Scars from a Memoir (30 page)

“Nicole…” he said.

I began to pull his hand toward my mouth. “Do you know why Dustin was crazy about me?”

He shook his head.

“There's this thing I can do…”

I put the tip of his finger inside my mouth and swirled around his nail.

“This is a bad idea,” he said.

As I made eye contact, I dipped my head.

“Dustin will kill me if he finds out I've touched you.”

“You don't have to touch me; I'll touch you. And we don't have to tell him.”

His breathing got heavier.

All I had to do was convince Cale to take his pants off and promise to give him exactly what
he
was craving. And that's exactly what I did. He responded quickly, opening the two bags and dumping them onto each of the spoons.

“Just give me half a bag,” I said.

“Only half?” He sounded surprised, but he continued to move just as fast and gave me what I asked for.

“If I take too much, I'll throw up on you, and I don't think you want to clean up any more puke.”

“Give me your arm,” he said when both syringes were ready. He dropped his pants on the other side of him.

I got on my knees and pulled my sleeve back. I had been using for only three days, but I'd been using a lot, so the nod didn't set in like it did with a full bag. The rush was there, though, and it was intense. I licked my lips.

The high definitely hit Cale. His eyes rolled back, and his chin dropped. A line of drool formed on his bottom lip and dribbled down his shirt.

Just because he was in a nod didn't mean he couldn't hear what was going on around him or feel my touch. I had to at least try. I took a deep breath and reached for him.

I had done
this
for drug money so many times before. But this was different, and Mark would understand that. What I was doing now would hopefully save my life.

With Cale in a nod, I slipped my hand inside the pocket of his jeans. His leg twitched. I hit the button on the side of the phone to lower the volume so Cale wouldn't hear the phone ring or Mark answer. When Mark picked up, his voice was so faint I could barely make out what he was saying. I looked up; Cale's eyes didn't open.

I was down on my knees, bent over and hiding the phone while I talked. “Cale, is this what you
wanted
or can I stop?”

A moan escaped from his lips.

I had to be careful what I said. Mark would recognize my voice and wouldn't hang up, but I didn't want Cale to snap awake because I said the wrong thing.

“Are you going to miss me when
Dustin
gets out of prison?” I asked. “You know he'll come straight down to the
basement
and make me his again.”

“You're his,” he mumbled.

“I guess I am his because he
forced
me to skip court. If the police find me, they'll throw me in jail.”

“The police won't know where to find you,” he grumbled. “You're safe.”

“That means I'll be with Dustin forever.”

He pushed my face away, so I sat up and moved over to the wall. Leaning against the cold cement, I placed the phone in the small space behind my lower back. But I didn't disconnect the call.

“You think Dustin will ever let me out of this basement?” I asked.

He scratched his arms. “Only if you're real nice to him.”

“I hope he isn't mad…hope he doesn't have plans to hurt me.” My eyes got heavy and closed. “I don't want to die down here, Cale.” I let my body relax into the high. I had probably said more than I should have, and now all I could do was wait. Wait for Cale or Dustin to kill me, or for Mark and the police to bust in.

-35-

A PAIR OF HANDS REACHED UNDERNEATH ME, between my back and the cold concrete; my eyes opened as I was lifted into the air. A police officer kneeled in front of Cale, trying to wake him up. Two more were bagging the heroin, the syringes, and the rest of the paraphernalia. I didn't need to look to know I was in Mark's arms. I'd memorized his touch and smell. He held me differently than everyone else did. I nuzzled his neck.

“God, what the hell happened to you?”

Right before Cale had started to come down from his high, I'd disconnected the call and stuck the phone back in his jeans. Then he'd shot another bag of heroin in my arm and one in his. While I fell into the nod, I prayed that Mark had contacted the police and that they'd be able to trace my location…and that this would be the last time dope would ever enter my body. As much as I loved it, I wanted this to be my lullaby to addiction.

“I'll tell you everything on our way home,” I said.

As Mark moved toward the stairs, one of the cops said, “You need to wait for the ambulance. She has to go to the hospital and get checked out, and then I need her for questioning.”

