Tommy had always been the life of the party – your best shootin’ buddy – the friend you called to cheer you up when things got bad.
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Georgia was spirited – up for anything. She was the girlfriend that forced you to dance even though you were embarrassed.
The two met on a warm summer night, surrounded by friends gathered at a campfire. The light of the fire lit up their faces as they sat drinking beer and swapping stories. It was a wonder they hadn’t crossed paths before, but there was an instant attraction. They were two patches cut from the same cloth.
Somebody started to play Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” on an acoustic guitar and her face lit up like the fourth of July. He caught her eye and his heart melted. If he had it his way that song would be the national anthem.
That was that. Three years later they hadn’t left each other’s side. It started with lust, moved into infatuation and soon they had grown to really love one another. He loved the dimples in her smile, those big honest eyes, and the simple way she loved him. She loved his country-boy ways, his messy hair and the way her hand fit perfectly in his.
They now lived together in a shoddy apartment just between the garage, where Tommy worked, and the hospital where Georgia volunteered while attending nursing school. They barely made the rent some months, but there was enough love in their humble abode to fill the whole sky.
Tommy knew Georgia deserved the best – a big house with a white picket fence and a pool in the back yard – not to mention a big rock to put on her left hand. But she had never needed any of that. As Waylon Jennings had said, she would’ve rather had a song than diamonds or gold. She simply wanted desperately for their perfect love to last forever.
Unbeknownst to Georgia, Tommy had been carrying around a modest family stone in his pocket for the last six months, waiting only for some kind of sign that she would say “Yes”.
One Saturday night, the two got into a silly fight over money, which worried them both. Afterwards, Tommy decided he hadn’t been out in a while and left the apartment to meet up with some friends at a bar to blow off some steam. It was good to see his friends – Keith, particularly, looked really happy that night, dreamy even. He was skinnier and a little more unkempt than Tommy had ever seen him, but he was in great spirits. Tommy had a lot to drink and started to vent. He unleashed all of his concerns about Georgia, his self-consciousness of not being good enough for her, and of her one day leaving him for someone not as simple.
Keith held out his hand to reveal a little white pill. “It’s an Oxy man, just trust me.” He went on to assure Tommy it would take away all of his worries.
Completely out of character, Tommy took the pill. Just this once, it IS free, and things so rarely are these days, he thought to himself. When he was dropped off at their apartment around three a.m., Georgia was overwrought with worry. She felt terrible about their fight and had been calling him for hours. Tommy had lost his phone in the bar. When he stumbled in, Georgia knew he was drunk, but there was something else different about him. His pupils were unusually small, and he was sweating a lot. She figured he was just very drunk and blamed herself for their fight. She immediately forgave him. Georgia had a soft spot for Tommy that she never could explain. She never doubted his love for her and he had never given her reason to. She felt that they had found something perfect. She was loyal…to a fault.
Completely out of character, Tommy took the pill. Just this once, it IS free, and things so rarely are these days, he thought to himself. When he was dropped off at their apartment around three a.m., Georgia was overwrought with worry. She felt terrible about their fight and had been calling him for hours. Tommy had lost his phone in the bar. When he stumbled in, Georgia knew he was drunk, but there was something else different about him. His pupils were unusually small, and he was sweating a lot. She figured he was just very drunk and blamed herself for their fight. She immediately forgave him. Georgia had a soft spot for Tommy that she never could explain. She never doubted his love for her and he had never given her reason to. She felt that they had found something perfect. She was loyal…to a fault.
The couple made up quickly and Tommy never did tell Georgia about the Oxycontin. Although it had made him feel incredibly happy and at ease, he could never afford the habit. Besides, Georgia would never approve, and that he could not have.
A week later friends and family started hounding Tommy.
“When are you going to propose, son?”
“When ya’gonna’ pop the question?”
“When are you finally going to settle down?”
It was a question he had been dodging for a while. Tommy had been saving up for a while, but he wanted to be ready when he finally asked Georgia to be his wife. He wanted to be financially stable and didn’t think working on cars at the local auto shop would be good enough for the girl he loved. He had to make something of himself first.
Tommy felt overwhelmed with anxiety. He kept thinking back to the night he took that little white pill and how good it had made him feel. It was so easy. He just needed that pill and everything would be okay again…until it wasn’t anymore.
