I’m 24 years old and I have been a heroin addict for eight years. Sherry had popped back into my life during one of the worst binges of my life. It was when I had gotten out of rehab for the third time and I had been sober for seven solid months. My mother began to trust me again and my father let me move back in with him and his wife. I was surprised and fortunate to be in their graces after I had pawned my father’s century old coin collection and his wife’s antique jewelry. I was now living in their basement apartment and working at a near by methadone clinic in Detroit.  That day began and ended like any other day. But that day specifically, I felt the urge to take the longer way home.
            I walked the grimy streets of the city and jumped over broken glass that stood in my path.  I made sure not to touch the sides of the buildings with the obvious site of dried spit and vomit plastered on the sides. I pulled up my kaki pants by the waist and I tugged at the sleeves of my green sweater. When I came to a window I looked in it. No stranger would believe the things that I have seen in my life. I look like a different person then I did seven months ago. Back then, I was a skinny, strung out kid with straggly long brown hair. At twenty pounds heavier, short hair cut and preppy clothes, I could actually pass as a regular 24 year old.
            I watched people in the corners of the buildings knowing perfectly well they were addicts. I remember that look, the scratch, the sweating and trembling, the yearning for the next shot. My eyes were immediately drawn to a man across the street from me. His hair was covered with a dirty red trucker hat that complimented his green and red flannel shirt. Dirt clung to his light blue jeans and his shoes were falling apart. He walked up to this man that stood leaning up against one of the buildings whom I assumed was a dealer. Without any sort of awareness, I had stopped and began watching the two of them; observing the deal going down. I closed my eyes and remembered how it felt when the drug would flow through my body; how euphoric that feeling was.
            The man in the flannel shirt scratched his five o’clock shadow before shaking the dealer’s hand while discreetly receiving the drug. The man in the flannel shirt walked away from him and retreated to the back of an abandoned paper factory building. The windows were smashed in and it was great squatting place for the homeless.
            I stepped out in the street and watched for cars passing. I waited for a silver Nissan to pass by and then darted across the street. My knees buckled and I nearly fell when I reached the curb. As I walked up to the dealer, I felt my knees begin to get weak, and my hands were trembling from the memory of it all. The dealer looked towards the left and then saw me.
            “Whatcha want boy?” He asked me, then snorted the snot back into his nose. I looked around at my surroundings and saw police lights flashing, speeding to some unknown destination. People walking by, and others, wanting something more. I shook my head and mouthed the words ‘forget it’ and walked away. After a block, the urge to use was more intense then watching the red trucker hat guy getting his stuff. I walked into a Variety store and bought a pack of camel cigarettes and stood outside and began to smoke. I sucked in the toxins hard, hoping that this would be enough of a fix to get me through this moment.
            “Marty!” My head darted to the sound of my name pouring from a girl’s mouth. I squinted my eyes at her trying to concentrate hard on who this girl is.
            “It’s me! Sherry! Oh come on Marty, you remember me don’t you?” I thought for a moment as she walked closer to me. I knew who she was but I decided not to say anything yet. I didn’t want her to think that me remembering her made her special to me. With her, she always thought she meant more to me then she actually did. She was a rich girl from my high school that used to get drunk and high. She was the type of rich girl that was trying to prove to everyone that she could hang with the ‘cool kids’ at our school. I remember the first time she tried heroin. I remember that time well because; I was the one who gave her, her first shot. I remember lying on her bed afterwords and she just climbed on top of me and started to kiss me.
“Hey what’s up?” I blurted out when she was two feet in front of me. Her blond hair was past her shoulders and a wool black and white beanie covered her head. She wore a suede jacket with faux fur around the collar. Her yellow ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ t-shirt exposed a bit of her stomach.
            “Oh my god, Marty! It’s been…I wanna say…four years right? What have you been up to?” I took a deep drag of my cigarette and looked at her. I motioned to a coffee shop across the street and she pressed the lock button to her black Audi on her keys before we crossed. I sat at a table waiting for her to come back with her coffee. When she came back, she took the seat across from me slamming her body on the metal chair.  With the same aggression, she slammed her cup of coffee on the table causing it to spill. “Shit” She commented loudly and began to lick part of her hands and dabbing her jeans with a napkin.   
            “So what are you doing back in Detroit?” I asked then burning my lip on the coffee cup.
            She looked up at me while she was still wiping
the coffee off from her hand.
            “Oh, I moved back. I got out of rehab a couple of months back and my parents set me up with a little apartment about a couple of mile down the road.”
            She spoke about her life and her family. She said she was doing very well and she even signed up for a couple of college courses at the community college in town.  I felt my self nodding off to her tedious banter. She had to know in someway that she bored the hell out of me. I tried hard not to roll my eyes too much in the first ten minutes that she had went on for. I did however escape her dull sounding voice by chain smoking.
            “Do you ever think about it?” Her voice surprised me and interrupting my thoughts.
            “Think about what?” I asked while I flicked the excess ash onto the ground.
            She looked around and leaned forward. In almost in a whisper, “Do you think…I mean, uh, do you ever get the urge to use again?”
            “Of course I do.” I said quickly, watching her sit back in her chair.
            “I do. You do. All addicts do.”
            “Well, I know that Marty. I guess…Well, what I’m asking is if you were thinking about using tonight.”
            I looked at her in shock. How did she know how much I wanted it? Was I showing hidden signs to addicts that can tell when a recovering one is about to relapse?
