Cycle
thirty-one
Bunny
It had been days since we talked. There was the occasional conversation about something random, but there was no teasing or flirting like there normally was.
And neither of them brought up the night after Battle of the Bands.
We found out earlier that we had won and would be playing at Thrash Fest in two weeks.
Dexter didn’t want to throw a party like he normally would. We were just going to stay home.
I didn’t need them. I could take care of myself.
Walking into my room, I shut the door behind me. The baggie of pills was hidden behind socks in the top drawer of my dresser. Dry swallowing three of them, I immediately felt like a hypocrite. This was my way of taking care of myself. I was a joke.
Pacing the room, memories from my life flashed through my mind. Every time I took a pill and then said I would stop. All the times Dex found me passed out from too many drugs, too much to drink, or a combination of the two and never complained about it. He just always took care of me.
What the fuck was I doing?
“Fuck!” I shouted, snatching the baggie from the drawer and stomping to the bathroom.
Standing over the toilet, I poured the remaining 11 pills I had in my hand.
That was enough to last me a couple of days at least, maybe three if I tried hard.
I’d have to figure out a way to get more in a bit anyway.
Unless I just stopped this all now. Stopped this never-ending spiral I was caught in.
I dropped all of the pills down the toilet and flushed.
Half a second later, I started screaming.
What I had just done sank in. “No. No. No! Shit!” I dropped to my knees and looked down the bowl as if I could will the pills to come back up unscathed.
But I knew there was no way. “Goddammit!” I turned on the floor and banged the back of my head against the bathroom cabinet.
Things really had come full circle. Now I had locked myself in a bathroom.
“Happy now, Mom?” I asked the empty bathroom, a silent tear running down my face.
Five minutes went by. Ten minutes. And I realized I was going to have to get more pills somehow. But that would be something for me to figure out later. Flushing them was really fucking dumb, but I couldn’t do anything about it now. I needed to deal with what was right in front of me.
I mustered up the energy and walked out of the bathroom. Could I rely on Dexter and Marlowe to help me? Should I? I didn’t want to. I wanted to do this myself. I needed to figure things out myself for once.
Being fucked up is clearly not helping things, though. Something has to change.
When I looked out into the backyard, Dexter and Marlowe were playing with Dojo in the backyard.
They laughed and tossed the ball back and forth, watching Dojo run between them.
Looking at Dexter, a weight lifted from my chest. The air around me suddenly seemed more crisp, and I took a deep breath.
My gaze shifted to Marlowe, and she wore my black zip-up hoodie.
It might as well have been hers now. The pink bunny on the sleeve stuck out in the sun when she would throw the ball.
When I watched her, warmth flooded through me.
A coziness that felt on cold nights sitting by a fire.
I was in love with Dexter. There was no doubt about that. I didn’t understand it before, but I was starting to now. And I think I was falling in love with Marlowe too.