“What the fuck is this shit?” he asks in a garbled, sickly voice. There is no one to hear his complaints. It is four o’clock in the afternoon, and he realizes that Grace must be at school. He looks at the sketch of himself feeling disgusted at how she portrays him in the drawing. He is nothing like the normal, seemingly calm person in the portrait. He shakes his head at how blind she is to what is really going on inside him. He crumbles up the paper and makes a sorry attempt at landing it in the wastebasket across the room. “Fucking garbage!”
Immediately his need stuns him. He gets out of bed, grabs his leather pants from the floor, and reaches into the pocket. He pulls out a syringe, a spoon, and a lighter, then goes into the bathroom. In the bathroom he opens the medicine cabinet and pulls a cotton swab from a package and then fills a glass with a bit of water.
Ian walks back to the bed anxious to get his fix and sets his supplies on his nightstand. He craves the numbing euphoria he knows he will get once the dope spreads through his veins and into his brain. “Shit!” he yells, when he realizes that he left the baggie of heroin in his other pocket. Reaching into the pants again, he finds his drugs. He flops onto the bed and taps the baggie, spilling powder into the spoon. He flicks the lighter and lights a candle. Holding the spoon over the candle he adds water from the cup using the syringe and the mixture bubbles. Pulling the tip off the cotton swab he lets it fall into the mixture. As the cotton absorbs the liquid he licks and sucks his bottom lip. Ian wraps his bicep tightly with a thick rubber tube, and shoots the heroin into his vein.
Before he knows it he is leaning against the wall. He slides down it while the drug raptures him. Every hunger he had slowly floats away as his mind drifts off to infinite oblivion. No more aching for the intense high. No more cares. No more worries.
Ian’s eyes flutter open and a hallucination takes over. Grace is floating above him. Her face is expressionless and her posture is peculiar. Her arms are tight up against her sides, her head is slightly angled, and her normally lively green eyes appear to be solid black holes. She wears his favorite white nightgown that has heart shaped buttons that start in the middle of her chest and end at the lacey seam. It is long and flows freely just above her ankles. One of the spaghetti straps has fallen delicately onto her shoulder, but he is too angry that she interrupted his comforting serenity
“What the fuck do you want?” he asks, his voice barely making a sound. Waves of vertigo rush over his body, drowning him in his need, and pushing him back up against the wall.
Grace does not answer. She only continues to stare at him. Ian’s eyes grow heavy and his lids involuntarily shut.
“Ian!” The sound of her voice is not the sweet sound he is accustomed to. Rather it has a demonic tone.
He opens his eyes and now Grace is standing closer to him. The nightgown dirty and tainted with blood.
Ian jumps but there is nowhere for him to go because his back is crushed up against the wall. “What the hell!”
“Ian!” Her mouth is abnormally wide as the horrific sound comes from her again.
Ian rubs his eyes and closes them.
When he reopens them Grace’s face is inches from his. “What are you doing to yourself?” She howls, her voice still sounding evil, but this time there is a playful sense to it. “Don’t you love me?”
As the questions come from her open, unmoving lips, a pool of blood seeps from them simultaneously.
Again he scampers on the floor with nowhere to go, his bare feet slipping on the freshly polished hardwood floors. She is too close to him now. Frighteningly close. Blood from her mouth drips onto his bare leg. His head rings with a high-pitched ping and he slaps his hands over his ears to muffle the sound of it, and Grace’s cries. The ringing stops suddenly. Feeling fearful Ian opens his eyes. She is gone. The room is quiet again. The curtains gently flap in the breeze and the sound of birds chirping outside the window fills the room.
Grace stands in line at the campus bookstore. It is a horrendous line today. It is that time of the quarter where students receive their stipend checks from the college. Grace has three books to buy that are going to take a three hundred and twenty-five dollar chunk out of her fund. Grace hopes that this quarter she will be able to buy a laptop and use the remainder of the funds for her and Ian’s living expenses. The student who is working the checkout line slides her ATM card through the card reader for a third time.
