I don’t remember.
The woman in the white dress.
That’s all I could remember.
I got home right before 9 PM. I ingested that Winter drug around twenty minutes later. I think around 10 I met the woman in white. I woke up six hours later. It wasn’t a dream. I didn’t pass out. I was conscious but had no memory of what I was doing.
I was in love with myself.
This body of mine weighed nothing.
I no longer felt that I was someone else.
There wasn’t anything to run away from.
I took Winter while coming down on LSD.
The doors of perception were already open. That’s the best way I can describe it. These doors were opened and I was connected to one of the many spiderwebs that hold the world together. All is beautiful. In a world that is consumed by darkness and negativity, it’s the threads of hope and light that form love. It rejects evil. It’s the goodness in our hearts. A wish for a kinder world.
I was that love.
Then I took Winter.
Maybe it was a dream. Maybe I was deluding myself into thinking it wasn’t. Maybe I just went insane in all the positive ways. I met a ghost. I met a guardian angel.
And she told me everything was going to be okay.
But there was something more.
Something I saw.
Something I wanted to remember.
Something I didn’t want to lose.
What’s it called when go somewhere new, a place you have never been before, but it feels familiar? That you fit there and it feels right. Like in another life, it’s home? It’s different. It’s safe. That’s where I went.
An afterglow of being connected to the threads of love was still surrounding me. It was fading and I was falling back to reality to where things were normal. I didn’t want to go back. I was at peace.
I asked Andrew if he could get more of that drug. I wanted to meet the woman in white again. There was purpose within her. There was so much more for her to tell me. There was so much more for me to see.
“Sorry, babes,” he said over the phone. “I gave you the only one I’m allowed.”
The afterglow faded.
I was left to dwell on the future ramifications of my actions. I cheated on Cody. Our relationship was over now, perhaps since I found out about the promise he had with Emily. I knew that.
I wanted to tell him.
But I couldn’t.
The way his eyes pierced into my soul stopped me. His eyes were my addiction.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“It’s all good,” he said after I apologized for how I was acting. “We’ll talk about it later.”
I sat on the bleachers, Cody took his skateboard and lept down into the skating rink. I watched; like many other days. Things were different now. I was different.
I had to correct the wrongs I’ve done.
“Elizabeth?” A familiar voice asked next to me.
It took me a second to recognize him. I jumped up and hugged him once I did. It was my brother.
“Holy shit!”
“I can’t believe you’re here. I missed you.”
I unwrapped myself off him. Matt smelt burnt, of cigarettes and something else pungent. His clothes were dirty. His lips were chapped.
“I miss you too…”
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh. I’m here with my boyfriend. Matt, how have you been doing? Mom says nothing but bad of you.”
My brother nervously chuckled. “I’ve been trying to get back on my feet. As you can tell, I’m homeless, but that’s alright. I’ve been making by.”
Cody had noticed my brother but kept his distance. He allowed me to catch up with him. We talked for half an hour. Matt told me everything that went on after he was kicked out. He told me of what our mom kept from me.
Like how our mother was dating my stepfather before the divorce.
Like how our mother was part of the reason why my father had so much debt.
As good as it was seeing my brother was, he wasn’t the person I last remember. He no longer had the kind-hearted smile of my big brother. He’d stutter his words and sometimes not even register my own. Matt would run off into tangents and I had to bring him back to the topic on hand.
Cody thought it a great idea to introduce himself once the sun was setting. It was time to leave.
Before we did, I got Matt’s contact info to stay in touch.
We went back to Cody’s house, to his room. I laid on his bed while he sat next to me to smoke weed.
“You have a lot on your mind,” he told me. “Want some?”
I shook my head. “Is that your superpower? You always look at me like you know everything about me.”
“Oh, do I?” Cody chuckled.
“Is that what you do?”
“Want to tell me what’s going on now?”
“Emily told me about the promise. Why didn’t you tell me? I thought I didn’t have to worry.”
“Is that it?” Cody brushed it off. “We made that promise when we were kids. That’s all there is to it. You’re the one I want right now, Ellie.”
“Right now.”
“Yeah.”
“Not forever?”
Cody scoffed, “I can’t see the future. I can’t make that promise.”
“But you can with Emily.”
“We were kids,” he groaned.
“So why are you with me? It isn’t because you see through the mask I put on.”
“Because I like you. You’re fun.
"Do you think I''m a joke?"
"Of course not."
"You don''t have to lie to me to make me feel better."
"Are you asking if I think you''re a joke or that you think that?"
"Both. I guess."
"You wouldn''t be my girlfriend if I thought that. This facade you put on, it''s not a joke, it''s you."
"Who would you pick? Me or Emily?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"What is it about Emily that I can''t fulfill you how she can?"
Cody got up from the bed and paced around his room. “If I wanted Emily, I would be with her. Stop making problems that don’t exist.”
“Don’t they?”
“You’re crazy.”
“What’s stopping you from being with her? She loves you. I can see it in her eyes. You’re hurting her.”
“She’s a big girl. If she had a problem with me she would tell me.”
I sat up. My eyes didn’t leave the sight of my wiggling toes. “I fucked Andrew.”
Cody stopped in his tracks. In my peripheral, he sat on his desk, silent.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I forgive you.”
“What Why?!”
“You were lost, weren’t you? You were mad at me. You should have told me what was going on so you didn’t have to.”
“Don’t bullshit me, how can you stay calm?!”
“What, do you want me to break up with you?”
“No…I…Don’t you care?”
“Look at where we’re standing, Elizabeth.”
My cranium began to squeeze on itself. A migraine. I was unable to talk until the headache started to fade. By that time, Cody was sitting next to me, holding my hand.
“What are you doing?”
“You’ll always be mine, Ellie,” he whispered. “You can’t push me away.”
“I’m still in the tall grass, Cody.”
“Did I ever say it was a bad thing?”
“But I am.”
“Are you afraid you don’t deserve me?”