The Down Days by Ilze Hugo

Author:Ilze Hugo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2020-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

- 39 - PIPER

The boy. The boy, the boy, the boy.

He was killing her.

He was all she could think about now. When she closed her eyes, she saw his face. When she looked in the mirror, she heard him scream.

Truth is . . . The truth is, she didn’t even remember him. Holding his hand.

Truth is, she held so many hands. Back when she was perfect. Did everything. Gave everything. Perfectly. Perfect little Piper. She’d hold their hands. All their hands. She’d give her all. Always.

And sometimes. Sometimes. When it got too much. She’d take something to take the edge off.

But she kept it safe, responsible. Paced herself real well. She was an expert, after all. A professional. Not a junkie. No way. Not her. With her perfect grades and perfect smile and need to please, please, please everyone.

And now.

Well, now she’d be anyone.

Anyone she could get.

If it meant one more hit. Of that sweet, sweet taste. In a patch or a tablet or a lollipop, ground up and snorted or smoked in a pipe, who cared. As long as it kept coming. As long as it meant one more stretch of slow, sweet bliss. As long as it made the shame and the fear and the pins and needles in her brain, white light shooting across her vision, heart-in-her-throat fear fade. Away. Away . . . to that blank-slate place. That nothing zone. Where none of it mattered. And nobody cared.

Sure, it made her vomit. It made her itch. Made her fall asleep on her feet at work, which got her fired twenty times over until she couldn’t get a job changing bedpans. But so worth it. Wasn’t it?

Until.

Until.

Until her man disappeared.

Who knew where Denny went, but he was gone. Maybe he finally worked up enough cash to skip town. Enough to buy a condo in one of those armed quarantine-within-a-quarantine gated communities for the super-rich in Hout Bay or Simon’s Town. Where everything was safe and Colgate happy and the supermarket shelves were stacked to the max with olive oil and Camembert and real coffee beans—not that chicory shit she’d been making do with for the last four years. Or maybe Denny had finally caught the Joke and laughed himself to death. Thing was, she didn’t know. And it didn’t matter anyhow. All she knew was that he wouldn’t answer his phone, wasn’t responding to her texts, and she was vomiting and itching and scratching herself raw and all she saw when she closed her eyes was that boy.

So she’d settled on plan B, gone around to see man number two, walked all the way to the top of blasted Kloof Street, because the guy didn’t have a phone. Knocked her knuckles raw on his door to find out he wasn’t home. She was sitting outside his flat now; it had been three hours, and she was still waiting for him. There was only one thing left that she could do. Man number three, plan C. But he

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