Reprieve

by A. E. Woodward

  I take a deep breath before knocking on his office door, taking a moment to smooth out the outfit I had put together this morning. I had searched painstakingly through the few clothes I brought with me, unsure of what I was looking for until I found it. Linen shorts and a plain white tank top were perfect for the unusually warm weather—the only problem being that my linen shorts had become wrinkled during breakfast and I didn’t have time to go back and change. Lesson learned: don’t wear linen shorts when looking to impress someone.

  The door opens and the scent of clean cotton hits my nostrils. He never smells like cologne or anything you might expect a man to smell like. Asher smells like clean laundry, fresh off the line. “Morning, Tegan,” he says, avoiding my eyes.

  My heart sinks. He’s not as excited to see me as I am him. Correction: as excited as I was to see him. He steps to the side. “Come on in and take a seat.”

  He’s all business, and suddenly I’m wondering if anything out of the ordinary happened between us at all. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. The trips off campus, the “more than” feelings . . . the kiss. Maybe none of it happened.

  Eyes to the floor, I walk toward the couch, taking my usual spot, falling back against the cushions. I hear Asher close the door, locking us in. Being alone, just the two of us, is something I thought I wanted, but now faced with it, I’m wishing I could sink in between these cushion and vanish completely because the tension and awkwardness that fills the room is suffocating.

  Instead I’m stuck here, breathless, watching helplessly as Asher paces from the door to his desk and back again. Over and over, until all I want to do is scream.

  “Say something,” I plead quietly.

  He stops pacing and looks directly at me, and in his face I find no trace of the Asher I’d come to think I knew. To the man in front of me I am just another client. Another appointment to get through. Another form to fill out. “Tegan, I’m requesting that you be assigned to a new counselor,” he blurts.

  My heart races. “No. Please. Don’t do that.” I know I sound desperate but I don’t care because I am.

  “After what happened at the beginning of the week, I think it’s in our best interests if you’re assigned to someone else.”

  “But I don’t want someone else!” I yell.

  Asher looks nervously over his shoulder at the door leading to the hallway, clearly worried about someone hearing me. But I don’t give a fuck who hears. My heart can’t handle the torture he’s inflicting. Tears sting my eyes as I look toward the back of the room where his desks sits. “This will be the best thing for your recovery, Tegan. Trust me.”

  And I do trust him. That’s part of the problem. I’ve grown to trust him too much. I can’t bear the thought of not being able to see him anymore.

  “Tegan, it’s not anything you did. It’s for both of us.”

  I continue to ignore him. If I don’t acknowledge his words it won’t happen.

  “Tegan, please.” I feel his hand on my forearm and I spin around. Full of hatred and anger.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t have—”

  “You know you’re taking away everything that I’ve come to count on, don’t you? Sure, heroin was my gateway drug, but you’re what I need now.” It sounds ridiculous, hearing the words hanging between us, coming out of my mouth instead of racing around in my head, but they’re the truth. And Asher is always preaching that I shouldn’t be afraid to say how I feel. I think about him day and night. He consumes me. I stand from the couch and move just an arms reach away from him, unsure of what to say or do next.

  Asher rubs at his face with the palm of his hand. I’m afraid that I’m looking at the face of rejection so I drop my gaze to my hands, wringing my fingers until the ends turn red and the skin burns. The room is silent, not even the birds outside dare to make a sound.

  Then suddenly, my skin isn’t burning anymore. I see long fingers, a tanned hand wrapping around my wrist, holding tight. I look up into his eyes. One side of his mouth turns up into a smile. He pulls me closer, letting out a sigh. “There’s no denying it anymore, Tegan. I’m clean, yes, but the battle is a daily one—you know that. Once an addict, always an addict, and, right now, if I had to choose a drug, I’d want it to be you.”

