Time Warp: Gravity

[Chris Rossi]

April 28, 2014

Winter had been staying with her for a couple days now.

When he'd call her to pick him up, she hadn't asked many questions. Mostly because she was afraid of the answer based on just the observations she'd made. He'd met her at a street corner and she's nearly driven right past him. Winter didn't look like her childhood friend anymore. He looked guant and sickly pale... more than half dead really. That alone scared her enough to keep from asking what was going on with him. 

She'd settled him into her place and quietly found a moment to cancel dinner with her family. It was her 24th birthday, but she didn't feel right leaving him alone, or taking him home. When she first saw his name on her phone screen, she had thought that was why he was calling - to wish her a happy birthday. Of course, he was thinking only about himself. It stung, but he was fighting a war right now, and details like birthdays didn't really matter after all. That's what she told herself at least. 

He'd been staying here the last four days, working through the withdrawal. It was torture to watch but the worst seemed to be over. He was even starting to look a little better. Of course, that might have just been wishful thinking, but she wanted to believe that he could do this. 

Until this morning. It was a simple thing. She knocked her chapstick off the bathroom sink and into the trashcan. But in retrieving it she couldn't help but notice the wad of bloody tissues in there. Maybe he had had a nosebleed, she tried to convince herself. That was feasible, right? A part of her knew that there was too much blood for that, but she wanted to believe it. 

And now she just felt sick. 

Her eyes darted towards the bathroom door, wondering how much longer she had as she looked through his bag. She hated doing it but... well, this wasn't the first time he had relapsed or the first time he had lied to her about it. Besides, if she didn't find anything, then what was the harm? So far she'd found only clothes, and she hoped that was all she found, yet she couldn't help but feel that pit in her stomach that said something was wrong here. 

Those ominous feelings of hers were seldom wrong, but she prayed that this time was the exception. 

[Winter Rowley]

Winter Rowley woke up covered in a thin film of cold sweat. He didn’t immediately recognize the room he was in. That wasn’t unusual—really, it was all the same. No matter where he fell asleep, he always managed to wake up in the loneliest place on earth.

He sat up on top of the covers. He was still fully clothed—black hoodie over black t-shirt, black denim, black socks. He tried to remember the last time he’d changed clothes. He couldn’t, which meant that it was probably time to find something else to wear. He looked around the room for his bag, but it wasn’t there. Right—he’d gone out last night, scored while Chris was sleeping, and he’d taken it with him. He hadn’t thought he’d be coming back; he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t bring the drugs into Chris’s apartment, that he wouldn’t betray her trust like that, that he wouldn’t throw away their friendship to get high.

In retrospect, he ought to have known better. If he had a dollar for every promise he’d broken, to himself or otherwise, he wouldn’t have had to trade the scuffed-up iPad in his book bag for heroin.

He raised three pale fingers and palpated the tender side of his neck, hoping that the pain would take his mind off the guilt. It didn’t work—it just made him feel guilty and in pain, and he still needed a goddamn change of clothes. He forced his legs over the side of the bed and managed to stand up without too much effort. His vision was momentarily clouded by blotches of shadow, and he swayed in place until his body adjusted and the dizziness passed.

He opened the door to find Chris rifling through his worn-out black canvas book bag. Anger flared inside of him where guilt had been only moments before.

“Can I help you find something, Christine?” he said.

[Chris Rossi]

Relief washed over her as she found nothing but clothes in his bag. She wasn't sure what she expected really, but this was the outcome she wanted, even if it came with a hefty guilt for doubting him in the first place. He was doing so well. She should have just trusted that instead of overreacting.

His voice startled her, especially since she knew she'd been caught. Though that was quickly replaced with a rush of anger at the use of her full name. He knew that she hated being called that and he only did it when he was trying to piss her off.

Maybe she didn't like what she had done, but she had a good reason for being concerned.

She had a lie on the tip of her tongue, an explanation that he'd believe. But he just had to go and tick her off like that. Suddenly lying felt wrong and she didn't even want to try and spare his feelings. It was the most irrational thing, and yet she couldn't ignore the anger burning in her chest. It was more than the name - it was the fact that he knew how she felt about it and he did it anyway. He really just didn't even care anymore did he.

"I don't know. I have a feeling you'd just lie anyway. I saw the bloody tissues, Winter, and I'm not dumb even though you obviously seem to think so. But you've made it clear you don't give a shit about anyone but yourself, so why should I expect anything different?"

[Winter Rowley]

He knew that Chris hated being called by her full name, which was precisely why he’d done it; it was the surest way to get a fight out of her. Come hell or high water, Winter Rowley always got his fight.

“Oh no, anything but the bloody tissues,” he said, sardonically. “And here I was, trying to keep you from finding out that I’ve been trying to shred my skin off with my fingernails for the past three days. If I had any more hands, I’d have bled to death.”

