Cacoethes: (n) an irresistible urge to do something inadvisable

Alex

The moment was bittersweet. On one hand I got gotten an opportunity of a life time to do something I love, but on the other hand Chris was angry at me and the opportunity is in a whole other country. I tried to get him to talk to me but he wouldn't even open his door. The itching beneath my skin had started up again.

Before I could stop myself, I was stomping back into my apartment to grab my coat. I made my way to the bus stop to go to my "friend"'s house. After sitting down, I instantly started picking at my skin once again. I wanted to talk to Adrian, but he doesn't care anymore.

"Alex," Spencer said before pulling me into his house. He looked around outside to make sure no one else was out there before slamming the door and shoving me against the wall. "I told you not to come to my house anymore." His breath smelled like weed and vodka.

"I know," I whined to him, "I'm just really desperate right now."

He silently led me down to his basement where three other guys and a girl were waiting in.

"You all remember Alex, yeah?" he said as he dug through his "special" box before pulling out a small Ziploc bag filled with yellowing white powder and rationing it out. "You owe me later."

We all quickly started to put the drug into our bodies. Spencer chose a completely different poison.

A matter of seconds later, rays of divine sunshine replaced the blood in my veins. You know that feeling when you wake up thinking it's time to get up for the day but it's actually two in the morning and you go back to bed? Well imagine that except you don't go back to bed and you're left with that euphoria. A couple minutes I started to fall asleep feeling like the creator was cradling me to sleep in the softest, warmest blanket that's protecting me from everything else.

"Get up," Spencer said, nudging me with his foot. I was awake but I didn't want to get up. "Get up." This time, he yanked me up by my arms and forced me to stand. "I know you're awake. It's time to go."

I opened my eyes and I didn't recognize the place.

"Where are we?" I asked as I put my shirt back on.

"We're at Max's house," Spencer said as if it was obvious. "He's kicking us out because his girlfriend is home so hurry up."

"I don't remember getting here," I admitted to Spencer. He gave me a pitiful look but he didn't say anything as we crawled out of Max's bathroom window to avoid detection by his girlfriend. "Did we..." Spencer looked at me, but didn't say anything.

"Here," he said, pressing some money into my hand, "so you can get home." At that, he got into his car and left me standing all alone in a stranger's yard in a stranger's neighborhood.

Where the hell am I? I thought as I started wandering around in the dark. My phone told me it was 3:42 in the morning. I don't even know where the nearest bus would be. The phone also told me I had been using it all night as the battery was at 4%. I guess I'll put it to good use.

"Hello?" a groggy voice muttered as he answered the phone.

"Dan. Oh thank god. Dan… Are you listening to me?" A grunt from the other side gave me some sort of sign. "I need your help. I did something bad and now I'm stranded and I don't know where I am."

"Where are you?"

"I just said I don't know."

"Well look around. What signs do you see? Are you in London?"

"I think so. My phone's dying so I can't check. I'm at the corner of…" I paused for a second to find an intersection. "I'm on Petunia and Orchid." I started to walk up the street a bit where a bunch of cars were driving by. "This looks like a main road. It's called Lotus. So now I'm on Orchid and Lotus."

"Okay," Dan said. In the background, I could hear him rustling around. "Stay there and I'll be there as soon as I can."

What felt like a half hour later, Dan was pulling up to my spot on the sidewalk. He opened the door from the inside for me and told me to get in.

"What happened?" he asked before I could even close the door.

"Chris and I got into a fight over something stupid and he's really mad at me. I don't know. I just got really mad." We drove in silence. Neither of us wanted to say anything in fear it would make the situation worse. "Where are we going?"

"My flat." I started to protest but he shushed me. "There's no way I'm letting you stay at your flat by yourself."

"Why can't we just stay at mine?"

"Across from Chris? Are you mental?" he exclaimed. I didn't respond.

A couple minutes later, we arrived at his apartment building. We quietly walked up to his apartment. He wordlessly started a shower for me while I awkwardly stood in his doorway, unsure of what to do. While the shower heated up, he picked out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt for me to wear for the night. I quickly hopped in and out of the shower, as I didn't really need to shower. I mostly sat on the bathtub floor while the hot water ran down my body.

Dan had begun to make himself a makeshift bed on his couch. By now, it was almost 4:30 in the morning.

"I'll sleep out here," he said. "You can sleep in my bed."

"I've already disrupted your night enough. Sleep in your own bed. I'll take the couch."

After some disagreements, Dan finally let in and let me sleep on his couch. I'm sure his submission was mostly due to how tired he is. With all that's happening, I couldn't fall back asleep. From my fight with Chris to meeting my dad, I let it all out. I tried to keep quiet to avoid waking Dan and Phil up, but not too long after, the floorboards in the hallway began to creak with approaching footsteps.

"Alex…" Dan's tired voice said as he opened the door.

"Oh," I sighed. "I'm sorry. I completely ruined your night. You don't deserve to be woken up like this."

"Don't apologize. I'm just happy I know you're safe."

"I met my dad for the first time two weeks ago," I blurted out. "He more or less said that he didn't want me then and he doesn't want me now. It just hurts knowing that I'm apparently not good enough to stick around for." Dan wrapped the blanket around my shivering body while a lone tear raced down my cheek.

"He's a complete dickhead." He paused for a moment. "I'm going to tell you something about me," Dan said, handing me a tissue. "I have an addiction, too."

"Internet addiction doesn't count," I giggled, trying to break the tension, though it didn't really work.

