Viper House

Strangers Helping Strangers

I slouched in the backseat of the car, watching as my dad stumbled around in the liquor store. Spencer sat behind the wheel, tapping his fingers on it.

"Will you knock that off?" I snapped.

Spencer looked at me in the rearview window. "Just take some more drugs. You won't be so annoyed, then."

"Fuck off."

"Why? Because you do? Seriously, Rafe, I thought it would be better when you came back. I didn't realize that you had just turned into Dad."

I sat up in the seat. "I am nothing like him."

"Really?" he asked as he twisted around in the seat to look at me. "You really believe that you're nothing like him? You aren't ever sober. You do the same thing he does to us, only to strangers and you get paid to do it. You're never fucking home. What was the point of coming back if you weren't going to do shit about what's going on."

"Me?" I asked, arching an eyebrow. "You're old enough to do something about it, Spence. Why do I have to be the miracle worker?"

"Because you always were when we were kids!" he shouted. I stared at him. "You always stood up to him and kept the two of us safe, Rafe. I looked up to you for that. Now? You fucking disgust me."

"Did you ever think it was because of those things that I ended up like this?" I asked in a low voice. "I got kicked out for standing up for you. I lived on the streets for a year before I was arrested. That's how I got addicted to this shit, Spencer. So, before you want to start pointing fingers, you may want to look at yourself in the fucking mirror."

I shoved open the car door and got out. A few seconds later, Spencer got out, too.

"Where the fuck are you going now?" he shouted.

I spun around, almost falling into a snowbank. "I'm going to go get high. Maybe I'll overdose under a bridge, and you can forget I ever existed."

"Come on, Rafe. Don't be like that."

I waved him off and kept going. I nearly got hit by a car. Completely my fault, but I still flipped off the driver as I crossed the street.

The sun was starting to sink into the ground. I didn't know where I was going. Julian was out of town for the weekend. The other guys had scattered while he was gone, taking advantage of the time off to get high or whatever they did when they weren't being his bitches. I had no friends. I really had no home, at least not one that I wanted to go to.

At that moment, I realized just how alone I really was. I didn't really have any friends left, at least not real ones. Julian was my dealer and my boss. He wasn't my friend. The guys I worked with? They weren't people I'd want to hang out with. Spencer wasn't even my friend. How sad was that? My little brother had turned his back on me.

I kicked a bottle on the sidewalk as hard as I could. It didn't go far. I was slowly wasting away, and I didn't even care. Would I make it until next Christmas? Thanksgiving? Maybe my next birthday? Hell, would I even make it to Christmas? Maybe not even to the end of the night? I could sit under a bridge, as I'd told Spencer, and inject as much heroin into my veins as I wanted. No one would find me for a day or longer. It'd be too late. No one would be able to bring me back. No one would miss me.

I'd witnessed an overdose before. I'd been too fucked up then to really do anything. The girl's boyfriend managed to bring her back. I didn't have anything then to help, but after rehab, I was given Narcan to carry. It was still in my backpack at my parents' house. I figured if I was going to be anywhere that I would need it, the school was one of the first places.