I propped myself up on my arms and glared at him. “Don’t therapist me right now, Atlas. I don’t need a drug dealer judging me. I just need something to shut my fucking brain off, please. I’ll do the healing or whatever later.”
I hated the look of pity on his face.
“I have a couple of bars—”
“I told you that wasn’t going to help…I need something stronger, something that lasts longer. Fuck…don’t you have Oxy or something? Won’t that do more?”
“You don’t need that shit…” He shook his head. “You think you do, but you don’t. Oxy isn’t a party drug. It’s not something you just try because your head hurts.”
I felt the sting behind my eyes, but I didn’t let the tears fall. “I’m not trying to party,” I said quietly. “I’m trying to disappear.”
He let out a long, resigned sigh. “Jesus.”
“I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I feel like I’m stuckinside my own head, and I want to get out, but I can’t. Everything hurts. Every breath. Every movement. Every second of every fucking day, and I don’t want to feel it.”
He got up and walked across the room, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. “So you want to trade your pain for a pill that’ll turn you into a fucking zombie? You know how that story ends.”
I met his eyes, not smiling. “Do I look like someone who’s afraid of how it ends right now, At?”
There was a long silence between us.
Then he just stood there, jaw clenched. “You’re hurting, and you’re not thinking straight. You think if you go numb, it’ll go away…but it won’t. The high fades, remember? And the pain’s still gonna be sitting right there, waiting for you.”
“I know that, Atlas,” I snapped. “But at least for a little while, I won’t have to look it in the face. I feel…” I tried to take a deep breath. “I feel like I’m going to go crazy if I don’t get some kind of break from it…I just need a break, that’s all.”
He looked torn. I could see it. His eyes softened just a bit, and for a second, I thought I might’ve won, but then he shook his head again. “No. I’m not doing it. I’m not the guy who gives you your first taste of something that will ruin your life.”
That’s when the tears hit. Not quiet ones either—hot, messy, and angry ones.
“Fine, I’ll fucking find someone else who will then,” I told him as I stood up. “Someone who won’t ask questions. Someone who probably won’t care what’s in what they’re giving me, or where it came from, or what happens to me after…and if I die? If I take something and it actually kills me? Just know you could have prevented that.”
His face fell.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t put that shit on me.”
“I am putting it on you,” I yelled, pointing at him. “Because you’re the only person I trust to help me do this safely.”
“Safe?” he echoed as his eyes went wide. “There’s no safe way to take the kind of shit you’re asking for.”
“But you have it,” I pressed. “Don’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
“You have it, don’t you?” I repeated, desperate.
He ran a hand down his face. “Yeah. I have it. But I didn’t bring it for a reason.”
“Then go get it!”
He looked at me for a long time. Like he was looking for the version of me he met not too long ago. The version that wasn’t so far gone yet. But that girl was gone, probably for good.
He swore under his breath and pulled off his backpack as he unzipped the smallest pouch.
“Only take half at a time,” he said as he pulled out an unlabeled bottle and held it out to me. “That’s it.”
I took it from him slowly, and he watched me like he might have still snatched it back, but I quickly tucked it away before he could change his mind.
When I looked back up at him, I whispered, “Thank you.”
