I floated back down to earth slowly. Last time I’d entered Jude’s room, I’d told him, “It’s just sex.” What a crock of crap. He was everything to me. It’s just that I was only allowed to have everything for an hour before it disappeared again.
But today was my birthday, and tonight I was a glass-half-full kind of girl.
Jude shifted his weight off me and rolled to his side. But then he pulled me close, and I snuggled into his shoulder.
Maybe he expected me to burst into tears again, but I wasn’t going to. There would almost surely be more tears over Jude. But I’d save them for later. Tonight was too sweet for tears.
We lay there quietly for a few minutes, holding each other. Eventually my busy brain came back online, and I asked Jude a question that burned brightly in my mind. “How did you get hooked on drugs?”
He gave a snort. “Really? You want to go there right now?”
I gave his bulky chest a single kiss. “I want to understand.”
He grumbled. “Remember when I sprained my ankle at the end of junior year?”
“Sure.”
“They gave me painkillers at the E.R.”
I tried to rewind my memory that far. “But that healed up quickly. I thought you didn’t need those pills.”
“I didn’t. But I had them on my desk. And Gibby and Dex were like, ‘Let me show you what those are really for.’” Jude sighed again. “They taught me how to crush and snort prescription painkillers.”
Jesus. “That was it? Boom? Just like that?”
His voice was low and quiet. “Yes and no. When you first start, it’s just fun. That shit made me feel invincible. And one pill lasted a couple of days. But pretty soon your body adjusts, so I needed more. I started buying them. I told myself that it was no big deal.”
I gave him another little kiss to thank him for telling me. But he wasn’t done.
“That’s how it always goes. I’ve sat through a lot of meetings by now, and everybody’s story is pretty much the same. You think you have it under control. You’re still showing up all the places you’re supposed to show up. And nobody’s really noticed that you have to duck into the bathroom periodically to blow a line. And it’s easier to get through the day, because the things you’re afraid of don’t seem so bad when you’re high.”
“What were you afraid of?” I asked immediately.
But Jude just shook his head.
I’d already pressed my luck tonight, so I let it go. “And how about now? I know you’re going to that meeting in the church basement.”
“Mmm,” he said, kissing my shoulder. “In a week they’ll give me a six-month tag. It’s a plastic keychain. Pretty anticlimactic, really.”
“Six months is nothing to sneeze at.”
“Thanks.” He sounded weary. “Feels like six years, though.”
“Why?”
He lifted my hair and kissed my neck. “You don’t want to hear this crap.”
I pushed up on an elbow, giving up a kiss from Jude for the first time that I could remember. “Actually, I do.”
Jude licked his lips. “My body won’t let me forget the shit I used to put in it.”
“So you have cravings?” I knew the right terminology. You can’t work in a social work office without learning these things.
“Every damn day.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Nagging. Like a twitch. Or an irritating tag in the back of your sweater. And you know just a little hit would make it go away. Some days I can’t remember why it’s so important not to. That’s why I sit in that church basement. It’s not for the shitty coffee. It’s so they can remind me why I stopped.”
I curled up beside him again. “Did you ever try Suboxone? People say it’s a game-changer.”
Jude poked me in the hip. “What do you know from Suboxone?”
“I work in the hospital—the social work office.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Sounds like a depressing job.”
“It’s not. Well, it can be. But mostly it’s great. The people who come in there are in crisis, and we get to sort ’em out. I never go home at night wondering why I bother.”
“That makes one of us.”
I rubbed his back. “I could find you someone who writes prescriptions for Suboxone.”
He was really quiet for a second, which probably meant that I’d overstepped. “I don’t want it,” he said eventually. “I don’t want to treat a drug addiction with another drug.”
“That’s fair,” I said quickly. I sure hadn’t come here to get all up in Jude’s business.
“It’s not just the principle of the thing,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to have to think about dosing myself. Like—is it time to take my pill? What if I took it early just this once? I don’t want to tangle myself up like that.”
I ran a hand up and down the ridges of his perfect chest. “That makes sense. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”
He laughed. “Not hardly. But it’s not all bad. I just had some really good… chocolate cake.”
I pinched him again, and he rolled onto my body for a kiss.
And we were both smiling.
Chapter Fifteen
Jude
Cravings Meter: 3