Happy

"Don't lose your life to drugs"

"My name is Addison Montgomery and I'm a drug addict."

It's the first time she's addressed it out loud and — my God, it's ... embarrassing. It's also the first time she's actually trying and genuinely wanting to get her life back from the dredges of hell. At least, she's finally owing up to her choices, mistakes, and decisions, she guesses, because really, it was all self-inflicted, self-made, self-initiated.

No one forced a needle on her, no one made her do anything that she did.

She wanted it. She even asked for it. She pursued it. She defended it. It was her happiness, her livelihood, after all, and she couldn't let anyone take that away from her.

She's very aware that she's made some ... humiliating, morally compromising choices over the past twenty five or so months, especially during the peek of her addiction.

She had put her loved ones, family and friends, through trials and tribulations, and even herself. She lied. She stole. She cheated. She really wasn't a good person when she was on drugs.

Drugs ruled her world; drugs were her lifeline, her entire existence and it was like a tumultuous, passionate love affair that she hated and loved all at once. A love-hate. But she loved it more than she loathed it, and she completely lost her sense of self beyond her addiction.

And she didn't care. Not one bit. She didn't care about anything but chasing her next high and she'd literally do anything to get her drugs. And she did.

Everything and anything.

Indignity. Shame. Humiliation.

She just didn't care.

Though, she did, at first. But the longer she stayed in that lifestyle, the less she cared.

I don't tell you how to live your life, so don't tell me how to live mine!

You don't like what you see, then, don't look!

I'm fine!

She used to scream these lines on the top of her lungs all the time at family and friends, especially Derek. Thinking about it now, she really was pretty aggressive while under the influence.

She doesn't like who she was — the lack of shame, the lack of empathy and apathy. It's probably for the best that she can't remember half of the things she'd done in the name of Snow White.

She lifts her blue eyes towards the ceiling with a long and tired sigh — exasperated. It's always the same.

When she had still been in medical school — long before the addiction had taken hold of her life and she'd thrown it all away in favour of the next hit — she had a fiancé who loved very much. And through thick and thin, he never left, even when he really should run.

He stayed through the initial stages, when everything that came out of her mouth were ladened with lies. She don't tell lies, she regurgitated them and it felt like chocolate melting on the tip of her tongue. She lied all the time — nine out of ten words that she spilled were most likely a blatant lie, and she was phenomenal at it. Maybe even breathtakingly phenomenal.

Lying.

There's this age-old question of how you'd know when a drug addict is lying; the answer — they're lips are moving.

She was doing so well until even she couldn't keep up with her own lies, until it became very exhausting to hide her tracks all the time. Not to mention, Derek grew very suspicious of her stories and behaviours and the 'friends' she kept 'meeting' at odd hours.

He stayed with her through the cheating as well, because he understood, from one of the many times she begged him to take her back, that it was the addiction and not really her. (Though, really, that wasn't true because she was well aware of what she — Addison, and not the addict version of herself — was doing.) It had been a constant cycle of her leaving him for someone else, only to come crawling back to him again, looking for forgiveness.

She had lost her part-time job as a research assistant and didn't have any money since her bank account was frozen. And still is. (She would've blown through her trust fund if her parents hadn't had revoked her access to the money.)

Derek stayed through relapses and overdoses. And he didn't have to, just as he didn't have to when she was being unfaithful. He didn't have to stay when she overdosed the first time ... second ... fourth, fifth ... time and was hooked up to every machine there is and basically brought back to life.

He could have left. Like the guy she was sleeping with had every time — well, at the very least, he called for an ambulance before leaving her to die.

What was she expecting, anyway?

She would have fled the scene herself.

And Derek should have too.

He shouldn't have to deal with her and her nonsense, not with another addict, not after what he had to go through with Amy. And every time she'd wake up, he would be furious with her, in his silently stewing type of way (and he says she's the passive aggressive one.), but it had been a forgiveness always granted — a cycle repeated, ad infinitum.

She loves him and he loves her but he doesn't trust her anymore and she too doesn't trust herself.

