Chapter Twenty Five - Warning
We were only in Charleston by the time Seth started to peak, so I was fairly sure that his body temperature was burning the LSD out of his system faster than usual. I was glad of that, because he was wracking my nerves a little bit. He'd been in the backseat for about a half an hour, amazed at how he was 'melting into the seats and ceiling'. Now he was back up front, sitting beside of me and watching me intently.
"You're gorgeous," he said for like, the billionth time.
"Maybe Darrell was lying when I called, 'cause you definitely seem like your rolling on your trip."
"He said there was no ecstasy, why would he lie after all this?"
I sighed. "I know, I just don't get it. You should feel... sort of repulsed at the thought, but instead you seem..."
"What?" He urged with a huge smile to match his huge eyes.
"Horny," I laughed. I pulled into a gas station to fill up and get us some snacks and something to drink. The sun would come up in a couple of hours and I wondered where we would be by then.
Seth put his hand over mine as I started to get out of the car.
"What do you want?" he asked. "Let me buy you something."
"Um, that's alright. I'd rather buy you something," I giggled. His face fell.
"You shouldn't have to spend your money on me," he said softly, more to himself than to me.
"Seth, I'm a millionaire, alright? It's really not a big deal for me to go and buy you a bag of chips and a Gatorade."
His eyes snapped back towards me, and he very slowly appraised me piece-by-piece, starting with my toes and stopping at my head and then starting over. I looked down self-consciously, seeing the same black flip-flops, old tattered jeans and vintage Acid Bath t-shirt that I'd been wearing all day.
"You are freaking sexy," he concluded as a sly smile spread across his perfect - and currently crazy looking - face. "Your jeans have holes in them," he noted.
"I've had these for two or three years now." I remembered how the knee got ripped out when I was drunk and fell over against a brick wall. I could even see the big ass scar when I wore these.
"So if you're a millionaire, why don't you dress all high society or something?"
"Do I look like the high society type? I mean, I guess that phrase could be taken in a different way," I giggled. I was usually high. "I'm not a designer type of person."
"Good!" He opened his door and got out of the car, then pulled me out of my side about a second later.
"I'm glad you are the way you are, because you're the coolest person I know!" He wrapped his long arms around me and started spinning with joy. "And I'm glad you're not all snooty like some rich people."
"Me too," I laughed.
"And those old jeans make your ass look amazing!"
I started laughing so hard that he had to stop spinning and keep me standing. He cut my laughter off with his own mouth, kissing me with a fierce passion that had me digging my fingers into the soft skin of his neck. He stopped when I started gasping for breath.
I had to lean over for a second, because I actually felt woozy, like I might pass out or something. I broke out in a sweat and my hands started shaking.
As soon as it had hit me, it went away. I was left with an almost disorienting after-effect that wasn't at all unpleasant.
"What's wrong?" He asked, sounding a little frantic.
"It's fine now," I said as the last of the wierdness flowed out of me.
"What was that?" He still sounded worried even though I was straightening up and was obviously alright.
"I don't know... I felt like I was dope sick for a second. I don't know why."
"Dope sick?"
"You know, like when you come off of drugs that you've been on for awhile," I explained easily. He still looked utterly confused.
"Sorry, I forgot that you weren't...uh... accustomed to stuff like that," I told him, looking into his wild eyes.
"Why are you?" He muttered, shaking his head a little. It reminded me of - well, of me.
I started laughing again, and his hands fluttered over my back trying to figure out what the fuck I could be laughing at.
"Seth, look at where the fuck I grew up!" I roared, smacking my knee. "This is West-By-God-Virginia! There's a fucking church and a street pharmacist on every block!" I took a few deep breaths to calm myself.
"And the only rehab programs are fucking drug replacement therapy bullshit!" I was starting to get angry. Every bit of hatred for my own home was starting to come back to me full force.
"I don't really know what that means..." Seth said softly. Carefully. I forgot how sensitive he already was to my moods.
I tried to think of an easy way to not over explain, planning my words out more than I was used to.
"Ninety precent of the people I've been around in the past six years of my life have been hooked on opiates at some point or another. They're calling it the biggest drup epidemic of this century, and there's a heavy concentration of it around here."
"Sorry, but... opiates?"
I smiled at him, at the innocence he didn't even realize he carried around. Then I frowned because I was going to be the asshole to squash it out of him.
