Life of the Party (65 page)

“It’s rehab or
jail, Mackenzie. You choose.”

Upon noticing
our arrival, a man and a lady dressed heavily in winter coats came
out the front door and strode up towards the car. I thought about
running, about making a break for it. My hand grasped the door
handle.

“You can’t run,
Mackenzie.” Riley grabbed my arm. “You’ve been running for too
long. You have to face it.”

I sobbed in
defeat, sinking back against the seat. He put an arm around me and
tried to hug me, but I pushed him off with a sudden burst of rage.
I’d never been so angry in my whole entire life. He knew I hated
things being pushed on me; he knew I hated being told what to do.
And now I had no choice. I had to go to rehab.

“I hate you
Riley. I hate you!” I spat through my tears. “How could you do this
to me? How? I hate you! I never want to see you again!” I shouted.
I pushed his hand away again and then burst out of the car, taking
the man and the lady by surprise in their approach. The lady put an
arm around me and started pulling me inside, out of the cold. I had
to go with her, but first I turned to yell one last disparaging
remark at my old, former friend.

The words never
made it past my lips. Upon turning around, I saw Riley crumple in
his seat, saw him bury his head in his hands, saw his shoulders
silently shaking.

Wordlessly, I
turned my back on him, no choice left but the one before me.

Detox. Hell.
They were synonymous.

I’ve never felt
so sick in all my life. So wretched. So desperate for death. Like I
was being punished for every moment of happiness the drugs had ever
given me, they left my system with five times as much agony. I
shook and vomited and convulsed and sweat. I cried and cried,
sobbing for relief, for help, but no one answered. No one came. I
was trapped, all alone in a tiny little room with a single cot bed.
I was crazy, delirious, overcome. I was too sick to think straight.
Fervently I wished for Grey. I wished we were doing this together,
that he’d be there with me at the end and all of this would just
seem like some terrible nightmare. At times I swore he was holding
my hand. At times I swore I could hear him humming the tune to my
song. It was loud in my ears. But when I opened my eyes, no one was
there.

I wanted to
scream, but it wouldn’t do any good. No one would come. Doctors and
nurses would check up on me from time to time, but they offered no
solace, no comfort. They’d check my vitals and then, apparently
satisfied, they’d leave me alone again. They gave me no drugs,
nothing at all to numb the pain. I had no choice but to endure it;
to live through the burning, ripping hurt and gut wrenching,
freezing sickness that strained every muscle in my body until I was
weak and sore from the effort. There seemed to be no end in sight,
no end to the vile torture. I grit my teeth and bit my lip until it
bled, but still the sickness ravaged on. I couldn’t sleep. I
couldn’t eat. I couldn’t do anything but be sick. Disgustingly ill.
I couldn’t do anything but moan for death. And itch. I don’t know
how else to describe it, but my very blood felt itchy. I scratched
and scratched until my skin broke. I lived breath by torturous
breath.

“Don’t focus on
how lousy you feel. Focus on how much closer you are to getting
healthy ….” They had said before locking me up. That sentence ran
over and over again in my mind. “Don’t focus on how lousy you feel
….”

And then, there
came a morning when I awoke without sweat. Without nausea. I found
I could swallow again, that I was warm again. My body still ached
like I had run a marathon; my muscles were stiff and sore. But I
knew the worst was over. And I was glad. I was so relieved, at
first.

But it didn’t
take long before I realized I was actually sober. Like, stone cold
sober. Without the sickness to focus on, I was now capable of
coherent thought. Competent. I hadn’t been that way in ages.

And then the
real pain crashed around me, like cymbals during a crescendo.

It actually
took my breath away. There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could
hide, no escape from the mind-ravaging hurt and sorrow. At that
moment, I would’ve chosen withdrawal over this. Anything but this.
I clutched my arms around my stomach and gasped, my fingers running
through my limp hair as I sobbed into my empty hands.

Grey was gone.
Grey was gone and I was all alone.

“Please, Grey.
Please don’t be dead ….” I pleaded with the quiet. I shut my eyes
and pictured him, hanging on the memory. I imagined him—his
gorgeous, handsome face coming through the door into my room,
smirking with his cocky grin and shaking his head at me, his blue
eyes shining.

