Melanie woke up to the sound of banging on her door. Her head pounded with the sound, and it annoyed her. All the lights were out in her apartment other than a lamp in the bedroom, and she was laying on the floor in front of her couch, the credits rolling on the movie she had meant to watch.
Two bottles, one empty, one half full, sat next to her, and her slip was all twisted up above her belly button. She could feel that her hair was matted and a mess as well. She ignored the knocking on the door, knowing she was not ready to face anyone yet whether it be a salesman, her friends, or her own mother, to whom she hadn’t admitted yet that she had broken up with Andy.
Mother’s Day had come and gone and Melanie had kept her face on around her mother, faking a happy life and a smile. It was something she was an expert at. But behind closed doors she had been a complete wreck. She knew it was bad, but she didn’t care. She wanted to be off the wagon if Andy was too. She wanted to not feel the pain of being alone.
“Melanie, it’s us. Please, open the door.” “Us” sounded ominous to her, though she knew who it must be. She hadn’t even texted or called Caleb in over a week, and she had been pulling the veil over Irene’s eyes for long enough that Irene must be figuring it all out by now. She knew at some point they’d find a way to break in or something, but she ignored it hoping they’d think she wasn’t home for the moment.
She stood up and grabbed the half empty bottle of wine off the floor and took it into the bedroom, shutting off her television on the way. She didn’t want any clue that she was there. As she fell onto the unmade sheets, she brought the bottle to her lips and let the warm liquid slip down her esophagus. She tipped it back until she was laying down and ready to pass out again. Nothing could disturb her now.
She felt a goofy grin spread across her face as she let her body relax, and she dropped the bottle on the ground. She heard it break but didn’t care. The knocking on the door came again, more frantic this time. They must have heard the bottle break. Oh well, there was no getting to the front door now. “I’m fine!” she tried to call to them, but she was sure what came out what much more inaudible than that.
She relaxed into her cushy bed, her legs hanging off the edge, and let her eyes shut. They would just have to figure it out later that she was okay. Maybe she would text them when she woke up and sobered up.
***
“Wake up, Melanie!” Melanie was rudely awakened to a rush of cold water and a hand patting her face. She tried to open her eyes and immediately cried out. The light was penetrating her whole body. It felt like it was going to kill her. Her skull was split in half. “I think she’s waking up, Irene. How’s it going with her phone?” Caleb’s voice rang in Melanie’s ears like a gong. She reached out and found his ear and yanked it towards her.
“Would you please be quiet? My head is going to explode all over you,” Melanie told him through gritted teeth.
“Yep, definitely awake,” Caleb called back to Irene. Melanie opened her eyes just a slit to see if she could get her bearings. She was in the bathtub in her own bathroom. The shower was on, spraying cold water onto her. She squinted to see that Irene was right outside the bathroom holding her phone. What was Irene doing with her phone? And why was her hand wrapped in a bandage?
“Hand, what’s wrong?” she pointed to Irene and looked to Caleb for the answer.
Caleb pursed his lips at her, and Melanie felt like a little kid in trouble for stealing candy. “You broke a wine bottle in the floor of your room, and Irene cut her hand trying to pick it up.” She could hear the disapproving tone in his voice and cringed. She’d become that person again.
“How did you get in?” she asked as another terrible pain ripped its way through her head. She brought up her knees and put her head down on them, successfully drowning out more of the light. The water felt good on her neck as well, which she just realized had been sweating.
“I told the landlord he looked hot in his high-waters and scored a key.” At least Caleb was still in the mood to joke. Perhaps she hadn’t entirely killed their friendship with her alcoholic shenanigans. Why in the world did they keep coming to her rescue?
“Ah, hey, Martin is it?” Melanie sat straight up in the tub to see what Irene was doing. She had somehow got into her phone and called Martin. Oh Lord, it was an intervention. Regretting her fast, jerking movements, she slid back down into the tub and closed her eyes, listening in to the one-sided conversation. “No, I’m a friend of hers. Yes, we could actually use your help. We found her passed out. Yes. Okay, thank you so much. Buh-bye.”
Melanie laughed to herself at the weirdness of hearing only one part of the conversation, but then another searing pain hit her I the head. It was like her brain was being ripped apart. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Martin is on the way over here to get you, okay?”
