Downfall

by Terri Blackstock

  “That’s no excuse. Just because they’re falling apart doesn’t mean you have to. What is wrong with you? Why do you want to be like him?”

  She brought her hands to her face as Tyson found the ladder attached to one of the columns supporting the tank and pulled himself up like Spiderman scaling a building.

  “He’s doing it!” she said. “He’s gonna fall!”

  “Of course he is. He’s a lunatic.”

  Tyson almost faded from sight as he moved farther up, out of the circle of bright illumination. When he reached the top and threw his leg over to the catwalk, Lance brought his hands to his head.

  “I can’t watch!” April closed her eyes and turned away.

  Lance heard Tyson’s loud whoop drifting down on the wind, saw him leaning against the rails, arms raised, as if he would launch into flight. Lance went back to the car and turned the headlights on bright, hoping Tyson could see his way down. “I’m calling the police.” Lance got his phone out of his pocket and punched in 911.

  “Wait! He’s coming down.” Lance watched through the windshield as Tyson came back to the ladder and backed down it. Lance didn’t finish the call.

  The tar-like smell of the reefer smoldering in the ash tray was making him sick.

  Tyson got to the ground and leaped like a hurdler over the four-foot fence. “Did you see it, babe?” he said to April in a frenzy. “I could fly up there. What a rush!”

  “You were giving me a nervous breakdown,” she said.

  “I have stuff to help with that.”

  Lance shook his head. “No, she doesn’t want it. She just wants to go home. We’re taking the train. Come on, April.”

  She got her purse out of the car. “Sorry, Tyson,” Lance heard her say.

  Tyson only laughed as they walked away. He cranked the music back up, let it blare over the speakers. They could still hear it as they crossed the lanes of traffic to the train station.

  Chapter 36

  Emily was still awake, lying on the couch, when Lance got back to Kent’s house. He and April had ridden the train to the stop close to her house, and she’d borrowed her mom’s car to bring him home. Kent was already gone.

  He wasn’t in the mood to talk, but he knew Emily probably needed to. “Hey,” he said. “How’s your foot?”

  “Turning black,” she said, moving the ice pack so he could see. “It’s killing me. I’m going to the doctor tomorrow to make sure it’s not broken.”

  Lance looked down at it, wincing. It was huge, and the bruise was indeed black. “That looks terrible. You should sue.”

  “It wasn’t the jail’s fault. It was that woman.” Emily looked up at him then, stared into his eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered.

  Suspicion narrowed her eyes. “Where’d you guys go?”

  He couldn’t look at her. “We just rode around.”

  For a moment, she was quiet, and he felt like she could see straight through him. “Have you been smoking weed?”

  He closed his eyes and sighed. “No.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Lance. I know that when I smell it.”

  “I said no. I haven’t been smoking.”

  She sat up straighter. “You know you have the same DNA I have. Other people might use drugs and not have a problem, but it didn’t take much for me to get addicted. It may not take much for you, either.”

  Now she was making him mad. “I didn’t do it, okay? Just because I was around somebody who was — ”

  He got up and went to the kitchen area, opened the refrigerator, poured himself a glass of orange juice. When he glanced at her, Emily was staring at him over the back of the couch. “What?” he asked.

  “Why were you with somebody who was smoking dope?”

  “Because I was trying to protect April. Don’t worry. We rode the train home.”

  “Was she smoking with him?”

  There was no point in shading the truth with Emily — she always knew when he was lying. “Not tonight. But she did last night. I knew it wasn’t good for her to be alone with him.”

  “You can’t be with her all the time. If she’s determined to hang out with a doper, she’s going to no matter what.”

  “But that’s just it. He’s not just a doper. He deals. I think he’s trying to turn her into a customer.”

  “Could be. Did he offer drugs for free?”

  “Yes. She doesn’t have any money.”

  “Lance, stay away from him.”

