Thank you for your reviews, everyone! It's my birthday this weekend, so I probably won't update until about Wednesday as I'm going out with friends and family, and I'm going to several parties, too (I do nothing for about 50 weeks of the year, then around my birthday and Christmas, I do everything!). As ever, reviews are appreciated greatly!
God, Greenock was cold, thought Evanna as she walked from the station, still wearing her ancient, torn lace dress and crimson cardigan. She'd been to London - not that she could afford the tickets, but that was where sexuality came into play. Ticket guards were rather less strict if you offered them something other than money for a ticket, she'd discovered.
London had been, for want of a better word, shit - she'd managed to sleep her way into a hotel (hotel managers, too, preferred sex as a currency), and stayed there a night, relying on the hospitality of the homeless on the riverbanks the other nights. The only reason she'd really been down there was because an ex-boyfriend had offered her work for a couple of days as an escort. She felt like a let-down, every time she walked into a swanky hotel to meet a businessman, most of whom had been twice her age. Not only to herself, but to Jess, who'd always told her that escort work was the worst thing in the world, and to Christine, who'd shown her such kindness in those few hours. She could have been getting an education. She could have been helping other people and doing good things in the world... but no, what had she been doing? Meeting the every want of a man who'd probably spent more on the girls he was hiring in a few days than she could earn in a week. At least, she thought now, he'd been a good tipper.
She'd walked down the embankment of the River Thames at night; seen the poor and homeless in cardboard boxes, just how she lived in Greenock. Sat and talked to a woman called Amy, who'd been in her exact position just a few years ago, about drugs and sex and life. The first two things were all the latter revolved around, both Amy and Evanna had agreed. A kind man from a charity came along and gave them food, which they ate gladly as the rain began to fall. At least it had disguised their silent tears.
With the money she'd earned, Evanna had bought herself a pair of cheap, black jeans and a plain black t-shirt, which only highlighted the protrusion of her ribs when she wore it, but the outfit was considerably warmer than her old dress. Having spent two or three nights in London, and visited more hotels than she'd known existed, she'd bought herself something more valuable to her than all the clothes in the world - more alcohol, and more drugs. Strong stuff, the dealer had told her under the bridge - she'd need less of it than what she usually had. It was odd for a dealer to tell her to be cautious when using it, she thought... but he'd shown her how much she'd need and given her the needle so that she could try it out. And he was right; it was very, very good stuff.
She'd used up her packet she'd taken from Greenock by the time she'd finished with the ticket master on the London to Edinburgh train, but she'd been determined to stay clean for a couple of hours so as she could use her new stuff when she got back home - not that she really had one, of course. Home, at the moment, was an alcove in a back alley by an off-licence.
So she set off out of Greenock station in the bitter cold, trying to find a quiet place where she could shoot up and be on her way to somewhere else. The alley by the off-licence seemed too far away, so she ducked behind some waste bins round the back of a restaurant and fastened the old tie around the top of her arm to locate a vein. It was getting more difficult, nowadays, because of the sheer amount of scars on her arms which obscured the veins from the sharp needle - she'd taken to injecting between her toes at one point, but she didn't have time at that moment to remove her boots and tights, and so picked a small gap in the scarring on her right arm to force the needle into. She'd stopped feeling the pain of the injections a long time ago - she was so used to it that it was merely a part of everyday life for her, now, and she felt nothing as the metal slid through her skin and into a vein. She sighed in relief as she injected the substance, feeling the warmth rush through her body. God, that stuff was good.
She put her needle, tie and packet back in her small black handbag (a 'gift', so to speak, from a customer who happened to own a handbag company), before walking back out onto the main road. The light was blinding, but the wind whipping round her made the town seem even colder than usual as she walked slowly in the direction of the off-licence. She could feel her legs growing weaker by the step, but it was a sensation she was used to - not eating for days on end did usually have that effect. She was wasting away, practically - bones protruding all over her body, but food came in as a second thought in comparison to the need for more drugs to fuel her.
