Pill Head: The Secret Life of a Painkiller Addict (11 page)

Trust. It is all there is to believe in. Not love, but trust. At times you can temporarily fall out of love with your partner. It’s normal. You work through it. But without trust, there’s nothing.

I fumbled for Clover and swallowed four more pills. They did nothing to stop my racing heart. Adrenaline coursed through me, and in a blind fury I grabbed everything I could find that belonged to him and threw it into a huge pile in one corner. I didn’t even realize I was crying until I stopped and sat down on the bed, hyperventilating.

My phone rang. It was Everett.

I answered it and said, “I know everything.”

“Huh?”

“Craigslist. I saw it.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, but I could hear panic in his voice.

“The pictures, the posting.”

“Someone must have stolen a picture of me,” he stammered. “It’s not me.”

I started laughing loudly, scarily, then abruptly stopped. “Don’t,” I said.

“Let me explain,” he said, and I could hear him crying. “I love you. I never did anything.”

I hung up.

He called back about four times. I let them all go to voice mail.

I paced. I ran up and down the stairs four times. I still couldn’t breathe, so I sat down on the edge of my bed and tried to focus on air going in and out of my lungs. There was no anger, just an actual pain in my heart. I was itching from pills. Convinced I had caught crabs from him, I ran into the bathroom and pulled down my pants and furiously combed through my pubic hair until my back hurt from leaning forward. There was nothing there. In the back of my head I knew that crabs were the least of my worries, but I suppressed that thought. Beat it down. I dropped to my knees and tried to throw up but nothing happened.

As manic as I was, though, there was a rational voice inside me that knew my reaction to his betrayal had to do with more than just our relationship. This was a grief brought on by the fallibility of humans, particularly men. They (we) cheat. And I hated myself for thinking that. Half the time now I was so high on pills I passed out before Everett and I could have sex at night. Even through my shock, I didn’t blame him for looking elsewhere. I just couldn’t understand why he had wanted to move in with me. I guess because then he could have it all. He could fuck who he wanted and then always have someone to come home to and hold at night. How many other halves of couples did the same thing?

That night I drank. I met some other friends in the city at a bar and got blind wasted. They dutifully offered support, but in situations like this, everyone involved knows that nothing can change the hopelessness, that feeling of being so desperately alone. I appreciated the effort but I was still in shock. The only thing that could get through to me was the sharp, medicinal taste of rotgut, bottom-shelf whiskey on my tongue. It helped to just maintain at least one of my senses.

Three days went by.
On the second night I think I came close to overdosing. I don’t even remember how many pills I took, I just remember lying on one of my roommates’ beds with a hoodie over
my face. He had a friend over and we were listening to Type O Negative, and every time I put my head down I would black out for a few seconds, then come to as a different guitar chord or key change ripped through the room.

Everett had been calling and texting several times a day. I still had the mountain of his clothing sitting on my bedroom floor, and I wanted it out so I finally texted him back, telling him to come by and pick up his stuff.

When he arrived, he texted me to let me know he was outside the Tunnel of Terror. I told him to just use his set of keys to let himself in. I curled up in bed and braced myself.

But when he entered the room, I couldn’t even look him in the eye. He had two enormous, army-sized duffel bags with him. He dropped them to the floor and sat down at the foot of my bed.

“I never did anything,” he said.

“Right,” I answered.

“It was fantasy,” he said. “I’d get pictures from guys. I just liked the thrill. I’d delete them immediately.”

It sounded like bullshit, but I understood it. I’d been looking at the pictures myself just for the thrill. It’s how we’d gotten here in the first place.

I sat up and looked at him. “If that was true,” I asked, “why post in New York? Why be so specific in your wording about needing to ‘travel during the day’? Why choose neighborhoods that are right where you work? If you just wanted naked pictures of strangers or had some sort of exhibitionist thing going on, you could have posted in any other city and gotten the same responses.”

“I don’t know,” he said and he started to cry. “I love you, I never would have done anything.”