“You did it,
Mackenzie.” He’d say, his voice velvet in my ears. “I’m so proud of
you. You did it, you’re clean ….”

I opened my
eyes, but there was no one there but me. There was nothing in the
bare, sterile little room but me and my sweaty cot bed.

Then the door
opened. I sat up abruptly, daring to hope, my heart pounding a
mile-a-minute with delusional optimism. But it was just the nurse.
Giselle was her name, and she was looking at her clipboard as she
came in to check on me. She was a bigger lady, with beautiful
chocolate skin and big, pretty warm eyes. Her hair was back in a
simple ponytail and she wore the traditional pastel patterned
nurse’s garb.

“Well, you’re
looking better.” She observed. My breath hitched in my throat, I
could feel how red and swollen my eyes must be. My hospital gown
was wrinkled and plastered to my dewy skin. I couldn’t even imagine
how I smelt. And this was better?

“How are you
feeling?” Giselle asked me.

I shrugged,
sniffing. “Better, I guess.”

“I’d say you’re
over the worst, anyway.” She slapped her clipboard shut.

I scoffed and
wiped the tears from my eyes. Doubtful. Really doubtful.

“Don’t cry,
honey.” She patted my arm. “I know it was hard, but you did it. All
by yourself. Doesn’t that make you proud?”

I shook my
head. “Giselle?”

“Yes,
sugar?”

I flinched.
Sugar. Grey had called me sugar. Fresh tears started, filling my
eyes until everything around me was a blur. I tried to blink them
away.

“Can I have a
cigarette?” I cried.

“Sure thing,
hon.” She pulled a pack from her pocket and gave me one. “You’ve
got your whole life ahead of you now. Don’t worry. You’ll feel even
better after a nice hot shower.” She gave me a pleasant smile. I
tried to smile in return, but I couldn’t. Her brave words of
encouragement did nothing to ease the ache in my heart.

I took a deep
drag of my cigarette, letting the sweet smoke burn down my throat
and into my lungs. The moment Giselle was out of the room, the
heavy weight of gloom pressed down upon me again. I hugged my knees
to my chest and tried not to think about Grey. Even still, I
couldn’t help shedding a few tears. It just felt so empty without
him.

I was moved
from the Detox center into the rehabilitation wing that day, into
what was going to be my room for the next three long months. I had
to share it with another girl, some stranger I had never met. I
trudged along after the orderlies because I had to. I felt no
excitement, no enthusiasm about the move. No part of me wanted to
be there, even with the hard part over.

I sighed as I
stepped into the space. It was a cross between a hotel and a
hospital room. Plain, beige, mass-quantity type furnishings adorned
the space with no personality at all. There were two twin beds, two
dressers, two nightstands. A little bathroom adjoined it. The one
solitary window on the boringly painted, beige brick wall faced the
courtyard; giving me a dismal view of the grey, frozen wasteland
beyond, crusted in ice.

The orderly set
my suitcase on the bed closest to me, gave me a polite smile, and
then left me all alone.

I sank down on
the bed and shut my eyes. So this was sober living. So far, it
sucked.

Since there was
nothing else to do, I opened up my suitcase and started unpacking
my things. Two packs of cigarettes sat on the top—a gift from
Charlie, no doubt. I couldn’t help but feel grateful as I tore into
them. I missed her. I missed everybody.

I missed
Grey.

With a shaky
sigh, I moved on to the rest of my belongings. The familiarity of
them brought me some comfort, but brought me sadness as well. Every
one of my possessions had a memory attached to them. I picked up my
favourite jeans first; they were old and threadbare and
comfortable. Grey had doodled on them with a ballpoint pen one day
when we were laying in bed and he was working on his lyrics.

That was hard
to see. I stroked my finger over the ink preciously, biting my lip
as the all too familiar tears flooded my eyes. I pressed my face
against the denim and cried for a little while, but the tears gave
me no relief. There was nothing that would fill the emptiness
inside me. I was being forced to quit the one thing that could.

