Chapter Twenty One
If you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it! If you like it then you shoulda -
"Hello?" I asked, pushing my bangs out of my face, and trying to keep my cell phone against my ear.
"Caitlin?"
"Yeah, Jessi?" I looked at the clock. The red LED lights glared the numbers 3:30 AM back in my face.
"Uhm.." Her voice got slightly distant, as if she had her head turned away from the mouthpiece of her phone. "I'm on the phone with Caitlin. Yeah, I'll tell her."
"Jessi? What's going on?" She normally didn't call me at 3:30 in the morning for no apparent reason.
"I'll tell you in a minute, but.. Aaron says hi, and that he loves you." I coughed. Aaron was with her?
"Uhm, tell him I love him, too," I said, pushing my bangs out of my eyes once more.
I was now fully sat up in bed, the blankets tangled around my legs.
"She loves you, too. I'll be right back," Jessi told Aaron, and then I believe she went outside, for I could hear what sounded like wind and cars passing by. "You still there?"
"Yeah. What's going on?" I repeated, twirling a lock of my hair around my finger.
"Aaron showed up at my apartment at like, midnight, and told me he needed to talk to me." I interrupted her.
"And you're at your apartment right now?"
"Mhm." I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding in relief. "I bet you could make an accurate guess of what it is he wanted to talk to me about, can't you?"
"The drugs?" I asked quietly.
"Yeah." Her voice softened. "Caitlin, why did you lie to me when I asked if he was doing more than pot?"
"I.. I hoped it would just go away, although I knew it wouldn't happen. And I didn't want you to worry more than you already probably were going to worry," I all but whispered. "I'm sorry."
"You have no reason to be sorry," Jessi said. "Anyway.. He told me everything." My heart flew into my throat.
"What do you mean, everything?"
"He told me that Luke and Steven accosted him and invited him over, telling him it was to just mess around on RockBand and drink some beer, failing to mention anything about drugs of any sort. When he went over after calling you, he got buzzed, and Luke offered him a joint, and he, being himself, took it, not thinking about what could happen if he did." I picked at a spot on the blanket. "He doesn't really remember anything after that, except coming home and treating you like an ass."
"Yeah, he did treat me like an ass," I mumbled. "He pretty much barged in the door, said hi, and then asked me if we had any food, and then traipsed into the living room and stayed there for nearly the rest of the night, as far as I'm concerned."
"Yeah.. He feels bad about that. Uh.. He then started moving onto Valium and he popped Vicodin tablets," Jessi said. I already knew about that. "He did some Acid, and Opium.. He told me that you caught him taking Ritalin."
"Yeah," I said. "He nearly choked when he realized I was in the kitchen."
"Of course he did. He did Extacy, and Cocaine, Meth, Heroin, and GHB.. He also told me that you caught him smoking Meth."
I cringed. This was probably the worst thing that happened, excluding today. "That was.. when I knew it was really, really bad, because he was doing them in the house.. And because I knew what Meth did to people, and how it fucked up lives."
"Yeah, I know how it fucks up lives too, trust me," she said, and I blinked. Jessi cussed. I'd never heard Jessi cuss before. And I don't count ass as a cuss word. "The night he told you.. He told you you weren't going to lose him, didn't he?"
I nodded, and then remembered she couldn't hear me. "Yeah, he did.. And he stopped using for .. a week, maybe? But then he started back up again.. He snorted OxyContin, and that was pretty much all I could take." I sighed deeply. "I walked out on him and took off running. I remember running for a really long time, and falling down.. and crying so hard that I couldn't breathe. I must have passed out from lack of oxygen, and I guess Aaron found me, because I woke up in bed."
"Apparently you really scared him when you did that."
"He didn't tell me I had."
"Well, you did," Jessi said, and then coughed.
"And then that morning I blew up on him and accused him of not loving me." I sighed. "God, I'm the worst fucking person in the world."
"No you're not. He doesn't blame you for it. AHH!" Her voice got distant again. "Yes, Aaron?" She was silent for a second. "Alright." Her voice became clear again. "Caitlin, Aaron wants to talk to you. I'm gonna go back inside; I'm getting cold."
"Alright. Goodnight, Jessi," I said, and heard the faint shuffle of the phone being passed between hands.
