by Roxie Noir
The thing’s fucking shattered like someone threw it across the room, but it does turn on, and it’s mine. I’ve got an absolute sea of notifications, and I slump against the counter, flipping through them.
All I’m looking for is her name, though I know it won’t be there. I’m just hoping for a sign, a hint, something.
It’s a long time before I notice that the date says it’s Wednesday, and I stop scrolling. The gears in my head grind together, rusted together and stuck.
Wednesday?
No, it’s Tuesday.
I open my phone, and even though I can barely see anything, I open the calendar. Wednesday.
It’s not fucking Wednesday.
Open the news. Wednesday, everywhere. There’s a bottle of something lying on its side behind the dishrack, half-hidden, and I grab it, then slide to the floor with my back against the cabinets.
I’m hungover as fuck, I’m itching inside my skin, and I’m clearly coming down from something. Cocaine at least, as that’s Liam’s favorite and I doubt it’s hard to get in Los Angeles, but the itching tells me there may have been something narcotic.
With one hand, I unscrew the bottle, my eyes shut. I bring it to my lips and swallow, then swallow again and again. Jim Beam, I think, though I don’t even bother checking.
And there it is, that nice soft warm blanket, everything going just a bit fuzzy and manageable. Thank fuck. I take a deep breath in, hand still around the bottle, exhale, taking things a moment at a time because that seems to be all I can manage, a moment at a time.
Then: Marisol in my front yard, tears running down her face, saying I don’t know what you lied about. The way she looked at me and I felt like a monster and a worthless fucking puddle all at once.
I take another drink.
Then it’s her, naked in my bed last night, whispering I want you inside me with nothing between us and I take two long swallows because I’ve fucked up the best thing that’s ever happened to me and it only took eight hours.
I sit on the kitchen floor. I drink from the bottle and slowly, surely, the pieces start coming back and I begin fitting them together.
Marisol, leaving, my heart a rock in my chest. Liam tossing me the bottle, me drinking. Later, my arm around his shoulders as he took me into the house, wrapping my feet in paper towels and scotch tape, going on and on about some idea he had for a space mission.
More drinking. The sun up, bright, shining through the windows; a blanket over a window in an unused bedroom.
Liam doing a line off a sheet of notebook paper, handing me the straw, only letting me do a bump since I wasn’t up to it yet.
Fuck.
Then blurred memories, gray mush. Then a girl showing up, smiling at first but uncertain the minute she saw the broken mirror in the entryway.
I hold my breath and take another drink.
No. Please no. Please anything but that. Heroin again but not that.
The girl disappears but Liam’s there, pills in my hand, washing it down with more whiskey and then sitting on the couch staring at the ceiling, feeling so fucking good.
Then nothing. The film seems to stop there, just ending. I’m still nauseous but now I’m drunk as well, and I look at my phone again as if she could have called in the past five minutes and I’d have missed it.
I want to text her, call her, hear her voice and plead with her, but I can’t call her now, like this. I’ve compounded fucking up with more fucking up and now I’m on the kitchen floor with a bottle of whiskey and no fucking shirt and I don’t even know what pills I took last night.
I’ve got to fucking do something, get myself out of it, so I roll over onto my knees and drag myself up until I’m standing, most of my weight on the kitchen counter. Slowly, unsteadily, I walk around Liam and up the stairs, to my bedroom, so I can shower and see how fucked up my feet are, and as long as I don’t look at the bed and as long as Marisol’s not left anything there, it’s okay.
But I’m almost to my bedroom, head spinning, when I make the mistake of looking over at the bedrooms across the hall, the one where we tacked a blanket over the window and then spent hours on the floor, reminiscing about Dirtshine’s first days in London, the wretched flats we used to live in, the wretched girls, the wretched people.
And then a few last snapshots: the girl coming out of Liam’s room, high as a kite, not even looking at me as she left.
A knot unwinds in my chest.
Me, standing in the doorway of the room with the blanket over the window, looking down at Liam on the floor. Syringe in the back of one hand as he pushes down the plunger and the rush of sheer jealousy that tore through me.
Liam leaning against the wall, eyes half-closed, his words slow and dreamy.
Sorry mate, that’s all.
Me nodding and turning, even though my haze knowing that it’s for the best. Then Liam’s voice: wait.
Here.
He tosses a tiny bag full of white powder at me, and then his eyes slide shut, his face ecstasy as I catch it. Then my memory’s blank again.
I barely make it to the sink in my bathroom before I vomit Jim Beam, because now I know why I feel like I’m itching inside my own skin, why my feet don’t hurt as much as they should.
I sit on the toilet, shaking, and try to think, but then I hear Liam stir downstairs, get up, trip over something, curse. I think of Marisol’s books on her dresser and then of Marisol, the Korean restaurant where we had our first real date. The night I told her everything, or almost everything, and she took me home with her anyway.
My hands are shaking, but I manage to get my phone out. The battery’s nearly dead, the screen completely shattered, but after a few tries I get Nigel’s number up.
I hit the green button and hold the phone to my ear.