Quickly I
unpacked the rest of my stuff, shoving my clothes roughly into
drawers, looking at them as little as possible. My diary—the one
Marcy had given me for Christmas—was in the bag as well. I tossed
it into the nightstand, threw my suitcase beneath the bed, grabbed
my bag of toiletries, and headed into the bathroom for a long, hot
shower.

It felt better
to be clean. The pressure wasn’t much, but the water was hot, and I
stayed beneath it for as long as I could. The whole time I thought
about heroin. There may not have been any left in my system, but
that didn’t stop me from craving it. I remembered the feeling, the
rush of euphoria it gave me—the numbness, the apathy, the delicious
… nothingness. I shut my eyes and pictured myself mixing a batch,
sucking it into the needle, feeling the sharp sting as I injected
it into my body ….

I could leave.
I could leave here; I could run out the front doors and catch a
cab. Did I have any money? There had to be some around. I could
hitchhike home, or just somewhere, anywhere in the city. Some dark
back alley. There was sure to be heroin there. In less than an
hour, I could get my fix. Riley wouldn’t have to know, he’d never
find me again; I’d never have to go to jail. Everything would be
good again ….

The water ran
cold, freezing. I shook my head and shut it off, almost breathless
with excitement. Quickly I towelled off and got dressed in some old
clothes that were too big for me, then ran a brush through my
tangled, messy, wet hair. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want
to be clean. Nothing mattered to me now, nothing but the
heroin.

I rushed
quickly out of the bathroom, my cheeks flushed nervously. It
shouldn’t be too hard to run away. I’d throw on a few sweaters; go
for a causal walk down the hallway. I’d sprint out the front doors
before anyone even noticed. I hadn’t seen a huge amount of
security; it’d probably be hours before anyone even realized I was
missing. And by that time, I’d already have a needle in my vein
….

“You’re
thinking of running, aren’t you?”

I whipped
around in surprise, slamming my drawer shut as I did so, my cheeks
blushing guiltily.

“N-No.” I
lied.

The girl lying
on the other bed in the room, the one near the window, scoffed at
me. “Trust me; it’s not going to happen.”

“I wasn’t going
to run.” Amazed and embarrassed by this stranger’s perception, I
sat down hard on my bed, the springs squeaking in protest. I
grabbed my pack of smokes and lit one.

“You’re
Mackenzie, right?” She wondered.

I looked back
at her and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Allison.”

“Nice to meet
you.” I blew my smoke out in a waft.

“Do you want to
know why it wouldn’t work? Running?”

“Whatever.”

“Cameras.” She
pointed up at a corner of the room. “In the hallways too. And the
front doors are locked from the inside.”

“What is this,
a mental institution?” I frowned. “Why the lock down?”

Allison
shrugged. “It’s like
Hotel California
. You can check out
anytime you like, but you can never leave.” She laughed.

I lay back on
the bed, sighing heavily. “How many times did you try?”

“Twice.”

“Stubborn.”

“That’s me.”
She grinned. Alison was pretty, in a hard kind of way, though kind
of intimidating. She was the first person I’d ever met—besides Jack
Turcotte—who actually looked like a heroin addict. Her short,
pixie-cut blonde hair framed glittering blue eyes lined by thick,
dark eyeliner—she kind of reminded me of that singer, Pink. Both
her arms sported full sleeves of colourful tattoos. She grinned at
me wickedly, and had I met her in different circumstances, I knew
without a doubt that we would’ve had a ton of fun together. I
wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alley or something though.

“I was going to
run.” I admitted.

“I know. You
had that look about you.”

“I still might
try it.”

“I wouldn’t.
Seriously. Unless you want to endure a few hours of bullshit
lectures, you know, living your life in the now and all that
crap.”

I stared up at
the ceiling, chuckling mirthlessly. “No thanks.”

“I know. I can
barely stand it. Therapy every day …,”she sighed, rolling her eyes.
“Please. I have an addiction, right? Like, tell me something I
don’t know.”

“We have to do
therapy every day?”

“Yeah, like,
group therapy. Ooh, and then once a week, you get a real treat,
one-on-one therapy. Ugh, it’s such a bore.”

“Great. Wow,
this place couldn’t get any better.” I shook my head.

“So, this
wasn’t a voluntary check in, I presume.”