had given me. It was a moment of pure, unsullied intensity that felt like nothing else the world had to offer. Even winning the lottery wouldn't have compared to this.
As that euphoric rush hit my system, I momentarily lost control of my body as I began to involuntarily lean backwards into the wall, eyes completely closed. Everything I felt moments earlier had disappeared, and now I felt happy. Not nothing, not numbness, but happiness. It felt nice.
"Oh, shit. She's feelin' it right now." I could hear Erin laugh with that same slight hoarseness in her voice. "How's it feel, rich girl?"
How did it feel? It was beyond describable, beyond sex and love. The initial rush was not human, and was nothing like I'd ever felt in my life. Everything vanished, the darkness and the emptiness, the nightmare that was closing my eyes, and even the thoughts of her. They all disappeared and were replaced with their polar opposites. I felt nothing, but I also felt satisfaction. I felt nothing, but I also felt normal.
"It just feels. . .nice."
ns 15.158.61.6da2
