I Think I Love You | Randy

track 19. comfortably numb - pink floyd

"He's on drugs," I said.

"What kind?"

"Cocaine, I think." I looked at Jack again, an inconsolable sobbing mess on the concrete. "Come on!" I urged, making another futile attempt at pulling him up.

"He needs help," Olivia stated.

"You think?" I snapped, softening as I immediately regretted my tone. "I can sober him up at my apartment, I just need to get him there."

"I can drive you," she said, kneeling down next to me and taking Jack's other arm. "Come on, Jack, were getting in the car."

Together, we finally managed to get Jack to his feet and into the backseat of Olivia's car, Jack muttering "don't tell him" over and over again as we did.

"He's terrified Brook will find out he's using again," I explained to Olivia. "Promised I wouldn't tell him if he let me help him now."

"Okay, I'll help you with him, but if it gets more serious we're getting him real help," she warned and I nodded in agreement. We climbed into the front seats of her car and she sped off, following my directions across campus to my building.

***

Jack, it turned out, was a fucking nightmare when he was high. He was bouncing off the walls one second, practically tearing my bedroom apart, then the next he was crying hysterically again. All the while he refused to eat or drink anything, and he lapsed into a disturbing kind of paranoia if we ever brought up Brooklyn's name, so we just stopped talking about him altogether.

It was past three AM now, and he finally seemed to be burning out. Olivia and I were both mentally and physically drained from our efforts to contain him. A few hours ago we'd starting taking the babysitting in shifts, it currently being my turn, sitting on a chair by my bed, watching Jack fall asleep. I knew I still needed to be watching him but I could feel my eyelids growing heavier as Jack's breathing settled into a rhythm. I had been wrestling with my own anxiety for so many hours now that it seemed to be the only thing keeping me alert, yet it had simultaneously drained me completely. I was stuck in an uncomfortable cycle of getting to the edge of falling asleep and then gasping awake again, heart pounding with a fresh wave of adrenaline.

Jack groaned on the bed, triggering me to snap to my senses again. I blinked myself fully awake, his thrashing form coming into focus before my eyes.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Hurts," Jack moaned, curling up on the bed and clutching at his stomach. He started convulsing in his spot, my sleepy instincts slow to realise what was about to happen.

"Shit," I said, realising just in time to grab my bin off the floor and thrust it in front of Jack's face. He was violently sick moments later, the sharp acidic smell assaulting my nostrils. I cringed as I let him get through it, the thin sheen of sweat across his forehead belying just how hard his body was trying to expel the toxins in his system. The vomiting continued for an uncomfortably long time, especially considering there was nothing lining his stomach, just acid that seemed to burn his throat on the way up, judging by the way he choked through it, wincing every time.

"Fuck," he whimpered, as he fell back onto the bed, his strength completely gone as tremors encased his entire body. He hugged himself as tears rolled down his cheeks. I handed him the water bottle that he had previously refused to touch, this time Jack accepting it and swigging most of it down.

"I'm gonna run you a bath, okay?" I said as he laid back again, his skin a disturbing shade of grey. This was what addiction looked like, and I shuddered to think of how Rye might have ended up just like this if I hadn't been there to steer him off the hard stuff during college.