A/N
Once again, I apologize for typos, grammatical errors, and inconsistencies. I've been struggling with writer's block for months now, so whenever I'm inspired to write, I may write in one of my many unfinished stories.
This is particularly a hard story to write since it deals with addiction and addiction is ugly.
As I let the water beat down on my face, Liam took a washcloth to my back. It had been such a long time since anyone acted like they gave a shit about me. I stood there like a statue, letting Liam wash my back, neither of us speaking. After a few minutes, he dropped the washcloth and brought his fingers to my hair. I was torn between wanting him to touch me and getting out of the shower.
"You couldn't wait to comb my hair, huh?" I said. I didn't understand why my voice shook when I spoke to him. He never made me nervous before.
Liam didn't respond, combing the knots out with his fingers. He stood so close to me, his front pressed against my back.
"You don't want me like this," I said as his lips brushed against the side of my neck. "Trust me, Liam. I think I want you to go. You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't have come."
Four years ago, I'd never think of Liam as a master manipulator, but that all changed... thanks to me. Today, I didn't trust his motives. Was he really worried about me or did my text trigger him? Was he here to score? And by 'score' I don't mean sex. Addiction destroyed all the good in Liam. Maybe he got the good back, but I could never be too sure.
"Everyone seems to think they know what's best for me," Liam said as I got out of the shower.
"Get outta here, Liam. Delete my number. I'm about to delete yours." In a towel, I headed out of the bathroom and to my phone. Liam ran after me and shoved my arm, knocking the phone out of my hand. "What the fuck?"
"Don't delete my number. I'm so fucking lonely," he said in tears. "I'm so lost. I've missed you like crazy and I've been so worried and no one seems to care. No one cares, but I care. I fucking care." Dripping wet, Liam plopped down on the bed. "I know he cares. He wouldn't have called you if he didn't care, right? I know he still cares about you."
"Who's he?" I asked, playing dumb. I suspected I knew who 'he' was.
"Jeremy."
"Yeah, he cares," I said, sitting beside Liam. "He cares about you. As for me... well, I'm pretty sure he hates my fucking guts because of what I did to you."
"You didn't do anything to me."
"Yeah, right," I said. If Liam and I had never met, he never would have become an addict.
"I want us to be like we were again."
"That's never gonna happen."
"Then I choose you."
"I don't want anyone to choose anyone," I said. "Maybe the three of us can't even be friends. Maybe the past is the past and that's it."
"No," Liam said, sniffing. "Don't say that."
"What do you want me to say? We're not seventeen and eighteen anymore. We were living in a fantasy. Fantasies aren't real. Seriously, Liam, think about it. You, me, and Jeremy--the three of us are completely different people. What we had was never sustainable. Jeremy was gone the first chance he got."
To protect his precious football scholarship, Jeremy preferred to keep a low profile in college. He said he didn't care if people knew he was gay; he just didn't want people to know he was part of a throuple with two guys. In college, if Jeremy was out and proud and if he had to choose between us, he would have chosen Liam to be his boyfriend. Liam never did anything to embarrass him. Liam was a good boyfriend. Jeremy wasn't necessarily in the closet, but he kept his sexuality well hidden and I was nothing but a train wreck. Jeremy didn't do well with train wrecks.
Except for his sobs, Liam was quiet for a few seconds. "I don't want you to die, but if you want to kill yourself, why don't you do it? What's keeping you from doing it, Nicky?"
I didn't know how to respond to that because I'd been asking myself that question for years.
"Because I think there's a little bit of hope in you," he continued. "You want out, but you don't know how to get out. I can help you."
"You can't help me, Liam," I said, placing my hand on his bare knee. He wasn't nearly as bony as the last time I saw him. "You need to focus on yourself."
"Don't tell me what I need and don't need," he said, turning to me. "Suboxone works, you know. I'm still taking it, but at least I'm not shooting up every day. It's really helped with the cravings. Maybe it could help you, too."
"Suboxone?" I scoffed, thinking about the heroin in my bag, wondering when I'd get the chance to shoot up with Liam sticking around. "You're just exchanging one addiction for another."
"It's a maintenance medication and it's legal. I have a doctor and a counselor, and I've been able to go back to school. I think I want to be a lawyer. What do you think?"
"You wanna be like Mommy and Daddy, huh?"
Liam's body tensed as his gaze shifted to his fingers on his lap. "Forget it. Never mind. You're obviously not ready."
"Sorry. You'd make a great lawyer," I said, reaching for his hand.
"Can I at least stay the night?"
"Yeah, sure... if you don't mind sharing the bed with me and another girl... if she comes back. I don't know her schedule."
"She could sleep on the chair," Liam said.
"You would never have suggested that four years ago," I laughed. "You would have made us sleep on the floor so she could have the bed."
"To be honest, I don't care where she sleeps as long as I'm here with you." He brought my hand to his lips. "I fucking want you, Nicky. Don't turn me away."
How could I resist him?
I couldn't.
My body reacted to his touch.
"Lie down," he said. "Go on."
With some apprehension, I lay on my back. I knew that look in his eyes. He was hungry for anything. This was what I was afraid would happen, and I was such a pussy I let it happen. I was such a hedonistic, selfish asshole that I undid my towel and welcomed Liam's lips on my cock. His blow jobs sure beat the ones on the street.
Liam and I just wanted to be loved. Liam knew how to love me, with or without heroin.
Within seconds, we were all over each other, devouring each other in hungry kisses. I missed kissing, and Liam was a great kisser, among other things. He barely waited for me to put on a condom, but I wouldn't fuck him without one. I was responsible about some things. Liam smiled against my lips as I entered him. He moaned louder and louder the harder I thrust. His head bounced against the headboard.