  My heart hammers, a piercing pain shooting through the left side of my chest. A smile dances at the corner of my lips. I risk looking at him, expecting to see a similar look on his beautiful face. But his face is contorted and in his eyes I see pain and indecision. He’s at war with himself, that much is clear. He’s also not finished talking.

  “I can’t afford to be addicted to you. It’s too risky. I’ve come too far to throw it all away. I’m sorry.”

  I snatch my wrist away from his grasp, the high from moments ago ripped from me, the pain inside threatening to leak from my eyes and down my cheeks. He can’t see me cry. I back away from him.

  “Tegan. Don’t look at me like that.”

  Another step away.

  “Where are you going?”

  My breakdown is imminent, the rug pulled out from underneath me. The hurt. The embarrassment. The pain. Every single cell of my being is being tortured. They’re screaming in agony. It’s too much. I was foolish to think that this could be real.

  Get away. Leave.

  Asher takes a tentative step toward me and it’s enough to propel me to action. My fight or flight instinct taking control, I spin around, my hair slapping me in the face as I take off, racing down the hall, away from him.

  I push my way past everything and everyone I meet, person after person, door after door, until the fresh air hits my face. I take a lungful of air, hoping it will make it stop. I repeat the action over and over, praying that the air will be enough.

  But I know it won’t be.

  I need more than air.

  As Asher already said, “Once an addict, always an addict.”

  BY THE TIME I was a sophomore, I was already versed in the ways of partying and putting out. Every weekend consisted of two things: some sort of rager and a new conquest. The notches on my belt were growing in numbers. I’d had jocks, geeks, stoners, a Goth kid, a couple of college guys, upperclassmen, underclassmen, virgins, and even a friend of my brother. It wasn’t something to be proud of, but for some odd reason I found comfort in knowing that I could do something right.

  The end of the school year brought with it an invite to a graduation party in the ritzy part of town. The part of town that was just a little better than mine. The senior throwing the party lived in one of those places that had a gate where you had to buzz for permission to get in. It was massive. His dad was some big lawyer, his mom a doctor. They made a shit-ton of money, sure, but they worked constantly, and when they weren’t working they were on vacation at some exotic island.

  How’d I know all this, you ask. Well, this particular guy happened to be the only person in the world I considered a friend. Jake Ashby was the “golden boy” and for whatever reason, he liked me for me—not because I was easy.

  We’d met in art class. He’d pushed off his electives too long, and I was just trying to get mine out of the way early. The first day he forgot to bring a pencil. Lucky for him he’d chosen the seat next to mine, and I carried an exorbitant amount of pencils around on a daily basis. It was borderline ridiculous. The rest was history.

  I walked into the party and he spotted me immediately. “Tegan!” he yelled from across the open living space and I smiled, pushing my way through the crowd toward him until he was right there, wrapping his arms around me, lifting me off the ground, spinning me around like a ragdoll. “Girl, I’m so glad you’re finally here!”

  He set me down and I caught a whiff of liquor on his breath. He was clearly hammered already. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Now where’s the keg?”

  Slinging his arm around my neck he chirped, “That’s my girl,” and led me in the direction of the kitchen. There, perched in the area
where the table should be, was the silver bullet. The container that held the nectar of the high school partying gods.

  Cheap keg beer.

  Jake poured me a cup and then led me back into the sea of people. He never hid the fact that we were friends. He didn’t care what people thought. All that mattered to him was that he and I were of the same mind, which we were. I had to admit it was nice to have someone to just talk to, no pressure or strings attached.

  We stood somewhere near the back, in a cluster of his closest friends, while the party carried on around us. His friends had accepted me with open arms from the beginning. No one ever commented about my reputation, which made me think that they didn’t know. That, or they simply didn’t care.

  As the night wore on, we drank, we drank, and we drank some more. Once the keg was tapped, the hard alcohol came out, everyone attacking it with a vengeance. Shots were passed about. Numbers dwindled as people either passed out, or were taken home by friends. The music got quieter and my vision started to double.

