Love's Addiction
an excerpt

Love’s Addiction

The Meeting

I was always a writer. I write today from a place of pain and a need for peace. I write this as I remember it, as I feel it, or felt it back then when it mattered. When anything mattered. This is not a protest of absolute or infallible truth but I hope that this helps someone else to avoid my pain, my mistakes, and maybe in the process, help me understand and help me heal…someday.

I met him May 28, 1998. I was 17; young, bright, and beautiful back then. I had never seen anything like him. He was perfect: handsome and strongly built, blonde hair kept almost shaved, and those eyes…I’ll never forget those piercing blue eyes that saw my soul the first time we gazed at one another. That day started our life together for better or for worse? You can be the judge.

Our love was perfect; our lust, our passion. We were young and I at least, was naïve. He was my first everything looking back. My first real crush, kiss, boyfriend, lover, love, addiction…you get the idea. I suppose I should’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t. Does anyone really?

I sometimes think that what we see and fell is so hard that we alter it somehow before it gets from head to heart and that is why love can afford to be blind. Or maybe It just really is blind because unconditional love wouldn’t exist otherwise.

“Unconditional” – that’s a big word, isn’t it? Ant not just because it is 5 syllables! I suppose every story starts somewhere……..mine starts here.

Hi, my name is Kathleen. I am an addict. Now I know what you are thinking, but my addiction isn’t alcohol, or drugs, or sex, or food. It is Al, my husband. He is a heroin addict. Me? I’m addicted to him. He was recovering when we met, and I knew from the start what and who he was. I fell in love anyway.

Our first “date” was a family dinner with mom and dad and my papa (Uncle Paul), who was Al’s friend. We met at a church, which when you come to know us is not only ironic, but hysterical. I was on my way home from a dance dress rehearsal. I remember that vividly because I was wearing baggy gray sweatpants, a black turtleneck leotard, and had my hair in a loosely tied ponytail and wearing old, gross flip-flops. I had seen my uncle standing on the side of the road and had pulled my old red Ford Taurus over to say hi. And there he was. My heart stopped the first time I saw him. He jogged over to talk to my uncle, but he in later years confessed he just wanted to meet me. He was about 5’8, much shorter than most guys I found attractive. He was about 200lbs – all young firm muscle. He had very large shoulders, arms, and chest – the kind that makes for a really good pillow when you are watching movies late at night. His platinum, sun-bleached blond hair was tightly faded and short, like a marine’s. And those eyes….they were the biggest, brightest blue eyes I have ever seen and when he looked at me for the first time, I couldn’t breathe. My stomach dropped to my flip-flops and I started to get clammy, my heart racing. The entire world ceased to exist when our eyes locked and a faint buzzing sound took up residence in my ears. I lost the conversation I was trying to carry on with my Papa.

“Hey, what’s up?” He said, and I realized it was the second time he had spoken, but now was extending his hand, “I’m Al…you are…?”

“Ka-Kat…” I stammered out, smiling and running my hand hastily through the ponytail trying to smooth it back into some form of order.

He smiled innocently, but that innocence never reached his eyes which flashed with a light that did not belong on an angel.

“Paul, the guys and I are all gonna go grab some food, you comin’?,” He addressed my uncle.

“Yeah, I’ll be there in a sec,” he responded. My uncle Paul is about 5’11, 180lbs; picture a biker: lean, sun-dark leathery skin, ponytail tied at the base of his neck, forever in jeans and an open, sleeveless button-up shirt, exposing more tanned and tattooed skin.

“C-ya latah, baby,” Al shot in my direction as he walked away back to his friends, flashing another salesman smooth smile.

“C-ya!,” I called, and then to my uncle, very non-challantly if I do say so myself, “Who was that?”

”That,” he responded, “was Al. He lives with me at the house.” For all you readers, “the house” refers to a halfway house for drug and alcohol treatment. It was a 6-month residential program that my uncle had entered to battle alcoholism.

“Huh…”I said thoughtfully.

“What?” he asked, toying with me and smiling knowingly.

“Nothing,” I replied, smiling back, “He seems really nice.”

“From the two seconds of conversation you had you got that?” he said, teasing me.

“Yes!” I said laughing back, only half at myself.

And that was it. No exchange of numbers, pick up lines, or cheesy half-hearted conversation. That was how I fell in love.

A week went by and he haunted my thoughts. He also plagued my conversations when I talked to my uncle, which I did nightly. Of course, I thought I was slick just sliding little questions into my talks with Papa – but he knew better apparently.

The “Date”

Now, as crazy as some of my family is, we do share some old fashioned things too…namely Sunday Dinner.

I woke up on Sunday the following week and rolled out of bed in time for noontime dinner with my family. I stumbled to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and staggered downstairs. Rubbing my eyes as I hit the bottom stair of my mom’s one family home where I grew up, I heard men laughing. I stopped dead in my tracks as I walked into the living room, my hair disheveled and unshowered, my pink cartoon cat pajama pants baggy and half hanging off my body, my oversized T shirt swimming around my bra-less chest.

