It’s ironic, isn’t it that we survived. Both of us, the two girls he thought would die before him. The two girls he thought were more or less worthless but beautiful.
When I think about him, I don’t think about the bad things, because he is dead. He’s dead & he’s not coming back. I miss him and then if I really think about it, I realize that I don’t know who I miss. Maybe I miss myself before I became all damaged and broken. Maybe it’s not even him at all. And we turned him into some sort of jesus figure – he died so that we could live. But it isn’t even about that – he died because he only cared about himself, and he thought he was immortal, and he was always chasing the next high.
He had us risking our lives to run drugs through borders so that he could make more money that he would never let us touch. I remember how mad he got at me, the first time I did it. I was anxious & started a conversation with a border guard about whether or not I could bring a cat back from mexico, and if I did what would it need to have with it. Apparently they aren’t asked questions like that. The next thing I knew, all of my shit was being searched & I was thinking to myself – “well, they finally got me. There goes my life. Its jail in fucking Arizona for now on.” But, they didn’t catch us. And I remember how I got the worst lecture about how stupid I was, how could I be so fucking stupid? An hour car ride consisting of belittling me because I wasn’t as smart as him. Like I had ever fucking done anything that serious before.
I have always felt guilty for leaving him behind. But I had finally had enough. I had enough of the shit, and I had been writing diary entries about how I wanted to die, about how miserable I was out there & about how horrible he was. I was on the phone every other day to my parents, talking about how I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing there. I may have always used drugs, I may have been an addict, but at that point I was the one who was responsible for everything, I was the one who kept shit together. I wanted him to know that I kept it all together & he should fucking appreciate it. I wanted him to know that I was never so desperate as to stay with someone who treated me like I was beneath him. Now, I realize how much of a front it all was, how much of a joke, but, back then I was 22 and in love and naïve but I wasn’t stupid.
I wanted a pair of 12 dollar shoes. 12 dollar shoes after I had once again risked everything for five grand worth of drugs. I asked him for the 12 dollars. He refused. I called him names. He shoved me into a brick wall right in front of everyone. People stared. I was mortified. A moment later, crying, I went to the pay phone and called my family. Two days later, I was on a plane back to Chicago, with my cat in tow. Fuck it, and fuck him, I was done. Survivalism had finally kicked in. He blamed the drugs. He blamed me. Always with the fucking drugs. How the hell did I live through it? Looking back, I am aware of how lucky I am – to be sitting here in this car right now, breathing, alive, writing these words. I took anethestics because I was in pain, emotional & physical pain. I took them because that was what he did, and I didn’t know any better. I shot those drugs into his body after he made me practice on a goddamn orange for hours. I swam in pools, high & numb, and I didn’t drown but god did I want to. I was drowning in other ways. He wanted a life, he wanted money, he wanted marriage. We had rings and we had fights and they were vicious. He never believed I loved him though, and maybe I didn’t. maybe I did. I was still talking to tom, and, if I had been smart, I would have cut tom out sooner, but he was my best friend. He was my twin before I ever had a twin. He was the air I breathed until he strangled me. I couldn’t be devoted 100% to anyone. I wasn’t even devoted to myself.
And so I left. It was easy. It was scary and wrong how easy it was. I remember sitting next to a girl, this little girl, and how she told me stories on my whole flight home. I took a picture of her smiling face.
I have pictures of us, as a couple. I keep them buried. I have pictures of him with our children, the cats. I wanted a fucking animal so bad, it was so lonely in that cold house. So one day he surprised me & we went and got cats. He named his lestat, and I named mine Sebastian. Except that Sebastian was a girl, so she became ava coco adore. Lestat, god, he was never creative. He got rid of lestat shortly after I left. He called me every day for months begging me to come back ‘home,’ to have a life with him. I refused. I am surprised I was able to hold out. I wonder why I did. I don’t remember. Those memories, like a lot of them, are gone. Erased, after the last car accident.
When I developed the roll of film, I found a picture of myself, asleep, curled up with the kittens in my arms. He had taken it, in some moment of tenderness. That is the picture that makes my heart sink the most. It was an act of love, an act of devotion.
If he were still here, would we even talk? Would we be friends? Would we have become lovers again or would he have married heather or someone else? When I miss him, I think about that the most. And, I am always, always trying to find someone who is the right balance of him, my frist love, and now, ray. I think I loved ray so much because he was so much like him, but not nearly as stupid, not nearly as self destructive, but compelely full of self loathing, and full of horror stories that now make no sense to me. He was an island floating in my bed. But he was brilliant like him, and they would have become best friends – if he were still breathing.
It’s weird being older now. It’s weird having some sort of life – having a desire to accomplish things & realzing that your time can run out at any second & you have to make it count. You have to make it count.
‘But I don’t have the drugs to sort it out….”
