Addiction
Warm light splashed across my face as I rolled to the middle of the bed and I groaned as I threw an arm over my eyes. The heat was unbearable even for the split second sunlight touched me, beads of sweat bubbled at my hairline as I pushed the blankets off my legs. Three days turned into eternity. Sleep eluded me. Sanity was a thing of the past. I was consumed with need. A need for the one thing I couldn’t have.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and covered my eyes with my hands.
A fix.
I just needed something. Anything. Anything to get me past this… void. I felt empty inside. A leech bled me dry of any emotion and I just wanted to feel something. It wasn’t too much to ask, I told myself. I wouldn’t do it again. A little slip up was just to get me by and then I would handle it.
I looked in the mirror. Blank eyes stared back at me. No empathy. She wasn't lying to me. I wouldn’t. I wouldn't handle it. I couldn't handle it now. Always there ruling my life. I didn't function without thinking of it. It consumed me. This turned me into someone I didn’t recognize looking back at me. Wild eyes, filled with panic and circled in black. Lips pressed together painfully, dull of color and cracked and bleeding. The loud ringing in my ears. It wasn't me staring back. It was her. The girl who used to be me and she didn't care if I breathed another day. I didn't either.
I stumbled into the bathroom and turned the shower on cold. The water stung like a thousand needles pressing into my skin. I rested my head on the tile and wished the water could beat the sickness out from the inside. There were no tears to cry. I had no feeling left inside of myself. Numb. All there was in life was numb.
I pulled on my robe and avoided the mirror. A blanket thrown over the window took care of the sunlight. I didn’t want to feel it. The warmth reminded me of what I was missing and what never could be mine.
Hidden inside this room was my life. In neat little compartments, plastered in pictures glued to the wall. Happiness wrapped lies. Lips pressed upward in smiles, eyes terrified. It painted a pretty picture. It painted the sort of picture I wanted to see but the inside was black. Ink on ice and rolling carelessly outside the carefully constructed lines, I could see the deception running towards the edge.
The bed welcomed me back, enveloping me, surrounding me, holding me. I pulled a pillow into my arms and snuggled it. I felt pathetic. Lower than dirt. A parasite in the world. I closed my eyes and wished I could disappear. I would lay here until I turned to dust and fade away.
“Don’t do this.”
He slipped into my room, the door shut quietly behind him. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to hear his voice. I hated him. I hated how compassionate he was. I hated how he looked at me. I hated how he spoke to me as though with one touch he would break me like fragile glass. And I hated how he made me feel.
My back was to him. I knew he leaned against the door, worried and afraid all at the same time. I had known him a lot longer than I’d known myself. I knew enough to stay away from him. I knew to keep my heart locked up and to keep my feelings in check. He intimidated everything I held dear in my little perfect constructed world. He pushed my buttons. He pushed my limits. And he pushed my ability to stay indifferent.
I was never indifferent when it came to him. It was a game of cat and mouse with him and I was good at games; but it was all a show and something I didn't want him to ever know.
“I’m not leaving until you at least look at me.”
I thought I would feel something to hear his voice. The way his soft baritone wrapped around a room like warm velvet on a cold day but his voice didn't reach me. I felt oddly displaced. I was laying in the middle of the bed, huddled in the darkness but I floated outside my body, watching him watch me. The look in his eyes made my heart beat a little harder, my blood flow a little faster. When I looked at him I remembered the pain I caused him. The stinging edge of pain came back in full force and I bit my cracked lower lip to keep from making a pathetic sound.
He scared me.
“I know you hear me.” His shoes made little noise on the carpet as he moved closer to the bed and the bed dipped with his weight as he sat on the edge. “Please talk to me. Please…” I felt his hand hover over my head, felt the heat that seeped from him fingertips. He wanted to touch me and I longed to press my head into his hand and take what he offered but I couldn’t. Never. Not even at the end of time.
I pressed harder into the soft mattress to delay the feeling of his touch, but his fingertips brushed through my hair lazily, brushing the matted strands away from my face. I was grateful for the darkness. It kept him from seeing my reaction. He had to go away. I couldn't afford to feel right now. Not like this.
"Go," I whispered. "Just go away."
