Shadows of a Dream

by Nicole Disney

  “Jaselle? Can you walk, baby? This looks weird.” I’m thinking mostly about getting past the doorman now with her in my arms and blood on her face.

  “I’m dizzy,” she says. Speed is my only option. I walk into the employees only area rather than to the front door. I speed walk past the bartender, who knows I don’t belong but can’t react fast enough. I go right past her and out the side door. My heart is pounding while I wait to hear a voice behind me, telling me to stop.

  I turn the first corner I come to, and the first corner after that, and I just keep going like that, turning as much as possible until I feel like I’ve created a maze no one from the bar will follow. I find a secluded corner in an alley, lit by a sad little lamp, and gently set Jaselle down.

  The amount of blood flowing from her head is terrifying, but I force myself to be calm. I know head wounds bleed a lot naturally. It’s just a cut. But she’s dizzy. She’s dizzy half the time, though. Meth ruins your perception of everything. Infuriating.

  I wipe the blood away. Doing so pulls the edges of the cut apart, and I swear I can see skull. That can’t possibly be right. It can’t be skull. It’s some kind of white tissue, that’s all. It’s her forehead, Rainn, how much tissue do you think there is? It’s her damn skull. But that’s not the end of the world, right? Skin covering your forehead is only what, a quarter inch thick at most? I feel my own forehead like a moron, trying to judge how thick my skin is and therefore how deep Jaselle’s cut is.

  “Are you still dizzy?”

  “I don’t know. If I move my head too fast, I guess,” she says. I look at her eyes. Did I hear somewhere that if the pupils are different sizes it means she has a concussion? Is that true? Her pupils are the same size: too big.

  “Can you walk?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” She stands up and waits for a second, testing herself. Eventually, she nods. I wrap my arm around her waist just in case, and we start walking. I decide trying to go back for the car tonight is too risky, so we have several miles to go.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Noah doesn’t even get off the couch when he sees us come in. It’s like he doesn’t notice the blood caked dry on Jaselle’s cheek, only I know he does. The rage swells up for a second, but my exhaustion quickly pushes it into a corner. Noah doesn’t matter.

  I take Jaselle to the kitchen and pat the counter for her to sit down. I know she’s ready to collapse. We split the effort of getting her up there, her half jumping, me half lifting. Her head slumps forward. Her eyes are closed. I dampen a washcloth and lift her chin. Her eyes flutter back open as I dab at the blood. She starts to doze off again as I work, resentfully coming to when her head starts sagging too much and I have to lift her chin again.

  I’m still wondering if I should let her sleep. What if she does have a concussion? You aren’t supposed to sleep when you have a concussion, right? Is that all the time or only in certain cases? And what happens if you do sleep with one? Do you go into a coma or something?

  I work on cleaning up the actual cut. Jolts from me pressing too hard keep waking her up. Once I’ve woken her up at least five times, I’m pretty secure sleep isn’t going to kill her. I finish cleaning her and kiss a safe spot on her forehead. I wrap my arms around her and hold her, so happy to be home and safe. I laugh a little to myself. That took care of wanting to go out. We’ll see the next time I have that itch.

  I pick her up and carry her to the bed. I set her down and cover her with the blankets, tucking her in carefully. In the bar I was irritated she was being confrontational while I was trying to pacify our antagonists, but already I’m back to adoration. The second she’s in danger it’s so much easier to forgive. I guess she’s always in danger these days. Does forgiving instantly make you godly like Jesus? Or does it just make you an idiot?

  I kiss her cheek again and head to the living room, closing her bedroom door as quietly as I can. I sit in the chair across from the couch, across from Noah. He’s puffing away on a joint. I suddenly realize I’ve never once seen him without weed in his hand, whether it’s a pipe, a bong, or a joint.

  I take a deep breath and sink into the chair. My muscles are screaming from all the stress, the tension, the fighting, carrying Jaselle, walking.

  “What a fucking night,” I say.

