Vicodin Dreams

From the table to my mouth and back again. Shake shake shake. Tap them in.

I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. I thought of everything and nothing as I drifted through my high, but mostly I thought of Kyle.

Kyle was the boy I'd loved since I was five. He was beautiful and perfect and my best friend. I could never have him but that didn't stop the love. If you know love you know it keeps on coming whether it's wanted or not.

Kyle was the reason I was in this bed, staring at the ceiling, but he'd never know that. I'd never told anyone and never would tell – I'd be silent about Kyle Lansky forever.

As I drifted on a plane of sea foam green and puffy white clouds, I became aware of an opening door. The open door held Kyle, and Kyle held fear. It was such an unimaginable fear that it frightened me as much as it did him.

“Andie, what are you doing?” he whispered, and as he rushed at me, my acid dreams rushed away, like smoke banished by a gust of air. He sat next to me on the bed and lifted my prone body; my breasts brushed against his chest and for a moment I experienced such ecstatic delight that I thought I might be able to overcome the monster I’d put inside myself.

"Kyle," I whispered back, smiling weakly. My eyes couldn't open very far, but they opened just enough to see his beautiful face. "Kyle, Kyle, Kyle." I said his name over and over again, mumbling it even as he tried to speak to me.

I remember at one point he said, "We have to call an ambulance," and for some reason I made no protest. I kept murmuring his name and the more I murmured, the more I drifted back into my world of sea foam green and puffy white.

Then my room was stark around me. My vision cleared in an instant and I leaned over the bed just in time to vomit. Half dissolved white things were scattered in my puke and Kyle looked at it for a long time before shaking me.

"What did you take?" he screamed in my face. "What did you take?"

"Kyle, Kyle, Kyle," was all I said. Kyle never let me go but he searched the bedside table and found his answer on the side of my prescription bottle.

"Andie, oh God, Andie," he kept saying as he held my hair and gripped me as close as he could. I was on fire for him. I was on fire for the Reaper too.

Then I wasn't. I felt the coldness creep over me and I knew it was coming. I was too weak to touch his face, too weak to lift my arms or even to open my eyes, but I smiled at my love as the dreams took me away.