44
Marisol
Wednesday afternoon I finally give in and call. I still don’t know how I feel, but I know that this is killing me. Whatever’s happened I just want to hear his voice, talk to him, because even a day without Gavin has left a strangely-shaped hole in my heart.
But it rings until it goes to voicemail. I try again an hour later and the same thing happens. Both times I hang up without leaving a message, because you don’t leave a message for this kind of thing.
Hours pass. I text.
Marisol: Can we talk?
Later:
Marisol: Please?
Later still:
Marisol: Are you okay?
I’m eating a burrito and skimming back through lecture notes when my phone rings. I nearly knock my chair over getting to it, then nearly choke on my burrito trying to swallow.
Nigel.
I consider not answering. I’m not sure that I can have a calm, rational conversation with him about the next steps in Gavin and I’s relationship right now. If I hear what event or restaurant or show Gavin and I are supposed to go to next, I might throw up or cry or do both at the same time.
But then I’d just have to call him back later, so I answer.
“Hi, Nigel.”
“Hello, Marisol. This is Nigel.”
That’s why I said Hi, Nigel.
“How are you?” I ask, hoping to get to the point soon.
There’s an awkward pause, more awkward than most of Nigel’s pauses.
“It’s about Gavin, actually,” he says.
My heart feels like it’s been filled with lead and it’s dropping.
“What happened?” I blurt out.
“It’s a bit complicated,” Nigel says. “He’s, well, technically he’s fine, but he has gone back to rehab. Would it be possible for us to meet in person?”
I don’t answer for a long moment, but I sit heavily on my bed, eyes filling with tears, the books I got on addiction directly in my line of sight. All I can think about is Gavin, on my bed as I studied, lying on his side, engrossed in one of them.
I remember looking over, seeing that, and thinking, he’s really trying. I took it as evidence that I wasn’t
doing something stupid by being with him, but I guess I was wrong.
“Yeah,” I whisper, because I don’t trust my voice. “Where?”
After arguing logistics for at least twenty minutes, Nigel and I wind up at a burger joint in my neighborhood, though that means I have to listen to him complain about parking for a good five minutes, my nerves slowly being frayed and rubbed until they’re down to just the electrified wire.
“I don’t care!” I finally whisper-shout.
Nigel’s halfway through removing his windbreaker, and he looks startled.
“I don’t care where you parked or how you had to walk four whole blocks to get here, just tell me what happened!”
He clears his throat. He adjusts his glasses, and though he looks ruffled, he at least doesn’t look upset.
“I’m not exactly sure as Gavin didn’t enlighten me on the particulars,” he says. “He simply called, said he wanted to go back to rehab, and gave me a few instructions. I haven’t seen him or spoken further.”
Before I grab him and shout what were the instructions, he puts a cardboard box about the length and width of my forearm on the table between us. I pull my hands away from it like it’s filled with spiders or something, because a heavy sense of dread presses against me, threatening to suffocate me before we even order.
It feels like a goodbye. If you want to work things out with someone, you answer their calls. You don’t send a delegation with a gift.
“He asked me to give you these,” Nigel says.
“What is it?”
“They look like tapes.”
I feel like I might puke on the box, my heart slamming in my chest, but I take a deep breath and open one flap. Nigel’s right. It’s half-filled with cassette tapes in plastic jewel cases, the labels on them scribbled and written over and crossed out in Gavin’s terrible handwriting.
It feels even more like a goodbye, and I hold my breath so I don’t cry, my throat slowly closing off.
“He also asked that I initiate the agreed upon transfer of funds,” Nigel says, his voice a low whisper. “As we discussed, Larry’s firm will be in charge of making sure that it goes through all the proper legal channels and you’re credited as a consultant—”
“Am I supposed to play these?” I ask, still staring.
“I assume so?” Nigel says. “The labels are rubbish, so I’ve got no clue.”
I pick one up and turn it over in my hand. On the label, I can just barely make out the words shrimp heads, and on the back, rubber gloves. The night we went on a secret, unplanned second date for fish and chips. We walked up and down the beach in the dark, holding hands, and even though I didn’t admit it I knew there was something, even then.
They go on. Bathtub. Chopsticks. Queen Bess, all stupid nonsense phrases that couldn’t possibly mean anything to anyone else, but I feel like I’ve been knifed through the heart.
And now I’m crying, tears rolling down my face helplessly as I clench my teeth together, fist in front of my mouth, trying desperately not to make a scene in the middle of a restaurant.
He’s getting rid of them.
Nigel looks politely baffled at my reaction, and folds his hands on the table in front of himself.
“We can discuss the matter of your continued involvement in a few weeks when he’s out again,” he offers. It sounds like he’s trying to be gentle, and I just nod because I don’t trust myself to actually say anything out loud.
This is my fault, I think. I shouldn’t have left like that, I should have stayed and talked about it. I just...
I swallow hard. My hands are shaking, but another label catches my eye, this one crossed out twice before it reads, simply, say yes. I stand, nearly knocking over my chair.
“Thanks,” I manage to whisper to Nigel, my voice coming out weird and strained. “I gotta go.”