“Sorry, Grace, but your card keeps getting declined,” the cashier says, quietly.
“Darn it!” She sighs. “Weren’t they supposed to go in on Friday?” she asks the cashier.
“I got mine,” he says, as he shrugs his shoulders.
“Could you hold these books for me while I figure this out?”
“I’m sorry, but I can only hold them for a few moments.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back,” Grace says, frantically.
She walks outside and pulls out the new cell phone that Ian recently purchased for her. “Err!” she exclaims as she tries to figure out how to go online to look at her bank account. Grace looks at her cell phone screen with horror. Their account has a zero balance.
“Wait, what!” she cries aloud. She frantically scrolls through the account history on her cell phone screen. She knows that on Friday, her check was directly deposited into her and Ian’s checking account for $1,550.00, but then it was withdrawn earlier that day. “What the…” Not only is their checking account at a zero balance, but so is their savings account, where they have been depositing money for their wedding.
She tries to call Ian, but he does not answer his phone. Grace walks into the bookstore feeling jumbled, and begs the cashier to hold her books for a couple of hours. She explains to him that she has class, and she will not have time to find out what is going on until after school. He informs her that he can’t hold them for her. She leaves the bookstore numb.
Jaden is on the porch as he always is, smoking a joint and appearing relaxed when Grace darts up the walkway angrily.
“Where is he?” she yells.
Jaden sits up and looks at her with a question on his face.
“Umm, I think he’s still at work. Why? What’s wrong?”
“All the money in our checking account is gone! Every dime, Jaden! Even our wedding savings!” She sits down and takes a deep breath, fighting back the tears that beg to be let out.
“Well, maybe he took it out so that you would have the cash?”
“Maybe.” She knows he is trying to make her feel better with an excuse, but she doesn’t fully believe it. She sighs. “Can we eat out tonight? I just don’t feel like cooking. I’ve had a crappy day.”
“Yeah. I’ll order a pizza, my treat. Does that sound alright with you?”
Grace picks up her schoolbag and walks inside. “Sure,” she says, somberly.
She cannot shake the feeling that something terrible is going on. She walks up the stairs to her room, throws her school bag on the floor, and flops onto her bed. She rolls over on her side and sees a large crumpled up paper by the wastebasket. Slowly, she slinks out of bed and walks over to it. Her stomach drops, knowing what it is before she sees it. She picks it up and unfolds it as her heart sinks even further. Sorrow crushes her as she holds the portrait of Ian tight in her shaking hands. Why would he do this to my work? Why would he just throw it away like it is trash? She reaches for her cell phone and calls the garage where Ian works.
“Tri City Auto,” says a deep, grumbly voice on the other line.
“Umm hello, is Ian available?”
“Ian, the skinny redhead?”
“Yes.”
“He quit this morning, kid, sorry.”
The sound she hears signals the man has hung up.
“What?” she asks, no one. As much as she tries to have faith in Ian, she knows deep down inside that he is using again. Grace sits back on her bed, the crumbled portrait of Ian in her hands. Moments later, a knock on her door startles her.
“Hey, ah, Grace, ca
n I come in?” asks Jaden.
“Yeah.”
Jaden strolls in the room with his hands tucked deep in his pockets, his eyes looking down at the floor.
“Everything okay?” he asks, before he sits next to her.
She hands him the crumbled drawing of Ian and shakes her head.
“I think he’s using again, Jaden,” she says, with immense sorrow in her voice.
Jaden’s forehead wrinkles and his eyes fall to the floor. “I sure as hell hope he’s not.”
“Have you seen him today?”
“Just for a few seconds. He was outta here like a bat out of hell this morning. I think he was late for work,” he says.
“Work!” she hisses. “I just called his work, and they said he quit this morning!”
“Wait, what? Man, what is he thinking?”
