20
David
Ireach over and place my fingers on Dani’s shoulder. She shrugs off my touch. She won’t even look at me. She’s hardly looked at me in over a week. Her hair is now a short hack job she did when she was high last night. She said she was sick of all the knots in her hair.
Her voice is small as she speaks without turning to face me. “I'm moving in with my parents this weekend.” Her words break the silence and my thoughts.
“So what does that mean for us?”
“I need to get myself clean, and I can't do that with you,” she says.
With me? As if I was the one who was shooting up first.
“So, it's over?” I ask.
She touches the bruises on her arm. “Yes. I’m sorry David, but you have to be out by Friday.” Her tone is cold.
I’m too shocked to respond. She ruins my life and gets to run off to her parents’ home in the suburbs. She gets to heal in the hands of a loving family, leaving me to find my own remedy.
For the first few months of using with Dani, I would return to the apartment on the weekends. The time at home dwindled as the need for my next fix grew. It’s been two weeks since I’ve set foot in mine and Emily’s apartment, but now I don’t have a choice. I’m forced to slink back, defeated and with my tail between my legs.
Dani and I lost our jobs when we couldn’t go an entire shift without using. But with Dani gone, I can clean up and get another job. Everything will work out. It has to. I just hope I can do this without Emily noticing how far I’ve fallen.
I rub my hand along the track marks on my arms. They’re worse on my left than my right. Dani always helped me do my right side since I’ve lost many of my veins on the left. I don’t even get very high anymore. I’m mostly using to keep from getting sick, and right now, that's all I can afford. I hate Dani for doing this to me, for encouraging me to be like my father.
This is not me. I know it’s not me. I’m so skinny that you can see my ribcage when I stand in front of a mirror. My jeans fall low on my hips from losing weight. My eyes look sunken and my skin is mottled. I pull a long sleeve shirt out of the drawer and put it on in a half-hearted attempt to hide my tracks. The fabric rubs against the blisters on my arms. I think some of these are infected. Or maybe it’s just me who's infected.
* * *
Emily
The engine stalls. Kevin reaches over from the passenger seat and tries to guide my hand on the shifter.
“You have to listen for the cue to shift gears, baby. Otherwise, it stalls like that.”
I’m frustrated. I can't seem to get the hang of this, but he makes it sound so easy. I pull into an empty parking lot.
“Here. You drive. I can't fucking do it.”
He leans over and kisses me.
“Calm down,” he says. “You’ll get it eventually. We’ll keep trying, okay?”
He’s always so even-tempered and optimistic that I can't help but smile and nod in agreement. We get out of the car to switch seats, and he catches me as we cross the front of his car. The headlights are bright against the darkness around us and cast shadows behind us.
He kisses me. I can feel how hard he is. He desires my body as much as I crave his. He leans me onto the hood of his car and wraps my legs around his waist. He kisses me with a fire that I’ve never felt.
“Baby, we can't do this out here,” I say through heavy breaths. I look around to be sure no one is nearby.
He pulls away long enough to glance around the empty parking lot.
“Sure we can. No one else is here,” he says.
He fumbles with his button and fly. His jeans splay open and he pulls down his boxers, allowing his entire length to fall from within them. I lift my skirt past my trembling thighs. He pulls my panties aside and pushes himself inside me, rough and hasty. He groans against my neck.
“God, you feel so incredible.”
His roughness always ignites me. Pleasure surges within my belly. I tighten around him and feel a gush of liquid from between my legs.
“Did you just squirt on my car?” he asks with a smile.
I cover my face with my hands, absolutely embarrassed. He pulls my hands away, pins them to my sides, and kisses me. He thrusts a few more times before finishing inside me.
He zips up and looks around. The parking lot is still empty. I stand up and adjust my skirt. He points out the splatter of liquid on his car and the ground.
“Impressive!”
* * *