His thumb grazed over my cheekbone and his hand settled on my shoulder turned me towards him. He left one hand on my shoulder to pin me down. Every fiber in my body screamed to push him away. To make his touch go away. To retreat into the corner and stare at him wide eyed until he went away. But I didn’t. I felt his thumb touch my tender cheekbone, brushing over the faded bruise lightly and over my eyelids, fanning my eyelashes tenderly.
“I want you to make me understand.” The pause was torture for both me and him. I was numb. Numb after years and years mentally going into a different place. He wasn’t. He couldn’t make sense or understand, even if I told him. There was no lying. There was no pleading. I wanted to be alone.
"There's nothing to say." I avoided looking in his eyes. I knew even in the darkness they would be blue fire pleading with me to talk to him as we used to before I was broken and shelved. I pushed him, crazier in my panic than I'd ever been before. My fingers wrapped around his wrists and pushed out. “You have to go.”
“No.” He tried to restrain me and as soon as his fingers clamped around my wrist he flicked a switch in my brain. I fought blindly, striking out and flailing around. I kicked and I punched and the words that spewed from my mouth weren't my own and still he handled me gently.
“Don’t. No. I'm not going to hurt you. You have to stop! Stop! Stop! Kid, listen to me! You have to stop!” He let go of my wrist and pulled me into his arms, pinning me against his chest. He was warm and solid and I just wanted something tangible to hold onto.
“I don't want you here!" I lashed out at him, the pain licking at me like blue flames in a fire. I could feel and it hurt. It hurt so bad. There was a chisel inside of my heart and pounding away in huge chunks. “Go. Leave. Please.” I licked my lips and my lungs hurt with the effort to breathe. "Please... just please."
He clutched me closer to him and whispered in my ear, “I'll never leave you.”
My fingers started to tremble first and I fisted my hands in his t-shirt to keep from showing weakness. Then my body shook with emotion I’d held back and I couldn’t hold on anymore. He broke something inside of me and my carefully constructed wall crumbled. He held me as I cried, whispering things I should never say aloud. He murmured reassuringly in my ear and smoothed my hair back away from my face as though this were any other day of the week. He held me as though his life depended on it. He held me like I was reassuring him I was still breathing.
When I quieted, he laid me back down in the center of the bed; his thumb brushing over my lips softly as he pressed a kiss to my forehead and pulled the blankets over me. He closed the door behind me as he left. The memory of the door shutting will forever be imprinted on my memory as one of the most significant moments in my life. It was the end of one chapter of my life and the auspicious beginning of anew.
Love comes in several different packages. Love starts as an obsession and then quickly turns into an addiction. If taken away suddenly, your body goes into withdrawal. Life turns colorless and without meaning. You can trick your mind into thinking anything is love if you believe it enough. Substitutes for love aren’t hard to find if you’re desperate enough. That is were the addiction comes in. You can’t live without a fix, then you can’t live looking for that next high. You have to learn to live life without it and love yourself. Love is about sacrifice until you can find the balance.
Life is filled with many different relationships, of love and being in love and love ever after. Writing is a love for many writers as we begin our relationships with our characters and conveying life through their actions. I love the ability to put emotion into life. I love the feeling inside when I touch upon something that I think readers can identify with. Scenes of real emotion are very draining and very satisfying. But love… love in all different shapes and sizes are what we all dream of achieving.
What sort of love do you like you characters to achieve in the story? I know we all dream of the HEA, but are you satisfied when the character achieves their version of the HEA? And what sort of HEA do you dream about?
This weeks song choice was: "Walter" by (intheclear) and "Sally's Song" by Amy Lee.
My CD on repeat is: Coalescence by Desperate for Compromise
Why I love it: I love metal and I love lyrical prose that's beautifully haunting and painfully all at the same time and speaks to me on another level. I think Desperate for Compromise blends everything I like about music into one album.
Songs on repeat: For You, 1000 Pieces, Boy Toy.
Books by the Crew
47 comments:
Before logging in I was remembering the famous question to a Buddhist novice 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'
More interesting for romance writing is the question 'what is the sound of a broken heart crying?'
Sin, I think that you have a near perfect answer!
