“Eden.”

The rattle of clothes in the dryer. The feeling of a broken spring digging into his side.

“Wake up, loser,” she laughed.

His tongue felt like sandpaper, his body a creaky machine.

“Eden,” she whispered.

“Eden.”

“Eden….”

“Eden!”

He jerked awake, the world falling around him. The basement light was on, and his mother stood above him, tapping her foot. The thud of the dryer was perfect background music to the toes of her shoes clicking against the stone floor. Only after seeing the expression on her face as she stared down at him did he realize he’d been calling out someone’s name. A name he hadn’t uttered in months.

His mother, graciously, didn’t acknowledge it. She just went back to throwing laundry into the washer, having successfully awoken him from his nightmare. After she had finished loading the clothes inside, his mother turned to him and kicked something besides her feet. A bucket. “You promised,” she stated simply.

Eden sat up slowly and put his head between his knees to try and ease nausea. “Well, yeah, ma, I promise a lot of things. Remind me what this one was?”A quick slap to the back of the head (which almost made Eden hurl all over himself) knocked enough sense into him to say, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” she replied. “Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to yourself.”

Eden, somehow finding it within himself to still be a little snark despite his current state, made a hand puppet and had it mumble, “Golly gee, Edie, I sure am sorry.”

Clicking her tongue, his mother shook her head. “Lord knows how I raised such a fool.” She walked away, and Eden thought that would be the end of it, but then she came back down the stairs with a glass of water and some painkillers. “You know what this leads to, Eden.”

He disgruntledly took the medicine from her and grumbled, “No, I don’t, Ma. You tell me.” He felt like an ass the moment the words spilled out of him. He was simply pissed at himself and was taking that out on her.

“Don’t get bold with me, young man,” she snapped, and the apology for his attitude flew out the window. “What did I tell you?”

He hated when she talked to him like he was a three-years-old- mostly because he knew she was often right to think he was acting like one. “I’m not a fucking idiot, ma.”

She looked at him questionably and said, “Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay then. Why did you sneak behind my back?” she asked calmly. “Or better yet, why the hell did you think it was a good idea to rob a liquor store?” She paused for effect and continued, “Hmm, or maybe I should ask why Kaylee Ann told me she saw you on the edge of Keeper Bridge last night?”

“Goddamn Kaylee Ann,” Eden grumbled. She was always a chatterbox.

“What the hell has gotten into you?” His mother’s voice finally went above the collected tone she had been staging. “You know what could have happened to you?”

“Absolutely.” he said to the floor.

“You’ve gone back on months- months- of progress!”

“You don’t think I know that?” he shouted back, the suddenness of it making his head spin.

“Why, Eden? Just tell me why!”

“It was her birthday!” he finally yelled. “It was her birthday,” he repeated, this time barely a whisper.

The silence that followed felt as delicate as glass. Then, his mother said, “That’s no excuse.”

Eden stood up to walk away so fast he almost plummeted to the floor. He refrained from telling his mother to go screw herself, which didn’t take much effort because the next moment he was kneeled over puking into the bucket at his side.

“Told you so.”

He didn’t hear her leave, but when he looked up, she was gone. Staring into the bucket at the mess he had left and gagging at the rancid stench, Eden stood up slowly. It had been awhile since he had been hungover- at least, to this extent.The last time he’d been in this situation… hell, it was a year and a half ago, on his seventeenth birthday. Benjamin --whose name wasn’t Benjamin-- had scored him and the rest of his friends enough vodka to knock out a Russian. He’d also gotten them ecstasy, and Eden had never known what true colors were until that day.

Stop. Eden thought. Stop thinking about it.

But he couldn’t. He kept imagining that tingling sensation of a good trip. That feeling like he could swallow the world whole. How his art had improved so much while he was high. How his productivity had increased. How his mother would always thank him for cleaning the house and making dinner, even if it was three in the morning. She had thought he was bipolar. He had thought he was on top of the world. That’s when Eden’s body began to shake. He felt as if he were starving like insects were crawling under his skin and burrowing deeper and deeper. He threw up again, thinking for a moment he could see those bugs crawling in his vomit. He felt freezing yet was sweating profusely.

“Dammit.” He whispered to the empty room. When was this going to end?

Never. She growled. You deserve this.

“I deserve this,” he agreed in monotone.

Her voice drilled into his brain like a giant thorn. Remember me. She shouted. Remember what you did.

“I’m sorry,” he trembled, wrapping his arms around himself and falling to the cement floor. “I’m so sorry, Reese….”