Addiction and Her Name

I didn’t see Sarah at work on Monday. She was there, but she avoided me. I wanted to talk to her about the things I said the previous day, but I didn’t get an opportunity. I probably had plenty of opportunities, but the fact was that even if I wanted to talk to her, I wouldn’t know where to begin or what to say. I couldn’t justify my actions or my addictions for that matter.

I sat in my cubicle, deep in thought. In my drawer I found the picture of the girl I had drawn the week before. This time I recognized her. It was Kat. I had completely forgotten about her the last couple of days. It wasn’t like we had gotten along all too well after all, but then again we both said things that should’ve been left unsaid.

She was like me. She didn’t like talking about her personal life. Her problems were exactly that, hers. It didn’t have anything to do with anyone else. I should apologize to her when I see her again, if I see her again, though I doubt that she would talk to me.

The rest of the day dragged by at an excruciatingly slow pace. I kept trying to talk to Sarah, but she was always busy and made sure that there was always someone else around and it killed me. I desperately needed to talk to her. I didn’t even know what I would say, but it didn’t matter, because all I really wanted to do was see her.

By the end of the day I was exhausted and completely wired. I was wound so tightly, the slightest provocation would cause me to snap. I needed alcohol. I needed a release.

***

There were a couple more guys than usual that night: Steve, a relative of Joe, and, for some strange reason, Ray was there as well. He never hung out with us, because things always got out of hand or at least they always got too rough for his liking. He was probably there to check on me. He really worried way too much. At this rate his heart was likely to give in before my liver did.

“Welcome to the party, Ray,” I grinned upon seeing him at the bar. “You didn’t tell me you were coming tonight.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment before responding. “It was a spur of the moment decision. I haven’t been out with you guys in ages and I miss my social life.”

“Sure you do,” I said sarcastically.

“And this way I can keep an eye on you,” he admitted seriously.

“I knew it.” I resisted the urge to swear under my breath. “I told you I’m fine.”

“And I told you that I worry.”

“Don’t!” I snapped.

“Hey, guys,” Shawn greeted, joining us at exactly the right time. I didn’t want to fight with Ray, but it was inevitably going to happen had Shawn not interrupted when he did. “Ray, my man, I haven’t seen you in forever. Where have you been or do you know better than to hang out with these guys?”

Ray plastered on a smile and turned his attention away from me. “You know me. Give me an instrument and I’m at my happiest.”

Shawn laughed. “You’re such a loner. Just admit it.”

I rudely turned my back on their conversation and made my way over to Bert who seemed to have gotten a head start, because he was already drunk as fuck.

“Gerard baby, come give us a kiss,” he slurred, clinging onto my shoulders and planting a sweaty kiss on my cheek. “Isn’t he the most beautiful creature alive?” he asked the rest of our party while holding my chin and shaking my head from left to right.

This was exactly why I didn’t want to come here in the first place. I wasn’t in the mood for a drunken Bert. He had always been a lousy drunk. I didn’t want to put up with everyone. I had my own problems to deal with.

“Bert, you’re drunk,” I stated, carefully disentangling myself from him.

“Drunk for yoooou,” he said in a sing-song voice, grabbing a hold of me once more. I deeply breathed in and out in an attempt to calm myself down. I didn’t need this shit right now. Fine, it wasn’t fair to take my anger out on him. He didn’t do anything wrong, but that didn’t change the anger I felt inside me towards him at that moment, the anger I felt inside me, period.

“Bert,” I said slowly, calmly. “I’m not really in the mood right now.”

“But, Baby. Bert wants some love and attention.”

“Bert, please.” It was taking everything in me to stay cool, but when Bert continued to ignore me and practically got right in my face, I snapped. “Get off of me!” I pushed him away. The intoxicated male stumbled back against a table and looked at me in shock. Not so drunk now anymore all of a sudden, was he?

“What the fuck, Gerard?” he demanded clearly upset by my actions.

I wasn’t about to feel bad. I felt bad enough about Sarah already.

“I told you I wasn’t in the mood.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t give you a free pass to act like a dick!” he exclaimed incensed.

Now everyone else seemed to crowd around us.

“What’s going on here?” Joe wanted to know.

“Our dear friend here,” Bert hissed sarcastically, pointing at me. “Thought it would be fun to shove me against a table.”

“It wasn’t like that!” I yelled defensively. “I asked him to let go of me.”

“Gerard.”

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Is everything okay man?” It was Shawn’s voice.

I could feel the resentful glares I was getting. Maybe it was all in my head, but…

“I don’t have to deal with this,” I stated, storming out of the bar.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief the second my tattered old converse hit the dirty pavement outside. What the fuck was wrong with me? Why the hell was I letting this whole thing with Sarah get to me so much? Was it even because of Sarah?

I heard the sound of crunching gravel and looked up just in time to see Kat before she disappeared into the darkness.

“Kat!” I called, jogging after to her.

I had no explanation for my actions or my fascination with this girl.

She slowly turned around and looked at me questioningly. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you…” I started, but she cut me off. “We have nothing to say to each other.”