I'm definitely adding this to my little digital box entitled 'Best of Sin's gems'
Thanks for yet another Wednesday treat. :D
Sin - this is wonderful as always. :)
My characters have to clear some obstacles before they can put the past behind them to have a future together. I think they worked hard for it and I was happy with it when it was over.
I usually feel like when the characters work hard for their HEA that it's a satisfying ending.
Well, I feel significantly wrung out. Great way to start my morning. I do love angst. Lovely blog, Sin.
This question made me think about my WIP and I realized for me, the characters have to learn to love themselves first. Deep down, my heroine believes there is something inherently wrong with her that makes her unlovable. She's not good enough. Or just not enough, period. That's why men leave her.
She has to learn to love herself before she can find her HEA with Bryan. It comes as little surprise that this sentiment is very reflective of my real life experience.
Q- I'm truly honored. Not only do you comment faithfully to my blogs every week, but you hold onto them like I'm famous. Every week you give me just a little inspiration to go out and contemplate my next move. I feel like we're playing a chess game and we both have too much appreciation for each other that our moves are in consideration of keeping the game alive. Okay, maybe that doesn't make sense. What I'm trying to say is that every week, I try to write the quality of blog that I know you'd enjoy because your high opinion means a lot to me.
Marn- I agree. The main characters have to work hard to justified the means to the end. I think I really enjoy a book when I know that the H&H belong together after all the crap they have to go through to get there. When things just fall into place, that's when I have a hard time following. But the more hurdles they have to jump, the more I root for them to be together.
Ter- I knew you'd appreciate the angst this morning. This was about all the angst I could wring out for the blog. I didn't want anyone to go stick their head in a mud puddle and wait until I stop talking.
Like you, I think in some aspects there has to be appreciation for yourself before you can learn to appreciate someone else. I know that was true in my life. I know it's true in a lot of cases. You have to learn how to respect a relationship before you can have a successful one and some people just never learn the lesson, they want to skip ahead to the "easier" part. We all believe there is something wrong with us deep down inside when any relationship goes sour. Sometimes there is, and sometimes it really is just the other person. Emotions muddy the water. No matter how crystal clear it looks one day, you never know if you're going to wake up to a rainstorm.
Wow. You deprive me of words, dammit.
Sin - good point. It's nearly impossible not to internalize things. For my heroine, her father walks away when she's a little girl and never looks back. Then he re-marries, has another little girl, and goes through the years pretending the heroine doesn't exist. It's like he replaced her. And any little girl is going to take that to mean there was something wrong with her.
Then as an adult, when a man she thought was the one tells her he doesn't love her anymore, again she's left feeling like she was the problem. It's almost a learned behavior at that point.
Wow, Sin! You're good, girl, and you just keep getting better. I'm in awe.
I'm off to see the new grand again. She's gorgeous! :) I'll be back to answer your questions later.
Maggie, I didn't aim to rob you of words. :(
Ter, I feel like it's all about your upbringing too. A lot of times we're taught to internalize our feelings because we cause too much "drama" by expressing ourselves openly. And when we're young we aren't equipped to handle emotional rollercoasters like we are when we've got a few years under our belt. Sometimes it's just little things that can make you feel like you're not worthy of love or someone's love. It's very easy to express that through writing, but trying to express it aloud to someone else is an entirely different thing.
Janga, thank you! That sort of writing I'm better at. I don't know why. Something about angst appeals to me even if I don't like to write it.
Congrats on the new grandbaby!! Give her lots of extra love and kisses.
Wow, great blog! You are one talented lady. I have no answer to your question. Great angst!
No answer on the HEA, Kelly? OOH, c'mon! I know better!
It all factors in. Reminds me of that line from Hope Floats (which I watched again last night). Something like, "Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to get over." So true!
This is why I work so hard to make sure my daughter sees her own worth. Life is too hard not to prepare them for it now.
Hmm. That is a good philosophical question (and a gorgeous blog, by the way.)
Do I expect HEAs to be a certain way, or can I accept a HEA if it's on the character's terms? Hmm. I'm not sure. I'd like to think I could do the latter, because some people--well, a lot of people--just "can't" be happy. They sort of believe they only deserve so much happiness, like happiness is quantifiable or something.
