Nineteen

                                    

                                          
edited (11.17.16)
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Tristan discovered the wonders of Percocet on Friday, and it was currently Monday. He stole 22 7.5/325 pills from his great grandmother, snorting them all over a period of less than two days. He couldn't control himself; but then again, what drug addict can practice self control around drugs? After snorting the last pill and going to sleep, he woke up with a stuffy nose. He went to the bathroom, grabbed a tissue, and blew his nose. He was shocked when he looked down at the now-bloody tissue - he hadn't expected blood, especially now of all times it could have happened. He sighed and threw the tissue away. Tristan knew deep down that snorting pills was ruining his body, but it didn't matter. He was going to die one way or another, and he would like to be in control of the cause of his death.
The voices were back. Tristan shook his head to try to make them go away. He knew the voices were coming from his head, but it was hard to make himself believe it - they sounded so real. The voices came whenever he realized that he was disappointing his family and friends by going behind their backs and doing drugs.
Since Tristan was going through withdrawal from all the Oxycodone he'd consumed, he snorted a mixture of Klonopin and Focalin to try to push off the withdrawal symptoms for, at the least, a few more hours. Usually, after he snorted this mixture of powder, he could barely comprehend anything. He could still understand what people were saying, but he didn't know what was going on and logic behind words in conversations.
He could still hear the voices; they were getting louder by the second.
"You're a disappointment. A low-life drug addict. Scum. You mean nothing, you do nothing. You are nothing."
"You're an ugly, fat, stupid whore. You cheat, you lie, and you steal. What good things have you done that make you worthy of living, let alone the life you have?"
They could continue for hours, sometimes even days. When would they stop? His brain had to make things worse for him, right? His brain just loved seeing him suffer, it enjoyed it, so it fabricated voices with the sole purpose of making Tristan feel like shit to top off Tristan's terrible mental state. Sometimes, the only thing he wanted was for them to go away and shut up.
He asked his grandma for a Klonopin, but she didn't give one to him. He cried when he walked back to his room;  he was sober now, and he couldn't deal with it.
Tristan made sure that he was never sober - when he was sober, he was a mess. Tonight was a prime example of why he was never sober: he was hearing things, seeing things, hurting himself, and sitting with a knife to his stomach. He guessed he was too scared to go through with anything; he just needed to be able to control something, anything at this point, so the knife was positioned facing his torso. Tristan was sitting on a fine line between wanting to live and the urge to die.
The things he was seeing were people with weapons. He was hearing droning, incoherent murmurs. The murmurs were gradually getting louder, and the people were slowly stepping closer. Tristan closed his eyes and punched his head a few times, then screamed, "Get the fuck away from me!" The people laughed; the murmurs told him to stab himself before the people got to him, killing him before he had the chance to do it himself.
His grandmother walked into his room after he screamed at the people. She held out a Klonopin - she got over her stubborn nature due to Tristan's behavior. When he saw her, Tristan yelled at her. "I don't want it. Please leave." After the words left his mouth, her face changed. She gave him a look, the look that told Tristan things along the lines of, "Why do we even let you live here," "Why didn't we let you die that time you overdosed on Tylenol," and "Why aren't you dead already?" Tristan hid his face in his hands and screamed at her again. She left the Klonopin on a desk in his room, slamming his door on her way out of his room.
He looked up at the Klonopin after crying for a few more minutes. A few seconds passed, then he realized she didn't watch him take the pill. She left the Klonopin - he could crush and snort it - but he had to be quick. He crushed the pill into a fine powder and railed the lines, immediately feeling better. The people gradually disappeared in addition to the voices slowly quieting down; after a little while, it got to a point where they weren't bothering him to the extent they were before.
Although most of the voices had left, there was still one he could hear loud and clear. "Go stab yourself, go stab yourself, go stab yourself, go..." It wouldn't shut up until he would stab himself, so to keep himself safe, he went to take a shower.
In the shower, he impulsively cut all over his thigh, his stomach, and his arm. The one, always-present voice had finally shut up when he hurt himself; it always left when he cut himself or punched the drywall his grandfather gave him. After he was done in the shower, he went out to the garage and smoked.
His grandmother came outside while he was smoking. She asked Tristan things like, "How can I help you?"
"Let me crush and snort my pills."
They've had this conversation so many times that Tristan couldn't keep track. When she retorted with a simple, "No, we can't let you do that," he angrily put his cigarette out, left the garage, and went back inside.
Tristan went upstairs, sat with his grandparents, and watched TV. He heard an unexpected voice telling him to punch his grandmother for not letting him do drugs. It was so persuasive that he didn't know if he could control himself; in order to prevent that from happening, Tristan told his grandmother to move to the other side of the couch so he wouldn't punch her. Instead of seeing her move, his grandfather yelled at him for "threatening" her, even though they both heard him say it was the voices. Tristan didn't understand why he was getting yelled at - he was only trying to protect his grandmother. He ran to the garage to smoke again, crying before he reached the garage.
This time, his grandfather came outside a few seconds after him. Tristan, tears streaming down his face, yelled, "Please leave. I want to be alone."
His grandfather shouted, "This is my goddamn house, and I can stand where I want to!"
Tristan, already angry, just continued to smoke his cigarette and mess with his phone without giving his grandfather the satisfaction a reply would convey.
"Do you like it here?" Hostile tones didn't sit well with Tristan.
Tristan shrugged.
"I said, do you like it here?" It was more of a scream than a question this time.
Another shrug.
"Well, alright, I'm taking that as you don't like it here."
Shrug.
"Fine, do you want to move out? Drive all the way back to Missouri?"
Shrug.
"Tomorrow?"
Shrug.
"Why not tonight!"
Tristan sighed and put out his cigarette. "Fine, let's do it tonight."
He went inside and started packing his things. His grandmother was talking to him, trying to get him to stay, but Tristan was stubborn. He was leaving tonight, and that was the end of it. No questions asked.
Somehow, his grandmother convinced him to stay after he was all packed and ready to go. The night ended with Tristan watching TV with his grandmother.