“I hope I’m wrong. I hope he has some explanation for what is going on around here, but my gut tells me it’s bad.”
Jaden puts his arm around Grace. “We’ll figure it out,” he says, supportively. “We always do,” he says, as he kisses her on the cheek.
Jaden and Grace sit at the dining room table eating their pepperoni pizza. Rather, Jaden eats his and Grace picks at hers. It is almost eight o’clock and Ian is still not home. Grace keeps looking at her cell phone to check the time.
“I’m getting worried,” she says, softly, the ache of not knowing where he is or what is going on tearing at her emotions.
“He’s fine, don’t worry,”
At two that morning, Grace sits up in bed trying to concentrate on her studies, but her worry about where Ian is and why he is not answering her calls or text messages is too much for her to process. Horrible scenarios keep rushing through her mind. She imagines that he has overdosed somewhere or that someone has robbed him. A number of ghastly visions keep playing themselves like horror movies in her mind.
The next morning, Grace’s alarm wakes her with a shrewd annoying sound. She slaps the snooze button carelessly. She feels warmth next to her. Ian is in bed with her. She tries to remember the last time she looked at the clock. Four in the morning, maybe? He smells of alcohol and cigarettes. It seems as though the alarm did not even faze him. She debates whether she should bother waking him up or not and decides she cannot deal with him right now. She crawls out of bed and prepares herself for her day at school.
Later that afternoon, Jaden walks into Ian’s room, his footsteps waking him, and sits on the edge of his bed.
“Man,” he says, as he shakes Ian’s leg. “Get up, man!”
“What!”
“Where ya been?”
Ian rolls onto his back with a groan. “Out,” he grumbles.
Jaden backs his head away from him and squishes up his nose. “Dude, your breath is rank. Where is out, huh?”
“Out and about!”
“Ya know, man, Grace was worried sick about you all night. The least you could do is answer your phone to let her know you were okay!”
Ian sits up in his bed. His eyes feel crusty, and he has a foul smell coming from him that even he cannot stand.
“You’re using again aren’t you, man?”
“That’s really none of your fucking business!”
“As long as you’re living in my house, it is my fucking business!”
“Whatever,” he says, before he rises from the bed and shuffles across the floor to the bathroom.
Grace is overcome with sadness to the point that she cannot concentrate on her studies. She can see the instructor’s mouth moving, but she cannot hear a thing she says. The light on her cell phone indicating that she has a text message tears her out of her contemplation. The text is from Jaden, and it simply says, Come home.
Grace runs up the front steps, and Jaden opens the front door before she reaches it.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, in a panic.
Jaden holds up the pouch of drugs he found in Ian’s pocket. Grace is dizzy and she is feeling faint. Jaden grabs her by her waist and leads her into the house. She can hear Ian having a fit upstairs in their room. He is screaming, but she cannot comprehend what he is saying. Crashes and thuds come from the bedroom as if Ian is throwing things around.
“He doesn’t know that I took the drugs, so he’s going fuckin’ nuts looking for them. I found them in the pocket of his pants when he was in the bathroom. He’s been going crazy ever since then.”
“I’ll go talk to him,” she says, as she walks away.
“I’m not really sure you should do that, Grace,” Jaden says, cautiously as he grabs a hold of her shoulder. “Let’s just let him have his little fit. Give him some time to calm down.”
Grace does not know how to deal with this. Never in her life has she been exposed to someone who has a drug problem, except recently with Ian. Deep down inside she knew it was too good to be true, that he could just stop all of a sudden and everything would be peachy keen again, but she is a dreamer, a romantic. She views the world as a beautiful place and blocks out the harsh reality of what it can really be.
“Well,” she says, “I guess I’ll get dinner started.”
Jaden shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it, Grace. You have bigger fish to fry.”