He pulled up his sleeves and turned his milky white forearms out so that she could examine them. They were littered with fresh scabs and scratches and bruises of varying ages; it drove home the lie pretty well, he thought.

It was her last barb that managed to sting—you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself—and he let his arms fall back and fixed her with a serious look.

“That’s not true.” It wasn’t true. “I just don’t like you going through my shit, alright? Would it kill you to ask first? Or do you actually trust me that little?”

[Chris Rossi]

Chris blanched visibly as he punctuated his explanation with the graphic display of his arms. She almost began to waver but this fight between them had already extended beyond just the tissues or his bag. He had made it personal when he picked this fight and in doing so had opened a can of worms she had been keeping buried for far too long.

This was going to get ugly.

"Right, because you have never lied right to my face before, right?" They both well knew that he had. This was his third attempt at quitting and he had crashed on her couch way more times than she could even remember during the years since they graduated. She knew his struggles with his addiction better than most people in his life did. "Don't you dare pretend that you haven't."

Chris was shaking with emotion now. "You don't care that I spend most my time worrying about you. Looking for you, taking care of you, making sure you're not dead when you're not talking to me. You don't think about me or my life. You don't think about the things you miss in my life. The times when I need you. Because you're not there. You never are unless I'm taking care of you." She wanted to take care of him - better than him ending up dead - but that didn't mean it didn't take a toll on her. Usually she didn't let anyone know that, but right now she was pissed and she was hurt and she wasn't thinking much about what she was saying. Chris wiped at the tears beginning to form in her eyes. No, she wasn't going to cry. She hated crying.

"I want to trust you, Winter. But you've changed. The drugs have changed you. And now I don't know what to think. I want to believe you'd tell the truth, but that's exactly the mindset that makes it so easy for you not to. Can't you understand that, even a little?"

[Winter Rowley]

Winter felt a perverse little twinge of satisfaction at the look on her face; he’d won that battle. He didn’t get to revel in his victory for long, though. He saw the shift in her eyes, the way they hardened like steel and threatened to cut right through him….

The battle had been one thing. He wasn’t ready for the war.

He clenched his jaw in response to her rebuttal, and found that he couldn’t look her in the eye anymore.

“I never said I hadn’t,” he said. “I never—”

Her words spilled over his, though, and for all his shining intellect, Chris had always been the loud one. He let her emotion wash over him in waves, over and over and over again. The desperation in her voice made his chest ache. He didn’t want to be there anymore—why had he come back in the first place? It was the worst thing he could have done.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I’ve been a shit friend. I know that.”

He closed his eyes and raised two fingers to rub at the bridge of his nose, because he needed to fidget. He took a long, deep breath and released it with a heavy sigh. He looked tired. He was tired.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Chris.” He slid his hands into the threadbare pockets of his hooded sweatshirt. “I don’t know if I can give you what you want from me. I’m doing the best that I can.”

[Chris Rossi]

"So what is supposed to make me believe that this time would be any different?" she shot back, trying to get everything out before she could feel bad for speaking her mind. She knew why he was upset with her, but couldn't he understand why she might need a little assurance that he was actually being honest with her?

Of course, understanding everyone else's actions was her job, so probably not.

But then the words that followed were like a suckerpunch straight to the gut, strong enough to knock the wind out of her. She was still angry - and justifiably so - but it was the guilt that won. He wasn't playing fair, but she felt too much like shit suddenly to see that.

She took a deep breath before speaking. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. You're doing the best that you can and you have way more important things on your mind. I know that. It's not fair of me to expect anything else of you. Focusing on yourself is exactly what you need."

God, she was such an enabler. Little did she know just how much at the moment. More so, she felt defeated and she looked it - suddenly seeming years older than she was.

"You're right. I should have trusted you instead of going behind your back. I fucked up. This is supposed to be a safe space for you and I betrayed that... and you. That was wrong... I was wrong." The words tasted bitter in her mouth, but she had to put him first. After all, she hadn't found anything.

"I'm proud of you for seeing this through, Winter," she said finally with a weary hint of a smile on her lips.

[Winter Rowley]

“I don’t know,” said Winter. His mind had gone blank; he didn’t know what to say to her. Even when they were standing right next to each other, he felt like she was far-off and unreachable, like the four feet of space between them was a million miles and there was no point in trying to span that kind of distance anymore. He didn’t have the energy.

She apologized to him, and he wished that she hadn’t. It was so much easier to convince himself that he was right when he was being yelled at. It wasn’t until she told him that she was proud of him, though, that he felt the full weight of his lie as it threatened to overwhelm him.

“Um,” he said, hoarsely. “I mean—it’s your apartment. Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be an asshole. I just woke up, and, um—you know. It’s been a rough couple of days. I’m a jackass when I’m dopesick.”

He looked at her, found that she was smiling, and redirected his gaze pointedly to his feet. He wanted to tell her, but she always made it so hard.

