How many times can she make the same mistake before she finds the window of escape sheâs looking for? How many ways can she be distracted by something in the distance when she's looking for a second chance that may not be there? I want to tell her to make a different choice, walk away from this room as she eases a needle into the vein that is pronounced in the crook of her elbow. But my bite my lip, and her eyelids flutter as a rush of chemicals fill her bloodstream.
I shake my head. I donât want to watch, but it's like a horrific car accident. I can't look away either. I have to see it unfold and know how it ends. I want to tell her she could stop before she makes a mistake, but my words are stuck in my throat.
She inhales sharply. âNothing I do is a mistake,â she leans over slowly and removes the needle from her arm. âThere are no mistakes. Just lessons. I've learned not to tell people about me. They're likely to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist.â
I continue to shake my head. She smiles but it doesnât reach her eyes. She wraps the needle in a red bandana, opens the middle drawer of a large jewelry box and places the needle at the back. She opens the top, takes out a small glass pipe with a rounded bulb, a white substance in the bulb. âI shouldnât tell anyone but here I am.â
She picks up a small Bic, lights it, and gently swirls the flame around the bottom. The stuff inside melts to a liquid, she puts the pipe end to her mouth, slowly she turns the bowl left to right. Slowly, slowly, careful not to turn too far so nothing comes out the small hole at the top... She is inhaling the smoke as it travels up the pipe. She releases, repeats, release, repeat. Again, again, again. She takes a little baggie from that top drawer, a small straw, slips a little more into the end and taps it into the hole at the top of the bowl... Lights, rotates, inhales, releases, again and again and again. How much can her body take? She hands the bowl to me and I wrap it in a black bandana. I return it to the jewelry box.
âI should have set the bowl down,â she said slowly, laying back on her bed. Her arms are stretched above her head, legs dangling over the edge and swinging back and forth. I gingerly sat beside her, and then lay beside her. Our heads touch, my right temple to her left and I could feel her arm twitching above my head, she reaches and twirls the ends of my hair in her fingers. âI shouldn't have inhaled.â I looked up to her mirrored ceiling, and see a reflection. Long brown hair, unwashed and greasy spread out around a small face. Colorless eyes surrounded in hurt, mouth drawn in a frown. A twitch of the nose, a shake in the hand. A small body, too thin. But, only one.
There is only one body. One reflection. Mine. I looked beside me, and she was gone. She was never there. I sit up, rubbing that twitching, shaking hand over my unwashed brown hair. I reach for the bowl, rotate it over the flame slowly, wait for the smoke to fill, inhale slowly.
And I donât know how much more I can take.