A.N./ I absolutely adore Ryan Kelley, who plays Enzo Cooke in "Law and Order: SVU : Users," so I had to write this.
She was beautiful. I felt a long forgotten part of my mind open up and flood me with an almost uncomfortably strong emotion. I raised the camera that Dad had given to me last Christmas—via airmail—and shot her picture as she leaned, haughtily folding her arms at her dad, against the wall. That started me on a series of attempts to win them both over. AJ, as I learned her name was, soon grew to love me, but her father never really approved of me. I bet it's because I rolled up my sleeves once. The tracks of my self-loathing marred my once-smooth, white skin.
There was a line where one of my veins had collapsed beneath the surface of my skinny forearm. Yet I could only stop injecting for a few hours on end, unless I was with AJ. When we could touch and kiss and love, I felt as much euphoria as any rush. But when I could see That Man with her, I had to do more crunk.
That's what happened the day Martin killed the love of my life. Maybe not by his own hand, but I knew he had a part in this twisted tragedy. I followed AJ to the sleazy hotel, and I was so scared. The bag of heroin was a heavy lead weight in my pocket. It would calm me. Placing the hose tight, I sucked the powder into the syringe. Taking a deep breath, I emptied the contents into a vein just below the crook of my elbow. The rewards would outlive the pain of injection.
Soon enough, I was floating. Dizzily, I staggered out of the Lexus—another guilt present, this time from my mother—and stood under AJ's window. I could hear her sounds of pleasure seeping out of the room, and my insides clenched painfully. That was supposed to be me. Damn, Martin, for making her so messed up she couldn't even tell what she was doing was wrong. Damn us for being so twisted we couldn't stop him.
Suddenly, I heard gurgles and screams from the room. AJ! The thought was quickly wiped away by the content haze the heroin pulled over my brain. I stood on tiptoe and peered into the room. Her attacker was choking her. I couldn't move for horror. But then the horror dissipated as well. I could only watch, detached, as she died at the hands of some bulky stranger. The sidewalk seemed to twirl around me. I walked sloppily to the car, my eyelids almost closing. I was sweating. I put the car in drive and pulled out, mind racing.
Later that night, I was shaking and trying to learn what happened. My shakes of withdrawal turned to those of anger and dread as AJ's beautiful voice filled my seventy-inch monitor—courtesy of my father. AJ was dead. The thought was unimaginable.
Never again to hold her, touch her. I mourned, tears streaming down my face. Another hit, and twenty minutes later, I had a plan. It took only a few minutes. Putting my camera back on the shelf, I walked to the nearby police station. It was dark—nobody could see me. When I let myself back in, I dropped onto the bed and downed sleeping pills so that I'd be fresh for tomorrow.
The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed and rooted through the boxes in the attic until I found what I was looking for. Dad's old scrubs, from better days, stared up at me with an inviting look. Five minutes later, I wheeled out of the driveway at a full twenty miles per hour.
Inside the morgue section of the institution, nobody blinked twice at this scrawny, haunted sixteen year old, even though I was sure that they were going to catch me before I reached my destination. Luck was with me, however. I found her body unattended.
Just then, I crashed. Utter despair filled me with an unimaginably deep grief. I hadn't realized I could still feel this much. I didn't want to feel, but at the same time, I needed to. I needed to remind myself that I'd never be able to touch her again after today. I threw my arms around her cold corpse, willing me to feel an answering warmth.
"No, no," I groaned. My voice sounded reedy, even to me.
I guess I wanted to be heard, because they came to pull me away from her. Her beautiful face—gone! Any semblance of reason left me then, and I bolted, upturning the tray of instruments with a deafening clatter. I almost ran into the barrel of a shotgun. Trapped. Maybe I could confess. Maybe there was a chance for me to make this right.
The interrogation room was stark gray, with only the slightest hint of brown. I didn't like it, and I pounded on the window that separated me from two solemn-faced adults that stood staring at me.
