he will never be over here again.
never lay next to me in this bed - this bed that still wears the sheets he was tangled up in not too many nights ago.
but was he ever really here?
thought so...
didn't think we were in love or even close to it
but thought we were on some fun kind of relationship road - whatever that relationship may be.
after that annoying weekend apart - the one i wrote about here - he started paying more attention to me. it was nice. very nice. fun, even. he was fun....
well, i thought he was.
when he started paying more attention (tho he was technically coming around just as much cuz well every night is as much as someone can come around)... i started learning more about him. he started showing a side of him that turned out not to be side at all but the entire wholeness of him.
he wasn't an addict in recovery like he told me.
he was an addict - an active one not trying to recover but desperate - horny even - to get his hands on more. it even seemed to me that this guy would do whatever, WHOEVER, to get more....
and it hit me one night that yes, he may like me and have fun with me but if had more money and a bigger place to get all fucked up in, i might just be the love of his life. he wasn't just as user of drugs or alcohol, but of people. he was desperate and determined to not work a legit job but to get all he could by doing as little as he could. he talked about selling weed again like a 15 might.... it was embarassing yet he didn't seem to notice.
halloween day he asked me if i wanted to do E with him.
i am 31 and the last time i did that i was in my early to mid twenties.
i am not judging people who try things at different ages because i lived my life and did my shit and would hate some asshole to judge me... but like me, this guy was well versed in drugs and didn't have an excuse WHILE BEING IN PROBATION and living at home with mommy and daddy BECAUSE OF HIS DRUG PROBLEM to want to do it again....
but this is where i fucked up and all the shit that followed actually does come back on me. i did this... it IS my fault.
i agreed.
yes, i did.
hating my annoyingly tortured and broken - if not numbing - mind and being ridiculously stressed and preoccupied at my horrific financial situation and my (as of now) apparent inability to do what it takes to get a second (PT) job, led me to wanting to escape. i am my own kind of addict and i had no right to judge his kind. but i should have walked away because nothing good comes out of adults trying to run from who they are.
halloween night - my favorite holiday in the world - we dropped two hits each of E. tiny blue stars... i am so out of the loop now, i have no idea what the hell it is called. within minutes this asshole was claiming to feel shit. bullshit. impossible.
but then again, do i really know what he was on before he showed up?
did i ever really know!?!
the night was amazing for the first 5-6 hours. all the typical shit that comes along with E... touching - but not just sexual - the fun, dorky, trippy "wow this is amazing - my arm has never felt so wonderfully arm-like before - crap. we laughed at shit that wasn't funny. we took two walks in the rain up and down the street. he laid me first upon leaves and we made out. the smell and feel of wet wall leaves around me. earthy, natural, real.... he later took me to the middle of the street and only pulled me up when a car came by. this was hilarious... well, no... but it felt it then.
we danced to stupid songs on direct tv radio channels. some love songs, some old school hip hop and some trance shit. sometimes we were naked - other times half dressed. he told me how beautiful i was about 6000 times (but he always did that so it was believable).
he seemed much more wasted than i, however. once upon a time i had an intensely strong tolerance to drugs. this doesn't make me cool - i am certainly not bragging - but it was the truth. however, i haven't touched E in years... may even have been longer ago than i can recall at this time.
he was shitfaced... but then again, he took 4 adderall of mine, snorted an additional two and then stole 5 of my klonopin.
not only did i DO drugs with an addict, i gave him more.
i was disgusting.
evil, even.
he behavior of course, changed.
the drug-induced I LOVE YOUS turned into weird schizophrenic word salad. hallucinations or perhaps instead some kind of walking somulance (sp) where he appeared awake but was actually asleep or maybe both... the walking undead....
he talked to people who were not there.
he called me Angela. (that isnt my name).
he told Angela he loved her.
(he was loving her now. a hallucination of a chick not there superimposed over my face. she existed, oh yes, i learned... but she wasn't there then. just me. what was left of me, anyway).
but even this - this cry-making bullshit - wasn't the problem. (the REAL problem, anyway).
i thought he had a stroke.
his eyes were different - esp the left one.
his mouth turned down a bit - esp the left side.
i even did a rapid trauma assessment for stroke and didn't believe i could prove he had one. wondered if i took him to the ER, if they would call the cops and his on probation ass would be arrested.... told myself i would rather him in jail than dead. but i didn't call 911. it was almost like i forgot to. even as i was standing there putting him through the motions of 6 rapid trauma exams; slapping his face WHILE he stood to wake him up or bounce him back to reality, it didn't again occur to me to call for help.
fucking drugs.
i was worried sick. scared and even sad that his E i love yous were not only not real toward me (which i suspected but still enjoyed hearing) but WERE real for someone else. but his word salad - his calling out to people that weren't there - his inability to walk without tripping and his insane jonesing for more drugs (all of which i didn't see with E in my past. doesn't mean it doesn't happen but of all the E i did and all the E my friends did that i bore witness too - i have never witnessed what i saw with him).
