Page 37 of Close to Falling

“We can save up and move somewhere better. I can help.”

“No!” he says, jumping up, making me flinch. “It’s my job to take care of you. Not the other way around. Especially with your dead parents’ money. You think that’s what they would have wanted? For you to take care of your deadbeat boyfriend?”

“You’re not a deadbeat. What else am I going to do with it if I can’t help us out?”

“You save it. I’m done talking about it, and I swear to God, Maddie, don’t mention it again.” He walks back to the bedroom. I pick up the remote and throw it at the wall just as River slams the door.

***

“His mind was made up, huh?” Ellie asks.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Did you try to talk him out of it again?”

“Yes, but what more was I to say? Like you said, his mind was set. I knew none of this was good, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.” I sigh, thinking of how things could have turned out if River would have just listened to me. “Things just went farther downhill after that,” I tell Ellie. We hear a knock on the door, and Grace pokes her head in.

“Hey, Dr. White, your five o’clock appointment is here.”

“Okay. Thanks, Grace,” Ellie replies.

“Maddie, unfortunately, we will have to finish this later.”

“That’s fine. I have some drawing I’d like to do.”

Ellie smiles. “Good. Keep at it.”

Chapter Fifteen

Days pass me by in here, and I’m drawing more. Weeks feel like months, and I am feeling better than I have in years. My sessions with Ellie continue, and I tell her more about my life with River. We are outside today taking in the fresh air while I begin to tell her how everything went to hell.

“I never moved in with River,” I say. “Once he started his job at the docks, he was working all the time. I mean late nights and early mornings. I hardly ever saw him, which gave me more time for my other addiction. The year I turned nineteen, life was pretty quiet. I drew a lot during this time, dark and deep things, and when I wasn’t drawing, I was hanging with Cali and Landon. She was no longer using drugs. I guess she grew out of it, but it wasn’t something I could grow out of. I was hooked the first time I took them. Parties were few and far between with all the kids from my class going off to college and starting their lives.

“Mikey was one of the people who moved away. I apologized to him about prom, but we were never really close afterward, and I don’t blame him for it. River and drugs clouded my mind. I tried not to use around River, but when I did, I don’t think he even noticed because he was always so tired and his own mind was busy thinking about what he had to do the next day. I started to get too comfortable with that, though.

“River was making killer money. He bought me a car when I turned twenty, and when he wasn’t working we went to fancy dinners and on weekend trips. We never talked about what he did because we both knew it was dirty, and there was nothing else to say about it. But nothing like that lasts forever. Soon, the walls would start to fall down around us, and it started late one Friday evening.”

***

I’m lying on the couch staring up at the ceiling. River went to get food, and I’ve chewed all of my nails off because I took my last pill a few hours ago. Panic keeps flying high inside my chest, and tingles are spreading out across my face as my anxiety goes to the roof. My addiction takes over my mind, and I jump up off the couch. I grab my phone and text D, telling him I need forty, which is ten more than I usually get, but who cares, right? He replies five minutes later, but it feels like an hour. I grab my keys, texting him I’ll meet him at our usual spot behind the bleachers at the high school. I run out of the house and jump into my car, not thinking about anything but Blues and getting rid of this anxiety. I turn onto the road to the high school and realize I have to go through the bypass, which is exactly how River will be coming home. Shit.

I hold my breath as I drive down the road, praying he won’t pass me and staring straight at the football field up ahead. I’m almost there, almost about to turn into the parking lot. Just a little farther. Headlights come up the hill, and I hold my breath as I wait to see what car passes. My palms grow sweaty, and I grip the steering wheel tight. It’s a blue Ford truck, and I release the air I was holding in my lungs. I turn into the full parking lot and park.

Getting out of my car, I shoot D a text and tell him I’m heading his way. The ground crunches below my feet as I step off the pavement and onto dirt and gravel. I make my way through the gate and head across the area of grass and dirt that’s reserved for food trucks. People are in line to get corn dogs and boxes of popcorn. The lights shine bright above the crowd of high school football fans, and I hear cheering and feet stomping. Rounding the bleachers, I see D standing by the restrooms, and I smile knowing I’m about to feel a whole lot better.

“B?” I hear and freeze. I’m talking icicle freeze. My heart kicks up its beat, pounding heavily against my ribcage. My chest caves, and I see black for a second as I close my eyes. I swallow and turn around. In jeans with black smudge on them from work, an old T-shirt and black boots, my boy stands looking at me curiously. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asks. I clear my throat.

“Um, I just needed some air.” I shrug and swallow again, because really, I needed air? That’s all my stupid brain could come up with? My throat feels dry, and my saliva feels like sandpaper. River glances past me, and I turn my head to see what he’s looking at. D stands by the bathroom, looking down at his phone. I turn back to River. He knows. Fuck, he knows.

“You been getting drugs from this motherfucker?” he asks, walking toward me.

“River,” I say with a warning, but it’s useless. He gives me a cold look as he walks past me. He’s clenched fist, hard jaw, and don’t fuck with me. D looks up as River comes toward him.

“Are you giving my girl fucking drugs, D?”

“Hey, man, if she’s buying, I’m selling.”

River laughs and looks back at me. It’s not a happy laugh; it’s a psychotic one. Because that’s what I do to this boy. I make him crazy. He turns around, and in one swift move slams his fist into D’s face. Blood splatters out of D’s nose, and River keeps going. Over and over he slams his fist into D’s face.

---