  “I plan to. I was thinking of telling Kent. But if he gets arrested or something, he’ll know it was me, and we’re already in enough danger.”

  “Tell Kent anyway. If April keeps going with this guy, then she’s not the right girl for you.”

  “But she’s just about my only friend. I’m not exactly Mr. Popularity since we moved here. Some of these people have been in school together since they were in kindergarten. They’re not that interested in getting to know the skinny dork with the tall tales. She’s the only one who is.”

  “Better to be alone than to get pulled down.”

  “I know. Mom asleep?”

  “Yeah. I told her I’d wait up for you. She’s really tired.”

  “She probably didn’t sleep at all when you were in jail. She was a wreck.”

  “I know the feeling,” Emily said.

  He took his glass to the sink, rinsed it out, and put it in the dishwasher. “So get up. Go to bed. That’s where I’m sleeping.”

  “No, I’ll sleep with Mom. You get the guest room.”

  He shrugged. “What if Mom rolls over on your foot? Just take the guest bed. I’m fine on the couch.”

  “Thanks.” She got up and left the blanket, hobbled toward the guest room. Each time she put pressure on her foot, she winced.

  “You need crutches,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’ve been busy. Hopefully I’ll get some tomorrow.”

  He went to her and let her lean on him, helped her get to the bedroom.

  “Thanks, bro. You might want to take a shower before Mom smells that smoke.”

  “I will.”

  He showered and changed into shorts and a T-shirt, then stretched out on the couch. As he tried to sleep, he prayed that tonight’s episode with Tyson had been enough to keep April from wanting to hang out with the guy again. If she didn’t stay away from Tyson, Lance would have to wash his hands of her, whether he liked it or not.

  Chapter 37

  The twin bed in Kent’s guest room was too soft, and Emily tossed and turned all night, kept awake by the searing pain in her foot. Anger that there was no way to relieve it pulsed through her. Tylenol wasn’t touching the pain, and she couldn’t take anything stronger.

  She kept her foot propped on pillows, but that did little good.

  By morning, when she put weight on her foot, lightning bolts of pain ratcheted through her, making it impossible for her to think.

  She’d been awake for hours when her mother got up.

  “I have to go to the doctor,” Emily told her. “It hurts so bad I’m thinking maybe it’s broken. I can’t put any weight on it.”

  Her mother looked like she could use another couple of hours’ sleep. She examined her foot. “I want to go with you, but I can’t miss work since I missed yesterday.”

  “It’s okay,” Emily said. “I’ll go by myself. My right foot is fine, so I can drive.”

  Emily could see how conflicted her mom was about leaving her to fend for herself, but she was twenty, after all. If she couldn’t go to the doctor alone, she really did have problems.

  “Just be careful,” Barbara said. “That person is still out there.” She promised to get her work done quickly, then try to meet Emily at the doctor’s. Barbara took the rental car to work and left Emily with her car.

  As Emily drove her mother’s car to the doctor’s office, the unfairness of it all clanged in her head. What did God want from her? Why had he allowed her to be put in this position, experiencing pain
that almost debilitated her, from an arrest she didn’t deserve?

  By the time she reached the clinic, she was sweating with the pain, but the pain ripping at her heart was even worse. God didn’t love her, she told herself. He wasn’t going to help her.

  She sat in the waiting room on the verge of tears, fixated on her emotional and physical pain, and thought how easy it would be to tell the doctor that she needed painkillers. Just one pill would take the edge off her pain. She could keep it down to one. She was different now. She could control herself.

  That’s a lie. The words flashed through her mind like a neon sign at midnight. She had vowed to live a sober life. She wasn’t going to backslide now.

  No one ever said sobriety would be easy.

  The wait was long and excruciating. She twisted, and propped her foot on the chair next to her, counting down the patients who would go before her. By the time her name was called, she wanted to scream for relief.

  First, they did an x-ray. Then she waited in the examining room until the doctor came in to give her the verdict.

