Kruppo

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Sizing myself next to a kid like Grant, it felt like the similar comparison between an honorable soldier and a pervert. He held himself to high standards, obeying Marvin throughout the years, while I had been running off doing what I’d felt like, caring for nothing except the pursuit of my own pleasure. Where Grant was working hard and maintaining and honesty that was beyond admirable, I was skulking around in the background, hiding things behind everyone’s backs, including a past-old heroin addiction.
The mere memory of that addiction always left me with a hollow heart and a worm of fear squirming around in my soul. The fear was always there; it was a promise that if I let my strength slip for only a moment, I would be back to square one. Back to the heroin, back to certain death of the soul and mind.
My worry about Marvin’s discovery of my addiction had always been a fear as well. I was lucky he had been the gone the whole summer I’d promised myself I would quit; he had spent some time in China, on business that I didn’t know. I could already feel the effects of withdrawal only hours after my last session. I put all of the rest of the heroin in a trash bag, and dumped it in a creek. Then, sitting in my room for days on end, I waited for it to stop. But the withdrawals did not want the party to end. They demanded I get up to see some hookups and get some new stuff.
Grant knew. Every day that I spent in hell, on the bed, cursing at myself, my family, my friends, and myself some more, Grant would bring me sandwiches or other kinds of food, even if I didn’t feel hungry. I would let it lay there for a while until I couldn’t stand to lie still and let the withdrawals consume me. Grant would come in the room, and encourage me, telling me that he believed I could do it.
For three months, this cycle continued. Five days before Marvin returned, and school was back in session, I had finally overcome the pains of withdrawal. To this very day, I still feel the urge at times, the slightest bit of curiosity stirring within me, to sample some heroin. However, seeing Grant’s youthful face, encouraging me every day to fight it, I know deep in my heart, I can never go back.
In what was a strange sense of understanding and pure desperation, before the withdrawals had left me, I felt something in me give as I finished vomiting one day in the toilet and had collapsed back onto the bed. I was sweating viciously, and shaking like a leaf in the breeze. For the first time in my life, I wondered if the God character could do me a favor.
“Just one favor.” I had begged silently, hunched over in agony. “Let me beat this before Marvin comes home. Let me win. Please. Please. I need it. I can’t lose anymore.”
Whether the God dude was real or not, I couldn’t say. All I know is that after that moment, I felt my head clear, despite the pains I would suffer for the next four weeks before I felt strong enough to leave the house again. For a short time, I felt as though Someone, if not God himself, had heard me, and had answered my prayer.
Every time I think about the heroin, I think about how strong Grant had been in that time when I’d needed a friend more than anything. He had been there more than a girlfriend could’ve been. And as I sat in my chair that night, contemplating all of this, I felt yet another wave of guilt hit me as I realized how much of an asshole I had been to Grant since then.
Without thinking about it, I snatched up a sheet of paper, a pen, and scribbled a hasty note. I spoke aloud the words I wanted to say as I wrote them down, not caring how much my hand hurt.
“Dear kid. I’m sorry I’ve been a jerk to you. I know I haven’t been there for you, even when you’ve been there for me. I don’t know how to thank you for all you’ve done, except to say that if you ever need anything, you just tell me. I owe you better than what I’ve given you, and I swear, if you give me time, I’ll make up for it.”
And that was it. Nothing else needed to be said. I folded the piece of paper into thirds and went back out into the hallway, next to Grant’s door. I could still hear him talking, laughing on the phone. Without hesitation, I shoved the note under the crack, and went back to my laptop, feeling a weight come off of me, like the Albatross had fallen from the Mariner’s neck after the Mariner had blessed the ugly creatures of the sea that God had made.

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I'm so post-rock I shit sad birds