Want Some Help to Please Myself

Agnes | 19 | Substance Dependency & PTSD And yet I fight this battle all alone No one to cry to No place to call home.

[aalex-in-the-attic-blog]

Swallowing pills dry was easy. You had to collect enough spit in your mouth to lubricate the path down, down, down, and then tuck your chin in when you swallow. Alex had years’ worth of practice, his mother’s antidepressants the first little dosages of adventure that he’d taken- no thanks to Ivy’s prompting. 

Tossing the pills into the cavern of his mouth, the young man was quick to wash them to and fro, tempted to simply let them melt on his tongue. Of course, such a motion would leave nothing but a stale, dusty taste in its wake, and so Alex proceeded with the usual wincing routine. He’d barely given the nurse a second glance after receiving his medication. When he’d caught sight of the normal dose rather than his unfairly small one, Alex had felt nothing but triumphant. Today was going to be a good day.

His high hopes for the rest of the waiting hours only elevated further at the girl’s comparison, and he let out a gleeful little laugh, his smile wide and crinkly-eyed. “Nice,” the male commented, nodding his appreciation.

[a-g-g-i-e]

Aggie accepted the plastic cup, pleased to see that she too was afforded more than her usual dribble. She held the vessel up in a gesture of gratitude before sipping carefully at the red translucent liquid. She winced at its medicinal sweetness and opted to down the rest of it rather than savour it. Afterall, she knew in another 24 hours she’d be here, same stumpy nurse, same goddamn drink.

After licking the last drops from the rim, she crumpled the cup in her bony fist, tossing its carcass into the trash can by the door with a refreshed sigh. She thought briefly about the young man sharing her appointed slot. She thought maybe recalled seeing him briefly during a group therapy session, but Aggie couldn’t be completely certain; she’d spend most of those sessions either dipping in and out of an alcohol influenced dose or making group leader, Mr Titsfatprick (known as Fitzpatrick to his colleagues) squirm uncomfortably under the weight of her deeply personal questions.

As a result of her curiosity, as they both left the crowded little room, Aggie sparked up a conversation. “When I first got here... I couldn’t wait to try it, y’know? Thought it would be like, uh... gatorade or somethin’,” she laughed tiredly, shaking her head as she shoved her trembling hands into her pockets, “gatorade that gets y’high...talk about optimism.”

[aalex-in-the-attic-blog]

Alex glanced down at the tattered cloth he was wearing, his shaky fingers coming up to lightly tug at the shirt’s front. “Okay,” he murmured, finding it unnecessary to thank the girl given the wording of her compliment. She’d merely stated a fact, after all. 

When the first wave of nausea finally hit him, Alex found himself sharing the other patient’s urgency. Rubbing his fingers against one another in an attempt to rid his palms of their thin layer or cool moisture, the twenty-one-year-old strode rapidly up to the door. He barely glanced at the girl before twisting the handle and walking in. Unsurprisingly, the nurse had simply fallen asleep.

With gentle motions, Alex coaxed her awake, crouching by the desk chair on which she was sitting. “Hey,” he murmured softly, fingers dancing up and down her arm. The light snoring rumbling at the back of her throat, however, continued, and Alex found himself losing more and more patience as the minutes ticked away from his appointed time. “Hey!” The addict called, raising his voice a little and startling the woman awake. He stood, hands held up, “I just want my Dollies and then ‘m gone.”

[a-g-g-i-e]

As Alex jumped the queue of two, Aggie furrowed her brow in protest, tempted to complain verbally or kick him in the back of the knee. But she was too overcome with a fervorous trembling that spread upwards from her fingertips to her palpitating heart. She simply followed eagerly, closing the door to the room behind her with a little too much vigour.

The nurse jumped to her feet, startled by the sudden intrusion. She was as tall as she was wide and her chair let out creaks of complaint as her compacted weight shifted off it. With a tired, flustered nod, the stout nurse waddled to start fishing through her cabinet, too drowsy to go through the formal prescription palava. She dished out the normal dosage of pills into Alex’s palm before turning to Aggie, “You too?” 

“Uh, uhm, actually I’m the liquid stuff... yeah they got me on that pepto bismol shit.” 

“Pepto bismol?” The nurse croaked, her over plucked eyebrows travelling up her forehead.

“Nah, I just meant... ‘Cause they’re both like... kinda pink... cherry...” Aggie tried her best to push on with the comic comparison but the nurse looked unimpressed. Aggie shook her head, scrunching up her face in regret, “Whatever, whatever, not important, I just need the stuff.” 