I wanted to believe him but I didn’t, couldn’t. I lay back down and hugged a pillow, Ollie nestled up against me.

“We didn’t use condoms,” I said.

“That was your idea,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I trusted you. I’m a fucking idiot.”

He started crying again. “What can I do?” he asked. “This can’t be over.”

“Go get tested,” I said. “Bring me the results, printed on paper. Then we’ll talk.”

He packed up his things in silence, but his mood had seemed to improve. “I’ll go tomorrow,” he said. “I promise.”

I could tell he was excited, and it was unfair of me to give him false hope. I knew that no matter what the results ended up being, we were through.

He texted me the next morning to tell me that he had a three thirty appointment at a testing center that would give results back in twenty minutes. He promised to call as soon as he got out.

Five o’clock came and went. I’d been tested for HIV enough times to know that the waiting lines were ridiculously long and you usually had to wait at least an hour before you even got in to see someone. I finally called him around six to check in. The call went straight to voice mail.

I called Emily. “Everett isn’t calling me back,” I told her.

“He probably didn’t even go,” she said. “I bet he chickened out and is too scared to tell you because he knows how pissed you’d be.”

By eight o’clock I was in a frenzy, calling and texting Everett every three minutes. I called his best friend to see if he knew where he was, but those calls went to voice mail too.

It didn’t feel real. I’d spent my entire life being so careful. But I should have known better. My younger sister’s lifelong best friend, Katie, had been in a committed, monogamous relationship for years, when one day out of the blue she got a phone call from the police, telling her that her boyfriend had tried to rob a KFC at gunpoint and was in jail. Two days later Katie got a call from a strange girl who just said, “You’d better go get tested.” It turned out that her boyfriend had been HIV-positive the entire time they’d been together and he’d never told her. He was monogamous, but still knowingly passed the virus to her, as well as to the mysterious caller, who had been his girlfriend before Katie.

Pills. I swallowed handfuls, mixing the hydrocodone with online
Valium but sleep never came. They did nothing to curb my anxiety, my worry for Everett and for myself. I watched my pulse beat under the skin of my wrist. Was it inside me?

I don’t remember falling asleep but my cell rang at 8:00
A.M.
It was Everett.

“Where have you been?” I asked, still trying to open my eyes.

“I’m positive,” he said.

I started to cry.

“The testing center is expecting you today, get there as soon as you can and ask for Laura. She’ll get you in ahead of everyone else and do the test.” He was calm, his voice maddeningly even.

“Why didn’t you call last night?” I choked.

“I couldn’t, I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it must have been awful for you, but you know, sorry, I had my own shit to deal with.”

“No, I understand,” I said. I was still crying. “I’m so sorry. How are you holding up?”

“I don’t care about myself,” he said, totally monotone. “But if I gave it to you…”

His voice trailed off.

“I’ll go now,” I said. “Will you come with me?”

“I have to get to the showroom. It’s a huge day for us.”

“I’ll call you as soon as I’m out,” I said. “I love you.”

I got out of bed and made it to the bathroom before I sank in the doorway.

Emily met me at
the center. She clutched my arm and said, “Everything is going to be fine.”

“We never used condoms,” I said. “I don’t think ever.”

“Everything is going to be fine,” she repeated. “Are you ready to go in?”

“I need a cigarette first,” I said. “If I’m positive, this will probably have to be my last.”

“Stop it,” she said. We smoked in silence on a bench outside the center.

“It’s funny,” she said, exhaling and waving her hand toward the center. “Getting tested, it’s like our generation’s version of the draft. We’re all just waiting for our number to get called.”

“Grim, Em,” I said.

We ditched our cigarettes and walked inside. It was cold and medicinal, with dirty floors. A security guard directed us to an elevator. When we exited upstairs we were met by a receptionist in front of a room packed with people nervously avoiding eye contact with each other, except for the occasional couples, both gay and straight.

“Shit,” Emily muttered. “Thank god you’ve got VIP access.”

I asked the receptionist for Laura, and a few minutes later a woman came and collected me and ushered me to a back room. “You’re Everett’s friend, right?” she asked. I just nodded. I couldn’t even speak.