"I gamble… a lot. I guess I won really big once and I haven't been able to stop. I dunno. It just feels so good when I win. Why do you do it?"

I shrugged my shoulders. He kept talking but I zoned out. Should I tell him? He's like my third best friend in London. Okay, that makes me sound like a complete jerk. Chris is definitely is, or at least was, my best friend. Chloe is a close second. Alright, Dan is my tied second best friend with Chloe. I haven't told her anything, but maybe I should tell Dan since he's confiding in me now.

"I haven't gambled in months and that feels even better than the win. It hasn't been easy or comfortable but I'm proud of myself."

"You ask me why I use." He let out a "go ahead" before I took a deep breath and continued. "When I was around eleven my sensei," I began. Adrian said I should stop calling him sensei since that's a term of respect, "uh, jiu-jitsu teacher started...I don't know how to say it...I guess, abusing me. I guess I was an easy target, y'know, unstable home, just wanting someone to show me attention. But, that's why. I was abused and it happened and now I do drugs to forget it and I don't want to talk about it anymore so don't ask. But that's one of the reasons why I use."

"Thanks for telling me. You didn't deserve what happened to you. But, that's a good step towards recovery- admitting where it started."

It's how I cope. I learned it from my mother. Honestly, I'd rather be getting high, despite the repercussions, than have to deal with my abuse or my dad's abandonment or my mom's addiction or whatever other problems come my way. Nodding off for a few hours is so much better than living with my woes.

Dan told me we'd talk in the morning but I was gone before he woke up. I left a quick note for him to let him know no one kidnapped me or anything. I couldn't sleep knowing I had to reconcile things with Chris. He's upset, I know, but he needs to talk to me.

Running on only an hour of sleep, I took a random upper I found in the bottom of my bag (hey now, Ritalin isn't the problem) and went on my way.

"Chris!" I shouted through his door. I knocked as hard and as loud as I could until my knuckles started to bleed. "Just talk to me."

"Hey," the neighbor yelled, popping his out from his door. "Stop it! We're trying to study here."

"Shut the fuck up, Chaplinsky," I retorted, "this isn't about you."

"If you'd stop yapping for two seconds you'd know your little boyfriend isn't fucking here. He left a while ago and hasn't come back."

"Oh…Sorry for yelling at you."

I walked back to my apartment, defeated. I sat by the door to listen for Chris's footsteps and the slam of his door. After hours of waiting, I finally heard the stomp of his feet come up the steps. I quickly threw open my door and ran out to greet him.

"What do you want?" he snarled. He set down the grocery bags in his hands to look for his keys.

"I just want to talk. You can't get an apology if you won't talk to me."

"There isn't anything to talk about," he said as he nonchalantly unlocked his door. Before he could, I grabbed two of the bags to help him carry them in. "Give me those."

"No, I'm helping. See?" I dragged the bags into his flat and set them down in the kitchen. "You can't just ignore me."

"You don't get it, do you?" he said as he started to put the groceries away. I shook my head. I asked him to elaborate. "This whole situation. I feel like you don't understand why what you did was wrong."

"I know what I did. I kept letters my ex sent me".

"Yes, and you haven't even apologized. And it's not even just that." I told him I don't understand. "I'm going to be honest right now. I don't believe that you didn't write him back. It's mostly because I don't entirely trust you."

"I'm sorry you feel that way," I told him. I tried to hold back tears as my eyes are already raw from crying to Dan earlier. "But it shouldn't even matter to you if I talk to other people. What does it matter that someone I knew as a teenager wants to have a conversation, even if I don't respond? Are you gonna tell me I'm the only person in your life?"

"No, you're really not sorry. I don't talk to anyone like I talk to you because I actually care about you and your feelings."

"It's not like we're together or anything. We haven't even gone on a date."

"Maybe I want to, Alex!" he shouted at me, causing me to jump back. "Maybe I want to be your boyfriend and go on dates and maybe, just maybe, I want you to want the same thing. Why can't you be honest for once? Almost everything out of your mouth is a lie. You always lie about where you're going and where you've been. By the way, I don't believe it when you say you're checking the post at 7 in the morning smelling like alcohol and weed. I'm not an idiot. Do I really not matter at all to you?"

I want to tell him the truth. More than anything. I wanted to tell him that he matters to me, even though I crushed and snorted grocery money he lent me when I said I was short (lie) or when I say I'm "checking the mail" (lie), I'm probably coming home from sleeping on a stranger's floor because they're a dealer or that if I had to choose between him and drugs, I'm not sure what I'd do. He can't know about that side of me. At least, not yet.

"As I'm sure you've figured out by now, Jayden was, emphasis on was, my boyfriend in high school. We went through a lot. Well I went through a lot and he was there. He kind of took advantage of that and he wasn't very nice to me. I don't know if I'd call it abusive but definitely unhealthy. I literally left the country to get away from him and he still found me. I mean it when I said I didn't respond. If you would've kept reading, you would've saw all the times he pleaded for me to stop ignoring him. I don't want to talk to him. Like, ever, again. I don't know why I kept them, it's stupid, and I'm sorry. I really do care about you and I really do like you… a lot. These things aren't easy for me to say because people's intentions aren't always nice."

"Thank you," he responded. His bloodshot eyes refused to meet mine. "I wish you would've told me last night instead of just repeating yourself. I know we've only known each other a short time so I appreciate you telling me what you have. But I'm not them. I'm not the people who hurt you. You're so important to me."

"You're important to me, too," I replied. I suppose now is as good as time as any. "The exhibition is in Paris."