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 Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:21 pm
So much for you and I until the end, huh?
The words still haunted him as much now as the first time he heard them on his voicemail in the early hours of the morning when he was dragging himself to bed. They twisted like daggers in his lungs when he listened to them again and again, playing the haunting sound of Jade’s voice from the speaker of his phone so that he could torture himself with the amount of pain and disappointment that dripped from every syllable she spoke. He remembered that same voice when it was full of laughter, the way it sounded when she whispered I love you just before he fell asleep next to her…
I hope you’re happy.
He wasn’t.
With a grimace, he tilted back the bottle he had been clutching in his left hand just as the recording ticked to 0:00. It burned to match the self loathing that writhed in his gut and he let his hand drop with a sigh like fire, sloshing the liquid in the bottle; it didn’t matter, there wasn’t enough left to spill. The phone was abandoned where he had been sitting as he stood and shoved the sliding door of his bedroom open with a bony shoulder. On the bed, a voice murmured something he couldn’t hear and turned away from the sound of his reentry, showing him a sheet of white hair. It was the wrong voice, the wrong person.
In a haze that he had grown too comfortable with, Levi wandered down the hallway of his apartment like a ghost. His shoulders brushed the wall as his feet betrayed his balance but somehow, eventually, he rounded into the open doorway of his bathroom and caught himself with one hand on the slab of cool granite next to his sink. The bottle he still clutched in one hand lowered with a clink as his eyes rose up to the sight of the man staring back at him from the mirror. In the filtered light of the streetlights that poured in through the high bathroom window, he barely recognized himself. The eyes that looked back at him were sunken and the dark circles beneath them looked more like bruises against the paleness of his skin. He had always been thin, had always had sharp features, but now he was a wraith of pointed edges and wasting muscle. His eyes shut and his head bowed between his shoulders.
“I do care,” he mumbled to no one. There was no one left to listen though. Defeated and more alone than he had been in years, he crumpled onto the floor and turned until he could brace his back against the flat of the counter behind him. Defeated, he let his head fall back against it with a rough thud.
He honestly couldn’t have said where it all started or where it all went wrong. Sure, the concussion he had suffered had been the beginning of the worst of his addictions but he couldn’t blame everything on that. Some of it had been conscious. A lot of it, in fact. One more fix to get him through the next hour of work, another to spend the night at his best while he schmoozed his clients, yet another just for fun. Over and over he had made the excuses: it was for work, it was to help Jade, it was… it was what, exactly?
Long, thin legs pulled up against his bare chest and his palms pressed flat against his eyelids. Maybe he could rub away all of his mistakes and leave them in the stars that speckled across his vision. Maybe he could just lose himself in absolute darkness. Maybe it would be easier…
This is stupid, you don’t even care...
She was always there, though, always taunting him.
“I do care,” he repeated, again, but she wouldn’t answer.
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:25 pm
Levi had never been a man that hesitated. Even before he made it big, so to speak, he’d been confident and sure of himself. Yet, as he stood there on the threshold of a door he had never wanted to pass again, he didn’t know if he could actually bring himself to go through with this. His feet shifted, his hand rose a half dozen times to knock before it fell again, and still he felt no less frozen than the moment he had come face to face with the elegant knocker.
Some cruel twist of fate intervened; the door opened and there, in a moment of both relief and shame, stood the only person he could turn to now that Jade had left.
“Chase,” he mumbled with a tongue that felt like lead, “I need your help.”
He didn’t know if it was disappointment or approval that met him in those whiskey eyes but it had been a long, long time since he had been able to read the face that stared back at him. Whatever his once friend and commanding officer felt, he pushed the door open and stepped aside to let Levi pass. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that he would be spared a beratement but he was thankful that in that moment he was allowed to enter without an I told you so.
With a deep, shaky breath, he dropped his eyes and stepped forward without fanfare or attempts to downplay what this meant for him. Chase didn’t have his position as a General because of luck and he most certainly had warned his subordinate over the risks time and time again, well before they had cost him the most important thing in his life. Even if he could no longer count on the man as a friend he knew, at least, that he would do what was best for his lieutenant because it was what was best for the Negaverse and for his team. While there was not always compassion in Metallia’s ranks there was still reason.
The door shut behind him and Levi readied himself for what was possibly the hardest decision he had ever made.
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:26 pm
“So?”
Tired, acid eyes rolled sidelong to look at the composed man sitting next to him.
So, what?
The response popped to his mind and sat heavy on his tongue unsaid. He hadn’t been able to remember what it was like to be sober but now he had the words to put to it: miserable, cold, aching. He pulled his drab, oversized sweater over his hands and tucked them closely against his chest as his eyes looked anywhere but at that expectant face. Realistically, he knew Chase couldn’t read his mind but that didn’t mean the man wouldn’t figure out what sort of acid was sitting on his tongue. It was uncalled for and, as his therapist had just told him, he needed to learn to express his gratitude.
