For those who could not stop.

Flash Fiction.

At least you aren’t suffering now. No s**t. They said it was a heroin overdose. Your decaying insides produced a sweet sickly scent that caused me to heave. They settled on your old skin. The flies buzzed around in dark, ugly swarms. I guess the coke wasn’t enough anymore. One in your arm. I found used needles on the floor. I found you in the bath, bloated. I knocked at your door just to check you were OK. I remember you not returning my calls and emails asking you how everything went with your appointments. You had more treatment. You looked a little pale and thin yet seemed alright in yourself, I was glad, I thought the worst was over. You’d had treatment of some sort. I remember the last time I saw you. You continued to abuse coke. A machine. I remember when you were first diagnosed; you recalled when you were twenty-five years old saying that you never thought you would get sick from it all, that you were invincible. We both got married, you got divorced. We laughed because we didn’t care; we were rich, young, and that was all that mattered. I loved it too. You could down two bottles of spirits in an hour and a half no problem, and consume a gram in half an hour. You loved to drink, you loved sniff. You offered me my first line of coke. We did everything together; studied hard, partied too much, graduated together. You spoke to me first. We met at a business school in New York in ’88.