Because she had found something much more interesting than love. Something much more loyal. Something that would never leave her — she'd have to leave it, and it was easier to leave Derek, but not vice versa.

It had started with prescription pills, but it hadn't taken long for her to dabble into heavier things. Pearl and Aunti Emma hits nearly all the same centres of the brain as happiness — as well as love, by consequence.

How terribly convenient for her.

"I'm three weeks sober. Twenty-two days."

Many heads nod back, as if offering some kind of vague approval, or some sort of understanding. Addison is having none of that either. Not only because she cares little-to-nothing of their opinions, but also because she is still very much in the midst of the hard-yards.

Whilst the first two weeks of withdrawal are always the worst, the next two aren't much better either. She'd read about it in textbooks, of course. But now that she's living through it firsthand, she's been made aware of how words often fail to do waking life justice.

Which, in turn, only leads to more nagging concerns about Addison's rather nasty, and much more secretive penchant for darkness. Its hunger is one that aches sharper than any other.

Should she ever allow herself to succumb to darkness again, would she be able to return?

"Hm?" Addison is suddenly brought back to attention when she's invited to sit back down by the group leader. Quietly, she lowers herself slowly and leans back, one long leg crossing over the other as she loops her entwined hands over her knees.

It all started with one tiny pearl of a pill.

One.

Truly.

One pill. One time.

Then, it became two pills and another time — to be clear, it was two pills that were eight hours apart, so all in all, it was two separate occasions.

One day. Two pills. Two times.

And it was fine. She felt fine. She hit project deadline right on the dot and was content with the work she did.

Could she have done better?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But she scored higher grades when she was on Addys than when she was not. So, really, it was a no brainer to think that she ought to continue.

And as she stood there in front of the class, presenting her findings, everything was just so bubbly, bouncy and bright. Presenting the hemodynamic management during anaesthesia had never been so euphoric and she felt as though she was the most confident, smartest person in the entire room.

Everything was so pinpoint sharp and clear and by the end of the day, her jaws was so throbbing because of the constant grinding of her teeth and her mouth was still as dry as a desert no matter how much water she drank. Still, she had so much energy that she didn't know what to do with it but to spend most of the night and early morning on her knees, being fucked and contorted in all different positions. Then, when she woke up, she had the world's worst hangover.

(Derek would tell her years later that she had been talking a mile a minute during the presentation but he didn't think anything of it because he thought that it was just nervous energy until it happened again and again and again and became a pattern.)

After that, she went two months without any stimulants, but, of course, that attempt didn't last very long since she still hadn't finished her thesis and mid-terms were on its way and she was running out of time. It wasn't like the exams were going to wait for her, though it'd be nice if they had.

She've always been this way. Studying last minute, so that the information could stay fresh and retain in her memory until right before exams. Because if she studied five months in advance and take her time, she will have nothing in her head by the time exams started. And this way had never failed her, not in high school, not in college, and not last year. It was just her style of studying and she have always yielded great results.

But she wanted to do better. She knew she could do better.

So why not take something so she could concentrate better and study for even longer? 

She still had an immense amount of chapters to shove into her brain and with mere five weeks, it would not be enough.

She didn't have any more pills and she didn't want to constantly buy off her friend of a friend since it was expensive, time consuming and even a tad bit embarrassing (she have been going to him twice already, the last week), so she decided to meet with a doctor for an evaluation to get a proper prescription.

(Really, she should be ashamed of herself, but she isn't.)

After probably one of the best bullshitting performance she'd ever put on, she was somewhat proud of herself — after the fifty minute session with her psychiatrist, he prescribed her 20mgs twice a day and everything started to look up for her.

It was incredible. It was a lot different from the other two times. Probably because now, it was four times what she had previously taken. But my goodness — she was so happy all the time. Delighted. And she loved it. Ecstatic. She loved being happy. Jubilant. She was bursting with joy from head to toe and just wanted to share her elation with the world.

Happy. Happy. Happy.

Why hadn't she done this earlier?

She had a system.

She would pop a Addy before getting out of bed and another one when she started to study. And sometimes, when she feels like she's running out of juice, she'd take another. Or two.