“I have an addictive personality type.”
For a moment, Levi could have sworn he heard the other man laughing under his breath but when he cut his eyes back to him there was only the faintest glimmer of humor in his tight smile. Was he imagining that brief gleam of familiarity in those liquid eyes? Yes. Absolutely. Annoyed with himself and his imagination, he shut his eyes and pulled his legs up into the uncomfortable plastic of the lounge chair in some effort to ease his aching bones. Chase looked as out of place here in the facility as Levi felt but he wouldn’t say that after everything he was doing for him. Well, and the fact that he was the only one that visited.
“You apartment and office are clean.”
Completely? He wondered. It wasn’t like the man to do anything half assed but Levi, in one last act of defiance, had definitely not given up all of his hiding spots.
“It took a lot longer than it should have.”
That prompted him to open one eye and stare from where his head was lulling back against the wall behind him. Whatever amount of humor he had been imagining was gone now, replaced with, what? Annoyance? Chase had definitely searched every inch of Levi’s space judging by his expression and was decidedly not pleased with him. The mossy-haired man just shrugged at the unspoken accusations; he had already admitted he had a problem.
“Don’t act so surprised.” He knew he sounded ungrateful but he hadn’t checked himself out of the rehab center yet so that was at least something. He was trying. He was here. He was present for the first time in years. The annoyance Chase obviously held for him flared for a breath before the other man seemed to get it under control, shoving it back down into his civilian guise. In what world was Chase Black a more stable human being than Levi? He couldn’t help his own humored smile then as he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. He truly was as pathetic as everyone thought.
“Are you ready to come back?”
It was another question that Levi wanted to answer with impulse; yes. It wasn’t the truth, though, and he knew that. He wanted to come back, he wanted to sleep in his own bed and get back to work, he wanted a lot of things but want wasn’t the same as need. His impulses did not qualify him to go back to reality. His fingers picked idly at the frayed hem of his sleeve but he didn’t seem interested in much more than studying the swirls of the popcorn ceiling high overhead.
“Levi.”
“No,” he barked, more curt than he meant to be. The light from the windows was straining on his eyes and he could smell the clorox they had used to wipe down the dingy plastic chairs; existence was miserable and dealing with Chase like this was making it worse. He sat up and let his legs drop back to the floor, leveling his bright eyes back on the other man. “I don’t trust myself yet.”
He didn’t know if that was the answer the other man wanted or not but he nodded and stood, content with it.
“Call me when you do.”
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:28 pm
The days bled into weeks and his life became monotonous. He woke up, he did group activities, he talked to his counselor and then he laid awake at night thinking about every mistake he had ever made. Life without a buzz got easier, in a way, even if the edges of a sober reality still felt too sharp to him. The light was always too bright, effort was always more tiring, smells always made his stomach want to turn. It got easier, though, he kept telling himself that.
Eventually he learned to distract his woes by playing games with other residents or spent hours tapping away on the keys of the piano that was usually abandoned in a corner of the rec room. It had been years since he had put his fingers to the ivories and he had never found the gentle peace that others did in the music when he was a child. No, when he was little all he wanted to do was stay home and play video games; he had resented his mother and her forced lessons then. He would have to tell her he was sorry for that. He appreciated, a little too late, how the tune could carry him away.
“I don’t think there’s any more we can do for you inside of these walls, Levi.”
The words shocked him and his brows drew down as he jerked his head back to the woman he had begun to grow comfortable with. She was older, with a few streaks of gray in her bangs, but her piercing blue eyes were always so clear.
“What do you mean?”
She sighed and folded her hands over her clipboard, leaning forward a level her gaze on his.
“I mean that there’s not any more that we can do for you in here. If you want to continue to recover you’re going to have to leave and face the outside world.”
“But I still-”
Her hand went up to cut him off and she shook her head.
“You still obsess about her, I know. That’s heartbreak, Levi, not addiction.”
The drawn brows furrowed deeper as the thought hit him and she stood in that moment of confusion to return to her desk. He was still lounging in the padded chair as she rummaged through his file but after a few moments she was back, next to him, with a piece of paper in her outstretched hand. One quick glance at the bold, blocky letters showed him it read “Discharge”. He half reached for it but his acidic eyes flickered up to meet her gaze in a moment of panic. He didn’t know when he had begun to rely on her but suddenly the thought of doing this on his own was gut wrenching and terrifying. The look in his face must have made her smile because she settled her opposite hand on his shoulder.
Her words, however, were not the encouraging and uplifting words of wisdom he was expecting:
“We’ve already called Mr. Black, you should pack your things.”
