VIII

She looked around the room, moving cautiously. The posters on the wall were dusty and curled at the edges. Here was Siouxsie and her Banshees, there New Order. There were the inevitable collages, magazine clippings, and trinkets organized to show love for their subjects. Old crushes, absent friends, bands whose songs she could only vaguely recall (she thought maybe for the best). She ran a finger over some of the faces, tracing old fantasies of kisses and adventure.
The bed kicked up a cloud when she fell onto it. She watched bits of dust float and swirl in the sliver of light coming through the blinds. In the stillness of the room it looked otherworldly, as though the universe was moving in slow motion. The groove of the mattress, the slight creak of the elderly frame, the whisper of the fabric beneath her all served to rip her back to those old times, moreso, even, than the faces staring at her from all surfaces of the room. This room, untouched for so long, a reliquary in her name.
The night they left was mostly a blur to her. It was humid, unsensibly hot. She'd been lying on the same bed daydreaming about god knows what. She lay there safe, somewhat comfortably ensconced. She had Skynyrd playing, her love for them her fathers gift to her. As she was being told to be a simple kind of man, the world around her was imploding. When her mom burst into the room she let out a little frightened, and offended, squeal. She looked old and worried. Her already sunken and lined face looked easily ten years older than usual. She looked into her mothers crazed eyes, then down to the garbage bag in her hands.
"We're leaving" was all she got. "go get in the car"
She did as she was told. She might even have fallen asleep for a few minutes. Her mother sped down the interstate, passing cars at wildly inappropriate speeds, hands white and blotchy, jerking the wheel to delay death. Her mother started talking about something or other so she put her headphones on, pressed play, and tuned out.
Mom was a drug addict. Methhead. Over the next few years they floated from hotel to hotel, crashpad to dirty crashpad. She took it in stride, sinking deeper within herself. When mom didn't come home for days she taught herself the fine art of ramen-based cuisine. She was a scavenger in her living space, learning to forage and survive. When the seedy men mom brought home tried to grope her she quickly learned their weaknesses. There were spots you could lightly touch a man that'd have him writhing on the ground in agony before his brain had even registered what happened, if you could believe that. Usually this earned her a beating. She was pretty, but looked gaunt unless mother and daughter were side-by-side.
The real evil of meth addiction isn't the horrific mental and physical changes it makes in people. It's not the lifestyle or speech pattern changes, nor the cracked and blackening teeth. Any serious drug affects all facets of its habitual users life but, with most, upon taking covenant with it, the user acknowledges a certain shelf life. Few and far between are the long-term hardcore users because their herd is naturally thinned. Meth has left a legacy of broken homes, broken souls, violence, and theft..but this is not it's curse. The true evil of meth addiction is that it doesn't kill off its host, leaving society tasked with catering to addled and often dangerous zombie or worse - annoying "born-agains"
The pair continued on for years, uprooting constantly, always changing names, hairstyles, and people. She began to forget her previous life, thinking this must be how all people live. Her education having been cut short, she took to devouring books, magazines, wall posters, anything with words. It was during these years, when so often left to her own devices, that she discovered her affinity, no, her absolute and unbridled passion, for water.