False freedom

Every choice we make leads us down a path. Nichole is a young woman who lost her family in a horrible car crash and returned to the life she had worked so hard to put behind her.

She walks out of the house after haven gotten what she came for, that little baggie that in her mind will make everything alright or at the very least make her forget the pain of losing everything, The ones who were taken from her and the ones that she pushed away. The ones she lost because she choose that little baggie over maintaining a friend ship. The worst pain of all came from the thought of the one she loved sitting in their home no longer sure of what to do with her. She wondered when he would finally leave her or if she could even stop. But now wasn’t the time to think about that, now she had what she wanted and that’s all that mattered.
She started her car and pulled into the street. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it while wondering where she could stop at so that she could escape. She passed a couple standing on the corner holding hands. They looked so happy. The girls smile went from ear to ear as she looked at this man who clearly was her world. He had this look of admiration, like he was unable to grasp how he had become so lucky to find this girl. Nichole couldn’t help but think of Lee.
Her mind drifted off to the night they sat on the beach, the last night before her breakdown and the world crashing around her. They way he looked at her with eyes of wonder. Then her mind drifted to last night and the pain in his eyes when he came home early from work and saw her on the couch needle still in her arm as he shook her awake begging her “Please stop, Nicky. Please I can’t lose you. I love you. Let me help you. Just please stop.”. She could remember the blank stare in her eyes as she attempted to convince him that she was alright.
The car behind her honked letting her know that the light had changed to green and broke her out of her daze. She turned on the radio and started blasting it as to block the thoughts that she was about to choose a drug over the one person who sees her for what she is and only wants to help. She can’t handle that right now. She needs to get to a parking lot and escape and she needs to do it quick before she begins to cry.
She parks in the back of a shopping center in what she hopes in employ parking between to cars. She leaves the music on but turns it down so that she might drawl less attention to herself. She looks down at her phone and Lee has sent her several texts.
“I love you nichole”
“Baby?”
“Nicky what are you doing?”
“Please answer me.”
“Baby I’m really scared.”
“Nichole, I know what you’re doing. I know you’ve become a slave to this demon. I know you feel alone. Baby I am not going anywhere, you are not going to push me away, I love you. I love all of you. But I have already lost you. You are not my free angel, you are not the girl who speaks from her soul, you are not the woman who brings light into everyone who knows her life. You are sitting in the dark, alone and im assuming scard. You keep pushing everyone away and I didn’t want to see what was happening, But I can not deny what I walked into last night and baby girl you need help. So let me be there for you. I love you I will see you at home tonight. We are going to talk. I don’t care if you are high or not we are talking. I LOVE YOU.”
She could feel the tears swelling in her eyes and for the slightest moment the light she didn’t know she was missing brightened her world. Then she looked down at her hands. With her finger she lightly traced the veins in her left hand. The slight pain from the light bruising sent shivers up her arm and down her spine. The pin sized scabs ,that if you were to play connect the dots with you would get a perfect out line of her veins, filled her with desire as she felt each one with the memory of the feeling that followed.
She opened her glove box and pulled out her spoon. I have already lost you. She opened the baggie and poured the contents on to the spoon. You’re sitting in the dark, alone. She filled the needle with water and emptied it on to the spoon. You keep pushing everyone away. She held her lighter to the bottom of the spoon and waited for it to be perfect. Baby girl you need help. With tears falling from here eyes she placed the tip of the needle into the cotton and pulled up the heroin into the syringe. You’re a slave. The tears are over flowing and just streaming down her face. You’re a slave. The words are running around and around in her head. She doesn’t want to face the reality of how true it has become. But with the needle in her lap what is she to do. She wraps her phone chord around her arm like she has done so many times before to make her veins pop out. The tears falling from the tip of her nose as she slides in into her hand and pushes down on the syringe. She closes her eyes and tips her head back waiting for that feeling that she needs.
The tears had stopped as the feeling of false freedom spread through her blood stream. The escape had come and although she couldn’t smile and she didn’t feel happy she no longer felt the pain of what she had done. Lees words had stopped spinning around in her head. Who was he to tell her that she wasn’t free? This feeling, this moment right here, this is what she needed. She was numb as she sat in her car in the back of a parking lot eyes closed and alone. No one to tell her what to do. No one to judge her. No one she could disappoint. No one at all. Just her and the devil dancing through her veins. She choose not to see how she was once again dying.
“We're all bound by certain forces
The same as any one
Step out of the shadows
My little one”
Step out of the Shadows by Glen Hansard starts playing over the radio causing Nichole to open her eyes.
“There's a change a surely comin'
A will that will be done
Step out of the shadows
My little one
Will you step out of the shadows
My little one”