“Can you wait just a little bit longer?” Mark asked me.

“As long as I'm with you, I can.”

“You know I'm not going to leave your side.”

Before Mark took me upstairs, I told the cops about the chair and ropes. They took pictures, bagged both, and documented them as evidence. Mark wouldn't set me on the couch; he held me in his arms and walked back and forth between the kitchen and living room.

It took only a few minutes for the paramedics to arrive. They brought in a stretcher, and Mark placed me on top. Cale was carried out on one too, and we were put in separate ambulances. Mark told me he'd call Melissa and meet me at the hospital. The paramedic shut the door and sat next to me, taking my vital signs. A tear dropped from the corner of my eye, and I caught it before it hit my chin. The paramedic handed me a napkin, but I had already wiped my fingers on my jeans. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“Your heart rate is slow,” he said. “When was the last time he injected you?”

“How did you know he injected me?”

“Dispatch said it was a kidnapping, so I just assumed. Addicts are in and out of this ambulance every day. You don't look like a junkie, and you surely don't act like one.”

Whenever I'd been in the back of an ambulance or at the hospital, there had always been a hint of disgust on the person's face who treated me. Junkies didn't exactly have the best reputation; many carried diseases, and nonaddicts couldn't understand why we wouldn't just get sober and clean ourselves up. I had deserved those expressions in the past. But as I lay on this stretcher, with heroin pumping through my bloodstream, I felt relief that his look was full of sympathy. I wasn't that person anymore. And I wasn't ashamed that I was high.

As soon as we got to the ER, two nurses wheeled me to an exam room. They tried to shut the door on Mark, but I wouldn't let them. I said that if they didn't allow him to stay, I wouldn't give them permission to touch me. Mark moved over to my side and leaned against the wall while the nurses helped me change into a gown. My clothes were placed in a bag and handed off to the police officer waiting outside the door.

Once they got me comfortably on the bed and covered with blankets, a doctor came in. I didn't catch his name, but he said he would be performing an examination. He started with my back, running his gloved fingers over my shoulder blades and down my spine. My legs were next, then my stomach, and finally my neck and face.

“I don't see any signs of physical abuse,” the doctor said to the nurse. She then wrote something down in a chart.

“He didn't hit me,” I said.

“Do we need to perform a rape kit?”

“No.”

The doctor gave the nurse a look, and she leaned down, close to my ear. “Would you rather everyone else step out of the room so we can discuss this in private?”

“He never touched me,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear. I took a deep breath. “But I touched him. My mouth…I put him in my mouth…it was the only way to get out of there.”

The nurse put her hand on my shoulder. “We understand.”

“To finish your exam, the nurse is going to take a blood and a urine specimen,” the doctor said.

I shook my head against the pillow. “No more needles.”

Mark kneeled at my side. “Nicole, they have to take your blood so they know how to treat you.”

“Isn't there another way?” I asked.

“You're going to be sick, and I can help alleviate those symptoms, but all the medications have to be administered intravenously,” the doctor said. “Ms. Brown, you've been through enough. You don't need the pain of withdrawal too.”

The last time I had been in the hospital, the doctor had lectured me. He'd told me I was killing my body and that if I kept using heroin I would die. Now I was being treated like a victim. I guess I was.

The arm I'd always given Cale to stick was by my side, and I flipped it over. Mark's eyes got watery. Bruises spotted my forearm; a sore behind my elbow looked infected.

“Close your eyes,” Mark said. His lips pressed against my forehead as the nurse stuck in the needle. It was thicker than the syringe Cale had used, and it hurt worse. Probably also because I knew the shot wasn't going to get me high.

When I opened my eyes, the nurse was holding a plastic cup and asked if I could fill it halfway. She held out her hand and, with Mark supporting my back, helped me off the bed and down the hall to the bathroom.

“Melissa will be here in a few hours,” Mark said once I got settled back in bed. “She wants to be here when the cops question you.”

