Page 93 of Inevitable Destruction

After several minutes, I regain enough of my already weakened strength to crawl across the floor where I can see my phone screen illuminating with calls—which explains the buzzing noise.

Wrapping my fingers around the device, I swipe across the screen without looking and bring it to my ear.

“I’m awake,” I say, breathless yet surprisingly relieved that he’s actually calling me.

Maybe he’s checking on me after what happened last night… The wide-eyed, sickened expression he couldn’t mask as I blew my vein is one I won’t forget any time soon.

“Um…” the voice on the other end sounds hesitant—and way fucking different than the one I was expecting. “It’s Jay,” he says with a dubious lilt to his voice, and I roll to my side, placing my phone between my shoulder and my ear so I can let my tingling arm drop back to the floor. Disappointment unfurls, and now the constant, incessant throbbing in my ass returns full force, as if to mock me and my pathetic desperation.

“I figured that,” I finally respond, despondent.

“We need to talk, Dom.” Jay jumps right in, his words hitting their mark.

I sigh. “No, man. We really don’t. I gotta go.” I hang up and drop my phone back to the floor, feeling the smallest inkling of annoyance. Why can’t he just fucking leave me be?

Grumbling to myself, I make it to my feet, clutching the nightstand with a tight grip to keep my balance before bending down and picking up the pack of crushed cigarettes. Shuffling with heavy feet, I make my way to the kitchen, crashing into one of the barstools, and barely landing on my ass without knocking it over.

I tear off the lid of the pack, and tobacco flutters around me. I tip it over and dump it on the counter, finding two smokes that aren’t crushed. I place one between my lips and stagger over to the stove and twist the burner, listening to the click click click of the fire igniting.

Using my right hand, I push my hair back away from my face and bend down. Tilting my head to the side, I stick the end of the cigarette in the fire and light it, inhaling the nicotine into my lungs as deeply as I can as I flick the burner back off and take a step back.

Vertigo hits me like a brick to the face. The stove in front of me blurs, then the room starts to spin. A ripple of unbridled heat flushes through my head, then my face, and down my spine. My knees buckle, unable to sustain my weight any longer, and I crash to the floor.

A cry rips from my throat as my cigarette falls from my lips and lands on my clavicle. I can feel the heat from the cherry singeing my skin, the smell of burnt flesh infiltrating my nostrils. It takes my body five long seconds to react before I can lift my arm and pull the cigarette off my skin.

I hiss with relief when the burning heat source is removed, only to have it replaced with a throbbing sting. The room continues to spin, and my stomach flops. I feel as if I’m on a merry-go-round with no hopes of stopping any time soon.

The coolness of the kitchen floor seeps into my skin through the bare flesh of my back, and it’s enough to pull me into a tranquil state. It takes my mind what feels like a very long while to catch up with the reality of time. I can’t say how long I lie on the floor—only that it was drawn-out enough for me to finish my cigarette and doze off so that I no longer feel the burn etched into my skin.

I press my palms onto the floor and push myself up into a sitting position, resting my back against the line of drawers behind me. Their handles dig into my spine, but I endure it until I can make myself move.

Sometimes, I can’t even fathom the reality of where I am, of what I am.

Every addict knows they are one, but to admit it, to actually face the truth of your situation, it’s too much. Especially for people who literally do everything in their power to ensure they don’t feel anything other than… well, high.

“Fuck,” I sigh with a faint smile on my lips. Being high… there’s nothing else in the world like it. Great sex—like what I have with Rhett—comes close. So very fucking close, but it ends too soon, which is why it’ll never be enough.

I still don’t know what to think about that—sex with Rhett. With a man.

With Everett, there’s something more. I know I need him. I want him, but there’s always one thing that will come first.

But I think that’s okay. He knows who I am and what I need. Hell, he encouraged it.

I laugh out loud to myself at the absurdity of it. He didn’t encourage shit. He fucking forced me to get him off so I could because for some reason I still don’t understand, he knew I wouldn’t be able to say no.

A few weeks prior and I’m sure I could have, but at that point, I’d hit the inevitable stage where I knew I couldn’t deny myself—and I’ve only gone downhill from there.

Only this time, it feels different. I’m sure I’m only fooling myself, but I think Rhett actually cares about me. With the way I see him looking at me sometimes—with soft eyes he keeps under lock and key—it just feels like so much more. And the way my skin alights when he touches me…

It’s not only my addiction I find myself unable to deny, but it is, in a way. Rhett has just become another fixation I can’t curb. Because as my tolerance to Dilaudid grows day by day and I grow to progressively crave it, my obsession with the man giving it to me triples by the hour.

Whenever we’re in the same vicinity, I never want to keep my hands off him. I used to tell myself it was the only way to get my pills—that they made me horny, that I was desperate for them—but I can’t keep lying to myself that it’s the only reason.

It’s not even a fucking reason anymore.

I just want him and everything he makes me feel—which is all sorts of toxic bullshit. From the degrading humiliation to the all-consuming fire that licks my loins whenever he touches me, I want it all.

I want him to want me, too. Like this: my true self, as fucked up and abhorrent as that is.

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