  He was a skinny, small guy with big ears and big teeth. “Well, I’m glad you came in,” he said. “Your foot is definitely fractured.”

  Great, Emily thought. What next? “I was afraid of that. I was hoping it was just a sprain.”

  “Well, the break doesn’t go completely through, so the tendons and ligaments are probably causing most of the swelling and pain.” He showed her on the x-ray where she’d cracked the bone.

  “We’ll give you a boot to wear until the swelling goes down, then we’ll cast it. No weight on it at all. And we’ll give you something for that pain.”

  Tell him you can’t take narcotics! The urge came from deep inside. It was the Holy Spirit, she knew, giving her an out. If she told the doctor she was an addict, that she’d been in recovery for two years, then he wouldn’t give her narcotics to control the pain.

  But she said nothing, and he left the room. She stewed over her failure as the nurse wrapped and booted her foot. A battle raged in her mind. Two voices, from opposite regions.

  Pain pills will kill the pain and calm your fears.

  What did God expect of her, anyway? He could have spared her from the crazy woman who made her twist her foot in the shackles. If he loved her, he would have kept her from being blamed for murder.

  Then came the opposing voice: God was helping her with sobriety. He’d rescued her from the mire of her choices, and he’d allowed her to be free of jail for now. He expected her to do her part. Don’t move backward. Be the girl he made you to be.

  The doctor came back in and checked the boot. “I want to see you back in a week so we can check the swelling. You’ll be in a cast for six weeks.”

  Wonderful. She imagined herself crutching across campus. Or suffering through this inside prison.

  “My nurse is getting you crutches. Now remember, don’t put any weight on it or you might break that bone clean through.”

  “Okay. Guess I don’t have much choice.”

  The doctor took a moment to type his notes into his laptop. Then he shook her hand and told her to take care.

  No medication. Relief washed over her. No decision to make. But when the nurse came back in with her chart and crutches, she handed Emily a prescription.

  Oxycontin.

  Emily couldn’t speak. Give it back. Tell her! But she folded it and slipped it into her jeans pocket.

  After checking out, she crutched out to her car. She sat for a moment, staring at the small piece of paper that could have such an impact on her pain and her life. She never should have let this happen.

  Did she want to go down this road again?

  Pain screamed out, Yes! It’s just so you can think again. It was nobody else’s business. They didn’t have to hurt.

  She’d left herself this open door, and she wanted to go through it. Ignoring the alarms going off in her head, she drove to the nearest Walgreens and left the prescription to be filled. She’d pick it up in an hour.

  To kill time, she went to her college campus and sat in the car looking at the football field. She rolled her windows down. Warm wind whipped through her hair.

  She should call her sponsor. That was the deal. Whenever she came close to using, she was to get on the phone and talk it out with the woman who’d agreed to walk alongside her in her sobriety. Lana was forty years old and had been sober for fifteen years, after using heroin for ten years — much longer than Emily had.

  But she knew what her sponsor would say. Lana, who was a Christian she’d met in her AA group, would tell her to get down on her knees and take it to God. If Emily called her, the door would close.

  She didn’t want that to happen.

  The moment the thought came to her, another one battled it. Stop this, Emily! You’re flirting with your enemy!

  Tears came to her eyes. She tried to pray, but her deception in failing to tell her doctor of her addictions stood between her and God. Why would her creator listen to her about murder or anything else, knowing what she’d done . . . what she was about to do?

  Call Lana.

  Finally, she summoned the strength to make the call. But she only got Lana’s voice mail. No wonder. She was at work. Lana would call her back as soon as she could. But until then . . .

  Her heart rate sped up, and perspiration coated her temples. The battle raged in her mind, but this time, she wanted to lose it.

  No, she wanted to win. She had to win. Everything depended on it.

  She closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing. What would Lana tell her? She would tell her to force herself to think back through the things she’d done when she was on drugs. The chaos it had brought to her life. The dark doorways it had opened.