That's it.

One pill, each time, and it was going so well, so smoothly until it wasn't.

As quickly as this nasty habit started, it quickly got out of hand when she built up a tolerance. It was that quick — yes — just a month of taking the stimulants every single day, which she wasn't taking as prescribed, and of course, didn't really have a need for, no disorder or conditions, she needed more to actually function.

Mid terms were due in a week and she was down to her last and only pill. She was shaking, she was irritated, she was having a really bad day and a migraine was starting to bloom and all she could hear and focus on were Derek and Mark's conversation and she couldn't handle them anymore and hence, she blew up on them.

"Would you two stop shouting!"

They turned to her simultaneously, their faces holding a confused and questioning look.

"Addison, we weren't shouting." Derek said cautiously, turning to look at her, then at Mark and then, back at her again.

She looked at them looking at her like she was crazy and she wanted to scream at them again, to tell them to stop looking at her like that, like it wasn't all in her head.

But they were shouting, she knew they were shouting.

Mark got up, gave Derek and her space to talk, for just the two of them but the way he was looking at her and the way he said her name — she'd tell him what she'd been taking, she'd tell him everything and he didn't even have to ask what was going on or what was wrong, and she just couldn't do that, not when she was so close to the finish line. So, she up and left.

She couldn't simply go to her doctor and just ask for a higher dose since he'd probably find out that she wasn't really ADHD.

Instead, she drove to New Jersey and met with her friend of a friend again and asked for something stronger. He told her of a Pearl crushed to dust, he even let her sample, and it enticed her and frightened her altogether.

Fear that she wouldn't be able to let go, not fear of the drug itself.

Shaking her head, she declined the offer, she just couldn't, and shouldn't start something so strong when mid-terms were a week away. He handed her an orange bottle filled to the top and asked for seven hundred dollars.

She took two everyday as prescribed but as exam days rolled in, she was popping them like mints. By the time mid-terms ended, she would not/could not sleep for the proceeding four days.

The first day and a half were downright interesting. Because she was more or less alright, though restless and so very hungry. She was always starving and her mouth was always so dry no matter how many litres of water she drank, and she found that her hunger could not be satiated, even when Derek fucked her six ways till Sunday.

..

When they fucked, up against his newly refurbished kitchen counter, after weeks of refraining due to mid-terms, Derek thought he'd have to gag her. He was actually looking forward to it — not the gagging, but the litany of 'fuck' and 'please' and straight-up moaning coming from her obscenely red lips.

"Shh, Mark can hear you."

"Let him."

She had her head thrown back and her legs locked around Derek's thighs, and her arms wrapped around him. One hand was cradling the nape of his neck, clutching him to her so that his nose could burrow into the dip of her collarbone. The other was gripping his shoulder, nails digging in deep with every well-timed thrust of his hips.

And with every cant of her hips, the way she twisted her fingers into his hair and pulled — and God if that didn't make him growl deep in his chest and just thrust harder — and the way she would let out these breathy little moans and cries, he understood.

When Derek pulled away, he closed his eyes and nosed at her for a moment, letting himself take over as he followed the line of Addison's jaw, lips, and eyelids. And finally, when he opened his eyes and met Addison' stupidly bright grin with one of his own, he realised something else; he was never going to need anyone else ever again.

...

She inhaled sharply, "Harder, harder, harder ..."

Her thighs were twitching again, she never got off from penetration alone but this was the hottest thing she had ever done. She whimpered when Derek went back to gripping her hips and began lifting his hips from the bed so he was fucking up into her. She was taken off guard when he grabbed her back and lifted her and flipped her over, pushing her knees to her chest and began pounding into her.

Her moan came out more like a pleasured scream and she scrambled for purchase but Derek held her down and fucked into her deeper than she had ever been penetrated before.

Then, there was this banging against the wall and she heard Mark's voice, "Hey! Would you two be more considerate! I'm trying to sleep!"

She didn't care and she kissed Derek as the obscene sound of flesh slapping echoed through the small bedroom. She wasn't used to such rough treatment, but she was loving it.

