Page 60 of Requiem
The needle slides in, and everything goes quiet.
My head tips back, eyes rolling as the warmth spreads fast and heavy through my veins, drowning out the noise, the itch, the constant fuckingneedthat’s been ripping me apart from the inside since I was nineteen.
Ugh,fuck.Relief.
I exhale slowly, my body going loose as I ride it out for a second longer, just long enough to settle into it without letting it take me under completely. I tell myself that I’m in control, but I know I’m not. Not really. But at least I’m not nodding out.
I clean up quickly, washing my hands, splashing water on my face like that’s enough to erase what I just did. And for the next ten minutes, I stand under the hot water with my eyes closed, feeling the water glide over my body. The heroin seeps through my veins, slow and syrupy, dragging me into a tired kind of heavy. Just the way I like it.
Just the way I need it.
By the time I unlock the door, my expression is neutral again. My body is loose in a way that could pass for relaxed and entirely normal. I step back into the living room, and Jenna is curled up on the couch, laughing at something on the TV.Jersey Shore. It’s loud, chaotic, and ridiculous. She’s got a slice of pizza in one hand, and a joint in the other, smoke curling into the air with the window cracked beside her.
“There you are,” she says, glancing over at me with a grin. “You’re missing the drama.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” I murmur, dropping down beside her.
She hands me the joint without asking.
I take it, bringing it to my lips, inhaling deeply, layering one high over the other until it all blends together.
Jenna shifts closer when I lean back, tucking herself into my side. My arm comes up automatically, draping over her shoulders as my fingers slide into her hair, brushing through it in slow, absent strokes.
She hums softly, content. Five months. That’s how long this has been. Five months of easy laughter, late nights, shared shifts, quiet mornings when she decides to stay over.
She’s a good girl. She's sweet, patient, and wants to have all of the things someday. A house, education, marriage, kids. Honestly, the kind of girl who could save my life if I let her. My chest tightens a little at the thought.Because she’s not going to be the one to save me. I know that. I think I’ve always known that. I’ve been running away from that night for years. My parents don’t even know what drove me to do this. I don’t want anyone to ever know.
My gaze drifts to the TV, watching the flashing lights of a club.
Jenna shifts again, pressing closer, her fingers curling lightly into my shirt. “Comfy?” she asks in her cute voice.
I glance down at her. “Yeah,” I say quietly. And I mean it, for this moment, when I’m a version of me that can exist only with heroin crawling through my blood. I’m not getting better. I’m just getting better at hiding it. And I don’t think anyone is going to be able to pull me out of this.
~*~
My eyes open, and the ceiling above me snaps back into place, the warmth of Heather’s body grounding me, her breathing still soft and steady in front of me. But my chest feels annoyingly tight. Like that version of me is still sitting somewhere just under the surface, waiting to take over and destroy everything good in my life. He’s an asshole, like that. He ruined everything with Jenna, when one night, four months later, she came into my apartment to find me fucking dying on my living room floor.
I broke her heart that day.
I tighten my hold on Heather without thinking, pressing my face into her shoulder again. I’m not there anymore. I’m not hurting this woman. Not now. Not fucking ever.
I’ve never even told Jude what happened and why I started doing drugs in the first place. What I’ve been running away from all these years, hoping to some fucking god that it will never come back to bite me. Especially now, with this beautiful woman who’s changing my life.
Chapter sixteen
EMMA EASTON
My phone has not stopped lighting up since the video went out last night. It sits face down on the counter, vibrating against the wood in small, relentless bursts that never quite give me enough time to think before the next one comes in. I don’t need to look to know it’s them.
After telling Micah to answer his phone earlier, I realized that I needed to just face this. Other people’s trauma? I can deal with that. My own?Damn.It’s harder than I ever thought. Does that make me a bad therapist? Someone that people shouldn’t take advice from? Probably.
I stare at the screen, deciding to send my parents to voicemail. I’ll call them back after I speak to Jude’s parents, first. I find his mom’s contact info and presscallbefore I can talk myself out of it.
“Hello?” Rachel’s voice comes through on the third ring, and it’s fragile in a way that makes my throat close immediately. “Oh, thank god, you called.”
I sit down on the edge of the bed. “Hi,” I manage.
There’s a beat of silence, then another voice cuts in, closer to the phone. “Is he okay?”Alaric.He sounds like he hasn’t slept. “We saw the video, Emma.”
