Page 2 of Creatures Like Us
She grins, and I grin back, and we lean in to kiss each other. Even through my muddled state, I can tell something is feeling off about her tonight. Maybe she’s not high or drunk enough. Yeah, that might be it. I, of all people, know I’m not the same person when I’m sober, and in the couple of months Lilith and I have dated, only a handful of days have been spent without some kind of substance in our systems. The past month, none at all that I can remember.
I’m rarely sober these days, I guess. Neither is she. Hey, I never said I was trying to win relationship of the fucking year, okay? We’re young, and we’re just having a bit of fun. We’re in love too, or at least I think so. At least, I hope so.
On the way back into the house, anxiety ties a knot in my gut. I need something to unravel it. With the bouncer outside and Joshua in the back room, I get what I want easily enough, and Lilith and I head toward the upstairs bathroom.
When I first got started with this shit, the cravings weren’t that bad. Now they’re nearly constant. I’ve stopped worrying about them, though, just like I’ve stopped worrying about school, my parents, my brother. My brother?…
“Hey!” Lilith bangs on the door to the occupied bathroom. “Take a dump somewhere else!”
She’s right; our situation is urgent. As soon as the craving hits, it’s like something else takes me over—a force beyond my control. And nothing can ever be good again, nothing can ever feel right again, unless I obey that force.
The door opens, and Lilith pulls me into the bathroom, grinning widely as I wiggle the plastic bag in front of her eyes. The snow our shoes dragged from the yard is melting into a watery sludge, splashing around our feet.
“Hurry,” she whispers.
I flip the toilet seat and sit down to go through the ritual of dissolving the powder with water in the spoon before I roll up the sleeve of my red-and-black striped sweater. Fuck yeah. My whole body is sizzling, the anticipation almost a high in itself.
I sink the tip of the needle into the contents of the spoon. Filtered by a piece of cotton, the liquid rushes into the barrel when I pull the plunger. I tap out the air bubbles, and—assisted by the tourniquet around my arm—I find a suitable vein and sink the tip in. As soon as I’ve hit home, I untie the tourniquet, push the plunger, and watch the contents rush inside. Within seconds, my whole body goes heavy and dazed, a pleasant warmth spreading throughout my limbs.
Lilith snatches the syringe from my hand. “My turn, babe.”
“Mm, okay.” My voice floats away along with my consciousness, and my blond locks bounce as I flip my head back, limbs going heavy, legs spreading wide.
Bliss.
Through my heavy-lidded eyes, I see Lilith watch herself in the mirror as she injects the crook of her arm in the same spot I injected mine. Guilt is kind of impossible in this state, but if I were sober, I’d think about how I’m the one who got her into this.
It’s already started to affect her.
Where her cheeks used to be plump and her ass beautiful and curvy, she now looks?…?shrunken in. Her skin’s going dull, losing its luster. I’d just started with this shit when we met, and I thought I could control my use of it. After all, my friends in my dorm could control it; why wouldn’t I be able to? They started by snorting oxy pills, and I tried those too, but soon they were no longer enough for me.
I felt nothing, and I needed more. I was the only one in our friend group who tried shooting up.
Best mistake of my life.
I grin where I sit, lost in the high, and Lilith leans toward me, kissing me deeply. She slips her tongue into my mouth, giggling all the while.
After breaking the kiss with a sloppy smack, she says, “Let’s go back out there.”
I’m not sure I can act sober enough in this state. Is that blood on my clothes? Oh fuck?…?I stumble to a stop and wipe at my sweater, but it’s just a bit of wetness from some spilled beer.
Lilith chuckles. “You’re all right, babe. Let’s just go to the couch.”
Downstairs, we pick one of the couches in the corner, and time slips from my mind. Music is playing, and people are talking, but I’m somewhere else. I’m with my big brother, playing baseball in our backyard, laughing, making jokes, and I’m happy, so happy?…
Ash.
He’s laughing, or no?…?he’s screaming.
Ash!
My head hangs heavy on my neck as I turn in slow motion. I try to pry my eyes open, but my lids are too heavy.
“Hi, there,” says a voice I vaguely recognize. “Long time no see.”
The room trickles back to me in parts. Lilith is off somewhere, bathroom maybe, and by my side is the girl who kissed me at that party a few weeks ago. What was her name again? Something with aK.
“I’m Kayla,” she says, as if reading my thoughts.