“I want to apologize for everything I said the last time we spoke,” I said earnestly. “I had no right to make any assumptions concerning you or your life. You were right, it’s none of my business and I had no right to think that it was.” I gave her my best look of remorse hoping that it would soften her heart.

I was terribly confused. I couldn’t stand my own best friends right now, leaving them all mad at me, and here I was almost begging some stranger for forgiveness.

She stared at me for a long time probably trying to pin down how sincere my apology was. The truth was, I wasn’t too sure about that myself. At this moment I wasn’t sure of anything going on inside my head.

“I guess I might have overreacted a little.” She confessed. “I wasn’t exactly myself.”

“Truce?”

“Okay.” She gave a non-committal shrug and was about to leave when I stopped her.

“Where are you going?” I asked confused.

“I’m leaving.” It was like it was the most obvious thing in the world, but not to me. I didn’t understand. Why was she leaving?

“Wait, I’ll come with you,” I told her, because I finally had the opportunity to talk to her and I wasn’t planning on letting it slip through my fingers. I wanted to get to know her. I needed to get to know her. I shuddered at the thought that my need to know her might stem from the inherent need to know that someone else had it worse than I did. I was fucking disgusting.

We walked down the street in silence until we reached a small bar that I didn’t even know existed. Can you believe that? We sat down and ordered some drinks. Why bother with the weak stuff when you could skip right to the Jack?

“Spill,” she said, crossing one leg over the other.

“What?” I gape, taken aback.

“Come on, Gerard. I’m not blind. I can see that something is eating you up. What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” I scoffed, breaking eye contact with her and drawing invisible circles on the table with the tip of my finger. I could feel her blue eyes boring into me. I wasn’t aware that I had become so transparent.

“I don’t buy it. You can talk to me you know?”

I frowned up at her. “No personal questions, remember? Anyway, why do you insist on knowing what’s wrong?”

She looked uncertain for a moment then said, “Because I know what happens to a person when you have no one to talk to.”

Silence fell over us as she watched me intently and I focused my eyes on my drink and the action of actually drinking it.

“What’s your middle name?” Her question came out of the blue and I was completely dumbfounded. “Well, you don’t want to talk about it. I can at least try to take your mind off whatever problem it is that’s burdening you, if only for a while,” she explained almost sweetly, but not quite there yet. She still needed to work on that, but try to hide it as much as she wanted to, she cared more than she would like to admit.

“Arthur.”

“Well then, Gerard Arthur Way. What do you do for a living?” She wanted to know, leaning forward on her elbows.

I was still a little stunned by the sudden change of subject and didn’t immediately answer her question.

“I draw cartoons,” I replied.

“Really?” the blue-eyed female asked interestedly.

“Yeah, I work in a cubicle in a building downtown. It’s nothing flashy, obviously, but I like it.”

“Are you serious?” she slightly gaped.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I’ve always loved drawing and I recently got my bachelors degree in fine arts.”

She suddenly started giggling. “I’m sorry.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “I don’t mean to laugh, I swear. There’s absolutely nothing funny about this.”

I could feel the tension begin to leave my body as I listened to her suppressed laughter. It somehow made me feel better. She took a large gulp from the glass in front of her and let out a deep breath.

“I always knew you got jobs like that, but I’ve never actually met anyone who did it,” she explained, clearly still amused by the idea. “No offence, but you don’t look like an artist either.”

“The truth is that I actually wanted to be a comic book artist. I’ve always been into that kind of stuff, you know, Doom Patrol, X-Men. It meant a lot to me as a kid and I figured that I could give a little something back to the world if my own comics could mean that much to only one kid.”

“That’s interesting,” she said, looking genuinely impressed. It felt strange to have her listen to me so attentively.

“What about you?”

“Me? I’ve always loved children and I dreamed of becoming a pediatrician, but instead I now serve coffee to ungrateful customers,” she muttered with a grimace. I could clearly read the disappointment at her own words on her features. It was like a thick black veil came over her. Any bit of openness she offered me before was now gone. The walls were back up.

“Why didn’t you?” I would distract her from whatever unpleasant thoughts she was having as soon as I knew what went wrong with her dream.

“I made a mistake and it changed everything. My entire future collapsed and now I’m a total fuck up.” She said this with a contemptuous smile and it almost scared me. Something somewhere obviously went seriously wrong.

“No, you’re not,” I argued without hesitation. It was my turn to help her off her knees.

She looked up at me in a way that begged me to explain.

“Look, shit happens. It happens to the best of people. It’s what you make of it that makes the difference. I know I don’t really know you, but you seem to be doing well enough. You’re alive and well and living your life,” I said. “So maybe you have a drinking problem, it’s not the end of the world.”

“Yeah, of course.”

She looked down and I got the feeling that she had a lot more problems than I knew of and that my attempt to make her feel better backfired. I downed my drink and ordered another one, feeling crappy. We didn’t talk a lot more the rest of the night and as always I didn’t remember going home.

Notes

Chapter number 7 is served :D