  “Looks like it,” Noah says. “Are you proud of yourself? You’re still savages.”

  “Oh, don’t start. You know what? Shit happens, and I’m just glad we’re home safe. I am a little proud of myself, actually.”

  “You would be.” He takes a puff off his joint. “Savage.”

  “How does a drug dealing bum end up so judgmental? You haven’t even asked what happened. You just think you know already.”

  “Oh, this is the part where you try to surprise me, huh? Okay, let me see.” He rubs his temples like he’s trying to pick it up psychically. “You went out for a few drinks. You were minding your own business and someone came and started shit with you? You had no control over it. You did nothing wrong. You defended yourselves. Sound about right?”

  “Bite me.” I take the joint he’s offering and smoke.

  “You’re smarter than this, Rainn.” He gets serious.

  “Smarter than what? Fighting?”

  “This.” He gestures around the apartment. That’s the second time he’s done that.

  “Obviously I’m not.”

  “That’s what’s sad though, you really are.”

  “Do you realize you’re the biggest hypocrite in the world?” I ask.

  “What happened tonight?”

  I scowl. “Yes, it was a bar fight, and yes, they started it. We might have escalated it a little. I won’t say we did nothing wrong.” It’s funny that admitting we did some wrong somehow ends up being my redemption just because my story isn’t exactly what he said it would be.

  “And by ‘we escalated it’ what you really mean is ‘Jaselle escalated it,’ huh?”

  “Do you care at all that your best friend’s face is smashed and we could have been arrested and we had to walk home ten miles? Does any of that even matter to you? Or is it just about you being right and feeling superior?”

  “Does it matter to you that any of that happened?” He sits up abruptly on the couch, startling me a little. “Does it matter to you that you had to deal with all that? That you put yourself at that kind of risk?”

  “Your best friend is passed out from a head injury in the other room and all you can do is try to talk me out of taking care of her?”

  “Oh, fuck off. Are we going to play this game? She isn’t passed out from any head injury, you donkey. She’s passed out because she’s crashing.”

  That silences me for a second. My stomach knots, rebelling. “She—”

  “No. Stop. She couldn’t keep her eyes open because she’s crashing, just like she does every week. Just because this particular evening finds you with an excuse doesn’t mean you should try to use it to shove the truth aside. You piss me the fuck off.”

  “You piss me the fuck off. If you don’t care what happens to her and you’re so above all of this what the hell are you doing here? You’re worse than I am. You live with her. You support her. You let her do it in your house. And you have the nerve to tell me what a moron I am because I do what I do with conviction? At least I’m trying to help her. I’m trying to make it better. You don’t care if she gets better or not so long as nothing uncivilized happens in your bubble.”

  “You’re so wrong it’s sickening,” he says.

  “But you won’t tell me why, will you? You’ll just insist I don’t understand and continue acting superior.”

  “Your life has gone to shit since you’ve met her. Please look me in the eye and deny that if you can.”

  “In your opinion, maybe,” I say.

  “Deny it!”

  “I deny it.”

  “You’ve lost your friends, you’ve lost your band, you don’t even play your piano anymore, you’ve lost your home.”
/>   “Hah! My home? You must be joking.”

  “Yes, your home. Don’t be dense. I’m not talking about the sidewalk, I’m talking about the Chapel. You might not have had a house, but you had a home, Rainn, and you’ve lost it. If you go back there right now will it feel the same?”

  “I have a home here now. And I have the love of my life.” I want to cry because I know he’s just feeling more and more self-satisfied with every passing word. I’m trapped in a losing battle, and it’s sending me into a rage. Why does it have to be this way? What’s so wrong about standing by someone you love through their struggle? Why do I feel right but sound wrong?

  “Are you happier?” he asks. I sit and brew. I want to say yes. I want to say no. Both are true, but he takes the silence as a no.

  “What are you trying to prove, Noah? That you care about me? That you want my life to be better? Because that wasn’t the question. I want to know why you don’t care what happens to Jaselle.”