She knew this song but had not heard it in many, many years. You see when she was a child her father would sing it to her when she was crying and the last time he had sang it to her she had been 12 years old and they were driving home from her grandfathers funeral. How could this song have found her here? A song she had never heard on the radio before, a song that she had never heard sung by any once else other then her father until this moment and even though she knew it couldn’t be him she couldn’t shake the sight from him in her mind. She turned up the music and pulled her knees to her chest. With her arms wrapped around her legs and her face in knees she began to sob.
She allowed the song to wrap around her as she sat in the back of this parking lot, alone, lost, and scared. She held nothing back as she let her numb body cry uncontroably. Confused by the feeling and not knowing if she was numb or not because it was coming in waves almost to the beat of the music.
Lee’s words came into focus once more “You need help babygirl”.
“It's all out there for you waiting
If you're willing to become
Step out of the shadows
My little one
Will you step out of the shadows
My little one”
The car fell quite as the song came to an end and Nichole turned off the radio. She sat there staring straight out the window. She knew what she needed to do. She needed to ask for someone to open the door for her so she could follow the light out. She needed to take a leap of faith and step out of the shadows. She knew she was high and she knew that if she didn’t act now that her bravery would surely run out.
She picked up her phone and dialed Lees number. She waited as it rang once, twice, three times before clicking over to voicemail. “Lee.” Was all she could get out before breaking into a sob once more. Taking a slow deep breath to calm her self down she started again “Lee, you’re right. I need help. I will be waiting for you at home. I love you and I’m so sorry that this is what I have become.” She hung up the phone knowing for the first time in months she had done the right thing but also knowing she still had more dope in her bra. She headed home telling herself that shed just finish off what she had left when she got home, after all it would be a waste of money if she didn’t.
She walked in the door and looked at the clock. Four o’clock. She still had one hour before he’d be home from work and with the voicemail she had left there would be no getting out of talking or him going through her things. “You’re a slave” The words ringing in her ears. Nichole knew if she wanted to use one more time that the time was now. The thing was she didn’t know if she wanted to. She put everything on the coffee table. Her spoon, the baggies, the needle and her lighter all lined up in front of her.
Often times in life we are faced with two options and the choices we make will lead us down different paths in life. Every path is intertwined with the others and there are chances placed all around to cross over from one path to the next. To go from the light to the dark and from the dark to the light. The thing that drives people the Nichole mad though is the fact that you can never see where the paths lead. She is unable to see the future and nothing is ever certain. So in her mind what could be the harm in just using what she had left? Lee would be home in forty-five minutes and this will be the last time. She will let him help her then and she will cross the bridge into the light when he gets here. But for right now she will just stay on this dark path.
She got everything set up and it was just a little bit more then she usually did because she had to finish off what she had. “I have already lost you.” The words flashed through her head one last time but she cleared it away with the thought that Lee would have her back after tonight but for right now for this moment she was still a slave to the demon of her own mind. Little did Nichole know that Lees words flashing in her mind was her last chance to turn around. Now the pieces where locked in place and there was no going back.
She pulled out her phone read the text from Lee “I will be home in fifteen minutes baby. I am so proud of you for asking for help. I love you. I will see you soon.”
“I love you too lee.”
She placed the needle in her skin and felt the devil swarm through her veins once more, but it was more then she was used to and the devil can be very strong. Nichole didn’t even know what she had done as she felt her eyes close for the last time.
Not all stories have happy endings and we never know when ours will be over. What choices have we made that lead us to the point we are now and where will our next decision take us? Who do we affect when cross the bridge from one path to the next? Who do we leave behind when it’s all over?
Lee walked into the house that Nichole and him had made a home. He walked through the kitchen with flowers in hand so proud of the love of his life finally asking for help, finally letting him in to the hell that Nichole called her mind. “Baby where are you?” He called out as he rounded the corner to the living room where he saw her slumped over the edge of the couch. The tools of her death still laid out on the coffee table other then the needle that still sat in her hand.
The flowers fell to the floor as he ran to her side and grabbed her cheeks in his hands so that he could look at her face which was already pale from the lack of blood flowing through her skin. He could feel the anger in his voice as he begged her to wake up. “Please baby please don’t leave me. Nichole I need you” the tears burned as they streamed down his face. “Nicky I love you, you can’t die on me.” But it was already to late. She was gone. He kissed her lips that were a shade between blue and purple and pulled her lifeless body into his arms. “I am so sorry I should have gotten home sooner Nicky. I should have been here.” He sobs into her hair as he calls 911 already knowing that there is nothing they can do.

Author's Note

Welp.... Tell me what you think.