My addiction was just different.
The itching. The craving. The feeling of needing a release. It's always with me. Just beneath the surface, wanting to get out. And I push it down. I hide it until I can't deny it anymore.
The rush.
The adrenaline pouring through my system.
In Plexton, there was always a plethora of ways to get my blood pumping. Dangers were around every corner. Drug addicts and dealers. Hookers and thieves. The thing about small towns is that everyone has something they want to hide. And the smaller the town, the more obvious it becomes.
I never wanted to touch the shit Patricia fucked for. What I crave isn’t nearly as easy to come across. Several strands come loose from my ponytail, but I don’t reach back to re-secure them. If I’m going to do this, then there’s no more holding back.
Backing up several steps, I take a deep breath—feeling the rush of awareness as it slides through my veins. I bite my lip as my blood races. My heart jackhammers inside my rib cage. I guess there’s a reason why a cage surrounds the organ that keeps me alive. If it weren’t there, I doubt it’d stay still. As it stands, it’s trembling inside me—knowing exactly what I’m about to do.
One step. Two. Three. Four. Five. My feet slap the ground as I race towards the edge. The second I leap, my feet leaving the ground, that’s when it hits me. A burst of energy. Adrenaline. Shooting straight into my bloodstream, the headiest drug of all.
Wind whips through my hair, tearing the holder I’d had strapped at the back of my head free and suddenly, the mass of dark waves slap me in the eyes. Twisting in mid-air, I avoid the strands. I want to see it. I look down as the water comes rushing up to greet me. And it’s only just moments before I land, that I close my eyes and take in the feeling of utter peace as it washes over me.
My head hits the water first and my body follows. It's like I'm being swallowed up. Surrounded. Encapsulated by something larger than myself. I don't fight it. Instead, I let it consume me as I sink into the grotesque black-green lake. Something catches on my arm and pain slices through me. My heart is still racing, like a trapped bird slamming against the inside of its cage, trying to get out. It can't. I can't.
I can never escape this twisted desire to get as close to death as possible and feel my body fight against it. I hold my breath for several more moments, staying submerged until my lungs start to scream for air. Only then do I kick out and swim upwards.
Breaking the surface, I gasp and suck in huge gaping lungfuls of oxygen, feeling tingles throughout my entire body. Like tiny little needles being jabbed into my skin. I laugh, spinning in a circle. If anyone were here right now, they'd likely think I'd gone insane. People believe that all forms of addiction are bad, but they're wrong.
I tread water as my mind supplies the reason.
It's dark and the heat is unbearable. Sweat builds under my armpits and in my asscrack as well as other places I don't want to think about. I turn over and shove my flat pillow over onto the opposite side right before I stuff my face against it. Within seconds, however, all of the coolness it holds is absorbed into my skin, and I'm stifling in the heat once again.
Somewhere in the trailer, I hear a door open. Sounds like Patricia's home. I groan and close my eyes. Only when a floorboard creaks in the hallway outside of my bedroom do I notice that something’s wrong. Patricia is usually loud when she comes in. The walls are thin and I can almost always hear her retching from the bathroom. But tonight, there's no puking sound. There's nothing but utter silence ... and that creaky floorboard.
Without even stopping to consider what's happening, I roll out of bed and bolt for the single window in my bedroom. I move the plank of wood that I keep it covered with and dig my little fingers beneath the bottom of the screen, popping it open, and climbing out. The second my bare feet hit the grass below, I hear the knob of my bedroom door jiggling. I've always felt safe so long as the lock was in place, but as I remain below my open window, hands over my mouth to keep my breathing quiet, I hear something sliding between the door jamb and the door, itself. Seconds later, my bedroom door opens.
I was never safe. No matter how many locks were in place.
I don't stop to think about that. I just take off.
Sticks and stones stab into the soft underside of my foot, but I don't feel the pain. My mind is racing. Where the hell is Patricia? Does she know that someone has broken into our trailer? I know where she usually is at this time of night. If it wasn't her in the house, then that's the place I'll look.
It takes forever to get to the place I'm thinking of. Finally, I'm standing outside of one of the drug dens of Plexton Trailer Park. I'm dirty and sweaty, tired, and trembling. I just want to go to sleep. My eyes hurt from how tired I am.
Striding up the rickety wooden steps, I stop just before I knock against the cheap plastic door with its triangle window a foot or so above my head. I stop because I hear her voice. Patricia's.
"—best stuff yet," she says, sighing in what sounds like relief.
"And you'll get more so long as my guy has his fun at your place," I hear someone else say.
Patricia groans and I flinch back at how sexual it sounds. "He'll have fun. She's just a little runt. S'not like she can fight back. Just hold her down and make sure you give me what you promised when you leave.”
My arm drops to my side and I take a step back and another and another until I'm far enough away that I'm sure they didn't hear me. It’s time, I realize. This is it. It’s finally happened. She’s finally cracked. Deep down, I knew it was coming, but I don’t realize until that exact moment how much I’d hoped I was wrong.
Patricia knows. The realization hits me like a shit ton of bricks. Slamming into me from all angles. She doesn't just know. She sent them.
I start walking.
I don't know how far I walk or for how long. All I know is that by the time I stop, my feet are bloody and bruised and my head is sore and my stomach is growling. And all I can think of is how everything is spinning.
“Hey!” The world seems out of place. I’m dizzy. “Hey, kid!”
Spinning in circles. Out of control. I have no control. There's nothing here that's tying me down. I could just … forget it all. Pretend that I don't remember anything. That none of this exists. Where would I end up?
Before I can think to answer my own thoughts, an unfamiliar face appears before me. I jump back, yelping as feeling comes back to me, and I realize just how fucked up the soles of my feet are. I stumble and go down hard, landing on my ass on rough gravel and concrete. When I glance back up, I note that the person that approached me is a girl.
She stands there, with her hands on her hips, her white-blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail at the back of her head, and stares down at me. “Are you stupid or what?” she demands.
I don’t even have the energy to be angry at the insult. I just stare, unblinking, up at her. Her green eyes flick down to my feet and they widen. “Holy shit, kid, your feet!”
“I’m not a kid.” I hear the words come from my mouth, but it sounds like they’re from someone else because the voice is too hoarse and not at all like mine.
She crouches down and gently touches the top of one of my bare feet, making me flinch. “How old are you?” she asks, examining them.