a slow processing is occurring somewhere deep in my brain right now. after trying not to think about it for an hour, after only thinking about it for about four, i'm back to thinking about it. and it's 230 in the morning. and i hope i can sleep soon.
the shock of the news has completely stolen all the details leading up to finding out. so it will seem random and disjointed.
i am nearly certain that ever is using again. as in, heroin.
mike confided in me tonight, somewhat reluctantly, that something bigger was going on with ever. first he confirmed my suspicion that he was drinking again. for a while.
i honestly do not know what i am supposed to do with this information.
i don't know what i should be expected to do.
i don't know how to feel in light of knowing this information.
the facts, as they were told to me tonight, are these:
ever didn't eat.
ever holed himself up in his room for days at a time. mike would call him and text him to check on him, and he would not respond.
ever would nod off mid-conversation. this happened more than once.
ever would talk so slurry that his words were indistinguishable.
ever would lock himself in the bathroom, at least once for six hours at a time, for hours at a time.
ever left a little baggie laying around, the top of which had been cut off with a razor. which is very different from the little bags of weed littering the house when i was still around.
mike figured out that it was heroin, because he came home from work one day, when ever was locked in the bathroom, and smelled burning band-aids. so he googled it.
and more than one result popped up, stating that, when someone is smoking heroin, it smells like burning band-aids. i don't know if the same is true for cooking it to shoot it. but in this case? he assumed he was smoking it.
i cannot fathom him shooting up. it is only a slight relief that he is smoking it instead. because it is so wasteful a way to use, and slightly less dangerous.
i don't know when this was going on, for how long, or how often. i don't know if it is still going on.
when he said it, my stomach dropped. i felt like i was going to throw up. all the blood rushed from my head, and i felt my face go white. i leaned back onto the kitchen counter, and told myself not to pass out. because i felt like that was where i was headed.
then i started doing what i went down there to do, which was to clean up. only i was putting things in weird places, and pacing around, and not actually doing anything at all. because i was just in a state of shock over the whole thing.
i think that what i have decided to do goes something like this:
talk to jay's girlfriend.
on sunday?
stop by for a quick visit. tell her that i found a baggie in the house while i was cleaning. ask if jay has ever said anything to her about this being a possibility.
telling her that it, of course, could be someone else's. but that, paired with his history and paired with his appearance, it is too easy to conclude that it was ever's.
and hope she can shed some light on it.
i really want to talk to jay about it, because of everyone, he is closest to ever. but i don't have his number, and he's not in town, so his girlfriend will have to do.
i'm afraid to wait too long to deal with it. i'm afraid, after talking to kit about it, that jay is carrying some kind of a burden around, being afraid to say or do anything about it to anyone else. and that he might be somehow relieved if i bring it up.
mostly, i am just completely shocked.
because i knew it. part of me wants to search right now for the posts where i wrote about it, and remind myself of the many times when i thought it based on interaction with him.
but sometimes you don't want to say 'i told you so'.
sometimes you don't want to say 'i was right'.
the good thing is... this all makes me feel much less crazy.
and what's more? every single thing makes sense. seeing him in court and knowing he was fucked up. seeing him at mediation and knowing he was fucked up. seeing him skinnier than me, and knowing that he wasn't eating, because he didn't have money for food. knowing that something was not right. noticing his eyes. noticing his hollow face in that fourth of july pic that his roommate posted. not paying the bills, not paying the mortgage. having stupid accidents and ending up in the hospital repeatedly. the house looking like a fucking crack den. living in messes and leaving messes behind. seeming to have lost his mind. and why he wouldn't go home when his grandmother died.
amanda would have known. his mother would have known. they have seen ever the junkie too many times not to recognize it. and even though i never saw that version of him, he taught me to look for it in other people. and i suspected that i saw it in him. logic just convinced me otherwise.
because ever said on more than one occasion that he would sooner kill himself than use heroin again. because the end result would be the same.
and i believed him, because he proved himself to be right for over twelve years. i thought those words were forever.
and i didn't believe it, i convinced myself it wasn't possible, when i started to think that it was possible.
but maybe i just didn't want to know. because that would mean, that like tonight, i feel that it is my responsibility, knowing this, to do something about it.
not hearing from him for the last three weeks is freaking me out.
i can't unconvince myself that he is dead in his new place, wherever that is, alone and overdosed. with the puppy having no one there to care for her.
which is my motivation for trying to get info out of jay, even if it is inadvertently. or if nothing else, getting his number and asking him to talk for even just a minute. out of genuine concern.
the only way i come out of it looking bad, is if somehow mike is completely wrong, and ever isn't using again. then i just look like a pathetic bitch rumor mill.
but it is honestly coming from a place of concern.
i do not want him to die. because i already have dealt with so much guilt. and i do not know how i would handle that guilt.
that is the thing about heroin... it's not a way to live, it's the way you die.
i don't even know what will happen if jay's girl acknowledges it. i don't know what the next step would be. i don't know how to find out where he lives. i don't know that i should do anything at all.
and all the while, circling in my brain, are nina's words:
'tea. if he dies or starts using again, you cannot CANNOT blame yourself.'
as kit put it, 'your leaving is probably what drove him to this point, but his coping mechanisms are what is making this his choice.'
and as i put it, 'millions of people get divorced. only a handful use heroin as an escape from dealing with it.'
i know it's not my fault. i know it's not my place to do or say anything. i'm actually pretty fucking afraid to make waves. because it is quite literally none of my business.
i just can't get over it. i can't believe it. i don't know who he met or spent time with that would have supplied the access to heroin. he was always so careful.
all i can figure (when paired with mike's girl's slip up about 'that broad had to have known, right?') is that he met a girl. who just happened to be a junkie.
i don't know. judgment is the first thing to go when you're drinking. and ever drinking is just all kinds of bad. this is the path i feared for him when i was still married to him. i saw it coming from a thousand miles away. first, with the drinking. second, with the secret weed smoking. after taking opiates for knee surgery recovery. all of those hiding/addict behaviors.
i feel completely changed. i have been so caught off guard. i don't know how i'm going to feel tomorrow. i'm not even fucking tired right now. i just don't know. and i know it does no good to worry about it. but how can you not?
i never had to experience this with him while we were together. how insane that i'm dealing with the knowledge now. i just can't believe it.
instinctively, i wanted to pick up the phone and talk to mom about it. but lovely tea never mentioned this to the parents, despite the divorce. because i didn't know if we would be friends later, so i didn't think i should air it.
and i probably shouldn't still.
but being limited in who i can talk to sucks.
and being limited to having no one with recovering heroin addicts in their life is a good thing. but right now it is making me feel completely helpless and alone in knowing what to do, if anything, and how to proceed.
i didn't want to ask too many questions, because i could tell that he really didn't want to tell me about it, and that he was very worried that i was going to tell ever that he is the one who told me. plus i couldn't think straight to ask the right questions.
i don't know when this was. for how long it was going on. i don't know if it was in the summer, like i initially thought, or if it was right before he moved out.
i just don't know anything. all i have are hunches, based on some pretty serious information from someone who lived with him for almost a year. who absolutely saw changes in him.
i just hope jay knows what i am talking about. i think he is the best way to be able to do something. whatever the fuck that even is...
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