“We’ve not even—”
I don’t hear the rest of whatever he has to say, because I’m already out the door at nearly a run, desperate to get out of there before I have a full and total meltdown.
The box of tapes is sitting on my floor, and I’m on the bed, elbows on my knees, face in my hands, staring at it. I’m crying so hard that tears are running down my arms. I’ve got the hiccups, so every breath I take goes breath-hiccup-sob, and I’m a snotty mess to boot.
It’s wretched. I hate Liam, and I hate Nigel, and I hate Gavin, but mostly I hate myself for thinking that this could work. I hate myself for believing that I could help him, that my presence was going to make any difference at all in his life.
Because he was always going to go back. He was always going to relapse. Junkies only love one thing, and it takes a long time to get over her.
I don’t want to open the box again. I don’t want to look at the labels on all the tapes, and I don’t want to find a tape player in the box as well, but I do. I shouldn’t pop in shrimp heads / rubber gloves, but I do.
It takes me a long, long time to hit play. At first it’s just static. The sound of something being bumped, then resonating, a guitar maybe.
Gavin clears his throat. He strums a chord. Stops. Fiddles with the guitar for a bit. I’m on the floor next to the tape player, curled against my dresser, huddled in the dark, praying that there’s nothing on this tape even though I know there is.
Finally, he starts up again and now it sounds like an actual song. Four bars in, he starts singing.
Whisper me to sleep, your fingers on my heart. Starshine on the ocean and you —
I hit the stop button, sobbing so hard I’m shaking again.
I can’t do this now. I can’t. Maybe in a week. Maybe in a month.
But I know that if I listen to any more of these tapes, all labeled with the things we did together, the things we said to each other, it’ll destroy me.
I shove the box under my bed and cry myself to sleep.
45
Marisol
Two days later, on Friday, I get the letter. It’s in Gavin’s handwriting and it’s got his name on the return address, which is for a rehab center in Malibu, and I stand in front of the row of apartment mailboxes staring at it in my hand like it might bite me.
He couldn’t even talk to me, I think, the words echoing around my brain. He had to write because he couldn’t even stand to have a conversation.
Not even over the phone.
I’m an idiot.
I’m tempted to tear it into pieces and throw it into the apartment’s garbage bin, because I want to forget that I was ever naive and starstruck and dumb enough to fall for a man who can’t even dump me properly, but I don’t. I march up three flights of stairs to my apartment, open the door, shut it firmly, lock it, throw my bag on the bed, and take a deep breath.
Then I sit on the bed and open the letter as my heart tries to claw its way out of my throat.
Marisol,
I’m sorry. I keep starting this letter only to crumple it up and toss it in the bin because I don’t know how to do it properly, but I’ve decided that this time whatever comes out of my pen will have to do, so here it is.
I fucked up. I fucked up once and then I kept at it. I fucked up until you left. When you were gone I kept fucking up and now I’m here and I’m not even allowed to make phone calls for the first week, that’s how much I’ve fucked up.
I should have just told you about Liam. The reasons why I didn’t sound stupid when I say them out loud in the bright light of day.
Forgive me if you can. Somewhere along the way I fell in love with you so hard it terrifies me. I didn’t think I could do that.
I’ve run out of things to say except I miss you and I’ve fucked up and if you asked for my heart I’d rip it out of my chest with my own hands. Letter-writing has never been my strong suit. You’d be appalled at how long this single page has taken me.
I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry.
Gavin
P.S. Liam’s a fucking liar but I’ve a feeling you sorted that out already.
I read i
t at least five times, and by the end I’m sobbing again. I miss him. I was afraid I’d never see him again, that he had gone back to England or something to deal with his problems and he’d left me here with a box of tapes and a broken heart.
But he’s in rehab, he’s relapsed, and that’s an ocean of uncertainty. I don’t know that he’ll ever be better. I don’t know if addicts get better or if they’re always just addicts who haven’t had a fix in a long time.
Gavin, I’m terrified too, I think.
There’s another letter Saturday. I haven’t written back yet. There are about fifty pieces of notebook paper balled up, most in my trash can, but I haven’t actually gotten through a letter yet. I don’t know how to say yes but no but yes but please don’t break my heart, you could, you really could.
Or maybe I should just say that.
Marisol,
I’ve made several small ceramic bowls. That’s what we do in rehab, at least in California: we alternate between talking about our feelings and making pottery. Sometimes baskets. There’s a painting class I could take but I’m absolute rubbish at it.
I’m not permitted phone calls until next Thursday, by the way. They’ve taken my mobile, and I’m pretty sure sneaking a call isn’t too difficult to arrange but I’m trying, for once, to follow the rules properly. It isn’t my forte but I’m really giving it a go, I swear.
This letter’s longer, and he just goes on about the things he’s doing at rehab — half sharing what’s going on, half making fun of Californians — but I read it in his voice and then I close my eyes for a moment, just wishing he were here.
It’s been five days. I know it’s stupid to miss him, but I do.
In any case, I don’t recommend going to rehab if you don’t need to.
Love you.
Gavin