They both came, Derek following her almost immediately, with his face buried into her neck, and her nails digging gouges into his back.

"What's gotten into you?" Derek asked in the afterglow of it all, collapsing on the other side of her kissing her shoulder and rubbing her arm.

..

Good thing it was winter break.

Because if she wasn't in the bedroom, she was in the kitchen munching on every last food there was like a glutton.

Because the next two days were the scariest. They were a blur of pain, anxiety, heart palpitations and tears since she was just so frustrated that she still hadn't fallen asleep.

Just five minutes, she told herself. If she could just close her eyes and brain for five bloody minutes, she would be all better.

But she seemed to be permanently tired. She felt physically tired, even thought she had done zero to nothing to warrant feeling physically drained. She hadn't done anything but lie down for the past two days and still, she felt like she had been tackled and shoved around in a football field.

Her eyelids felt like they hung from about a third down of where they normally would and her body just wanted to shut her eyes and make her sleep but couldn't.

Derek didn't come over, or rather, she specifically told him not to. She didn't want him to accidentally stumble upon her things.

She would pace around her apartment during the dead hours of the morning, walking from the kitchen to the living room and then, to the balcony and back to her room.

Reading a book didn't help and it didn't help that she simply couldn't concentrate.

Also, she had a headache. Persistent and throbbing and blindingly painful. It didn't start out too terribly and she didn't care much about it at first. But it got progressively worse over a short amount of time. She took a Tylenol and thought she'd be alright.

It didn't do anything. Of course. And so she went straight into the bathroom for a scalding hot shower because that had always been her 'miracle cure' for headaches — a stupid hot water on her head till she didn't feel anything.

It did less to nothing to stop the pain.

Then, her eyes hurt and her head felt like it was going to explode. Her body felt like it had lead hanging off every limb. Everything felt heavy, everything was hard to do.

At that point, she hadn't slept in almost ninety hours and she was in a panic (mainly of people finding out), her head was pounding so bad and she couldn't keep anything down because of that, but she still went out with Derek and Mark for food, thinking that maybe if she walked around the busy city, she'd tire herself out.

It made sense at that night. Granted, she certainly wasn't thinking clearly.

Derek didn't know, so he couldn't have understood that it was the affects of what she had been taking. He didn't even know that she hadn't slept in four days. Throughout the night, he kept asking her to take a test, kept pestering her about her being cranky and irritated lately and — it's not that okay, just because I'm irritated doesn't mean I'm pregnant!

She was frustrated. She was crying. She didn't know what to do. She didn't want to hallucinate. Because that's what happens when you don't sleep a wink — you gradually lose your mind and she knew she starting to or already was and she was just so paranoid of anyone finding out.

"You sure do sound preggo." Mark retorted, snorting and she stepped forward with a hand in the air ready to smack him upside the head when Derek stopped her.

"Addison," he said softly, kissing the inside of her wrist, "Hey look. It's your favourite ice cream place. Let's go inside."

"Derek. I'm not a child. Don't speak to me like I'm a child." she crossed her arms around her chest when she noticed her hands were shaking, "I don't want ice cream. I just wanna go home."

Mark said something about their apartment being tainted because of her, "Derek. Make him stop." she cried, cradling her pounding head. "Please."

"Mark, just leave her alone." Derek said before turning back to her, a hand around her waist, " Let's go?"

She groaned and rubbed her face, nodding as they walked in.

And as they stood in line at an ice cream parlour, she caught a reflection of herself and she all but gasped. She didn't look like herself at all. That person was not her. She had a bit of weight, but not too drastic to warrant concern, her eyes were huge and she had dark circles around her eyes and her skin was pasty and waxy and grey.

"Red, you're sweating ..." she heard Mark said in wonder, truly taken aback.

"What? No — stop — don't touch me," she swatted his hand away when he swiped the tiny droplets across her forehead.

"It's the middle of winter."

She rolled her eyes at him and looked at Derek who stared at her silently for a moment.

"Sorry, I ... God, I feel fine. Okay."

No. She didn't. She felt like her heart was going to burst right out of her chest.

