[a/n: i think this is my only author's note the whole novel whoa, but i just wanted to take a moment to thank you guys for all the support i've gotten for this and i cannot believe that i actually managed to complete my nano novel. the next chapter will be the last one, which is kind of bittersweet for me. enjoy xo.]
The craving was beginning to fucking kill me.
It was like a constant gnawing in the pit of my stomach, much like that of the pain coming from stuffing your problems so far down your throat they have no choice but to bundle together and form a rock that never leaves. Which, I suppose, was much like the craving. It was a problem – such a huge goddamn problem – and I felt like all of my senses were heightened.
The creaking of the metal chairs around West and I were driving me crazy, the screeching sounds going straight through me like an arrow intent on setting me off. It was like an itch beneath my skin, one I was unable to physically itch without ruining everything in the way, such as my resolve and willpower.
But God, did it really have to be so hard?
My attention was drawn to West beside me when he reached a hand over and began absently touching my fingers, his touch soothing enough to calm the emotions raging through me. I wanted a drink so badly, but more than that, I wanted to make myself worthy of West.
We'd been attending the AA meetings almost every week now, taking our place in the back row as if it'd somehow acquired our names and became reserved specifically for us. Due to the frequency of our attendance, I had begun to take the faces of the people around us and pair them with names. Some of them even talked to West and I so much they could almost be considered friends of ours.
If either of us were capable of maintaining a healthy friendship.
It became apparent to me that the reason West and I worked so well was because we were just as fucked up as the other, reliant on some stupid liquid without a single clue as to what direction we were going to take in life.
There was also the little fact that both of our names happened to be directions, right beside each other – a fact that I often found myself smiling at, half believing that it may have something to do with fate, just as West had eluded to himself believing in things such as that.
However, I wasn't feeling like smiling today.
I wanted to drink and smoke – preferably at the same time, if I could somehow manage it – and curl myself so close against West that he'd never forget the feeling of my body against his. I'd never been a particularly touchy person, more so believing in distancing myself – a rather impossible feat around a person such as West Monroe – but sometimes, I craved contact with West so much that I almost believed that he was the addiction I struggled with so often instead.
As if sensing that my thoughts were about him, West nudged my foot with the tip of his boot, the same scuffed boots I found myself comparing to a sidewalk marred only by the careless tread of other people.
“Hm?”
“You look like you're thinking really deeply about something.”
I almost told him that it was him I was thinking about, that he was a constant thought swirling about in my head. But I didn't; even after I'd told him I loved him – a little moment I found myself regretting every so often, hating how vulnerable and exposed it had made me – I still found myself grasping at the thin curtain that separated us and tugging it between us when I felt like I needed the distance. Which, admittedly, that need for distance seemed to diminish the more I tried to pull it back into place, almost as if even my resistance was resistant with the thought of pushing West away.
I simply didn't reply, holding back a sigh when West nudged my foot again with his. I suddenly felt that metaphorical curtain slide back in front of me, ready to be pulled between us. So I did just that – I put some distance between us.
I wasn't mad, not by any means, but I felt restless and as if I needed to wash my skin off and hide away until a new layer grew in its place.
I left the meeting, not really even bothering to leave the door quietly. Either way, they would have noticed me, the often late girl with messy blonde locks. My hair had grown to just above my waist and as I slipped out the door, I wondered if shutting it in the door and leaving a few of the strands behind would somehow make me be more memorable.
I often felt like a ghost, another cliched teenage girl who's got more problems than she does solutions, just waiting for the right person to give up in order to gain the strength to give up, too.
I stood outside of the AA meeting building, taking in its old exterior and running my fingers across the beat up bricks. The red brick was rough beneath my fingers, although not any more harsh to the tips than the lighter I used daily was.
The bricks were slightly cracked, a few of the bigger holes filled with cigarette butts. Judging by the various littering of cigarette butts outside of the building, it wasn't just West and I that had taken up smoking as a sort of attempt to curb the need for alcohol. It was ironic, though, using another addicting thing to take away from the addicting aspect of a different addiction.
No one ever said that addicts were reasonable, though.
I pulled a cigarette from the pack I'd confiscated from West earlier and stuffed in my pocket, raising it to my lips and leaning against the brick wall. It was calming, always calming, to spend a bit of time alone with just the alluring pull of fresh air and a stick with the potential to kill me between my lips.