His panic gave way to a scowl as he stood and grabbed the paper from her hand. She was nonplussed by his sudden irritation; she had dealt with a lot worse from him in terms of outbursts. She had been with him through the begging, through the days that it felt like something was eating him from the inside out, through the misery and hopelessness that gripped him after it finally began to clear his system. His fingers crumpled around the edges of the paper but he contained himself.
“Thank you, Theresa.”
Her head dipped and this time there was a little humor in those knowing eyes.
“I would say any time, but please don’t come back.”
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:34 pm
That last night he spent in the thin bed with his roommate snoring across the room was one of the most peculiar of his life. He didn’t sleep for thinking. There was a wash of moonlight that drifted through the open curtains and filled the room with projected shadows from the window pane. This had been a comfortable reality while it lasted and now he felt a grip of anxious fear settling beneath his sternum. Here he could be sober, he could be sane, he could be someone that didn’t disappoint people. In the isolation there was no company to run with his vices to relax him, there was no senshi menace threatening everything he knew and loved, there were no ocean eyes threatening to swallow him whole.
But there was also no chance for salvation.
Levi shut his eyes on the moonlight out of frustration and only opened them again when it had been replaced with the early rays of the sun instead. His roommate was still snoring but the analog clock on his bedside table said that he had passed the last three hours to dawn; he didn’t remember sleeping but he also didn’t remember the time slipping away from him. With a sigh, he pushed himself up from the lumpy mattress and crossed over to the chair that sat on his side of the room. A duffel bag was stuffed full and crammed between the legs. It was just one small bag but it held every trace of his existence that had been here. Now his room was a shell, a husk left for some other hopeless soul to inhabit and cling to.
A baggy, worn sweater fell to the floor at his feet and the pajama pants were quick to go with it. Laid out across the chair were the clothes he had worn when he walked through the door a month and some change ago; they were a part of his life outside of this place and a bit of symbolism that was not lost on him. He’d come in a free man with these on his back and he would walk out, free. The skinnies were easy to slip on but were no longer bagging around his waistline. He had started putting weight back on his long bones even if it wasn’t much yet. His shirt slipped on easily and he dipped to hook one arm through his duffel bag, sliding on his shoes in the same fluid motion. On his way out, he stopped only for a moment to look at himself in the mirror above the dresser.
He looked like himself, he thought. His hair was too long and he looked tired from a night of restless tossing but the bags were gone and his cheeks did not sink in beneath the bones. No, that was definitely a familiar face staring back at him now.
The walk through the hallways was a lonely one. In the movies it always seemed like it would be a day of fanfare as someone became healthy enough to walk out of those doors on their own. There should have been friends with roses or bracelets they had made for him so that he wouldn’t forget, his counselor should have been standing at the door with pride in her eyes and somewhere a woman that loved him like her son should have watched him go with tears in her eyes.
There was none of that, though.
He stopped at the desk and found the same guard from the night before, tired and waiting for his replacement to relieve him from the end of his shift.
“Name?”
“Levi Drummond.”
“Alright,” thick fingers pressed a button that made the door buzz and Levi heard the latch pop. As his hand closed around the handle, the man spared a glance away from the black and white screen where he was watching an “I Love Lucy” rerun. “Good luck.”
Speechless, Levi just nodded and swung the door open onto the day that waited for him. The sun was too bright on his tender eyes and the smell of the fresh cut grass made him uneasy but for the first time since he had sobered up, it didn’t make him want to use to shut it out. It was just annoying. One hand raised to shield his eyes from the glare of the morning sun where it sat low on the horizon and beyond it, he realized there was a car parked beneath the awning at the entrance. It was a sleek thing, black and sporty, and he had not an ounce of doubt who would be sitting inside.
He wasn’t sure why he had expected to be alone for a few hours before the General showed up.
A pale hand grasped the door handle and opened it in a slow swing. Whiskey eyes met acid ones as he threw his duffel bag into the space behind his seat and folded himself into it.
“Are you ready to go back?”
Levi leaned his head back into the seat as he thought about the question Chase repeated. Weeks had passed since the first time he asked and Levi wasn’t sure he felt any braver now than he had then. There was so much looming before him that he had to tackle, everything he had been avoiding and shoving down into a box to deal with later.
“Yeah.”
The word bubbled out of its own accord. Levi knew that was the truth. It was time.
Chase’s hand shot out, holding something that Levi recognized even from his peripherals: the cellphone he had given him in case a client called while he was gone. It was the key to everything that connected Levi to his past. All of his clients reached him that way, all of his dealers, all of his family. Jade. He swallowed around a lump in his throat but closed his fingers on the thin, slick device. He settled it into his lap and turned his gaze forward again, staring out at the fading streaks of orange and pink that greeted him instead.
“Yeah, I am,” he repeated.
Chase shifted the gear and pressed his foot into the gas pedal, beginning the long journey away from the drab, blocky building that had been Levi’s sanctuary.
“Good. Welcome Back.”
(Words: 3401)
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