  Jake and I played a few rounds of beer pong, and despite my visual impairment we remained victorious until I had to pee. “I’ll be right back,” I called over the music and incessant chatter, turning to make my way to the bathroom only to find it locked. A few girls leaned back against the wall, waiting. They glared at me. Obviously they cared about my reputation. I squeezed my legs together and considered my options: continue to wait with Cady Heron and Gretchen Weiners, or go pop a squat outside? I was this close to pissing my pants so, naturally, the latter. Plus, I figured the fresh air would help sober me up a little.

  I pushed my way out of the front door and stumbled around the side of the house, the scent of freshly cut roses filling the air. I turned to admire them. They looked so pretty. I shook my head, the cool spring air clearly not doing much for my drunkenness.

  I found a little nook next to one of the rose bushes and backed into it. Looking around, I undid the button of my jeans and pressed my back against the house, pushing my pants down, careful to pull my underwear forward so that I wouldn’t soak myself. When I finished I stood up quickly, pulling my pants up around my hips.

  “Fancy seeing you here.”

  I let out a startled yelp, peering through the darkness at the source of the voice. I was pissed. I wanted to reach out and slap him. “Unfortunate for me,” I quipped back. I tried to move but his arm rested against my stomach, stonewalling me from heading back to the party. There was an ache in the back of my throat, a tingling in my chest as I looked for a way past him. This was one of those precarious positions my mother had tried warning me about before. It didn’t feel good.

  “Brent, let me go back inside.”

  “I thought we could have a bit of fun first.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to my cheek. He reeked of booze and weed and I could tell that he was as high as a kite.

  “Didn’t we have enough fun last year?”

  He laughed and a chill ran down my spine. “Not nearly enough. I was an idiot to let you go. You were the best ass I’d had in years, although, I bet you’re not nearly as tight now as you were then.” I tried slapping his hand away but he grabbed my wrists and pushed me back against the side of the house.

  “Let me go. You’re hurting me.”

  He shifted both my wrists into one of his hands, his strong grip biting into the skin, hurting me. I tried to wriggle out of his hold, but he was stronger. My breathing accelerated as I heard the sound of a zipper going down and I clenched my thighs together tightly. “Don’t be a prude, Tegan.”

  With my arms incapacitated I began swinging my hips, trying to push off the wall, feeling the brickwork bite into my skin as he pushed back harder. I opened my mouth but his palm silenced me before I could call out and I tasted the salt on his skin. I tried to twist my head to get out of his grip, but his fingers dug into my skin, forcing my head back into the wall. Pain spread from the point of contact, the combination of fear and alcohol making my vision hazy. I blinked rapidly, willing him to stop. His eyes gleamed in the darkness. Regretting that I had come out here, I felt a pain deep in my chest and a lump formed in my throat as I realized how bad this was. I didn’t like to not be in control so when my stomach turned over itself, I hoped that I would vomit on him.

  “It’s not like we haven’t done this before.” His voice was smooth, but his actions spoke of his intentions as he pushed my pants down to my ankles. Using the only thing I could manage to move, I bucked my hips back and forth, hoping that it would deter him from going any further. Instead, he pushed his hips against mine, pinning me against the wall as I felt his hardness press against me. My eyes stung as I bit down on my bottom lip to keep it from trembling. He leaned forward and licked my neck before whispering in my ear. “It’ll be just like old times.” My head rolled away from him, and I attempted to pull myself free again.

  My mind spun, I didn’t understand how he was still maintaining control of all my limbs with one hand covering my mouth. I heard someone yell inside and some girls laughing after, a painful reminder that help was just out of my reach. While I’m unable to move, he used his knee and pushed against the inside of my thigh, spreading my legs and my body buckled with the pain as he forced himself inside me. Without hesitation he slammed against me. Over and over. Each time tearing me apart, a painful burning engulfing every inch of me. I flailed against him, trying my damnedest to break free, but it did nothing but turn him on. He grunted and groaned in my ear and I eventually fell still. Defeated, I knew I had lost. He’d ruined everything. He’d ruined me.