As I sucked in breaths, the taste of nicotine lingering on my lips, I realized that I hadn't taken up smoking in order to get away from drinking. Before I'd met West and started going to the meetings with the actual intent of getting better, I'd considered myself hopeless. In fact, I hadn't cared, not a single bit about whether I lived for a year or a day longer.
I just hadn't cared, and that thought caused a shiver to run through me, thinking of all the things I'd have missed out on.
Pushing off the wall, I held the cigarette between my two fingers until it stopped burning, the flame ebbing out until completely releasing itself. I started walking from the building, not really headed in any particular direction. My sneakers occasionally made sounds on the sidewalk, and I found myself taking the long way home, passing by Kevin's house in the process.
Despite how much I wanted a drink – so much I could almost taste it on my tongue with just the thought – my pace didn't even slow as I walked by. I had somehow become so determined that I didn't even allow myself to think about messing up, to think about taking even a single sip of anything other than water, or soda at the strongest.
Just as I was rounding the corner where a long alley stretched quite far down the road, black and almost mysterious enough to invite me in, West pulled up beside me on the street with his car, his head hanging slightly out of the window as he gestured towards the car with a small smile.
I rounded his car, seating myself in the passenger seat without really thinking much about it. West seemed to understand why I'd left so suddenly, the need for distance having been filled and now replaced with the need for West.
I was the first to reach out to him with my fingers, skimming them across his jawline. His skin was so soft I almost worried that I was doing something wrong for mine not to be as smooth as his.
He glanced at me when he stopped at a light, the familiar grin I knew all too well present on his face. We shared a glance, one of understanding on his side, and what I could only assume was something like all the words I was unable to voice on my side of the look.
We pulled into his driveway then, pushing the doors of his car open at the same time and heading up to his room like we had the same thought on our mind.
We climbed the stairs at a leisurely pace, him letting me lead him to his room. I always loved stepping into his room first, taking in the almost always cluttered floor and the dark sheets on his bed that he never seemed to smooth out from their constant state of disarray.
His room was so just so him that I couldn't help but love it too.
He stepped into the room, too, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it. “Welcome to my man cave.”
I cracked a smile at that, stepping closer so that I was almost flush with him. “Maybe you could find a place for me in here?”
West picked my hand up from my side and pulled it to his chest, pressing it to the top of his left side. “There's a place for you here.”
If swooning was an actual action it would have been my action just then. He was so smooth with his words, completely capable of expressing his feelings with almost every chance he got – and then there was me, all edges and sharp points that never quite fit together, no matter how hard I tried to saw them down and try to make them at least resemble something similar to sense.
He left my hand resting on his chest, reaching out with one of his own to cup my cheek. He leaned forward to press his lips to mine, gentle and almost as if we were speaking a foreign sort of language that only the two of us understood.
Somehow we ended up laying on his bed, the messy sheet pulled up on top of us. We were laying with our backs against the mattress, our eyes focused on the ceiling as if something was there for us to see. West's arm was around my shoulders, holding me close to his chest, my head just about resting against it, the faint, consistent thumping of his heart occasionally entering my ear.
It was peaceful, being in his arms.
There was no place I would have rather been.
“We're going to make it, you know.” He muttered, the words slightly muffled due to the fact that his lips were resting on my forehead.
“I know.”
“I never imagined making it here. Four weeks is a pretty long time.” He said, absently running his fingers through my hair, tugging a little on the ends in the way he knew I liked.
“Our livers will thank us when we hit the point where it's simply too stupid to turn back.” I replied, rolling more towards him and pulling the sheet more fully around us.
It should have been uncomfortable, laying so close to him with jeans on, but I couldn't even entertain the thought of leaving the bed, let alone actually do it.
“You know. . .it's kind of funny.”
I raised my chin a little to get a better look at him. “What is?”
“I'm not even sorry this happened to me. I'm actually rather glad, I mean, it lead me to you, the one direction I've been trying to find for what feels like forever.”
His words brought a smile to my face, not only because there was an underlying pun in them, but because of how sweet and true they were.
I pressed a kiss to the underside of his chin, closing my eyes and allowing myself to enjoy the feeling of his arm wrapped around me, securing me to him.
“Me too.”