"Maybe I should take you home?" Derek asked, "You don't look good at all, Addie." he said, placing a hand on her shivering shoulder.

"No. No. Why? I'm fine. I just —" she winced then, as she spoke, squinting at Derek when he suddenly became blurry in her vision.

"Addie?"

"I think I'm gonna —"

Everything went black at that moment.

Derek would tell her later that she had tipped to the side, falling to the floor. And as she went down and because she was so long, her arm had knocked over something to the wooden floorboards, letting it all crash beside her.

A woman cried out when she started seizing on the ground below them, dropping her tray of frozen desserts at the frightful sight.

"Addison!" Derek had just missed catching her when her eyes rolled back, dropping to his knee as he grabbed her convulsing jaw to hold still.

"Call an ambulance, please!"

Mark snapped at the bunch of people who had crouched beside them in the gathering crowd like it was a show, worrying his eyes at Addison when foam began building and spilling from her lips, her blue eyes rolling back into her head as she choked and trembled.

Addison woke up in the hospital, cringing as her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room.

"Addie, you're finally awake."

"Finally?" she croaked. She still felt so bad as though no time had passed. "What time is it?"

"Four-fifteen."

Four-fifteen?

But they were just at the ice cream place. It was around seven, she remembered looking at the clock there and it was dark outside.

Then, it hit her.

The light from outside.

Bright as day. Because it was ... you know, the middle of the day.

Four-fifteen?

Twenty one hours had passed. She had slept for almost a day and she didn't even felt like it. She didn't even think she lost consciousness because all of her thoughts were still in order.

She wanted to cry again because she had slept for twenty-one hours straight and nothing — she still felt the same.

"You had a seizure, Addie."

Only a mild seizure. Derek was being dramatic.

When the doctor came into her room to talk to her, she asked Derek if he'd mind stepping out. She didn't want him to know. She'll tell the doctors, of course, there was no point in lying to them that she hadn't been taking anything.

He looked hurt but stepped out anyway.

"So, I take it, your boyfriend doesn't know?"

She shook her head, not meeting the doctor's gaze.

No. 

The doctor paused and looked at her with half a smile, blinking back down to his clipboard with a sigh. "So, withdrawal is what almost killed you, Miss Montgomery."

She nodded, slowly. She figured as much.

"Have you also been drinking?"

She nodded again. "But not a lot. I just ... I just wanted to sleep."

Desperately.

"How long had you not slept?" the doctor asked.

"I think like four days — almost five." The number sounds embarrassing to Addison and she clenched her jaw, so angry at herself for taking it this far.

"Fatigue? Confusion? Difficulty in concentrating? No desire to do anything? Decreased thought patterns? Hallucination?"

She nodded. "But I don't think I hallucinated."

"And now do you feel well rested?"

"No."

The doctor scribbled something down; Addison cringed.

"And do you have any medical conditions — ADHD? Narcolepsy?"

She shook her head.

"There are a number of treatment programmes for complex addiction. If you have a problem, Miss Montgomery, we can help you."

She snapped her eyes to the hovering man with a glare, "I don't have a problem. I stopped a few days ago."

"And that was what caused the withdrawals, that caused the seizure." the doctor said, seemingly noticed her discomfort and casted a smile in her direction; just barely, Addison glimpsed a flash of perfectly white teeth, "Don't worry, I am not going to force you into treatment this time, Miss Montgomery. You have to want that for yourself. But if you do come back, you will leave me no choice. I wouldn't want you to waste your life." he said.

"Are we clear?" he asked lightly.

She didn't answer. Addison had to fight back the sob building in her throat. What annoyed her was his definite stance that she will be back, like he was so sure that she was going to ruin her life.

"Do you think you have a problem, Miss Montgomery?"

"No, I do not think I have a problem. I stopped and I promise it will not happen again. I just got caught in wanting to do better."

She stopped taking the pills. Though cold turkey and stupid, she stopped taking them. It wasn't an issue quitting. It wasn't difficult.

She was fine.

And she already vowed to herself that she'd stop, ad infinitum.