Meet You in the Stars

“See you tomorrow night!” I called to Brandon as I headed for the door. I was finally getting off work and I couldn’t wait to get back to Jimmy’s place. After everything that happened it made me a little nervous to be away from him for so long. He wasn’t back to full health yet and I worried about him constantly.

My mind drifted and before I knew it I was pulling into Jimmy’s driveway. He’d let me drive his car since I hadn’t saved up enough to get my own yet. When I opened the front door I was greeted by the smell of something burning. There was smoke coming from the kitchen and with my shirt pulled up over my nose I went in to investigate and smoke billowing from the oven. There was a badly burned pizza inside. After opening a few windows to vent the room, I searched for Jimmy.

He was lying facedown on the bed, snoring softly. “Jimmy?” I gently poked his stomach and he blinked at me. “Did you forget about the pizza in the oven?”

“Avery, you’re home!” His words were badly slurred and that’s when I noticed the half empty bottle of whiskey on the nightstand.

“You know you’re not supposed to have alcohol with your pain pills.” He saw me reaching for the bottle and tried to grab it first which only succeeded in knocking it to the floor where it spilled everywhere. I caught the bottle of pain pills that it knocked off and realized it was lighter than it should be. I twisted off the top. Before I left for work there were only two pills missing of the 20 he’d started with, now there were about ten left. “Jimmy, what did you do?”

“Pills weren’t working.” He fell back onto the bed and tried to fall asleep again. I shook him awake, not knowing if he should sleep in this state. I didn’t know what else to do, so I pulled my phone out and called Brian.

“Is everything okay?” he asked immediately.

“Actually, no. Can you come to Jimmy’s please?”

“I’ll be there soon.” The line went quiet and I let my phone fall onto the mattress.

“Why did you call him?”

“Because I don’t know what else to fucking do!” I snapped.

“I’ll be fine, this isn’t the first time.” I was disappointed to say the least. I had spent the entire evening worried about his well being and he obviously couldn’t care less about what he was doing to himself.

“Don’t be mad at me,” Jimmy suddenly whispered. I was saved from having to respond by the doorbell ringing.

“I have to get that.”

“What’s going on?” Brian demanded the second I opened the door.

“He’s upstairs, go see for yourself.” Brian pushed past me and took the stairs two at a time. I followed him and heard him sigh when he found Jimmy.

“I thought you were done with this shit, Jimbo,” he muttered. I entered the room just in time to see Brian roll a snoring Jimmy onto his side. He got up from the bed and motioned for me to go back downstairs. I grabbed two beers from the fridge before sitting next to him on the couch.

“How long has this been going on with him?” I asked.

Brian hesitated for a moment but finally sighed and answered my question. “On and off since we were in high school. We pushed him to stop taking pills about ten months ago and we really thought he was done with it for good. Being on the pain meds in the hospital must have got him hooked again.”

“He never told me about any of it.” I couldn’t help but feel a little hurt. Did he not trust me enough to tell me?

“Can you really blame him? It’s not exactly something to be proud of.”

“I guess you’re right,” I mumbled. We fell into an awkward silence as we sipped on our beers. The stress of the last hour seemed to hit me all at once and then I was crying. Brian moved closer and gently wrapped an arm around me, letting me sob into his shoulder.

“This was probably just a one time thing, everything will be fine.” Something in his voice told me that he didn’t completely believe his own words. He stroked my hair until I finally calmed down.

“Thanks for being here.”

“He’s my best friend, I’d do anything for him.” The sound of a door closing came from upstairs, Jimmy was awake. Brian showed himself out while I slowly climbed the stairs. All I wanted to do was climb into bed and forget any of this ever happened, but after everything Jimmy had done for me I knew I had to do everything I could to help him.

Notes