This is an excerpt from my NaNo, Darkness.
On Christmas Eve, I smoked an entire pack of cigarettes and drank myself unconscious. It didn’t necessarily make me feel better. There wasn’t even a high. But numbness felt better than pain. Not doing what I had told Devon I would hurt me more than I had expected. The guilt was overwhelming. It was stronger than the anger and sadness for his death.
I had lost three people in the past year. And in losing them, I lost myself.
---
It was mid-February when I met her. I probably should’ve stayed away. Anyone could see that she was a bad choice for a friend. She was short-tempered, violent and just…dark. She was a drug dealer. That’s what caught my attention.
I wish I could say that I was clueless. That I didn’t know who she was. Or what she was. And what she did. And what she was capable of. But I did. I knew her background. I knew how she could manipulate people. I knew how risky it was to form a relationship with her. How risky it was to do anything with her. It was dangerous. She was dangerous.
And I think that’s what drew me to her.
I met her one night by the school. She was sitting in a tree just along the edge of the campus by the road. I was walking down the sidewalk. I wouldn’t have noticed her if she hadn’t been lighting up. It was the dim orange glow of her lighter that caught my attention. I could see her in the faint light of a nearby streetlamp. Her black hair fell across her white face carelessly. Black makeup crowded her eyes, adding to the weight of the shadows. She wore all black and I could just barely make out her thin figure against the tree. She blended into the darkness. She was part of the darkness.
Slowly, she lifted her head to look at me. Her eyes were completely lost in the dark circles of makeup and shadows. I almost gasped aloud.
“Hello.” She greeted, her voice a whisper and sickly sweet.
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t find any words. I knew who she was the second I saw her. I swallowed hard and tried to bring myself to say something, but I was unsuccessful.
Grabbing a branch that was about a foot lower than she was, she swung down and landed only a few feet from me, cigarette still perfectly held in her black lips. It took all my self-control not to jump back. She was taller than I expected. A good couple inches taller than I was.
“How are you this evening?” she asked, her voice still eerily dripping kindness.
I still could not draw any words. I let out a breath that I realized I had been holding since I’d noticed her.
She blew a puff of smoke at my face and laughed. Her laugh was shrill and obviously forced.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” she ran her hand along the side of my face. I could feel the rough paper of the cigarette she was holding scrape against my skin. Surprisingly, I didn’t pull away. And I didn’t have any desire to.
“Sammy.”I said, my voice stronger than I expected it to be.
“I’m Fall.” She smiled almost wryly and nodded once.
“Fall?” I repeated. I already knew her name. Why did it sound so odd now?
“Correct.” She took a long drag and yawned, the smoke releasing from her mouth slowly and in a haze. “Now tell me, Sammy, what would you be doing out this late on a Tuesday night?”
“Walking.” I said stiffly.
“Walking…to where?” she took a step out in front of me.
“Just walking.” I replied slowly, thoroughly intrigued by Fall.
“How ‘bout we walk to my place and I can set you up, yes? I know you gotta use.” She looped her arm into mine and began leading me off in the opposite direction of my apartment.
“No argument there.” I mumbled, following right along.
---
Fall had her own house, as it turns out. I’m not sure how she managed that, but I wasn’t about to ask either. The thick smell of smoke lay heavy in the air. Beer cans scattered the floor and tables. Cigarette butts sat in piles on tables next to overused ashtrays. Film canisters were spread across the floor, no doubt holding various pills. Several bags of weed and crack were stashed around in random places. Needles lay all around, some broken, some full.
“Here it is.” Fall welcomed with a lopsided smile that I didn’t understand.
“Cool.” I commented, nodding. I knew that I should probably have been feeling fear or caution or at least something other than fascination. But I didn’t. I’m not sure why, but I was immensely interested with Fall and I felt no other sense that would lead to me thinking I shouldn’t be with her.
A song that was more screaming than anything else was playing in the background. I tried to focus on the words, but couldn’t catch most of them. One of the only lines I understood was “Get the fuck away!”
“Who is this?” I wondered aloud, making an irrelevant motion with my hand.
“Seven Dust.” Fall replied proudly, turning the music up on her iPod speaker system.
“Oh.” I bobbed my head a few times, pretending to know who that was.
Fall scrambled around in a drawer for a few minutes before looking up and asking, “So, what you wanna do?”