the next morning i tried to fill him in on the events. his disorentation - his lack of balance - his calling me Angela - his hallucinations - his stealing of my klonopin. he didn't seem to care... not at first, anyway.
as the day progressed he seemed both on the path to sober-hood AND well, stick kind of fucked up. and here again is where i messed up. (so far i have already made it to strike 3 so what's one more, huh!?)
i stayed with him all day. first, sleeping on and off in bed, then went to his house. didn't want him to drive. didn't want him to be hurt. and though i am ashamed to admit, i wanted him to make me feel better - that he liked me and was sorry about the angela mix up. (no self respecting girl would have done this... i know that. boy, do i fucking know it!).
but once we got to his house, the phones calls started. i recognized those calls - the frenetic calling of all people when you wana get high. who owns me money? who's got good shit? why aren't they answering the phone?
pacing and pacing.
i listened (but it felt more like detached watching) to him ask his boss for an advance and then call some trash-chick dealer he knew. the one from the night before. he looked up at me and said he got two for me but he would need 10 bux. didn't ask. just said it like i was in on it the entire time. guess i was. i never stopped him.
and i even gave him the 10.
though i did it with a mean look on my face. yeah, i was tough. i should him.
i drove cuz he was still shot and we picked up the stupid shit.
what was i thinking?
was i thinking this was acceptable - to do drugs with someone who needs help? to do drugs AT ALL given my age, mental health, psych meds and job (a job i would get immediately fired from should i be arrested)....
he popped them both.
i only one.
i hid the other one and later pretended i took it.
i was hoping in some delusional kind of desperate hope only a borderline asshole would feel that without the adderral, vodka and klonopin from the night before, we might have those first 5 hours again. the angela-less hours. so much for a college edu and a 175 IQ.
he talked about my kids while kissing my body.
i have no kids.
he talked about the hour drive home he would glady make tomorrow - anything to see me.
i live 10 minutes away from him.
i would tell him to say my name and he would repeat hers.
i would ask him where he was and it was first at hers, then some other girls, then his cousin's and even his drug & alcohol counselor's house.
but he was never at my house.
shocking.
he didn't break my heart because i loved him but broke it because i put too much power into the hands of men. of broken men. of men i don't even want to date but cannot let go of for fear of being either alone or the fear of being left. cuz actually i am ok alone... just not ok when separating. i don't heal or adjust well. i need to be in a relationship for life or in none at all.
when i told him he didn't know what he was saying - he mocked me.
when i told him to stop trying to be sexual with me, i wasn't in the mood because i was both concerned about his health and because it was hard to get wet when being called by another name, he got mean and semi violent.
he flung himself around my room. almost breaking the tv but definitely breaking the dresser.
he tried to rip my underwear off and almost succeeded. i cried and punched and kicked and once in a while he would wake up to reality and apologize.... he would ask what was wrong and tell me he would never hurt me and that if some asshole guy was trying to hurt me, to let him know.
he was gone.
brain shut down.
but the body - the strong man body still going.... punching, pushing the forcing.
i thought i was going to be raped.
i know the feeling all too well and i was waiting for it.
fighting it but bracing myself for it nonetheless.
stay quite, cry softly, try not to tense up and just let him have at you.
get it over with.
play opossum and get away without too much injury... or death.
i kicked his jaw and punched his nose.
minor deterrents, really.
i started encouraging angela talk so he would soften up and calm down.
it worked sometimes but not always.
i cried a lot that night.
we woke up monday morning without much time to talk before i had to go to work.
he said he didn't mean anything he said (the nice stuff i told him about). told me he didn't love this angela girl but didn't know if he would love me either. didn't ask him to love me. just to be honest.
i should have told him to drive safe & fuck off.
but i actually was worried HE was going to dump ME.
i wanted to dump him.
wow. what a fuck up i am.
though he texted a few times since then, he hasn't called like his texts said he would.
and though this is good news for many reasons, it still hurts.
but not because he doesn't care or because i can't be with him anymore...
but because i didn't have the balls - the mental health - to tell HIM to go away....
i gave that power away a long time ago and i have no idea how to get it back.
i regret enabling an addict.
i regret that i gambled with my own life and health.
i regret that i had to learn about the angelas of the world in that way - at the time.
but what i regret most - and this is sad to admit - is that i didn't walk away when he first told me of his problems; that i told him over and over again that i was there for him - without judgment.... i regret that i once again believed my own crap that if i said the right combo of words, a broken man would think he needed me... that be was blessed to have met me because i would help him out of his pain. i no longer think i can fix the pain, but i thought i could walk through it with him - be there when the world went away.
fucking idiot.
and i also regret that even after two word salad angela nights, i still didn't tell him to go away. i had no intention of seeing him again but i didn't have the strength to cut the cord myself. i needed to and wanted to but a part of me was petrified to let go.
that awful suffocation of letting go....
so now it is he who left me
at least that is how it feels....
and all i have left now, are self inflicted cuts on my legs and sex stains on a comforter.