I'd lost my sense of time as soon as I had been shoved in the basement, so I didn't know how many hours had passed since Cale
had last shot me up. But it couldn't have been that long. My eyes were still so heavy, my head cloudy, and the tingling hadn't stopped.

“I'm so tired,” I said.

A nurse was moving around the bed pushing buttons on different machines. An IV was in my hand, and I hadn't even felt her stick me again.

The last thing I heard was, “Get some sleep, baby,” before my eyes closed.

*   *   *

The heart monitor and IV came with me as I was moved out of the ER and into a room on one of the other floors. The doctor wanted me to get some rest before I was questioned, so he told Melissa and the cops to hold off until tomorrow. He didn't think I was clear enough to process everything that had happened. He was right. The medicine they were pumping into me was strong, and the heroin was still in my body. I couldn't do much more than sleep.

Mark never left my side. The few times I stirred, he was either watching TV or napping beside me. Between his breathing, which soothed the jittery feeling in my chest, and the medication, I went right back to sleep. At one point, he told me that my parents had come by late in the afternoon but I'd slept through their visit. He said they looked so exhausted by nine o'clock, and since I still hadn't woken up, he sent them to his place to get some sleep.

I was still groggy the next morning when I woke up to a room full of people. My parents stood by the window; Mark was on my bed; a nurse was checking the monitors; and Melissa, two police officers, and a few others I didn't recognize were huddled around me. Mark and my parents were asked to leave, but Mark wouldn't go. He wanted to hear it all. He said the more he knew, the more he could help protect me in the future.

I told them everything, starting with Dustin's first messenger. I described his phone call to me from prison, Martin showing up at the café, the taxi I'd gotten into outside the jail, and the days I'd spent in the basement with Cale. They had questions. Lots of them. I did my best to answer each one despite the nausea and the pain
rippling through my head. After about an hour, Melissa asked everyone to leave so I could get some rest. That was the last time I saw the police, Mark, or my parents for several days. To keep me from experiencing any withdrawal symptoms, the doctor kept me sedated. I slept for almost three days straight.

*   *   *

The night before I was scheduled to be discharged, my parents asked what my plans were for when I got out of the hospital.

“I'm going to take some time off from the café, finish my online classes, and move in with Mark. He's going to sublease my apartment.” Mark and I had discussed my living arrangements that morning. He wanted to protect me as much as he could. I had been staying at his place anyway, so it made sense.

“You're not going to rehab?” Dad asked.

“I don't think I need it.”

“I realize relapsing wasn't your choice—and the physical part of your addiction is gone—but you became addicted again,” Mom said.

“I'm going to work the Steps,” I said. “I'll attend NA meetings like I've been doing all along, and my doctor thinks I should start seeing a private therapist. Rehab isn't going to teach me anything I don't already know.”

“But now that you've been reminded of what heroin feels like, you might be tempted to relapse on your own.”

“I never forgot what heroin feels like. I never will, Mom. Rehab isn't going to improve my chances of staying clean. Dedication to the program and the fact that I want to be sober will.”

My parents knew it wasn't my fault, and they weren't blaming me. They were just concerned—and they had reason to be. They were right; the physical addiction was gone, but the mental part of my disease was still very loud. It had been loud during the thirteen months I was clean, and it would always have a voice. It would take time to prove to my parents that I didn't need rehab, but time was something I had.

“Honey, we just want the best for you,” Mom said.

“I know you do.”

“I'm not going to let anything happen to your little girl,” Mark said.

That made me smile, and despite how horrible this situation was, my parents smiled too.

A nurse carried a tray into my room and set it on the table next to me. My mom lifted the cover, revealing meat floating around in juice and mashed potatoes. It looked hard enough to break a window.

“How about some chicken nuggets and sweet-and-sour sauce from McDonalds?” Dad asked.

“You know that's my favorite,” I said.

“That's why I asked,” Dad said. “You mother and I could use some non-hospital food, too.”

They took Mark's order, and the two of them left the room. Mark lay next to me, and I rested my head on his chest.

“We're going to get through this,” he said.