Irene and Caleb picked her up out of the bathtub and sat her down on the toilet. They began fussing over her hair and her face, even changing her dress to a pair of yoga pants and T-shirt. Melanie kept her eyes closed as they tugged and pulled and prodded at her. She was so not in the mood to see Martin and explain where both she and Andy had been for the past few weeks. But she also didn’t feel like fighting Caleb and Irene at the moment either. She was so done with fighting anything, really.
She heard a knock at the door, and Irene excused herself to go open it as Caleb finished cleaning her up. “Okay, Mel, let’s go,” he whispered to her, helping her up and into the dimly lit living room. At least there was a way to keep the lights low in their room of choice so that she didn’t scream or have to hold her eyes shut while she was trying to hold a conversation.
“Hello, Melanie, it’s good to see you,” Martin began as they sat down on the couch. Irene and Caleb both took a seat on the floor. There was nowhere else to sit since everything else was still at Andy’s. At some point she’d have to send one of them to get it back.
“Hi, Martin. It’s nice to see you too.” Melanie tried to sound as genuine as possible, but she wasn’t sure it was working. Martin was such a nice guy, and she hated to be glib with him. It was just she didn’t know what to say to him. Luckily, he was a pretty talkative guy.
“Usually, I ease into these things, but with you I think straight and to the point is what’s best.” He nodded his head like there was some music playing inside of it. It made her want to question his sobriety for a moment. She just smiled, hoping that was enough to let him know to keep going. “Tell me what’s been going on with you.”
Melanie felt instantly relieved at the fact that he didn’t ask about Andy, only her. However, she was sure he would come up in the subject anyway. “I have been drinking again for a few weeks now. I do it almost every night. I’ve isolated people, namely these two. I just couldn’t face the meetings like this, you know?”
Martin was still bobbing his head up and down to the nonexistent music. “So, tell me what drove you to drink. You’ve been doing so well up until now. People slip and make mistakes for a reason. There’s always a motivation behind every action we take.”
There it was, the philosophical question that would push her to have to talk about Andy. She decided to just rip the band-aid off. “I left Andy. He fell off the wagon first. He lied to me about things going on at work, and then I found the drugs in the laundry. I meant to call you for help, but I went out and found him with friends. He was high and dancing with this girl, really out of control. I got scared and upset seeing him like that and just ran off. I got all my stuff out of his apartment a while back, but he wasn’t home. We haven’t had any contact since.”
Melanie hung her head, suddenly realizing the weight of it all. And to think she hadn’t even texted to make sure he was okay and alive. That’s what had started the problem in the first place, the fact that work was getting dangerous. Was he okay? Maybe Martin had news of him. She was much more interested in the conversation now.
“Well, that would explain why we haven’t seen Andy either.” Melanie’s heart dropped. So, he hadn’t talked to Andy. “Well, such powerful and painful emotions can really hurt a recovery. That’s why we honestly tell most people not to date during the recovery process. But Andy had been doing so well and then you were too, so I let it go. You seemed so good together. I am so sorry, Melanie.”
Melanie nodded in appreciation. “Thank you, Martin. So, what happens now?”
“Well, I think it’s important to get back on the wagon, but even if you fall off you need to be at the meetings. I’d like to see you two nights a week from now on. There’s another meeting on Tuesday nights if you can make it. I don’t run that meeting, but I will attend to support you. I will also try and get a hold of Andy if you’d like and at least see if I can get him to a meeting. I’ll understand if you don’t want him there, though.”
Melanie perked up at the wonderful sound of that idea. “No, of course I want you to contact him. I’m really worried about him. Don’t tell him about me, though. But for sure get him to a meeting. He really needs it.”
“And so do you,” Martin says with a sharp look and a soft smile.
Martin stood up to leave, and they all stood up with them. “Thank you to the both of you for getting me here. You did the right thing. Never hesitate to call me in the future.” He shook both Caleb’s and Irene’s hands before they all walked him to the door and waved goodbye.
Melanie could feel her mood begin to slip as silence came over the three of them that were left. What could she say to her friends that kept having to come to her rescue. A sorry was surely not good enough.
“So, Caleb brought over some movie for us to watch and pajamas. We’re going to have a pajama party!” the way Irene said it made her sound like a girl in junior high. It actually made Melanie laugh.