"Heroin and opium are the old school." He nodded in understanding and waited for me to go on.
"Pain pills are where it's at now. I'm not going to run through the options... But the shit is addictive. Mentally and physically, more than any other type of drug on the physical aspect. If I did a pill or two for say... three days in a row and then ran out by the fourth, that day would be like a battle with my own body and mind. I would be sick to my stomach, my body would ache, I would sweat - kind of like a really bad case of the flu. And in my head, all I would be thinking was that if I could get another pill, I would feel a billion times better."
"So then on the fifth day?" He seemed completely entrenched by my horror story.
"Worse than the fourth, if I didn't give in and do more pills. It lasts for a week or two. Most people can't get through the detox. Sometimes it can even kill you."
He ran both hands over his face a couple of times, stretching his skin and making some kind of unhappy noises. "And the drug replacement therapy bullshit?"
"They take you off of the opiates you do on your own and give you a controlled dosage of synthetic opiates that act on the same receptors of your brains so you don't feel withdrawals. Most of them make it to where if you do more dope on top of them, you can't feel them or they make you sick. It's like the government's way of saying 'Don't go buy your dope on the street, just come here and give us the money instead and we'll hook you up!' It drives me insane, because all these fucking synthetic opiates take months to detox from."
Seth sat down on the pavement then tugged at my jeans until I sat down too. He looked as upset as I was.
"How have I lived this long not knowing all of this stuff?" He asked his hands before he looked up at me. "Were you ever on them?"
"I've done them plenty, I've just managed to avoid the addiction part. That's why I don't do them now, though; it's like playing with fire and no buzz is worth that shit to me."
"What about Ana?"
"She hates them."
"What about your mom?" he whispered, cracking me on my sorest spot. Instead of busting on him or laughing it off, the words just started coming out of my mouth.
"My mom was such a fucking idiot. She was so oblivious to what was going on around her, and when she got a script after an accident she just started eating the fucking things. I spent three years trying to push her into a facility, trying to ween her off, trying to just get her to fucking stop... She knew she was totally ruining her life and had the audacity to pretend like she never once saw it coming. She still acts like she doesn't know how lucky she is to be out of that world now."
"How'd you get her to stop?"
"I didn't get her to stop, she had to do that one for herself. I mostly just made sure that she stayed clean by getting every doctor and dealer around to ignore her."
"How?"
He was good with the questions. "I paid them off." I took a smoke out of my purse and lit it up, cursing my own addiction to the evil nicotine machine. "I got ahold of an awesome connect that knew I could sling with the best of 'em, and they set me on enough shit to persuade everyone that my mom's money was nothing compared to my own. So I won. Or Mom won, really," I concluded.
I felt refreshed in a way, getting all that negativity off my chest. The only person that had bore witness to the whole situation had been Ana, and I'd never wanted to share it with anyone else.
"Your life is just... crazy, baby." Seth let out a long sigh, rubbing his face again. "I'm trying to understand."
I took one of his hands in mine and kissed him on the cheek.
"I know you are. One of the many reasons why I love you."
He smiled brightly then, all but forgetting his previous discomfort. We stood up together and started walking towards the door of the gas station again.
"I really worry about you sometimes, Liz."
"I'm smart. I know how to take care of myself."
"I know you do, you've just been through alot of stuff."
We walked inside and the cashier looked at us wide-eyed. She was old and drawn and tired-looking, probablly because it was about three in the morning. She caught my eyes with hr own and tried to smile but it seemed more like a grimace.
"Oh, you have no idea sweetheart. That's just the tip of the fucking iceberg."
I bought us some munchies and then took Seth's free hand to go back to the car. His palm was clammy from sweating.
My phone started ringing and I had to dig it out of my deep purse. Ana's name flashed on the screen.
"Hey," I said to her as Seth nudged my side.
"We can go back now," he mouthed sheepishly as Ana was asking me, "Where are you guys at?"
"We'll be back in a couple of hours," I answered her.
"Is he alright?" she asked sympathetically.
"Yeah, everything's cool." Seth and I got back into the car, ripping into bags of chip and bottles of sugary goodness. "We'll be back soon. Tell Darrell I want some of that acid."
She laughed heartily, and I could picture her doubled over. "Aright, I will. Later."