“Don’t matter.” I shrugged, not realizing what she was actually talking about.
“You shoot?” she pulled a needle out and placed it on the counter.
“Huh?” I said dumbly.
She laughed, coming around in back of me and pushing me into another room. “I said, ‘do you shoot?’ Like, heroin.”
“Oh!” I felt my face get hot, acknowledging my own stupidity. “I-…no. I’ve never tried that. I don’t really like-…” Before I could finish or even realize what she was doing, Fall rolled up the sleeve of my sweatshirt and jabbed a needle into my forearm. The sudden sharp pain surprised me and I almost screamed, jumping back. The needle ripped out of my arm and blood almost immediately followed.
Fall leaned her head back and cackled. “You have never done this before.” She giggled, pointing to the blood.
I just stood there in shock, without any clue of what to do or how to react. But all that flew out the door when the high kicked in.
---
Chapter 16
“Where the fucking hell were you?” Lacey hollered at me as soon as I walked in the door.
“I went for a walk, Lace. Chill. I told you when I was leaving.” I pushed past her to the couch and crashed onto it. “I just went for a walk.”
“For eight hours?” she demanded, turning to face me again.
I rolled my eyes, aggravated. “I met someone and went back to their house for a while. Calm down.”
“You met someone and then went to their house? Are you crazy?” her screaming only made the pounding in my head fifty times worse.
“No.” I groaned, putting my forehead in my hands. “I knew her before. I just never talked to her. It’s not like it was a guy or anything.”
“You could’ve called me!”
“I was busy!” I yelled right back at her.
“Busy doing what? I’m not stupid, Sammy. There are only so many things you could’ve been doing out at three in the morning.”
I didn’t care if Lacey knew what I had been doing. Well, fuck you.
“Who were you with?” she kept up with the questions.
I sighed, ready to punch Lacey in the face. “Her name’s Fall. She used to go to my school. I think she would’ve graduated with you. I don’t know.”
“What?” she shrieked. “Fall Masons?”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
Lacey’s jaw dropped. “Idiot! Okay, wait. Let me get this straight. You went out for a ‘walk’ and ended up spending the night with some convict lesbian drug dealer?” her voice got higher, adding to the fact that she already sounded hysterical.
“She’s a lesbian?” I almost laughed.
“Yeah!”
“That would explain a lot.” I chuckled, remembering how she had acted around me, more amused than anything.
“Sam, this isn’t funny! You should not be hanging around her! She won’t help anything!” Lacey pressed, sitting next to me.
I waved her statement away. “I think that’s prejudice or something. Whatever you call it.”
“No, that’s not…I didn’t mean because she’s…Sam, I’m trying to help you, okay? Just don’t go near her again, okay? She won’t help with anything. Drugs and alcohol won’t bring Devon back.”
It felt like she stabbed me in the heart. “Don’t bring Devon into this! Nothing will bring him back, Lacey! I know that!”
“Please, Sam, just promise me you won’t go near her again.” She rested her hand on my arm.
Infuriated, I shook her off and stood up. “No, okay? I’d rather be with her than you. How ‘bout that?” I stalked over to the door and tore it open.
I was halfway into the hall when Lacey called after me, “Please, Sam.” She begged, now standing as well. I turned, glaring hard at her. “I know you’re hurting, Sammy. Everyone can see that. But this is no way to drown the pain. Please, stay with me. We’ll find help for you. Please, please, Sammy. Don’t go back to her. Stay here. I care about you.” Her voice sounded weak and shook. “I want to help you. Just…please-…”
Anger burned through my mind and I slammed the door, sprinting down the hallway.
---
I wasn’t more than a few blocks away from Fall’s house when a beat-up silver Oldsmobile pulled up next to me and parked on the side of the road a few yards in front of where I was. I tried to stay as calm as possible and just kept walking, refusing to look directly at the car. The door on the driver’s side popped open. I held my breath, but kept walking. I could see the silhouette of the person moving toward me, but I didn’t dare look to see what they looked like.
“What are you doing?” I recognized the voice immediately as Kaylie grabbed my shoulder and turned me to face her.
I exhaled and moaned.
Lacey’s own little tracking team.
“Sam, talk to me.” Her eyes were pleading, but hard. She wasn’t about to let me leave. Her hand was still clamped painfully onto my shoulder. I needed a miraculous story to talk myself out of this one.