“Okay, why don’t you guys change and I’ll make some popcorn.” They both smiled and hugged her before disappearing into other rooms to get into their pajamas. Melanie walked into the kitchen and tried to focus on the moment at hand. If she thought about Andy’s well-being, she’d lose it. It was all up to Martin now.
Andy pulled himself off his bike feeling victorious. It was the second run he’d done in a week and a half and they had just made it over the border into the United States. This run was going to be different as he was headed up to Dallas instead of Los Angeles, something he hadn’t done before. They were all pulled over a few miles north of the Mexican border taking a break. He could feel the buzz between all of them as they converged at the truck stop. They had been successful and hadn’t run into any warring cartels or gangs this time.
Zoey was still the hero of the day though after her death defying stunt during the last run. It turns out she didn’t need a new bike. Her brother had taken her back immediately after the run to grab it. It didn’t even have any violations or anything on it, just a few scratches and chipping paint from vandals. Andy had promised her he would pay to get it fixed up.
He watched from afar as the rest of Satan’s Cubs MC gathered in groups laughing and talking. Many were grabbing snacks and going to the bathroom. If he didn’t know better he’d think they were one big family going on a fun road trip. He couldn’t let it go on for long. They had to get the trucks going again, but he felt he owed them some time. He’d been so harsh to them lately, and he wanted to go off alone anyway.
He walked up to Zoey, slipping some cash in her pocket and pretending to drop something on the ground. When he reached down to pick it up, he grabbed something small out of Zoey’s shoe before standing back up and walking off to the restroom. He still didn’t want his team to see how bad it had gotten, how much he needed it.
Andy closed himself into the cleanest stall he could find, knowing nothing would save him from the awful smell. He sat down on the toilet fully clothed, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. He remembered when he went to buy that last bit of cocaine from Zoey, how he had promised it would be the last of it.
It most certainly wasn’t the last. He’d been doing three or four lines a day sometimes, constantly needing it to feel alive and alright. Without it he felt either pain from the loss of Melanie to his own stupidity or anger at himself for being too weak of a human. It was impossible to bear, so he had to have more and more to make it go away.
As he did another line, sitting there in that bathroom he felt a hint of humiliation mixed with his relief. He was relieved knowing that soon he’d be euphoric and nothing would matter -- but humiliated that it had come down to these desperate moments, these secret rendezvous with a drug.
As the high hit him he could feel it coursing through his veins. He felt that he could go on, that he could do anything. He left the restroom and jogged back to his bike. Everyone was beginning to settle down onto their bikes as well. The truck drivers were all in place, their engines started. It was time to head out.
Andy revved his engine and gave the signal, speeding off back to the highway. He wanted to feel the wind whipping past him as he went back on one wheel and touched back down. He was going to make the most of those fleeting moments while he had them before the pain came back.
He knew as he sped up the highway that he was leaving some of his team in the dust. He could see two of the trucks entering the ramp in his rearview mirror still, but everything was the size of ants. He just went with it, thinking they could catch up later. He needed to live in the high at the moment and let everything go.
Part of him knew he was going way too fast and being reckless the way he was weaving in and out of traffic, mostly shipments on the way to somewhere, but he couldn’t stop himself. That’s when he heard it coming up behind him, about the worst sound he could hear when on a run. He could see the lights coming up closer and closer, so he pulled up in front of a large truck, allowing the rest of his stash to slip from his pocket. It was a good thing he hadn’t bought his gun but let Frank be the one carrying this time. He would really have been in trouble.
Andy began slowing down a little, knowing there would be no avoiding the situation even if he tried. At least his team was far enough behind him that he could pass as being out there alone. He just hoped the cop didn’t catch on.
As the car came up beside him with an irate man signaling for Andy to pull over, he noticed that it was a Texas state trooper, and he knew that they weren’t fun people to deal with. He tried not to roll his eyes or do something stupid as he shifted to the right lane and then pulled over to the side of the highway. Hopefully, his team would go on without him and not look back.
Andy heaved out a sigh as the cop came up behind him, almost hitting the back of his motorcycle. “Fucking pigs…” he whispered to himself before the state trooper got out and approached. Andy put down the parking break, standing up. They were going to make him to a sobriety test anyway, and the minute they found out what he was on his bike would be towed and he would be in jail. At least he had the money stashed at his apartment to bail himself out. He’d have to call Frank or Rebecca to go get it for him.