“I’m sorry, Chris.”

He didn’t bother to elaborate.

[Chris Rossi]

Chris felt raw. Her anger and frustration hadn't gone anywhere, just buried deeper inside her where she could pretend they didn't exist any longer, just like she always did. How could she be mad at him when he was going through so much? This was dark, serious stuff. What did stupid things like her birthday matter compared to that? They didn't.

She knew that was true, and she couldn't be mad at him for that. Not when he had already lost so much while he struggled with this.

Just like that she crumpled, sitting on the couch and putting her head into her hands. "No, you didn't do anything wrong. You had every right to be mad. I was acting like a bitch. Of course you're feeling awful and snappy. I mean... after the last couple days, who wouldn't?"

She shook her head as she finally looked up at him. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have started a fight. I don't want to fight with you. I'm sorry... Forgive me?"

Chris felt sick and tired and she just... didn't know what to do anymore.

"You should really eat something. At least some soup," she said finally, standing and hurrying over to the kitchen, eager for something to do other than just feeling like the scum she was.

[Winter Rowley]

Winter didn’t sit—he felt like he should be suffering, somehow. He shuffled awkwardly in place, instead, and seemed determined to look at everything but Chris. He tried to count the cracks in the corner of the ceiling, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have his contacts in.

He sighed a soft, small sigh and finally gazed sidelong.

“It’s fine, Chris. It’s not a big deal.”

He lowered himself onto the couch, then, defeated. One of his knees popped when he bent them, and he made a face. By the time he managed to get comfortable, she was already making a beeline for the kitchen. He suppressed an urge to groan.

“I’m not hungry,” he called after her, knowing that his protest would go ignored. He sank further into the couch, as though he intended to bury himself in it. “Look, Chris, I love you, and I appreciate the thought, but please, please, take a break. Just chill out for, like, two seconds.”

He ran his hands around the edges of the couch cushions, trying to find the remote. He couldn’t feel it; he couldn’t see it, either.

“Do you know where my glasses are?”

[Chris Rossi]

Somehow, his assurance that it was 'not a big deal' did nothing to help her feel better. Thus her sudden determination to busy herself with something, anything else. Taking care of Winter came naturally - she had been doing it since long before he had started with the drugs after all.

She knew that he'd insist that he didn't want anything to eat, after all, he always did, but she also knew that if he didn't feed him, he wouldn't think to eat. At least nothing of any beneficial content. Besides, it was about doing something and more importantly doing something for him. When the expected protest came, she ignored him just as she always did. At least until he continued, begging her to just relax.

It was a little funny. After all, she was the one who generally speaking was always chill. Yet here she was, being told to chill out. That made her pause. His next question though actually made her laugh a little. He was always losing them despite how desperately he needed them.

"Alright, fine," she said in surrender, leaving the kitchen and walking back towards the couch. She grabbed his glasses as she passed the bookshelf where he had left them for some unknown reason. "Here," she said, exasperated affection in her voice as she plopped onto the couch once more, grabbing the remote and handing it to him a moment later.

"So what are we watching?"

[Winter Rowley]

He was more relieved than he ought to have been when he realized that his plea had been heard and he wouldn’t be forced to choke down any more soup. He was an addict, not an invalid—and he was really, really tired of soup.

“Thank you,” he said. He accepted his glasses with a weary half-smile and slid them on. They were rounded, with delicate silver frames, and they sat a bit crooked; his ears were just a touch uneven. He took the remote, too, not without a hint of suspicion. He was used to fighting over what they were going to watch, and her cheerful indulgence made him feel strange, like he was something fragile fixing to break.

He booted up the Netflix app and began flicking through choices innumerable.

“Dunno,” he said, listlessly. He paused his searching to procure something from the pocket of his black denim jeans. It was his phone; he handed it to her without meeting her eyes.

“I want you to keep it,” he said.

[Chris Rossi]

His relief would have slightly offended Chris if she knew what he was thinking. After all, he always refused any sort of solid food, which left her with pretty much no other option if she wanted to get him to eat anything remotely nutritious which he desperately needed. It wasn't a matter of treating him like an invalid - she never even thought of him that way. That was all his father. Chris just wanted to help.

Luckily, she was entirely oblivious to this line of thought, and feeling far too guilty for her own doubts to even consider taking offense.

To say she was used to taking care of him was a vast understatement, especially when it came to things like finding his glasses, so her only response to his thanks was to shrug it off. It really was no big deal. She simply plopped on the couch and stared at the screen as he opened netflix and began looking through the options. Really, she didn't care what they watched. She just didn't want him to be upset with her. So if they could just sit here and watch something, anything, that would be enough.

It was a surprise when he handed her his phone then and though she hesitated, she took it from his hand. Part of her asked why, but she knew that questions made him defensive. Sometimes it was just better to go along with it. "You sure?" she asked even as she wrapped her fingers around the device.