He drove and drove with the ocean in mind until he ran out of gas in Utah when he stopped and switched license plates with someone else's car. Being pulled over in Todd Alquist's car was the last thing Jesse needed. He had to scrounge the car for change and was surprised to find a wadded up one-hundred dollars under the seat along with a gun. It sent shivers through him when he felt the familiar weight of the Glock. Memories of where guns like these put people if you were at the wrong end came to him. Jesse shook his head and stashed the gun back where he found it, knowing there was no use crying over the people he'd hurt anymore.
He was exhausted when he finally stopped in Nevada. He parked his car in no place in particular and tried not to worry, blocking out thoughts of Mr. White, Todd, Jack or how if he ran into any policeman in the country he'd be going to prison for a very, very long time. He tried not to think about the people he's killed or hurt and he tried to forget the torture these last six months have inflicted on him. He knew how to turn these thoughts off. Jesse had the habit of thinking too much so he'd taught himself to instead think about building his beautiful wooden boxes. To think of running sandpaper over the top and smoothing it with lacquer and he was slowly able to give into his exhaustion with this image soothing his mind.
Once he woke up in the morning, though, the thoughts of Andrea with her big curly hair and her soft curves filled Jesse's mind. He thought of how kind-hearted she was and how she was trying her hardest to be a good mother. He thought of Brock and how he was the closest he'd ever been to having a kid. He thought of dead boys, all over the news, killed by gangs or missing with only a spider as evidence. He thought of dirt bikes being disintegrated, buried under bad memories. He thought randomly of Spooge's child, the little ginger who didn't talk.
He wondered if boys without mothers still made lives for themselves or if they ended up on the streets, slinging dope by the time they're in high school.
Jesse sat up from his position in the driver's seat and for the first time, thought of meth. And not just the word, but the feeling. He thought of Blue Sky and how nothing else was as good after trying it. He started feeling a little jittery thinking about it, but he couldn't stop. So he put the car into gear and drove around the trashiest parts of the city until he could find a Gallery or some crack house somewhere. This was Nevada, after all-sin covering every inch of these deserts.
Then he stopped and parked, and shut off his car. He pulled out a cigarette from the ashtray he'd snuffed out the day before and lit it with the car's lighter. What was he doing, he wondered vaguely as the nicotine rushed to his head. He had been clean for a long time.
More by force and the fact if he stole the meth from the lab Jack would beat the shit out of him.
Although he needed the pick-me-up from time to time, he hadn't done it.
"If anything I'd rather be doing H…" he said under his breath. Chills ran through him at the thought of the Lady. Goose bumps rose on his skin and when Jesse looked over at the passenger seat, it was as if he was seeing a ghost...Jane.
Jane, sitting there staring out the window, exhaling her smoke from the deepest parts of her lungs. But when Jesse blinked, she was gone. He didn't dare to dwell on her anymore. She had haunted him for too long, hurt his heart and overwhelmed his thoughts while he was in captivity. He had quite a lot of time to think.
Mr. White's words rung through his mind once more-
"I watched her overdose and choke to death."
"Shut up!" he tells Mr. White, shaking his head. Why did he haunt Jesse so much?
Hadn't he endured his torture enough?
He told himself to stop thinking about it and took a drag off his stale cigarette, leaning back in his car and feeling the head buzz bring him up from his thoughts. Too bad it'd be gone within a minute.
Thoughts of heroin passed through his mind and he puts the car into gear, feeling the need for it. This is Nevada: a desert full of junkies. Drugs were more common than birds in the sky here. And knowing the looks of the crowd, he knows where to search; around slinky motels and street corners lined with women ready to sell themselves. Within hours, he'd found a dealer and had the needle prepped and ready. He got into his car and after finding a vein, he sinks the needle into his arm, pulling off the tourniquet quickly. He barely has time to pull it out before he feels the rush, the cold, the euphoria of the dangerous drug. He shoves the needle, the spoon and torch in the glove box and leans the car's seat back. He starts to nod off, his heart pumping the good feelings through his body. If it feels so good, he thinks, why am I crying?
He groggily wipes his eyes before he falls asleep into a dream filled with the Lady and Death laughing together at Jesse, bantering and bartering-wondering who would get to keep him longer.
When he wakes up its dark, and he's covered in cold sweat. His stomach turns and he has to move quickly as to not throw up in the car. He stumbles out, just barely, and retches, heaves but nothing comes out because he hasn't eaten in as long as he could remember.
When he stands up and wipes his mouth, he sees her again. This time standing outside, leaning against a tree a few feet away and smoking her cigarette as gracefully as she did. He stares at her, and a little smile twitched at the edges of her red lips. She shakes her head at him and then she's gone. As soon as he blinked she had disappeared and Jesse stands there feeling better than he had in days.
If that's what it took to see her, then he'd do anything. If he had to slam in the dirtiest of places just to get a glimpse of her, of anyone who he cared about then he'd do it. He silently wonders what it would take to see Andrea again.
The next time he slams only the next day, he takes too much. Only a milligram more and he might have been gone. He knows this because she stays with him. Jane stays in his dreams for hours, watching him from the passenger's seat, smiling and chain smoking. When he gets sick, she frowns because he didn't make it out of the car...But the poor junkie doesn't have the energy or comprehension to wipe it off his chin.
"Jesse," she whispers. He cracks his eyes open and he sees her, white as a ghost but still there. He feels her cool hand running through his thick mess of greasy hair. "It's okay to let go of me...I'm gone. You don't want to be where I am."
"But I want you," he says in a pleading tone. His eyes well with tears. "Don't leave me!" he shouts desperately, saliva and vomit spraying. But she's already gone. And all that's left is the faint scent of cigarette smoke and the tears in his eyes.
It feels like a distant memory when he wakes up. She is a distant memory. But he remembers what she said to him. He doesn't need to be with her anymore. She's gone and she's been gone for a long time. He had other people to miss, other people to worry about. One little boy, far away without a mother to worry about.
He lifts his head up to the early morning sun and pleads to a God he doesn't know is there, asking, "When will you stop taking everyone I love?"
Maybe if he started getting better the memories would fade, maybe things wouldn't matter for him so much. Maybe he'd be happy…
But he can't let go of the memories, he can't let go of the chill and good feelings the H brought him. So he takes more than he usually would and he doesn't bother stashing it away when he's done. He can feel himself drifting off, the Lady singing a song of pleasure to him, Jane sitting silently in the passenger's seat watching him as his soul leaves this horrid earth. Andrea is waiting with open arms for him, Mike has a faint look of satisfaction on his face and Mr. White is nowhere to be seen. It's warm in this desert. It's safe and good here. And he knows here he will be okay, because he forgets.