“Morning, baby,” my uncle said chuckling as he kissed my forehead on his way out of the living room and into the kitchen behind me. Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, he spoke up again “You remember Al.” and then I spotted him, grinning and hiding his smile in his coffee cup. He was just as perfect as my memory of him, maybe more so with his dimple deep in his cheek.

“H-H-Hi,” I said, criticizing myself for stammering, yet again, in his presence. I looked around the room trying to plan my escape – there had to be something I could use as an excuse to get out of here!

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked “Paul invited me for dinner – that ok with you?”

“I-I guess…I mean, of cour…” what was wrong with me?? Just talk for god’s sake!

“You guess?” He interrupted, smiling ear to ear. “Nice PJs,” he mocked.

It dawned on me then that my hair, which was waist-length and glossy brown, must be bigger than Marge Simpson’s since I hadn’t pulled a brush through it yet. I had no make-up on, and not dressed or wearing underwear! I looked down, cringed to myself, and then made eye contact again, raising my chin in a challenge. “Thanks” I said sarcastically, as I turned back upstairs to change.

I can’t believe no one told me he was coming! How could they do this to me? Papa must’ve asked mom, so she knew too and NO ONE thought to tell me?!?! Good Goddess!

I tore through my entire closet that day pulling out clothes I hadn’t seen in months. Shirts and pants lay strewn about my room in haphazard piles of discarded items, a rainbow of cloth and texture that “just wasn’t right.” I was always a little bit of a tomboy, minus dance. Always with the boys and never caught in anything except jeans and t-shirts. I was always well-kept and generally with make up, I was 17 afterall, but never really dressed up and certainly never uncomfortable around guys. What happened in that two minutes that I couldn’t talk? He is just another guy! I must’ve coached myself for 20 minutes before I calmed the butterflies in my stomach down enough to go back downstairs. I finally settled on a black cotton bodysuit (hey! They were in style then!) with a zipper at the chest that gave a hint of a glimpse at the lacey bra underneath and my favorite fitted, dark, low-rise Mudd jeans that fit just right and were barely appropriate to wear with mom and dad. A hasty shower, brush, and quick make-up touch up, one last look in the mirror and I was off to try again to get his attention. This time, not as the mess in the PJs, but completely done up as the young woman I was turning into.

The beginning of the afternoon was uneventful. Family dinner followed up light discussion and some innocent flirting. I didn’t like to admit it, but I was a book worm geek, still am. It is part of why I write and part of why I always have written.

To get some alone time, I challenged him to play chess, yes chess. I won. He won. He let me win. We then went for a walk in the woods behind my mom’s house. We talked for hours that afternoon. He was the first boy I had spent any real time with and it was going really well. We held hands and walked and talked. The he stopped and guided me with our hands still entwined to stand in front of him. We stood there a moment staring into each other’s eyes. Then he leaned in and pressed his lips to mine. His hands went from holding mine, to wrapped around my waste and pulling my body against his. Out lips touched and his tongue parted my lips to massage my tongue. It was a deep, passionate, sensual kiss – the first one of my life. My knees began to shake and then began to shake uncontrollably. He pulled back just enough to breathe, still holding on tightly and breathing hard.

“Are you ok?, “ he asked. I’ll never forget he asked – because I wasn’t ok. I was far from ok. I was scared and excited and flustered and floundering and alone and with him and a rush of other things I can’t even begin to put into words but I settled for:

“Of course,” I lied and cast my eyes down, I couldn’t look at him, “why wouldn’t I be?”

“What’s wrong?,” he chided. Even then he knew my signs and telltales. He put his forefinger under my chin and raised it to look into my eyes. Contact made, I couldn’t look away now…

“It’s nothing,” I lied again, smiling this time and trying to be convincing.

“I don’t know – you look upset, or tense. Should I not have kissed you? I’m sorry if I offended or scared you- I thought….,” he rushed on, “nevermind what I thought – I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no – it’s not that. I just never…,” I trailed off. God I am blowing this!

“You never….” He coaxed.

“I have never felt like this,” I gushed, “I think I am falling in love. I can’t get you off my mind and now today, here, and that kiss, it’s just all so intense and I don’t know what I am talking about…” and I can’t believe I just said that! This guy is going to think I am nuts! Falling in love? Hello!!! It’s day one! Why would you say that??? What’s wrong with you? Say something, anything before he thinks about what you just said….distraction, I need a distraction! God – send me something! A rain storm? Hail? Ice? Winds? Frogs! I don’t care – just distract him from what I just said before he turns and runs in the opposite direction!

“Falling in love, huh,?” he teased, gently stroking my lower back with his thumb. Good – maybe he thinks I am joking. That’s it – I can play it off as a joke! “I know you are nervous…you are shaking for god’s sake, don’t worry. It’s ok – I know what you meant and I am not going anywhere.”

I smiled, knowing he was just trying to be sweet until he could make a safe getaway and knowing that I had just screwed up big time. But then, he kissed me again, just as passionately before, and the world melted away once again to just the feel and taste of his lips and the warmth his chest brought to mine as they pressed together, and his hand tightened on my lower back.