“Please put your hands up, sir,” the officer said with a thick accent that sounded like he was chewing tobacco. The guy probably was chewing before he decided to pull someone over. Sadly, it was one of the least offensive things Andy would have seen an officer of the law do.
Andy complied, his hand up in a surrender position. The state trooper approached with a scowl on his face and began patting Andy down. At least the guy was fast and to the point. He’d be out of jail by the next morning if it kept moving at that pace. As the high began to wear off, though, Andy knew just how harsh it was going to get being there all those hours without his fix.
“Have you been drinking at all, sir?” The way the cop said sir made it sound more like an insult and less like a common courtesy. He was sure there were droves of people in the state that behaved just the same way. He never had liked the south that much. He had no idea how southern California had become exempt from such behavior, but he was grateful that his home had its own brand of idiocy.
“No, sir.” It came out as if he was talking to a drill sergeant or something, and Andy tried his best not to laugh. But he could feel his face cracking a smile. That’s all it was going to take to piss this guy off, something that Andy was so not interested in right then. He heard the sounds of motorcycles passing by, many of them in a lane farther to the left. Good, they were distancing themselves and were about to get away scot-free. At least he had that to be thankful for.
The cop pulled a flashlight from his pocket, which seemed silly considering it was daylight outside. Andy guessed you didn’t have to take an IQ test to be an officer. The light was shined in his eyes, and Andy was pretty sure what the cop would see. It hadn’t been long enough since he did the line for it not to be obvious he’d done something. Sure enough, he could see the suspicion forming on the man’s face.
“Would you like to volunteer what you have been doing, or would you like us to force it out of you at the station?” The state trooper hooked his thumb into his belt as if that would increase the intimidation. Something about the words we and station were apparently supposed to instill fear in Andy’s core. While they did not do that, though, Andy also didn’t want a confrontation of any kind.
“I did a little cocaine, officer. It’s wearing off now, but I’m sure you’ll see it in the blood test that you’ll probably do at the station.” Andy spit the last word out in a mocking tone not meaning to. Maybe the cop didn’t catch the rudeness or maybe he’d ignore it. Hope was all Andy had left in that embarrassing turn of events.
Andy held out his hands cooperatively to be cuffed, and the officer seemed happy to oblige. Andy swore the guy actually had a smile on his face, be it a strange and twisted one. The cop put on the cuffs just a little too tight, and Andy gritted his teeth in pain. At least he had escaped outing the whole team and the cartel. The pain was definitely worth that.
The state trooper shoved him into the back of his vehicle and quickly drove off, disregarding any traffic laws. He just slid down the side of the highway with his lights on, going at least ten or fifteen over the speed limit. He was barely missing some of the larger cars on the way. Andy would have to remember to make a citizen’s arrest the next time he saw the guy, though he was pretty sure he never wanted to see him again.
It didn’t take long to get him down to the county jail, a sad little place in the middle of nowhere. It reminded Andy of the jails with like two or three cells he saw in Western movies. It was totally a joke. The cop set him down on a bench and barked some orders to a woman in an office, probably telling her to order the damn blood test.
Andy sat there for a long time as they took his blood and got him into the system, waiting on something to happen or change. He was ready to get his arraignment over with so that bail could be set and he could pay it. He’d probably have to beg to be allowed to go home, but that wasn’t below him at the moment. He got the feeling he was going to be doing a lot of begging in his life soon.
Finally, he was put in a holding cell with a few others; people that looked like they’d been in a fight and then a young girl who had track marks all up and down her bare arms. It made him feel not as fucked up as he thought he was. He had a clarity that those others obviously didn’t have. In that moment, standing there in a jail cell, Andy knew he was in deep but that he had a lot to be thankful for.
He knew he’d probably get a DUI which was never good, but it could have been so much worse. Had he been caught with possession of the drugs or the weapon or had they caught him aiding in smuggling cocaine into the country, he would never have the chance to turn his life around. It was time to do something about his situation. He vowed to himself that when he got back home he would go back to Addicts Anonymous and ask for help from Martin to get back on track. Hell, he’d live with Martin and let him do drug tests every day if that what it took.
And then, Melanie would come next. He would find her and show her how good he was doing, how much he had improved. He would fall to his knees and beg for a second chance that he didn’t deserve because that’s what he wanted. He wanted a life with Melanie more than he wanted any drug or feeling in the world.