"Harder," he whispered.
I complied with his request. He cried out in a combination of pain and ecstasy.
"Yeah... yeah... that's good," he said, clawing my back. If he had long nails, he would have left scratch marks.
He pushed me on my back and rode me like I'd never been ridden before. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating, but it had been a long time since I enjoyed sex and I enjoyed myself immensely with Liam. Even after we climaxed, we continued to hug each other. Liam rested his head on my shoulder as I ran my hands up and down his back.
"How often do you take the Suboxone?" I asked, seriously considering rehab--on my own terms.
"I was taking it every day, but I'm down to every other day." Liam broke away from me to give me that pleading look of his.
"I'll think about it, okay? I'm not making any promises. It's just... it's just I have nowhere to go. It's not like I can go home."
"Why can't you go home?"
"I can't."
My mother and Morrie, her husband and my stepfather, had given me an ultimatum: either I get clean and stay clean or Get out. They had already given me a million chances and I blew each and every one of them. I'd done so many things. How could I ever show my face again?
"I think you can, Nicky."
"I'm not you, Liam. You're good and I'm... I'm a fucking pariah who brings sorrow to everything I touch." That's what Liam had told me, although he didn't call me a pariah.
"I was angry when I said that. Don't you think I had a right to be angry?"
I had nothing else to say, thinking about the heroin in my bag. It was about that time when my body started to need the drug.
"Are you hungry?" Liam asked.
"Yeah, I could eat."
"I'll order Doordash," he said, climbing off me and reaching for his phone. "What do you want?"
Now was the perfect time to excuse myself to go to the bathroom. "Pizza," I said, walking toward the bathroom with my bag.
"What kind?" he shouted to me.
"Plain. Thanks."
I closed and locked the bathroom door. As I sat on the toilet, holding the lighter under the spoon, tears fell down my cheeks. I wasn't as numb or as hollow as I thought I was. There was still a human being inside me with complex emotions. I couldn't bare the thought of getting sick, so I found a decent vein in my hand and stuck it. The tears disappeared. I rinsed my face with water before facing Liam.
Even with the smack in my body, I didn't experience that happy, euphoric feeling, not with Liam's eyes on me. He knew what I had done. I could see him practically drooling at the possibility of getting high with me.
"Damn, I'm fucking starving," I said.
"Pizza'll be here in fifteen minutes. I told them to leave it at the door," Liam said, not taking his eyes off me.
"Stop looking at me," I said, preparing myself for the next question.
"Do you have any Zannies?"
There's the question.
Yes, I have Xanax, but I'm not giving one to you.
"You're clean, Liam," I stated. "I knew this was a bad idea. We're toxic together."
"How about Special K or Molly? Come on, let's trip together. It's not like they're addictive."
Liam tried so hard to kid himself.
Even if I had these drugs, I wouldn't have given them to Liam. In the past, Ketamine had given me nothing but problems, although ecstasy could be fun. These days, I spent all my money on Xanax and heroin. "Don't be an idiot" I said.
"I'll give you twenty bucks for one bar."
If I took Liam's money, I'd make a seventeen dollar profit. Not bad.
No... no, I can't.
I won't.
I realized an addict was an addict and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Liam wasn't using, but the addictive behavior was still there.
"I don't have any," I said.
"You're a fucking liar," he said and he was right. "Can I at least bum a cigarette?"
"Yeah, knock yourself out."
Liam lit a cigarette, but didn't give up. Once an addict, always an addict. "Shrooms? Mescaline? LSD?" Liam asked, lying beside me, smoking one of my cigarettes. Actually, they were Remy's. "Weed? Is there anything you're willing to share?"
"There's a pot shop a few miles down the road," I said. "It's pricey, but if you can afford to pay twenty bucks for a bar, you can afford twenty bucks for a blunt."
"I don't want to leave this room," he said. "We have the best sex when we're tripping."
They were mind-altering drugs, so of course we had great sex. Everything was great on ecstasy. "Shut the fuck up, Liam, and get the pizza at the door."
Liam rolled his eyes and did as I said, butt naked.
"Anyway, didn't we just have great sex?" I said.
"I've had better," he said.
Laughing, I threw a pillow at him. "Fuck you. I should kick your ass out."
"You don't want to kick me out." He dropped the pizza on the bed and lay back on the bed, stretched out beside me. I opened the box and handed him a piece. Together, we finished off the entire pizza while watching Family Guy on the TV. For an hour, I almost felt normal again. Right now, Liam was the only person who cared about me. As he leaned against me, I finally made a decision.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay what?"
"I'll go to rehab. I'll give Suboxone a try. I can't make any promises that it'll work, though."
"Yay!" Liam exclaimed, pouncing on his knees in front of me. He was as excited as a little boy on Christmas morning. "I'll help you find a place and I'll bring you. I know you can do it and I'll be there for you. I promise. I won't ever ask you for drugs again. I love you, Nicky."
"I know. I love you, too. I wanna go home."
By 'home,' I meant the house with my mother and Morrie. This life fucking sucked. I wanted to see my mother again and hoped she'd want to see me again, too.
"Okay," Liam said. "I'll make that happen."
Before crashing for the night, Liam and I had one last fuck. And no one interrupted us. I briefly wondered if Alyssa was okay. She was just a kid and hooked on meth, the most vile drug. That shit was worse than heroin--in my opinion, anyway. Heroin never made me paranoid like meth made Alyssa.
In the middle of the night, I woke with an intense craving. This will be the last time. I better make it count, I thought, wandering into the bathroom, leaving Liam sleeping in bed. One more time. As soon as I opened my duffel bag, I knew something was different.
No no no...