Of course, if they're still...believers in that regard, then they didn't do the full hero's journey. I think HEAs are all about having Faith, which generally has no basis in firm fact of anything. You believe just because. It's a tricky sort of thing to say you "have faith" but then keep to your old strategies of "waiting for the other shoe to fall and planning accordingly." It's a sort of catch-22.
I don't know.
I'd say the *maybe* HEA is more realistic, more true, but we do read romances for the hope they give us that one day we can have a HEA that isn't restricted by our old hangups. We all want to believe we'll get over our neuroses one day.
I have never heard a truer statement than that one in Hope Floats. *LOL* My sister & I laughed hysterically at that line. (Between crying, of course. I cried buckets the first time I watched that movie.)
Even I cry during that movie, and almost every time I watch it. Makes me feel like a damned fool.
I never wanted to be cynical. But in recent years I've had a hard time believing there are HEAs in real life. But then I've met so many women through this Romance writing/reading community who have found theirs. I admit, there are no guarantees these people will make it to forever, but the prospects look good. So I believe. Or have faith as Hellion put it.
I'm trying to anyway. :)
Ok...I'll give it a shot. This is just for you, Sin.:)
I like my characters to believably achieve the kind of love that lasts forever. And I do mean FOREVER! I don't want my readers left with lingering questions about the character's fidelity or anything like that.
But I also like to think that the love achieved is realistic. I like to think that sometimes they'll disagree with each other or argue a bit but their abiding love will always be the glue that keeps them together. They'll have hard times and good. They'll have sickness and health. They'll have passion and comfort.
That sounds pretty much perfect for me.
As for me, I think my HEA is not coming.lol. I just can't imagine anyone falling in love with me- and I don't mean this in the low self-esteem, I'm unworthy way. I just mean that the whole thing, in RL, is completely out of my realm of understanding. I've never been in love(funny that I write romance). But I do want children and will have them even without a man.
Again, great blog!
I love Hope Floats. And I do blubber like a chil over it. It's the movie that my mother and I constantly watch together. Hmmm...we haven't watched it in a while. I think this calls for another screening.
I love Harry Connick Jr.!
Kelly - I've been in love, and I'm still skeptical. LOL! I'm afraid that may never go away. And I love that you say you'll have kids even without a man. But I have to tell you, it's easier with help. Things are just easier with a team than flying solo. Trust me, I know! LOL!
Hey,Ter! I actually know what you mean about the team. That's why I'm happy to have two VERY supportive parents. I know it's not the same as a husband but it's something...
Hellion is merely quoting the Bible: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." If that doesn't sum up my belief in Love and HEAs, nothing does. Though I do occasionally SPOT HEAs in other couples around me. Smug bastards.
I believe in HEA's in real life. I used to not. In fact, I was a staunch believer in that marriage should be selective and people should go back to handfasting before they were allowed to even considering being married. I think people take marriage for granted. Marriage isn't a cure all for a relationship. It only makes it harder.
I think HEA's take a lot of work to maintain. It's just not something you fall into and it works forever. A real HEA is work, but should never be a job.
Keep the faith, babe.
Kelly, I think you made a good point. The HEA should be forever and there should be no lingering doubts in a readers mind after they've closed the book that the couple stayed together until the end of time.
Sometimes age brings different thoughts and goals. You never know where you'll be in five years. You have specific goals in mind, but ideals change as you gain experience and knowledge over the whole HEA. I know when I was your age I had no concept over the whole falling in love and staying there thing. I didn't want anything to do with it. In fact, I went out of my way to avoid it.
Hellion- Damn, I achieved philosophical standards today. Let me run outside. Yup. I think hell froze over.
I think faith and luck go hand and hand. You have to have faith in your ability to love and be loved and you have to have luck to achieve the two at the same time. It's like playing the lottery, you never know when your number is going to come up and strike you rich.
Kelly's comment about them never fighting is true. I'd never believe the H/H are never going to have a fight. But I want to believe that those fights will never take them under. As Sin says, marriage and the HEA is hard. I think we need to feel the couple are *meant* for each other. Even then, it's work.
