So I’d used the money I’d been saving to finally get myself out of the gutter. Maybe I was destined to live there forever.
I turned to Rosie on that thought. “Look, I completely understand if you don’t want me living at your place anymore. I’ll pack up my shit as soon as we get back—”
I was cut off by the jolt of the car slamming to an abrupt stop. I braced my hand on the dash to stop my head from rebounding on it. Rosie pulled over to the shoulder of the deserted highway.
I glanced at her. “Give a girl some warning! I almost Frenched the dashboard. I’m not wanting dentures just yet.”
She didn’t smile, glaring at me instead. “If you ever think of moving out because you have some fucked-up reason about why I wouldn’t want you living with me, I’ll find you the second your shit leaves my place. Seriously, I can be like Liam fucking Neeson when I want to be. I’ll find you, and I’ll drag you back to my place and make you watch Sex and the City with me for twelve hours as punishment,” she threatened, her tone serious.
I blinked at her, unsure of what was going on here.
Her face softened slightly and she reached out to give my arm a quick squeeze. “This is the one and only time I’ll bring this up without you saying something first. You went through hell, Bex. Hell,” she repeated, shuddering. “Breaks my heart every time I think about it. And somehow, you’re sitting here, whole and not a basket case. Somehow you survived it with your sanity intact. I’m in total awe of your strength, seriously, sister.” She paused. “But no matter how strong you are, you can’t get through this alone. I know you’re a strong independent woman who don’t need no man, but you need your girlfriends. And even if you don’t think that’s true, they need you. I need to have you around, under my roof, for my peace of mind. So I know you’re okay, you’re here. Lily needs you five minutes’ drive away so she doesn’t go back to those three weeks where she thought she lost her best friend. Okay?”
I nodded slowly, her words prodding at those numb pieces of me that were lying inside my shattered psyche.
She nodded too, pulling the car back onto the highway. “Since that’s sorted, it’s cheeseburger time.”
And just like that, I was taken back to a family I hadn’t asked for, but one I craved just the same.
And taken back to the man I hadn’t asked for, but breathed for, just the same.
One week later
I stared at my reflection with effort. I had made a point of avoiding reflective surfaces for the past month. Avoided looking directly at them. At me. Or whatever was left.
They say—whoever the proverbial assholes they are—that the addict looks in the mirror one day and does not recognize the face of the drug-stricken loser before them. I had a lot of free time in the junkie house, so I set about reading every addict autobiography and memoir out there.
Depressing shit.
That’s where I got that particular theory. Maybe that’s not exactly what they say, but I took some artistic liberties. I recognized myself every day I was high. Every time. Sometimes I was blurry around the edges. Sometimes I couldn’t tell where the reflection ended and I began. Another time, when I was seriously fucked-up, I thought I was trapped in the mirror.
All of these times, I couldn’t mistake myself. Not on the outside, at least. The inside may have been twisted, gnarly, and positively ugly, but I couldn’t see that from my glorious spot on my rainbow high. I could only see what the mirror showed me. Nothing underneath. Drugs gave me a wonderful little blind spot to my true self.
Now, stone-cold, horribly sober, I couldn’t place this… thing. Even worse, I could see the gnarly, thorny edges of my insides. My blind spot was gone.
I blinked at the sallow face staring back at me. Makeup-less, I hardly recognized myself. I was always wearing my war paint, whether it was waking up with residue of the night before or a fresh coat. It was my armor. Another thing to add to the persona I had created. Black hair, usually with sharp streaks of color which changed routinely. Black combat boots were a staple. I had four pairs in various states of disarray. My eyeliner was always thick and black. I was always on. Always a construction. Never just me. I needed all that stuff, to cover the dirt.
I didn’t have any of it right now. My hair hung limp around my shoulders, dipping almost to my bra strap. It was stringy because I couldn’t remember the last time I washed it. The ends were such a faded pink they just looked orange now. My face was pale, almost transparent under the bathroom lights. My frame looked skeletal and my face had angles I didn’t recognize. Quite simply, I looked like shit. But the outside was nothing like the charred and broken inside. I felt like my body was this empty shell and the ashes of me lay in a pile, rotting with every passing day.