"Hello?" Aaron asked timidly, probably afraid I was going to hang up on him.
"Hey," I said quietly. "I love you."
He was silent for a second. "I love you too, Caitlin. And I mean it."
I choked on a sob, and wiped my now welling eyes. "I'm sorry I accused you of not loving me, Aaron. I know you love me."
He exhaled. "Don't cry, please." I tried my best to hold back the tears while he continued. "What you did today made me realize how much I was really hurting you."
"Which? Me screaming at you, nearly killing Luke, or hurting myself?" I asked, laughing darkly.
"All three, but why don't we start with the first?" he said.
"Okay," I whispered.
He sighed. "You accusing me of not loving you.. Hurt me, a lot, but I figure I deserve it if you ever wound up questioning how much I love you. I was angry that you had said it, but then it dawned upon me that you had said it for a reason, and not just because you were trying to be a bitch or anything. I felt like the worst person in the world. Maybe even the universe." I chuckled. "What?"
"Before you took the phone from Jessi, I told her I was the worst person in the world for accusing you of not loving me."
I could nearly hear the smile creep across his face. I knew that with the next things I was going to say, it would be wiped off his face within a millisecond.
"Aaron.. You hurt me so bad with using drugs. The reason I asked you if you cared about me was because it.. was beginning to seem like you cared about the drugs more than you cared about me." I wiped my eyes. "Have you ever been on that side of the line, where you're someones number one, and then something or someone comes along and you aren't anymore? You're their number two, and you don't seem to have any feelings? It's happened to me so many times.. but.. With you.. When I felt like you cared about the drugs more than you cared about me, it felt like I was being ripped apart, piece by piece. It was killing me inside. And then .. Watching you die before my eyes, slowly but surely, made that pain of being ripped apart multiply by ten million." He was still silent. "You were losing so much weight, Aaron, and you looked sick, as if you'd had the flu for weeks and weeks. You got pale, and you rarely sleep, that I can see. It's like you can't sleep, no matter how much you want to." I sniffled, and wiped my nose. "And then.. you started getting nosebleeds, and I know that's when there's a lot of snorting going on within a short time period with a lot of drugs, or a long time period.. And I know that it doesn't lead to anything remotely good. I just.. I don't.. want to lose you." A small sob erupted from my chest against my will.
He was silent except for his shaky breath, which told me he was either trying to refrain from punching something, or refraining from punching himself. I curled up under the blankets.
"Aaron?" I whispered.
"Yeah?"
"I love you. A lot. Don't forget that."
"I love you, too, and don't you forget that."
"I won't. Aaron, do you hate me for trying to kill Luke?"
He laughed. "No, but it's a little scary, to tell you the truth. The fact that you nearly rendered him unconscious and gave him a vasectomy with your bare foot makes me fear for my life, just a bit."
"Well, you know, bashing someones head into a hardwood floor at least six times usually knocks them out, and a well-aimed kick keeps the children away!"
I could practically hear him rolling his eyes. "It's.. almost four in the morning. Do you want me to come home?"
"Are you okay to drive?" Both him and I knew I wasn't only questioning how tired he probably was.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. It's only a ten minute drive."
"Okay. Drive safe."
"I will. Love you," he said, and hung up.
I flipped my phone closed and slid farther down into the blankets, wrapping them securely around my body, and closed my eyes.
I began to drift off when I heard a car door slam, and keys in the front door.
I vaguely saw Aaron come into the room. He laughed at me.
"You look like you're in a cocoon."
"It's warm in here," I mumbled.
"It looks warm."
"Care to join me?"
"Gladly."
He climbed into bed next to me after taking off his jeans and his shirt, and he was trying to get me to give him the blanket.
"I can't join you if you don't share the blankets."
"But you're coooollld," I protested.
"We can fix that," he muttered, yanking on the blankets.
"But I don't wanna be coooollld."
"I'll just go sleep in the living room, then.."
"NO!" I shouted, and opened the blanket so he could get between them. "Holy shit, you are cold."
"The wind is freezing," he said, draping his arm across my waist.
I pressed a kiss to his chest. "Stupid wind."
"Mhm," he muttered, and kissed my forehead. "Good night, or morning, whichever you prefer. I love you."
"I love you, too," I said, barely coherent.
Within the next few minutes, or, in my case, seconds, we both fell asleep.