  “I care more than you can possibly believe. I’ve just accepted what you can’t.”

  “What?”

  “That I have no control over it.”

  “She can’t get off of it alone, and you won’t help her.”

  “She can only get off it alone. She can’t do it for you, Rainn. She has to do it for herself. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she isn’t even trying. What is it that you think you’re supporting here? Because it’s not her quitting, it’s her using.”

  “She is trying!”

  “You believe that?” he asks.

  “Can’t you see she’s tortured? Can’t you see she’s locked in her own skin? Don’t you feel her pain?”

  “That’s just it, I’m tired of feeling her pain. It isn’t mine to feel. I won’t do it to myself anymore. I’m trying to help you see that you shouldn’t either. Let her go.”

  “Well, aren’t you just a selfish son of a bitch?” I say. I want to hit him. I want to spit on him. I’ve never had that urge before, but I want to spit on Noah. “It’s not enough that you’ve given up on her, you have to try to convince other people to do the same? You’re just determined to leave her helpless and alone? Hopeless? Are you going out of your way to kill her?”

  “You have to learn how to live your life for yourself, not for her. Your entire existence can’t revolve around someone else, don’t you see that? You are letting your happiness depend on Jaselle, and her happiness depends on the drug. You might as well be addicted your fucking self.”

  “Yes, and I can see how well not being attached is working for you. Aren’t you just a model of happiness with your weed business.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t get in a bar fight and almost arrested and walk home ten miles, did I?”

  “Worse things have happened to me, Noah! I’d rather get in the fight and almost arrested and walk home than not be there when she needed me and she ends up dead. How will you be able to stand yourself if she dies because you’re not there?”

  “It’s not my job to rescue her every two hours! It’s not yours either,” he yells.

  “I like rescuing her. I like it a whole lot better than letting her die because ‘it’s not my job.’ I like Jaselle alive.”

  “Fuck you.” His eyes well up. Finally. I don’t even feel bad. I’m just angry it took this long. “You sit there and tell me what a dick I am like you know me.” His voice is shaking. He stops for a second to try to pull himself together. “You go ahead. You tell me how wrong and heartless I am. I’m a fucking human being with a life too. I was there the first time she did meth, you little shit. I watched her face light up like she just found the missing piece in her life. I watched it take her down to ninety pounds. I watched her do horrible things to get it. I watched her hurt the people closest to her. I watched her lose everything. I went to funerals with her as her party buddies died from overdoses. I took her to the hospital when she overdosed. I watched her melt that beautiful mind of hers. You think she’s fucking smart now. God, you should have known her then. I watched her scratch her skin off because she thought there were bugs in it. I watched her talk to herself.

  “I watched her finally say enough. I saw her get clean, and I felt that amazing hope that things would be okay again. And then I watched her collapse into the same bullshit. She broke my fucking heart, Rainn. Do you have any idea what it does to you to finally see the nightmare end and think you have her back and then have it smashed to pieces? I want you to try to fathom that for a second, genuinely. I want you to picture her getting clean right now, all your dreams come true. And a year from now, two years from now, she starts again. You tell me you’d have the energy to start over.

  “No, Rainn, I buried Jaselle. If that means I’m weak and selfish and you’re strong and loyal, then fine, you go ahead and think that.”

  “I’m going to be there, Noah. I can’t bury her before she’s dead.”

  “She is dead.”

  “It’s easier for you to think that, but she’s not. She comes back sometimes. She’s still in there. I know you prefer not to see it. I know it’s easier for you when she’s fucking up, because that’s what you expect, that’s what you’re prepared for. And as long as you don’t see Jaselle you can keep her buried. It pisses you off when she comes back, doesn’t it? Because you know you’re wrong. And if Jaselle shows you she’s still alive in there then you feel like a piece of shit for abandoning her.”

