Life Saver

**TRIGGER WARNING: DRUG ADDICTION AND RECOVERY**

Just one more. 

What could it hurt? 

The hardness of the floor jabbing my frail frame and being engulfed in our leaking air mattress tell me Josh is already gone. He probably went to go score. 

*9:37 AM.* 

Please, hurry up and get back soon. 

My phone is dead. The power bill doesn’t always get paid by the landlord of the rundown trailer park we’re renting a room in. Paint peels from the walls and are stained by cigarette smoke. It’s slum city around here.

*9:45 AM.*

My skin feels two sizes too small. My legs are so jittery it feels like ice water is running through my veins and I can’t warm them up.  

A mixture of our sweat pools into the sunken mattress beneath me, escalating my chills. 

I just need one more fix. Just one. Then I’ll be done. 

*10:07 AM.*

Josh made it back. I thank the God I don’t believe in as he empties the contents from his pockets. Two little bags. One for him, and one for me. We prepare our kits simultaneously with the meticulous precision of a microsurgeon and watch the dangerous jellyfish of blood squirt back before we hit our marks. 

A warm cozy blanket rushes over my entire body with electrical intensity. It’s like the warmth of the hug from the love you have longed for throughout your entire life. And then it settles into a lingering state of stillness. Pure numbness. 

We try to resist gravity, but we never succeed. Our heads slump forward with a slight swing from side to side on the end of the drop. Our eyelids become weighted, and the hunched posture prevails before long. 

*? PM*

A gasp for air like a basking shark gulping for krill escapes my lungs in a rush. The room is blurry. That sudden inflation of my lungs is what brings me back around. Time disappeared. My heart wants so badly to pound from the sudden life pumped back into it, but I could tell it was still trying to find a rhythm. 

“Josh?” I reach over and nudge his arm. 

“Babe. Wake up!” My voice hardly qualifies as a whisper. 

“JOSH!” Intense panic claimed my body. The unnatural shape of his body and the slight bruising on his lips sent my heart through another shock. I screamed as loud as my muffled, cottonmouth throat allowed.

“Call 911!” I scream. I can barely get the words out. 

Our roommate, Amber, took two steps through the door before retreating back to her room. The world froze, but I knew more time passed than should have before I heard the 911 dispatcher answer on the other end. She had to hide her stash first. 

Stash. Josh’s stash!

His lifeless body was already becoming stiff. The love of my life. We had just called a treatment center yesterday. We were supposed to be picked up tomorrow and kick this junk together. 

I kneel next to Josh and cradle his body. He’s not here anymore. The last moment I’ll ever get to spend with him is interrupted by a parade of sirens lighting up the trailer park. My addict brain flipped straight to autopilot. I slip two fingers into the small pocket of his jeans and pull out the extra bag I know he always stashed for himself. 

***

I wake up the next morning, and I swear I’m dreaming. I roll over on an actual twin sized mattress and realize I’m not alone in this strange, unfamiliar room. I can see sun peeking through the curtains, but the room is still dark. 

“Look who finally woke up. I’m Lacey.”

“How did I get here?”

“The police brought you in last night. You must have really done something bad,” she inquires. 

I can’t cry, but I want to. I’m numb to the core. All I can do is shrivel down to nothing and let my covers swallow me up. 

“My boyfriend died yesterday.” 

Without even looking, I hear Lacey’s audible swallow of regret. Silence fills the room and Lacey backs over to her own bed. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That’s really tough.”

I roll to face the other wall and fall back into a slumber. 

*Sometime the next day*

“Come on. Let’s get you out of this room.”

I leave the safety of my new temporary bed for the first time since I got here. I throw on a tee-shirt knowing the Florida heat will knock the breath back out of me. 

“Let me show you the back of the place. There’s a really nice pier. A lot of the guys spend half their day fishing whenever they’re not in group.”

Even from the distance, I could hear the slopping of the waves smashing into the bridge directly across from our dock. 

“What are they all looking at?”

“I’m not sure,” Lacy replies. 

Three men are fixed to the edge of the dock like statues, all staring directly at the bridge leading onto the island. The surrounding staff members had already posted “no swimming” signs. The seas were rough from the passing storm last night. 

“Oh my God! It’s a bird!” Lacey yelled, leaving me in the dust. 

She ran as fast as she could to get out onto the dock. 

Now’s your chance…Josh’s last stash. 

I hadn’t forgotten. I had one last fix and all I wanted to do was end the pain. 

“Hey! New girl! Go yell for Gabe! He’s got flippers and a mask!”

The facility was set up like an old L-shaped motel. Girls on the side closest to the water, guys on the furthest. 

I could stop into my room that I know will be empty before I get Gabe. 

“Hurry! The bird is going to die! He can’t swim!” 

I had seen more night’s roll into mornings than I knew what to do with, but today suddenly felt different. I couldn’t watch another thing die. 

I ran as fast as my skin and bones would let me yelling for Gabe. “Gabe! Where are you, Gabe?”

A man, already dressed in a bathing suit, appeared on the upper level. 

“I’m Gabe. What’s up?” 

“There’s a bird in the water, I think. He can’t swim! They sent me to get you!”

Gabe reached inside his apartment to grab his gear and super manned himself over the railing. He flew to the dock faster than I thought humanly possible. He’s donning his mask as he runs. When he reaches the edge of the dock, he sits just for a moment to pull on his flippers. 

“Gabe, you can’t go in the water.” The recovery techs start yelling at this man from every direction. Gabe ignors them all, whips the round lifesaver raft off the mooring on the dock, and launches himself into the water, causing a tsunami of white foam and sea spray.

I could see the bird struggling in the water, desperate for some passing driftwood or anything to float on. My hands gripped tighter and tighter around the edge of the sun-worn railing. Gabe kicked hard and fast. He must be part fish. 

Gabe starts to slow down as he approaches the bird who is visibly displaying his nerves. The poor bird has no idea if this man is coming to end him or not. Gabe ever so gently pushes the life saver tube out about three feet ahead of him, controlling it with the rope so as not to startle the bird. Like a magical moment in a movie, the earth exhaled and went silent and calm as the bird purposefully stepped onto the tube. He knew he’d just been saved. 

It was a choppy, slow swim back to the dock for Gabe. I had never seen such a large man treat a tiny little creature with such grace and gentleness. Gabe rounded the corner from the dock and swam up to the beach side. On shore, we could tell the bird was a dove. He stayed in place as Gabe lifted the raft out of the water, walked it over to the edge of the trees, and gently laid it on the ground. 

Other than a likely aviary cardiac event induced by sheer terror, the bird seemed unharmed. He must have felt safe under the trees. He laid there for the rest of the afternoon drying his wings, before taking flight later that evening. We all stood in comradery and cheered as the bird flew off for a second chance at life. 

For the rest of that day, all I can think about is the magic of that moment. A creature going against its very nature to accept help from a human, a natural predator. Maybe he instinctively knew that was his only chance at another life. 

I hung my legs over the edge of the dock and watched the sky above the very area where everything unfolded earlier. In that moment, I reached into my pocket for that last hidden baggy and without a second thought, tossed it into the sea. I never believed in a God before, but I believe in that bird.