I stared off to the left and sighed, mind racing.
“I’m not going to let you go anywhere unless you talk to me, Sammy.” She stepped to the side in an attempt to make eye contact, but I looked to the right. “Where were you going?”
I said nothing.
“Sam, where were you going?” we locked eyes for a second and I glanced away again.
“What? Didn’t Lacey tell you? Isn’t that why you’re here?” I spoke softly, sadness overwhelming me, coming randomly.
She ignored what I said and asked again, “Where were you going?”
“Just to someone’s house.” I mumbled, the feeling of sinking setting deeply in.
“Would you like to come stay with me, Sammy?” Kaylie offered, noticing my sadness.
A tear rolled down my cheek and I nodded slightly, wrapping my arms around her in a hug.
---
“Are you okay?” Kaylie asked, pulling her key out of the ignition.
“Uh-huh.” I said weakly.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded, but it was such a small movement, I don’t think she caught it. “I’m fine…I just…I’m fine.”
Kaylie turned in her seat so that she could look at me directly. “Honey, in my experience, when someone uses the word ‘fine’—either in saying ‘it’s fine’ or ‘I’m fine’—they’re almost always lying and rather not fine.”
I couldn’t respond. She was right. I was lying, as I usually was when I said that I was fine.
“My parents are home, okay? They’re fine with you staying over. They won’t bother you and they’re never home during the day.” She said after a long silence.
I stared blankly ahead and got out of the car.
Kaylie led me into her house. It was larger than anything I’d seen around where I lived. The entire lower level—or what I could see of it—had hardwood flooring. Almost every piece of furniture was either black or blue leather. A large chandelier hung from the ceiling in the front room.
“Come on.” Kaylie grabbed my wrist and pulled me up two flights of stairs and into the nearest door.
I knew immediately that it was her room. Two of the walls were painted a light, faded shade of blue and the other two were baby blue. Her bed was off in one corner, taking up more than half of one wall. A closet was built into one wall, both doors closed and covered with different shaped stickers. A green laptop sat on a black and silver desk on a wall opposite her bed and three different chests of drawers, each against a different wall. A full-length mirror glared at me from next to her bed. Not one thing was out on her deep purple carpet. No clothes were out and everything was perfect, straight and orderly.
I must have been making a face, because Kaylie shrugged, “I know. It looks like a five-year-old’s room.”
“No, it’s cool.” I assured her, still looking around. I didn’t so much mind the colors as I did the neatness. It was so unusual for me to stay in a room that didn’t look like a tornado just ripped through it.
“Sam, are you feeling alright? You look kinda pale.” Kaylie asked, feeling my forehead with the back of her hand.
“Uh, yeah. Um…yeah. I’m fine.” I only realized what I had said after I said it. Kaylie looked at me like she knew I was lying. Which she did.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
I shook my head.
She had been expecting that and nodded in understanding, or something close to it. “You seem tired. Do you wanna try to get some sleep?”
“Try being the key word.”
“What?” Kaylie had been reorganizing some papers on her desk and she turned back to look at me, her golden hair flipping around.
“Nothing.”
“No. What did you mean?”
I paused. I hadn’t expected her to take notice to my side comment. “I was just saying…I hardly sleep anymore because I just can’t…I get like two hours a night, if that.”
Her face dropped. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Do you know why you can’t sleep or…no?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t.”
“Oh…well…what do you do all night?”
I shrugged, not wanting to answer that.
“Sammy, I think maybe you should talk to God. He could really help.”
“I don’t believe in-…”
All of a sudden, it felt like my entire body was heavier. Intense pain flooded through my head and nausea squeezed my stomach. My legs shook under the weight and I fell forward on my knees. Kaylie dropped down with me, supporting my arms.
“Sam!” she gasped.
I felt too weak to hold myself up and leaned into her. The weakness and pain terrified me and I breathed in broken sobs. Shaking, I curled up against Kaylie on the floor. My fear spiked without reason and I shook harder. I couldn’t feel her hands as she lowered me onto the ground completely and held my head.
“Sammy! Sammy! What’s happening?” her voice barely carried to me through my ragged breaths and rapid heartbeat that roared in my ears.
Black splotches appeared all across my vision. And then I was consumed by darkness.
