A letter I never sent

Marie,

First and foremost I’d like to say thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I don’t know what I would have done without your love and support. Thank you for your patience and thank you for your acceptance.

You’ve been on my mind today. I called my parents this morning and I actually apologized to them for every time I ever put a substance into my body. I realized there were times they could have easily been Albert holding Nick in our bedroom floor the other night. I’ll never forget the look on his face. I’ll never put my parents through that and I regret that was ever a possibility.

I know Nick loves all of us. I also know that Nick loves heroin. These are both facts. I’d never seen heroin until I met Nick and I did not face many realities until now. I am beginning to understand the grim reality of heroin addiction. No one makes it out alive and the people closest to the addict are always left picking up pieces of their broken homes and broken hearts. There’s always a mess to clean up, lost sleep, excessive phone calls, preparation for the worst, covering the tracks. Always being called stupid, weak, codependent, enabling and taking bla me each time the inevitable happens. Yet we endure it all to save the one we love. The same way you’d save someone if they had cancer. This is reality for people who love people who love heroin.

I’m angry. Nick didn’t have to see what I saw. He doesn’t get to have nightmares or see flashes of his lifeless body. I’ll never see the color blue the same again. Nick knows I suffer from PTSD already….Nick knew that I was beginning to work through my trauma and heal a bit. I warned him how much it would fuck me up to find him dead.

He did it any way.