"Get me out of here," I yelled at them. They turned away, and a tall guy in the room with me grabbed my shoulder, sitting me down on the cold, hard chair. I shook, cold. I was hungry and in shock. AJ.
"Did you hurt AJ?" the man demanded.
"I did it. I confess," I said, my panic at being trapped eating at me. "Now can I go?"
The guy said nothing, just stared at me. I squirmed. I noticed a distraction in the next room, but I didn't pay much attention. All of a sudden, the man rose and asked,
"Want coffee? Sugar?"
How could he be nonchalant? I nodded wordlessly. When he came back, he had a blanket with him as well. I grabbed for the blanket first, my fingers shaking and ice cold, and draped it over my shoulders.
Then the interrogation began. They asked me questions about Martin and AJ. Then they started to ask me about her time of death. The terrible day came back to me with more clarity than I would have thought possible. I started to get a headache, and my breath began to quicken and become shallow. Self-loathing like I'd never felt before filled me and I cried the entire time they made me recount the tale.
"Conquer your fears," I quoted Martin. I sighed, trying to still my sobs. "I couldn't take it any longer and I left. If I hadn't—"here my voice broke—"maybe AJ would still be alive."
"Wait a minute. What were you doing at three in the morning?" The head detective fixed me with an intense stare.
"I lived there. We both did," I informed them.
"The day AJ was killed," the man said. "Did she mention going someplace?"
My breath caught in my throat. "She said she had an appointment," I said. "I thought she was meeting Gold, so I followed her to that sleazy hotel."
I stared off into space for a second, trying not to remember, but knowing I had to. For AJ. With a shaky voice, I continued.
"But I got scared and did some chunk," I admitted. I looked at them, imploring them to understand, but knowing that they never would. I wish they could understand the deep sorrow. I struggled on with the story.
"Then I wasn't scared anymore. I wasn't anything. It's just-I let her die," I said, my voice cracking. "Martin fixes you in ways you never imagine, you know?"
I paused.
"As much as I hate him, I still go. Martin says, or Martin used to say…" My voice turned bitter, mocking. Hard. Martin's face swam up in my vision, and I shuddered, forcing the words out as quickly as possible.
"He smiles when he's good, and he smiles when he's cruel. Same smile."
It all boiled down to my own shortcomings. I vowed to never touch the heroin again. What had started out as a harmless way of whiling away the feelings of neglect that had plagued me had turned into something far worse… the world faded away as my headache made spots appear before my eyes and I escaped into my own memories.
"Go on, just try it," she had urged. "It'll take the pain away." My photography buddy. Her long dark tresses were still imprinted in my mind.
By that time, I had needed no urging. I had woken up alone, as usual, but when I had entered the kitchen that morning, there had been a large, brightly wrapped present on the table rather than my parents. Gone, again. They gave me presents to assuage their own guilt. This time, I almost snapped. What Naomi was offering was peace and fulfillment. Of course I wanted to try it.
I remembered the sharp stick of the needle, painful and then soothing as my first body rush took my pain and hidden sorrow from deep within the blackest holes of my heart and pushed them out of my system. That was my first taste of anything close to happiness ever since my mother and father had hit the rich art trade and had left me, young, scared and lonely, to keep house. The heroin did something for me that nothing else had done before. I had, of course, experimented with alcohol, but the forgetting made the remembering worse when the drunkenness vanished. Waking up in an empty house was always the worst. That's why I turned to the false lullaby of the drug. They say money can't buy happiness, but I thought I had cheated the system.
Now, tears streaming down my face, my love dead, my mother and father half a world away, my protector about to be locked up, and my life in shattered pieces that had to be injected into my blood, I realized just who I had deceived. Only myself. I couldn't blame anyone else for her death. I curled up on the chair, clenching the blanket tightly around me. My chest was constricting my heart, and I heaved, trying to draw a breath. The man asked me if I could testify against Martin, and I said yes. They left. The door closed behind them with a ring of finality.