Sinner's Place {h.s}

twenty-one.

"Daniel's here, wondering where you are. You still owe him a fifty for the baggy from last week." Pete sighed, pushing his hair back with his fingers in stress, "He's comin' up here to talk to ya."

"Tell him I'm not here." I mumbled back, picking up my glass of whisky as I took a slow, long sip from it. It burned my tongue, then rushed down my throat to burn my stomach too.

" 'S too late, he knows your here." Pete retorted, furrowing his brows at me as he walked over to me. I looked at him in annoyance once again as he leaned over the table and snatched the drink from my hand. "Just fuckin' pay him, Harry! We both know you got the money!"

"Fuckin' hell, Pete," I growled as I stood to my feet, my leg stretching over the table to jump over it before I grabbed his shirt roughly and pulled him to me. He looked at me with wide eyes, his hands grabbing my wrist as I stared down at him darkly, "When will you stop fuckin' me over, hm? Piece of fuckin' work, you are."

"When will you stop doing drugs, Harry?!" Pete yelled back at me, pushing my hands off of him as he contorted his face in anger, "You're going off the rails, mate. 'S time to clean your act up..." He shook his head as he fixed his shirt, turning on his heel to walk away, "Oh and take a fucking shower, mate, you smell like piss and xanax." He snapped at me once more before he disappeared down the stairs.

"I need a shower." I mumbled to myself as I slowly used my elbows to push myself off the bed. I hated thinking about the shit I used to do when I was young and stupid. I know I'm twenty-five and still young, but I had done a lot of stupid shit.

I've been clean for some years. I've always been proud of myself for that. I tried to think of this as a punishment for things I've done, but it only led me to become familiar with the high again. Something I've always chased to get rid of whatever I was feeling in that moment. It reminded me how much I liked it.

People like me simply can not be sober. It's sad, but it's true. We use drugs to escape, and there's no other reason behind it. Sometimes it starts out as something fun, but then it ends up a problem in the end. For me, I always used it to numb myself. It just felt nice not to have my brain running wild all the time.

For the first time in years, my mind was somewhat calm, but there was a gnawing at the back of my mind telling me that I was going to regret this. What choice did I have anyways? I knew that if I didn't take the drugs that I would end up like Nathan. I would rather be high and sweating than to end up like him.

The shower was long and cold. I sat on the floor of the tub as the water rushed over me, washing away the sweat that had accumulated all over my body and the lake water from earlier that made my body gross and sticky.

I knew I was reaching the end of my high when my jaw started to clench and my body was tightening. Every time I did drugs, depending on which ones, my jaw always locked on me. I could never ease it up, it was like I didn't have a choice and then it would hurt the next day from clenching it so hard.

Or grinding my teeth. I fucking hated grinding my teeth. My dentist wasn't a big fan of it either.

"Father Harry? A woman named Anna is outside the cabin." Joseph said through the door.

My body stilled as I slowly closed my eyes. That was the last thing that I wanted to happen, but unfortunately it looked as though I was faced with another problem and that was having to tell Anna the truth about my past.

She wasn't a stupid girl, she knew exactly what was in that bag when Angela handed it over to me. I just hated that she had to find out this way. I was supposed to be a figure, a good influence on everyone around me in this church, and I've let everyone down.