Tessa Dare, whose debut books are coming out next summer, did a great job of bringing back a previous couple in the third book. They are the H/H from the first book in the series and they are having a fight. We get to see how that goes and how they work it out. It's an excellent example of knowing the people live HEA but not in perfection.
Goodness, please tell me my odds are better than playing the lottery. LOL!
Yeah. Sorta. Because you play the lottery every day. It's not like those rare occasion thingys where you have a dollar to waste and go into the gas station to buy a ticket. This is a daily thrown into the bucket of raffling and God shakes it all up and let's fate just take care of the rest.
Ter, Shannon Hale did a great job in River Secrets of bringing back two characters who were the H/h in Enna Burning. They were fighting and it just seemed like they totally weren't connecting. But then they worked it out and their HEA was made all the sweeter.
And now I can't wait to read Tessa's book even more. You're a horrible person for dangling that over my head.lol.
Kel - I so rarely get to know things before everyone else. I promise you, these books are amazing. I can't wait to watch Tessa take off and get to sit back and say, "I told you so." LOL! And there will be lots of friends with me saying the same thing!
Tessa is so talented and amazingly nice. She really deserves all the success in the world.
Sin says: "Marriage isn’t a cure all for a relationship. It only makes it harder."
That has to be the truest thing you could have written. When a couple fights all the time due to legitimate and fundamental differences, but speak about marriage with stars in their eyes, I squirm. Being married doesn't make difference any easier to cope with and having children amplify problems in a marriage. Best to start off with the least amount of drama/discord as possible.
Marn - I'm amazed when I see those couples who have been together for a couple of years and can't spend an hour together without fighting. Then they plan a wedding. WTF are they thinking?!?!
And I have friends that were like that too.... Most are divorced now. Sad stuff.
I think they've blurred the lines between romance in fiction and romance in reality. Romance in reality looks more like a husband scrubbing the bathtub or taking the baby first thing in the morning so you can catch another hour of sleep. In fiction, hot fights turn to hot sex. But there's a reason fiction ends when it does.
Not sad about the divorces if they weren't happy, more sad that they had to go through those experiences.
Oh, and I wanted to say I agree about Tessa deserving all the success she's going to get. A very sweet lady.
Wow, Sin...lovely blog entry. This one I'll go back and read several times, I know there are layers I'm not getting the first time through...
HEA? I wrote one for my first couple, after numerous adventures and then spent days crying... So I dove in again and kept it going. And it works because HEA is work. It's a journey that is full of challenges. Having your heart mate to help out makes it easier, but not easy.
When I read, a HEA leaves me wondering what is next... I tend to like the Happily Ever Now more. Maybe I'm just not romantic enough!
Marn - it is sad but it's worse if they don't learn anything from the experience.
2nd Chance - Maybe you're just like me - too practical. LOL! If I didn't have this hopeless romantic gene, I'd be a lost cause.
2nd Chance, what a wonderful compliment! Not only you read it the first time, but you like it enough to read again? I always see problem areas when I reread my blogs. Places it could've been polished and places that could've been moved. It's a curse.
My first HEA was the toughest to write. I felt like it was impossible to make my couple have an HEA and in my mind, their HEA hadn't presented itself yet. But then I realized I had to go with the HEN (Happily Ever NOW) and make it work. Some couples are meant for eternity. They are the adventurous couple who lives for the moment. I like all my H&H's to live that way.
Great comment!
PS. Tessa deserves all the success and happiness in the world. I don't know her well but what I know of her, she's super sweet and very talented.
Marn, I agree with Ter. It's worse when they haven't learned from their mistakes and continue to blame someone else for their misfortunes. When you don't learn from the past, it's never in the past, it always continues to be your present and future.
I agree with you both about the whole past not being past thing.
Well, each day is a new day...but you reach it by moving through the days before. The past is there, but you decide to make it the defining part of how you live the new day. Or not. Hard decission to make, though. Always. (The past is sneaky...)
Sin - I always edit and edit and re-edit... Isn't that just what writer's do? Wait, can I say that better? :)
2nd, LOL! written like a true writer. Er, or a true rewriter.
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