[aalex-in-the-attic-blog]

For the final excruciating hurdle of his wait, that orange plastic chair was supposed to have been his. Instead, Alex found himself with extended time on his hands, and wanted nothing more than to hurl it back into the face of whomever had thought it amusing to grant it to him in the first place. He wanted his fix- or what was equivalent to it -and he wanted it now. He could already feel a sheen of cold sweat slipping its slimy fingers out to caress down his spine, and his hands had begun to tremble. He bawled them into fists inside the depth of his pockets, his frustrations presented in the way his shoulders bunched up and the sulk on his face.

At the girl’s exclamation, Alex’s eyes squeezed shut in silent despair. Couldn’t she just shut up? It was bad enough to have to endure the wails coming from ISO a few doors down every other night. So engrossed was he by his momentary misery that the unruly haired young man only managed to catch the final syllable of Aggie’s sentence, and he blinked over at her with a suddenly perplexed expression. “I’m sorry, what?”

[a-g-g-i-e]

“Yoour. shirrrt,” she rolled her eyes, vexation from the lateness of her medicine distorting any attempt she made to be friendly, “it’s cool. I like it.”

She huffed. This was so fucking stupid. She didn’t want to be here, and she grumbled that to herself as she knocked on the square of glass in the door. She knew where she wanted to be: at Ryan’s, belt tight around one arm, Erika clinging to the other. But thinking of that made her wince. Thinking of that made her think of other, really fuckin’ unpleasant things that she’d spent her entire existence since trying to bury in more drugs and alcohol.

She knew if she didn’t get it soon, the panic would start. The frigid perspiration and thrashing headaches were bad enough, but the anxiety was hard to shake. If Aggie waited too long, she’d find herself in this mental pit; on one side, the visceral pain of withdrawal, on the other, the dark mental anguish of memories and choosing either to focus on was a losing decision.

“C’mon,” She whined quietly, pleading for the door to give up and open.

[aalex-in-the-attic-blog]

The wait had been too long for him to handle; as soon as the clock had struck the minute during which he was scheduled a dose of sweet, torturing relief, Alex had animatedly stumbled his way down the hall, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his torn, worn jeans. His T-shirt, yellowed by age and years of muck, clung to his bones much like his skin did, its frayed hemline swishing in the small breeze that he created. 

What the young man found, much to his dismay, was that a smaller, equally as grotty patient was waiting to take his place. “Oh, fuck no.” Alex dropped his head, Adam’s apple poking out as his neck bent backwards into an uncomfortable arch. He sighed his curse up at the ceiling, as though condemning whatever traces of God that may be hidden in its cracks.

[a-g-g-i-e]

Aggie was already sitting in the orange plastic chair against the wall outside the med nurse’s office. She’d been counting down the minutes; if she leaned forward and craned her neck round just far enough, she could see the clock at the other end of the corridor. The minute hand was about to tick over the 12, signifying a minute over her scheduled dosage time. When it finally did, Aggie rose to her feet, smacking the chair in frustration and displacing it a little away from the wall with a plasticky rattle. 

“What the fuck, man!?” She exclaimed, trying to reach up to peek into the little window set into the door when the patient looming beside her caught her attention. She looked him up and down before, rather begrudgingly, complimenting him, “I like y’shirt.” 

[lost-in-alaska-blog1]

“At least I’m franker than the bookish little fuckers that try to run this fucking shithole,” Alaska shot back, both proud and irritated at the same time by the other’s lack of denial. In his eyes, it only meant that his suspicions had been confirmed, and that he was, as always, completely and truly correct.

Alaska’s brow quirked in ire at the empty space that one of his six biscuits once occupied. Beady eyes slowly rose to catch sight of the other’s greedy teeth nipping and scraping and gnawing at the sugary treat, and the seventeen-year-old found himself crunching the package in his spare hand to refrain from lunging at her. “Fucking freeloading bitch,” the boy snapped; as soon as he spoke, it was as though his chains had fallen from his frame, and he soon found himself striding over and slapping her hand away from her mouth with his fingertips, a sharp little tap akin to that of a mother’s, “fucking GET your own or suck a motherFUCKING dick, okay? Got it? Hm?”

[a-g-g-i-e]

The biscuit have that Aggie wasn’t currently munching flew out of her hand, shattering into crumbling thirds on the ground beside her Converse-clad feet. She let out a scoff, sending little flecks of chewed up Oreo towards the lanky teen’s chest. 

She rolled her eyes before exclaiming through a full mouth, “Oh, suck this.”