            “Marty. I mean, come on!” She shouted out load then lowered her tone quickly. “You’re down here in the middle of the fucking
ghetto. I know you don’t come down here for the bagels.”
            I leaned back in my chair and made the steal chair rock a bit. I took another breath of my cigarette and flicked it into the street. “I work five blocks away at the methadone clinic.”
            I took a deep breath. God, how much I need another cigarette or a fucking drink while her mouth is yapping away.
“Why does it matter anyways?” I asked while lighting up another cigarette.
Sherry slide over to the chair next to me and looked around. She pressed her pink lips together and then licked them.
“Well, I was going to say if you were then I would too.”
            I stared at her for a moment. I didn’t know what to say at this point. Using again was just an urge. Now, it’s an a reality. We are all taught in rehab what to do in these types of situations. We are to say no, get up and go home. When we get there, call our sponsor, or anyone who is there to help through these types of moments. This was not one of those times.
            “Ok. Well you got money right? Well lets go find a dealer that’s holding.”
            “Ok.” Sherry said with a nod followed by a deep breath. I stood up and her green eyes widened to me towering over her. She looked down at her cup of coffee and took one last sip. Cheers to the last sip of coffee before relapsing, I thought in my head.
The thought soon disappeared when we were standing ten feet away from a dealer. I was a little tipsy from our impromptu drinking on the way to find one. It made the walk quicker. So quick that I don’t even remember buying the handle of whiskey.
            “How much do you wanna put in?” I asked.
            “Umm…” She trailed off while thumbing through the bills in her pink designer wallet. “Sixty? Yeah, sixty should be enough for the both of us right?”
            I smiled at her. This is why I hung out with her. She would buy me anything I wanted and I never had to ask. I took the bills from her and stuffed them into my pocket. My palms were sweaty and I felt light headed with each step I took. My breath was heavy and my head began to spin. When I reached him, he tilted his head and just looked at me.
            “I need sixty worth balloon.” I managed to spit out without stuttering. I looked away from him. I couldn’t look at him while he watched me. He reached into his pocket and pull out the stuff and dropped it in my hand as I handed the money to him. I tucked the balloon into my pocket. As I walked back, my thoughts were on my achievement; My Black Pearl, my China White, my snow, my junk.
            I saw Sherry and I could see her mouth widen as I get closer to her. We back tracked to her car. Sherry laughed and fell drunkenly a couple of times and I would pick her up. When we got to the car, I drove because I don’t trust her when she’s wasted.
            Sherry flicked the switch to her bedroom and pointed to the bed. She went into the kitchen and got a spoon for me. I took out the brand new syringes that I got from the drug store. Thankfully they had my records on file and I didn’t have to try and convince the new pharmacist I was a diabetic; just like I had to do before.
            While I was filling up both syringes she kept on gabbing about how much shooting up is meant to be with a person that you care about. She says it has to do with trust. And she trusts me. She said it will bring us closer together. I tried my best to block her voice out while I concentrated on liquefying the powder. I had to be careful putting it into the syringe because my hands were trembling with anticipation. I squirted the first syringe and I tied off Sherry. She smiled as I slowly put the needle into her arm pulled up, and watched the blood mix with it and then shot her with the dose. She was still for a while. Her mouth wide open and her eyes closed.
            I took the turnakit off her arm and watched her fall over and her head hitting her pillow. I tried my best to tie my self off but it ended up breaking. Impatiently, I threw the it across the room. I stood up and took off my belt and used it. While I searched for a vein I became overly excited about how many were puffing out. There had been so many times where my veins would collapse and I couldn’t find one. I would end up accidently shooting it into my muscle.
I put the needle into my arm and backtracked it and then shot it. It hit me hard. I felt the rush just slam into me. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t breathe. I felt if I do, this feeling will disappear.
I woke up lying next to Sherry. My skin felt warm and my mouth was dry. I turned and looked at the clock and two and a half hours had passed. I got up to go to the bathroom and came back to her room. I lay on her bed while taking the handle of whiskey I had bought earlier and drank what was left of it.
            I woke up Sherry when I slammed the bottle down on the night stand. She looked at me and no words were spoken. She began to undress. I touched her skin; it was so soft and warm. I wanted that skin to touch mine. She slid off her underwear after her bra and climbed on top of me and kissed me hard. She jammed her tongue down my throat and I did the same back to her. The feeling of wanting her mixed with the heroin that was coursing through my veins. She pulled her self back and began to unbuttoned my pants. She slid my pants off and I rolled over and pushed myself inside of her.
            We fucked for about three hours. I couldn’t get off right away. She did a couple of times. By the end of the first hour I was breathing heavy and we were dripping with sweat. We rested for a little while but then she got me hard again and we went at it. Finally, around the third hour I got off. We lay in bed together with her head resting on my stomach as we smoke a cigarette. After we were done we shot a small dose and went to sleep.
            I woke up to a hand smacking me hard repetitively on the right side of my cheek; and Sherry’s voice saying something frantically. All my senses came rushing back. I lifted my head up and looked around. I was lying naked halfway into the stand up shower bleeding. Glass had been smashed, and then I realized, it was the door to the shower. Sherry pulled me up telling me that I had gotten up during the night and I was vomiting uncontrollably and I fell into her shower and passed out.
            “I’ve been trying to wake you up for an hour!” She cried out.
            I rested myself on the sink as Sherry pulled little shards of glass out of my skin. She took a cold wet towel to my wounds and gently patted them. I looked into the mirror at myself. This was day one of my downward spiral.