After hours, the commotion upstairs stops and Grace decides it is time to face Ian. She opens the door to her bedroom with care and peeks her head in, not knowing what she will find. The room is thrashed. All the clothes have been taken out of the drawers and thrown on the floor, books are tossed in complete disorder all around the room, and there on the bed is Ian sitting with his head in his hands. She walks over to him and gently sits next to him. She puts her arm around him, and he immediately shakes her off. Gut wrenching sadness punches her stomach. She is not used to him being so cold to her.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” he scowls at her.
“Ian, please don’t treat me like this,” she begs. “This is me! Your Gracie. I love you.”
Ian looks at her. “You look so pathetic.”
Grace gets up from the bed and walks over to the closet. She does not want to do what she is about to. There is an internal battle going on inside her. She knows what she has to do. She has to leave him. She cannot keep going on this way. If he refuses to stop using drugs, she must leave him. Ian intently watches her with anger in his eyes. Reaching into the closet she pulls out her suitcase with a heavy heart.
“What, you’re leaving me?”
Grace looks at him. Tears begin to prick at her eyes.
“Yes,” she whispers, not believing the word she hears from her own mouth.
She gathers clothes and places them delicately in her suitcase. Ian walks over to her and grabs her by the shoulders. “Ian, no!” she cries out in fear.
With a rush of breath, he cries, “I’ll stop. I promise. This time is for real. I would give you the drugs if I knew where I left them, but I can’t find them.”
“Jaden has them.”
“Please, Gracie. Don’t leave me. Please,” he begs.
Ian gets on his knees and holds both of Grace’s hands in his. “Please don’t leave me!”
She cannot bear to see him this way. She lifts him up off his knees and wraps her arms around him. Believing in him is her only option. Giving up on him, giving up on their love, seems too cowardly an act to her.
“You have to stop, Ian. You have to stop!”
“I will, baby. I promise. I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to hurt you and I can’t lose you!” he weeps.
Chapter 15
Tears fall from her eyes. Saltiness stings her mouth as they drip down her cheeks and slide into her lips. She runs her fingers through his soaking wet hair.
“Babe, do you want to go to the ER?”
He looks up at her pale faced, eyes burning red. With foul breath, he grumbles out a harsh, “No!”
She holds his hair back as once again he vomits violently. It is all she can do to keep from throwing up. She loves him. This is what you do for someone you love
, right? She looks around the bathroom, trying to avoid watching the torture he is going through and the smell that comes along with it. I just can’t bear to see him like this. I know that he has to go through this to get better. She wonders to herself, What am I going to do? How did we get to this dark place?
Grace helps Ian onto their bed, and he immediately curls into the fetal position. She loves him more than anything in her entire life, and she cannot stand to watch him suffer as he is, but this is the only way. He has to go through detox if he is going to beat his drug habit.
Jaden enters their room with a tray of food. “Are you hungry, Grace?” he asks, as he looks at Ian, curled into a ball on the bed.
“A little.”
Jaden sets the tray on the dresser and then sits on the bed next to Ian. He pats Ian on the back. “You can do this, man. You’re strong. You’ve been through so much in your life, you can beat this.”
Ian looks up at Jaden and gives him a weak smile.
“I’m sorry, man,” says Ian, as he looks at Jaden.
Grace can see the shame written all over Ian’s face. She is touched by the compassion that Jaden shows to Ian. She recognizes the devotion that he has for him, and she is grateful that Jaden is there for both of them at this trying time.
Ian finally falls asleep, so Grace ventures downstairs for a break. She finds Jaden on the porch.
“Were you talking about Ian’s dad when you said Ian has been through so much in his life?” she asks, as she sits on the wicker couch.
“Yeah.”
“He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“That man is a horrible son of a bitch. It’s a good thing that Brandon and Bailey are living with their aunt now. Back in Massachusetts, Ian would stay with me a lot. He used to always come over with bruises. His dad was really good about only hitting him in places that would be hidden, but Ian always showed them to me.” Jaden looks off out to the field in front of the old Victorian.
The Falling of Love (The Falling Series Book 1) Page 19