Her hand darted down to grab her crotch and she gave her hips a comically large thrust in the boy’s direction before pushing past him. She laughed and swallowed away the biscuit as she walked away, brushing the tiny black crumbs from her hands. Despite her best efforts to keep a calm demeanour, Aggie felt herself begin to twitch slightly. It was barely noticeable visibly, but it became increasingly uncomfortable and Aggie was glad to look up and see that it was only ten minutes until her next scheduled methadone dose. If she went now, perhaps they’d even serve her early. 

She hated that shit. That sickly sweet pinkness that failed to hide medicinal bitterness behind the cloying artificiality of cherry.

[lost-in-alaska-blog1]

“Great use of sarcasm, really. You’re so smart. Wow. Did daddy teach you that? Or did you get it from mommy? Lemme guess– older siblings. Rebelled against your parents because they’re cunts. Doesn’t give you an excuse to be a moody motherfucker, though.” Alaska sighed again, his words, at first loud enough for her to hear, ending in a bitter mumble as his thoughts were inadvertently cast back to his own parents. They’d been an atrocity, to say the least. 

In a most likely futile attempt to distract himself from the raging thoughts against his overseers and their little cult of paedophiles, Alaska slouched back into the dusty sofa upon which he was perched. He reached, with deft fingers, into the deep pocket of his dark green jeans, tugging out a small pack of six Oreo cookies that he’d managed to swipe from his nightly sneak into the kitchens. The packaging squeaked and ripped loudly as he tore it apart; once the biscuits were revealed, Alaska dove in. He didn’t usually indulge in sugary snacks, his vegan upbringing developing a sense of paranoia within him that had resulted in picky eating. Right now, though, the teenager couldn’t resist.

[a-g-g-i-e]

Aggie let a snort of amused derision from her nose, her tongue shifting to poke at the pocket of her cheek while her lips curled into a taunting smirk.  “Shit...'didn’t realise I was talkin’ to my new therapist.” She raised her eyebrows, folding her arms across her chest with a low chuckle.

She grunted, moving behind the sofa as if she was about to leave before quickly reaching over and grabbing a cookie from the packet in his hands. What Aggie lacked in quick-thinking, she made up for in quick movement and darting back to the other side of the room was easy enough. With a taunting delay to each of her next movements, she untwisted she biscuit and scraped out its creamy innards with her teeth. 

[lost-in-alaska-blog1]

“Blowjob?” Alaska’s brow quirked at the poor insult, and he couldn’t help but snort out a loud, obnoxious and derisive guffaw as his arms crossed over his clenching stomach. He shook his head, long blonde bags flapping to and fro with the motion. He’d enjoyed watching the female patient having her possessions yanked away, the thought of members of staff making everyone but him suffer casting a wicked little glint in his beady eyes. 

Raking a steady gaze over the other patient, Alaska felt a slight sneer drag his upper lip into a snarling curl, and he let his lungs deflate in a heavy, over-exaggerated sigh. “You’re gonna want to work on your insults if you want to intimidate anyone around here, greasy-haired bitch.”

[a-g-g-i-e]

“Greasy hair. Nice. Original.” Aggie rolled her eyes. As much as her fist itched to land a punch somewhere on the boy’s smarmy face. The word he’d finished with had cut through her; something about men calling women bitches set Aggie’s blood boiling. But the retreating doctor was still in sight, and Aggie didn’t want to risk getting caught. 

“Whatever.” She shook her head, shoving her trembling fists into the pockets of her baggy hoodie. It was still another hour until her next scheduled dose, and without her father’s old walkman, those sixty or so minutes seemed impossible to live through. 

[a-g-g-i-e]

“Nah...no, man- listen...” Aggie was leaning close to one of the older patients, trying to stretch her delicate plastic headphones far enough for the uninterested pensioner to hear the thrashing grunge music rattling from the earpieces. “You can’t hear that and then tell me that Layne Staley isn’t the--”  Suddenly the headphones, along with the old tape-player walkman they were connected to, were ripped from Aggie’s grasp by a tall red-headed man in a long white coat with a silent frown of disapproval that Aggie thought she could see an amused smirk behind. 

“What the fuck!? What!?” Aggie relented her arguing as soon as the doctor began striding away; she’d spent enough hours in iso already that day. 

Noticing another patient staring at the commotion, Aggie stood up swiftly, the force from her tiny frame enough to send the plastic chair she was sitting on toppling and clattering to the floor behind her.  “What the fuck d’y’want, you little blowjob?” She was now practically squaring up to the considerably taller patient.

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