  “She’s not in there, Rainn. Even when you think you’re seeing her, you’re not. You’re just seeing a projection of her designed to manipulate you. She will do anything for the drug. She will be anyone.”

  “No. She’s in there. She’s in there fighting with the demon still. I can see past him. I can still see her.”

  “You see what you want to see.” Noah offers me the joint again. I smirk and turn it down.

  “The demon wants you to think she’s not there. He wants you to give up on her so he can have her.”

  “I think you’re taking this demon thing a little far,” Noah says.

  “Would you be more comfortable if I called it ‘the drug’ or ‘the addiction’ like a doctor?”

  “Probably.”

  “It’s alive though. You know what she becomes.”

  “Yes, I know exactly what she becomes, but that’s your problem. You can’t admit that it’s her. You have to pretend it’s a different entity entirely. ‘Jaselle didn’t hurt me, the demon did.’ All you’re doing is lying to yourself so that you can preserve this image you have of her where she’s still a good person.”

  “She is a good person still. If you don’t think she is you’re confused. She still loves you. She still loves me. She’s just trapped,” I say.

  “You’re the one who’s trapped.”

  I can’t deny the reverberation of truth in that word. Trapped. I am, but so is she. “I can’t give up on her.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Jaselle doesn’t wake up for two and a half days. I’m playing piano when she finally comes to. Her call for me is quiet and weak, but my ears are trained for that. I jump off the piano bench and go to her. She reaches out for me, but she can’t lift her hand high enough. I kneel down next to the bed and guide her fingers to my cheek.

  “What is it, love?” Her shirt is soaking wet with sweat. She tries to squeeze my hand. I can barely feel it.

  “I’m sick.”

  The trash can is already by the bed so she can throw up. I try to help her sit. She can’t. She just manages to scoot to the edge so she can lean over the trash can below her. I pull her dreads out of her way with one hand and rub her back with the other. Her entire body seizes when she throws up. The pain of the effort makes her cry. “It hurts so bad.”

  “I know, baby, I know.”

  “Make it stop.” She cries. “I can’t…” She cries harder and curls into herself, leaving the sentence unfinished. I don’t notice I’m crying too until a drop falls off my face to the carpet.

  “I’m so sorry,” I sa
y. I wish I could feel this for her, even just with her would be better than this. I feel so useless. She pushes me away so she can throw up again. Her temperature is scaring me. I picture her brain steaming inside her head, melting.

  “I think I’m gonna die, Rainn,” she squeaks. I cry harder as the image enters my mind so easily, her body seizing and then going limp, her last breath pressed from her lungs.

  “No, you’re not.” I put both my hands on her face and sternly demand, “It’s going to be okay.”

  “The joke is on me, Rainn. I was wrong. I’m not the jester. I’m the clown. I’m going to die a fool for what I’ve done.”

  “You’re not going to die.” I shake off this weak person and become the one I need to be. I dampen a washcloth and put it on her forehead. I get her water and a couple crackers. She doesn’t want any of it, of course, but she drinks, for me. She timidly nibbles the corner of a cracker, for me. I help her take her sweat soaked clothes off.

  “It hurts so bad.”

  “I know.”

  “Make it stop.” She flops onto her back again. Even sitting up on her elbows is too difficult.

  “I’m trying, baby.”

  “I need a shot.”

  “You are not drinking right now. Are you crazy?”

  “No, Rainn. I need to shoot.”

  My mind gets fuzzy. “Shoot?” I look to the inside of her elbow. Track marks are perfectly visible. How have I not seen them before now? “When did you start doing this?”

  “He did it.” She closes her eyes and starts to fade away.

  “Who did it?” I shake her a little. “Jaselle! Who did this?”

  “I’m so cold.”

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  She starts to mumble. I try to discern it, but it’s nearly impossible. Finally, I recognize it. It’s a melody. She’s singing one of my songs.

  “Drown me in the blood of yesterday’s heartache. I am tomorrow’s tragedy.”