She had me wait outside a door where someone else was getting blood drawn. “Do this one next,” she told him and handed him some paperwork.

She waited while he drew the blood and took it from him. “Just wait out there,” she said. “Give me twenty minutes.”

I went back out to the waiting room. Emily looked ridiculously glamorous. She was wearing a Chloé dress, with a vintage shawl thrown around her shoulders. I was hiding underneath the same gray hoodie I’d been wearing for the past few days. I sat down in the seat she’d been saving for me, resting my head in her lap. She stroked my shoulders while we both stared at the clock in silence.

Laura finally came out and beckoned me. Emily squeezed my hand as I stood up and I followed Laura to her office. All I could think in my mind was
My life is about to change.
I tried to read her body language but she had a great poker face until we were finally behind closed doors. I sat down in the chair and she finally turned around and beamed at me.

“Oh, thank god,” I said. I started shaking.

“Completely negative,” she said. “Do you want to see for yourself?”

“Yes, please,” I said.

“Don’t tell anyone I’m doing this, we’re not allowed to do it legally. Give me your finger,” she instructed as she slapped on some plastic gloves.

She pricked my finger and added the blood to a small vial with some other liquid, then stuck a rectangular piece of paper in it with tiny measured marks on it.

“See, watch,” she said excitedly, as capillary action drew the liquid mixture up the piece of paper. “If it rises above this line, you are positive. But as long as it stays below here, there are no antibodies present.”

It felt like a game show, watching my blood creep slowly up the marker and praying it wouldn’t go farther. I wanted to shout “No whammies!”

“See?” she said. “Not a trace. But we’re not out of the woods yet. When was the last time you and Everett had unprotected sex?”

“I think a month ago,” I said. “Maybe six weeks?”
Jesus, no wonder he was cheating on me
, I thought. “I mean we were doing other stuff, but not, you know, the really unsafe stuff.”

“You need to come back once a month for the next six months and get retested,” she said. “Honestly, it usually would have presented itself by now, but six months is still our safety mark.”

I stood up and hugged her.

When I got back out to the waiting room I could see terror on Emily’s face. I realized I’d been gone much longer than a usual negative response would have taken, so I flashed her a discreet thumbs-up sign. She jumped up and we got out of the building as fast as we could.

“Can we please never do that again?” she asked.

“I have to go back once a month for the next six months,” I said.

“Holy fuck,” she said.

“I can do those on my own,” I said. “She seemed pretty sure that I was safe. It’s just in case. But this basically means I have to be celibate for the next six months.”

“Big fucking deal,” she said. “I have to get to the office.”

We embraced and I thanked her again. But I knew I didn’t need to.

I called Everett and told him the news. “Oh, thank god,” he whispered. “I can’t talk now but can I come over tonight to talk?” he asked.

Yes.

When he arrived we
spooned in silence in my bed for what felt like hours. I think I even fell asleep for a while. He was so fucking young. I couldn’t be angry with him. It wasn’t his fault that this disease exists. But I know it was also so easy for me to think this, knowing I was the one who was negative after both of us fully participated in unsafe sex.

“Do you think you know when you got it?” I finally asked.

“I have an idea,” he said.

“Was it before or after I met you?” I asked.

“I
never
cheated on you,” he said.

“You sort of knew, though, didn’t you?” I asked. “That’s why you never went and got tested earlier when I asked you to.”

He didn’t say anything and I knew I was right. I didn’t have it in my heart to be angry at him for putting me at risk. It was just as much my fault for being so high that I hadn’t trusted my instincts and thrown out all caution. I’d wanted so badly to believe that I’d found love, I had been so happy to exist in my bedroom pill cloud—lights out, TV flickering, two naked bodies, and no cares.

I tried to figure out why I had tested negative. Maybe it was the pills that had saved me. My sex drive had begun to dwindle so low that at times I’d force myself to give him head to hold up what I felt was my end of the relationship. Always high, always with one eye on the TV.