For a moment, she thought about going back to Christine's, but not only did she not remember the way, she was sure that she wouldn't be alone. Evanna didn't think she could cope with having to speak to more people, today - people who'd judge her, silently, looking over her scars and her body and making assumptions about everything that had happened in her life. She couldn't bear those looks. Even if Christine was with her boyfriend, Evanna didn't think she could take having to talk to someone who didn't understand exactly what she was going through.
So instead, she walked the familiar route to the off-licence, knowing full well that she was attracting glares from the people she passed in the street. Children staring in awe at her, because she was hardly a usual sight on the streets of Greenock. Teenage boys leering at her, the girls staring and whispering to each other. Adults and elderly people pitying her. She hated it. All of it - nothing matched her desire to just be like everyone else, and not to be judged - to be clean and normal. Except, perhaps, her desire - her need - for more drugs. It was a vicious cycle, for an addict like her - a downwards spiral into oblivion, where doubtless she'd still not find solace.
She looked up, and was sure for a moment that she'd seen Christine across the street. Just as she was about to run through the traffic to her, like a small child would to their mother, she disappeared amongst the hoards of people on the pavement - one among hundreds, who she'd probably never find. Evanna turned around, and carried on towards her home of the back alley, a silent tear running down her face. For a brief few hours, she'd had someone who cared about her; someone who wanted to keep her safe and out of harm's way... but she'd thrown that all away with her pathetic addiction and habits. That was all she was - pathetic. Nobody wanted her for anything but sex. They never would.
Good-for-nothing junkie.
She'd heard people say that about her, when they were still within earshot - "tart", "hopeless", "useless". All true, she supposed.
With tears still running down her pale face, she finally reached the alley which she called home. She collapsed down onto the cobbled floor, no longer caring about whether her dress would get even more stained - what did it really matter? Her joints ached from walking, although she'd only been on her feet for about twenty minutes - malnutrition didn't do much for the bones, she thought. The pain from her joints was nothing in comparison to the pain her mind was inflicting on her, though, and she knew only one solution, pathetic as it was.
So she took out the needle, tie and packet again, pulling the black tie tight around her skinny upper arm and holding it with her uneven teeth until she could see a free vein in her forearm. The syringe was already pretty much full from earlier, and Evanna took it in her left hand, taking a deep breath before jabbing it into her right arm, trying to find a vein. She couldn't, and pulled the needle out, her vision blurred from the salty tears in her eyes as she pushed the needle back into her arm.
No vein again. Jesus Christ, she was desperate now - she'd have injected it into her neck had she been able to see where the veins were, because she so needed the release from her torment. Nobody could ever possibly understand that.
She took the needle out and tried again, this time succeeding in getting the vein. She exhaled, before pushing the liquid through the needle and into her body. Perhaps she didn't realise exactly how much she'd used, or perhaps her subconscious was just desperate to black everything out, but she injected the entire syringe full of heroin into her arm, the vein throbbing with the fill of drugs.
She pulled the needle out and took the tie off her arm, shoving them in her bag before leaning against the grubby brick wall, exhaling shakily. She felt dizzy, but that was hardly unusual given the amount she'd just injected - she was sure she'd used more than that in the past. She'd be fine, she thought to herself. She always bloody was, no matter how hard she tried.
A wave of nausea came over her, and she threw up the meagre contents of her stomach onto the cobbles next to her. God, she hated this, but it was better than she knew she'd feel without the drugs - at least her mind couldn't hurt her when she was high, because she frankly hardly had a clue where she was. She took a swig from the whisky bottle she'd taken from her handbag - it was half empty now, as she'd been drinking from it since she bought it a few hours ago down in London. She could do with some of the stuff being constantly fed into her system - the cocktail of that and the heroin seemed to help numb the pain.
Her head span as she tried to crawl across the alley to the little alcove where she usually slept. It was crippling her; the drugs and the alcohol combined in her system, but she couldn't help but feel soothed by it. She gave up when she got halfway across the alley, and simply lay on the cobbles, defeated, hair fanned out and her ocean eyes closing without her mind's consent as she stared at the wall which was so close, yet so far away. She let her eyes close then, and didn't try to hold her head up, instead allowing her face to rest on the cold, hard ground.
She didn't care any more.