Falling From Disgrace

“Fuck,” he breathed when he saw the little, green pills inside the plastic bag. He stood, taking three long steps back from Adrianna and crushed the bag in his fist. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck! What the fuck did you do? Where did you get this?” He ran a hand through his hair and pulled at the strands, out of his mind with anger. “Ade!” he screamed again, “What did you do?”

Adrianna began to cry and she stood to go to Jack. While he continued to scream at her she somehow found her voice and tried to yell over him. “Jack, I didn’t! Jack, listen to me. Listen to me! I didn’t do it! I didn’t take the pills! Jack, I DIDN’T TAKE THE PILLS!”

Her words finally reached Jack’s ears and he stopped yelling to look down at her. Adrianna felt a tremor of guilt rock through her when she saw Jack’s blue eyes were gleaming with tears. Jack, who didn’t even cry when his own father died, was crying for her.

“I swear to you,” she sobbed, reaching out to grab his hand, “I didn’t take one.”

Adrianna wasn’t lying. She had gone so far as having one of them on her tongue when she wretched and gagged and ran to the sink to spit the pill out. It had been the most defining moment of her life; making the decision, on her own, not to go back down that road. She was still in agony over losing Jack, but she would get through it some other way, she would force herself to do it.

Jack stared at Adrianna as his chest rose and fell heavily with his frantic breaths. He clenched his jaw so tightly it actually made his teeth hurt and then rubbed the moisture from his eyes with his thumb and index finger. He inhaled once again, his nostrils flaring before he exhaled loudly from his mouth. He felt like he wanted to smash something or throw up. He believed that Adrianna was telling the truth, but for the short amount of time he thought he had driven her to take pills again, he felt a fury and sickness like no other, and now he was trying to recover from those twelve seconds of panic.

“Jack,” Adrianna whispered and he finally removed his hand from his face and looked at the woman he loved. He clasped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her to him, crushing her against his hard body that was still wired with anxiety. He just couldn’t calm the fuck down.

Adrianna’s face was pressed painfully against Jack’s chest but she didn’t care. She let him hold her and she relished in the closeness of his body, no matter how brief it would be.

“You didn’t do it,” Jack sighed, and it wasn’t a question though Adrianna still reaffirmed her answer with a shake of her head. He pulled her away from his chest and took her face in both his hands and kissed her everywhere. His kissed her mouth, her nose, both her eyelids, across her cheek, and then over her ear to the side of her head. “Thank God,” he chanted between kisses. “Thank God.”

He picked Adrianna up by her waist and carried her into her kitchen where he sat her on the counter. Leaving her there, he took the plastic bag with pills that he still clutched in his hand to her bathroom where he quickly flushed the five pills down the toilet and shoved their container into the pocket of his jeans.

Upon returning to the kitchen, he wished Adrianna kept hard liquor, for he could sure use a shot of whiskey to calm his nerves. Needing something, he pulled out a cigarette from the front pocket of his shirt, took a few drags from it and then distinguished it under running water from Adrianna’s faucet. Adrianna sat quietly the whole time wondering what Jack was doing at her apartment in the first place.

Now slightly calmer from the nicotine, Jack quickly strode to stand before Adrianna and he braced his hands on either sides of her legs. Using the strongest voice he could conjure he told her, “I am so sorry, Ade. I was an idiot and I am so, so sorry.” This wasn’t the speech he had prepared, that shit was completely forgotten, so he just said whatever came into his head. “I love you, I love you and I don’t know why I couldn’t figure that out before but I know it now and I know want to be with you.”

Adrianna, who had still not stopped crying, closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against Jack’s. “I love you, too,” she breathed.