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“Wouldn’t I have to marry you for that?” I asked as he looked at me with that same wistful look I had before now mistaken. He stepped forward. “We could fake it.” It was then I knew he wouldn’t have been faking.
“Cedric,” I offered as he took a step away. Rejection eating his features, he spoke up quickly. “It’s a way out, and I thought that is what you wanted. Mark my words, that guy doesn’t love you more than himself.”
I could see the puff of my exhale as he walked away, the crunch of snow under his boots. I remember thinking he looked a little angelic in his white jacket and sweats among a blanket of snow.
But his cruel words scarred me, as he didn’t come back after that night. And Laz remained my constant.
We argued all the time, and though I knew I loved him, a part of that died the first time I saw his pale skin go clammy, his eyes dilate, and the warmth leave him in lieu of drug-induced paranoia.
After the first month he used, I put down my ultimatum. “It’s meth or me.” Laz looked panicked as he glanced around the hotel room he’d taken up residence in just outside city limits. He still worked with Cedric during the day and stayed awake most nights cooking in different fields to make the “real” money. He was thinning quickly and looked sick. We’d spent nearly no time together since he’d declared me his girl. He claimed he was doing everything he could for us. I was still a prisoner at home and forced to be in by nightfall every day. Laz would pick me up around midnight each night and take me on his drug runs or to go gather supplies. Twice I’d shot my gun in defense while he drove recklessly through town. I’d missed purposefully, and Laz knew it, but we were quickly becoming known in the meth community as the Bonnie and Clyde of Dyer. Laz was shunned by his mother, and my parents seemed entirely oblivious as I lay low shortly after our brush with rival dealers. Ironically, the biggest rival of all were my meth addicted parents. I’d been cluing him in on when it was safe to go steal from my father, and my reward was to be dru
g around at all hours of the night, watching the boy I loved ruin his body, his mind, and our future. Like most nights, I watched in horror as he produced the drug that had ruined my life. At first, I had justified it as a means to an end, an escape route.
It was all temporary.
“I can’t watch this,” I cried as Laz weighed and bagged his new obsession with soulless eyes. “It’s me or meth, Laz. I can’t do this with you anymore. You know what this shit did to my family, to me!”
“You. I pick you, Red. I’m sorry. I know better. I’m just trying to get us out of here.”
“Look at me,” I pleaded. His blue eyes glanced up at me, and all I saw was his shame. “Please, we can find another way.”
“Like what!” He stood, overwhelming anger caused by the drug rolling off of him in waves. “What’s your fucking plan, Red? I’d love to hear it. I have about four hundred saved after the car. We won’t last longer than a week or two. I want to give you a good life. We need a decent start. I want to get as far the fuck away from this place as possible, and we don’t have enough!”
“Laz, don’t…” I stopped myself. There was no reasoning with meth. “Can you take me home? I have a test tomorrow.”
Laz looked around the hotel and scratched the back of his neck anxiously. “Just let me bag the rest of this shit and we’ll go.”
I nodded and sat at the table across from him and watched for three hours as he obsessed with his drug, weighing and reweighing while Sevendust’s “Black” stayed on repeat in the background. Laz made frequent trips to the bathroom to smoke, thinking I was naïve enough to believe he wasn’t. I’d grown up in it. I’d lived it long enough. When I’d finally had enough and Laz had hit the bathroom for the third time, I left the room without a word to him and started the fifteen mile walk back to my house. An hour later, Laz pulled up next to me just as I crossed the city limits.
“Red, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care, Laz. Go back. I can walk.”
“Get in the car. You have school in a few hours,” he barked.
“Not that you give a shit. Get. I’ve got this.” He pulled forward, blocking me and waiting while the car idled. I walked past it without a second glance.
“Hardheaded, get in the car!”
“Not with you hyped up on that shit!” He opened the door and rushed me, pulling at my hand and placing the keys in it.
“Then you drive,” he offered, his head hung. “I just want you home safe.”
“I don’t know how,” I said weakly.
“No time like the present.” Without another word, he walked to the passenger side of the car, opened the door, and took the seat. He’d recently bought the car from Cedric’s grandfather. It was an old Thunderbird that looked like a scrapyard project but ran like a dream. I walked slowly to the driver’s side, sure he would change his mind at any moment. When he didn’t object, I adjusted my seat and took the wheel. Hiding my smile, I pulled onto the ever-deserted road that led into town and floored it, elated. Laz’s smile widened with every turn I took. It took me only minutes to learn how to maneuver the car, and with Laz’s occasional instruction, I was driving with ease. I drove for hours as he spoke of our life after we left Dyer. Of the places he would take me before we settled down somewhere like California or Florida. It seemed he’d been dreaming of our escape as much as I had, and I couldn’t stifle my excitement as I parked at our pond. I had only a few hours before sunrise, and I knew it would be another tired day at school, but the talk and the drive were enough to keep me awake just a little longer as I listened to what my new life would be like.
“We can go anywhere, really.”
“I want to go to college, Laz.”
I turned to face him as the call of a thousand amphibians echoed through the dark night and all around us Led Zeppelin preached softly in the background.
“Come ’ere,” Laz ordered as he pulled me into his lap to straddle him. I hesitated, knowing the moment was already tainted. He was high, and I hated it.
“You’re high.”
“High on you. Do you trust me?” He threaded his fingers through my hair as I nodded my reply.