  With all the strength she had, she forced herself to remember the shame, the desperation, the constant hunger. Arrest . . . jail . . . the disappointment in her mother’s eyes. One pill. That was all it would take to open that gateway again. One pill would make her want another one. And then another.

  And the last state will be worse than the first. Jesus’ words in Luke 11 screeched her thoughts to a halt.

  She’d be right back into full-scale addiction within days. All the trust she’d built would be destroyed. Lance would hate her. She wouldn’t be able to defend herself against the murder charges.

  Did she really want to go there?

  She wilted into tears and looked up at the sky. “God, I hate this! I can’t go back to the way I was. But I need your help.”

  The tears cleansed her, and her admission of weakness gave her an unexpected strength and the certain knowledge that God hadn’t forgotten her. He would give her what she needed to get through.

  All she had to do was want it.

  Chapter 38

  Word came that morning that Three Roads Baptist Church had accepted their bid. The whole staff was in a festive mood, but Barbara had way too many things on her mind. When the text came from Emily, her mood plunged further.

  Foot’s broken.

  She went into her office and stewed at her desk as anger raged through her. The guards shouldn’t have let this happen. Her child, tripped on the stairs, her foot broken in jail! She felt so helpless, so out of control.

  Her cell phone rang, and she saw that the readout said Walgreens. Frowning, she clicked it on.

  “Hello,” an automatic voice said, “this call is to let you know that your prescription is ready for pickup at the Candler Road branch of Walgreens . . .”

  Barbara clicked the phone off, her heart rate escalating. Prescription?

  This was the number on their family’s account. They always called her when any of their prescriptions were ready. Don’t panic. Emily could have gotten an anti-inflammatory. Just because she had a prescription didn’t mean it was for narcotics.

  Then she thought of those pills in that FedEx pack, addressed to Emily. She tried to put it out of her mind, but when the questions wouldn’t leave her alone, she decided ther
e was one way to find out.

  She left the office and drove to the Walgreens near her home, and rolled up to the drive-thru window.

  “I have to pick up my daughter’s prescription,” she told the woman. “Emily Covington.” She sat shivering in her car as she waited, cold from dread.

  Finally, they came back with the bag. They read out the price, and she handed them her debit card.

  Her heart raced as she waited for the drawer to slide out with her card and the bag of pills. Barbara set it beside her and didn’t look at it as she drove away. She didn’t want the pharmacist to see her reaction. She circled the building and pulled into a parking space. Her breath seemed trapped in her lungs as she tore into the bag and pulled out the bottle of pills.

  She spun it in her hand and read the label.

  Oxycontin.

  Her heart plunged into her stomach. What was Emily thinking? Were they about to go through this again?

  Her phone rang, and she saw that it was Emily. She didn’t want to answer, but anger on the verge of fury prompted her to click it on. “What?” she spouted.

  Emily paused. “Uh . . . are you okay? Is it a bad time?”

  “It is now,” Barbara clipped. “So your foot is broken?”

  “Yeah, fractured.” Emily was silent for a moment. “I have a boot. Next week I’ll get a cast.”

  “So what are you doing for the pain?” she asked, daring her to lie.

  “Tylenol. And I’m supposed to keep it propped up and stay off it until the swelling goes down.”

  Emily’s evasion set a fire inside Barbara. “That all?”

  Again, silence. “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  Barbara breathed a wet laugh, swiped at her tears. “Walgreens called me, Emily. Your Oxycontin is ready to pick up.”

  Emily’s sharp intake of breath made Barbara sick. “I wasn’t going to pick it up. I just called them and canceled the order. You must have gotten there before my call.”

  “And I just rode into town on a hay truck. I know your lies, Emily.”

  “Mom, don’t. Please believe me. I was weak for a minute, I admit, but I prayed and God strengthened me. I wasn’t going to get the pills.”