  After a few more thrusts, he let out one strangled moan and withdrew just as fast as it had began. Without his body supporting mine, I slowly slid down the wall and fell into the rosebush, where I lay for a few beats before I pulled my knees up to my chest., my arms clutching my legs tightly to keep them from shaking. He glared down at me as he zipped his pants back up. “Trash, Tegan. You’re nothing but trash.”

  I refused to let him see me break down and held myself together until he was out of my sight. Then there in a heap next to the rosebushes I crumbled. Rocking back and forth, my eyes frozen in fear, I stared out at the rolling, lush green grass. Then, as if waking up from a bad dream, I scrambled to pull my pants up. I fumbled with the button, my hands shaking far too badly to be able to. It was then that everything came unglued. Covering my hand with my mouth, I stifled the strangled sound that escaped from my mouth. As each sob ripped it’s way through my core, a sickly sweet smell filled my nose. Turning toward the rosebush, I reached down at the roots and grabbed handfuls of dirt and threw them out of frustration.

  I fuckin’ hate roses.

  MY LEGS ARE MOVING. I’m running. I have no idea where I’m going. All I know is I need to escape. The reality of a world without Asher next to me is too much for me to bear.

  What did I do wrong?

  I’ve never been enough for anybody: my family, my friends. And now him. I’m not good enough. I never would be, and I was an absolute idiot to think that I could be.

  I wipe the tears from my face, although, it’s no use. They haven’t stopped flowing since the moment I left. I just don’t understand where I went wrong.

  My fingers rub the edges of the plastic bag in my pocket, weighing me down. Once I left the center it didn’t take me long to find myself in a crummy part of town. I hadn’t planned on ending up here. I should’ve known I would. Walking around, I sought out people that I knew could help me. It was an art; a useless art but I knew the right type of people to look for and what questions to ask.

  Old habits die hard I guess.

  I make a hard right off the main drag and the alley swallows me whole, sucking me into its darkness, shielding me from sight. Here in the shadows, it’s like I’m finally coming home. And in a way, I guess I am.

  The combination of panic and excitement overwhelms me. My mouth is dry, my pulse pounding—not in my heart but in my stomach. It’s a familiar feeling, and not an unwelcome one. My skin tingles
in anticipation, and a heaviness settles on my chest making me feel lightheaded, dizzy. It’s difficult to draw a full breath. I lean back against the cold cement wall.

  And for the longest time, I’m frozen in place, unable to move, a single tear sliding down my cheek as I slowly pull the bag from my pocket, part of me praying for some kind of interruption; for something to happen to delay my decision making.

  Is this really it?

  Am I throwing it all away?

  All the work I’ve done . . .

  It takes a huge amount of effort, but I turn off the voice inside my head—she’s a whiny little bitch—and turn my attention to the contents of my pocket, inspecting the gear, rummaging through my purse, grabbing the dirty spoon I had to barter for.

  Drugs in my hand, I fish out the lighter and new needle I bought at the store just a few blocks back. I slide down the wall and turn away from the street, crouching like I did when I was behind the plate during Little League. My hands shake as I begin the ritual that makes me feel at ease again. Having it all come back to me so quickly makes me wonder if I ever was really in recovery at all. I fumble with the packaging. The spoon falls to the ground. It’s loud in the quiet alley, the sound reverberating off from the walls. It’s like being under a microscope, or on television. As though a neon arrow is pointing directly at me, pointing to the fuck up. Snatching it off the ground, I don’t even bother to look over my shoulder because at this point I don’t care if I get caught. There’s nothing that can happen to me that could possibly be any worse than the unprecedented pain I’m already in. I’m not sure if they’re a product of my sobriety, or whether they’ve been dredged up from the depths that I had allowed Asher to reach, but the onslaught of feeling is unbearable. I could never have predicted that I would feel like this.