After wrestling with his conscience for what he thought was a sufficient amount of time, he gave in and called Keith. One pill was going to cost eighty dollars. Tommy knew it was a lot of money but it would get him high a few times and it would be worth it. He withdrew the money out of his savings account and went to meet Keith.
This time they crushed up the pill and snorted it. It burned but Tommy didn’t care because it hit him faster and harder. The euphoria was elating…and addicting.
Two short months later Tommy had realized it was not difficult to access these little white escapisms from reality and he couldn’t get enough. He sold the diamond he’d been keeping in his pocket and made a good amount of pocket change. He didn’t get nearly as much as it was worth, but at least it was enough to support his addiction for a few more months. When life got to be too much, he simply snorted some powder and everything was okay. When the drugs wore off and he was back at home, he was burdened with an impossible guilt. He felt the weight of his conscience – having been blessed with such a trusting girl and the crushing fear of losing her. She adored him so much, he couldn’t possibly tell her his secret; she would be so disappointed in him. As a result, his life became a song with only two notes; high and low.
Tommy was not only the man Georgia loved; he was her best friend and she knew that something was wrong. Putting away his laundry one night she found a little baggy with white powder in it and suddenly it all made sense.
How could I have been so stupid? she thought.
She knew he had been stressed from the pileup of bills lately and inside she felt a pang of guilt. She hated herself for not being able to contribute more.
How could I be so selfish, how could I not have noticed his anguish?
She felt her heart deflate.
When he came in that night his eyes were dull and glazed over and she felt a clenching in her stomach like she’d just been punched. This was followed by a sharp wrench in her throat as she swallowed her tears. She hadn’t realized that he’d lost weight until now.How could I not have noticed?
The following weeks brought turmoil to their relationship. Georgia confronted Tommy about the pills as soon as she found them. At the time, he was coming down from a particularly intense high and reacted in an anger Georgia had never seen in him before. He yelled at her for violating his privacy and then insisted that she was over-reacting.
“It’s nothing Georgia, mind your own business!” he had screamed at her.
Georgia had never felt so broken. She ran to their room and cried into her pillow until she passed out.
Am I being too hard on him? She was always questioning her own judgment these days.
She told herself if she just loved him as much as she could, as hard as she could, things would get better…they had to.
Together they fell into a vicious cycle of their own; his of regret and false bliss, hers of blame and delusion. They were two lost souls, walking in circles.
There were times when Tommy was sober and thinking clearly, but in anguish. He knew it was time to be a man, to swallow his pride, admit he needed help, but he couldn’t. He gave in to his addiction time after time after time, and soon the drugs were more important than Georgia.
She had stopped trying to stop him after the night he threatened to leave her.
She arrived home late after a long shift at the hospital and was so excited to see him. For some reason she still expected to be met with his old self…but she never was. His guitar sat in the corner, a shadow of the past. His music and his talent was a fading strum in her memory. Their love was a concept of their yesterdays. Instead, she found Tommy in a perpetually sour mood sleepy on the couch. She broke down in tears and begged him one last time to stop. Instead of the compassionate boy she had fallen in love with, she was now faced with a very angry, selfish man.
“I provide for this house!”
“I can find someone who will appreciate me a hell of a lot more than you”!
“Stop nagging me!” he had screamed.
Sadly, Georgia couldn’t bear to imagine her life without Tommy. He was her whole world; the Johnny to her June.
Tommy wasn’t the only one changing though; she was different too. Her delicateness was now her weakness, her wild heart – despondent, her spirit -stifled. There was a quiet sadness about her that anyone would’ve noticed. Unfortunately, the only person she needed to notice her, couldn’t, for he was already too far gone.
One night she came home from the hospital and Tommy wasn’t there. She went into his top drawer and found a baggy containing a few pills.
Tommy loves these things so much, much more than me.
They must make him happy, she thought to herself.
And suddenly she was jealous. She felt an all-encompassing desperation to have any sort of connection with the man she loved again. She scrambled around their room until she found an old library card. Georgia quickly broke up a whole pill into one long line of must-be-magic powder and rolled up a dollar bill. She felt an overwhelming urgency to feel happiness. In one abrupt motion, she snorted the whole line as hard as she could. The powder was gone and so was she.