 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of energy, it was the age of weakness. It was the epoch of euphoria, it was the epoch of despair.

Charles Dickens’ echoes through my head when I think about Gwen. The highs are so high when I’m with her, and as soon as she’s away from me, the lows are so very low. 

Our relationship has been an emotional rollercoaster ever since I met her. 

Walking into that quaint coffee shop with $8 lattes and a cozy library in the back(to justify those gouging dollar signs I guess), was the best and worst decision of my life. 

You were reading *The Bell Jar* by Sylvia Plath, flitting your aquamarine irises across the pages through the lenses of those hipster style glasses that just made you look like an adorable librarian. 

I sat down across from you.

“Are you also a mentally ill fashion writer trying to make it big in New York City?”

God that was a terrible pick up line.

She replied, “Would that make you Buddy Willard? The creepy guy that degrades my writing and exposes himself to me?”

I laughed, because the joke was funny, and because that was the only way I knew how to hide my anxiety talking to women. 

“Alright well if I’m Buddy, would you be excited if I asked you to grab drinks with me at a dive bar instead of to the Yale Prom?”

It took a few minutes of actual normal conversation to convince her I wasn’t just a walking-talking husk of a human, hiding behind characters etched into paper, before she agreed to meet me later that night. 

That night turned into multiple nights of exhilarating fun and authentic connection, and eventually, mornings, with *breakfast*.

By the time you were my girlfriend Gwen, I was completely in love. Not just infatuation, but I really deeply cared about you, not for the feeling it gave me; I simply wanted the very best in life for you.

6 months after I met you in that coffee shop, I was eating dinner with you and your phone was right-side-up on the table when it buzzed from a text message. I watched as you picked it up, typed your reply with a smile on your face, and put it face down on the table. I didn’t think anything of it, but as soon as you had scarfed down your food you told me you had to go run some errands and would be back later. Again, not suspicious.

My perception changed when I logged into Venmo later that night. My friend had requested me to pay him back for the ice cream he bought me the other day. I happened to see her name pop up in the friends list feed, paying “Jason” for “Long Island Iced Tea from a new friend :).” Gwen wasn’t running errands, unless that errand involved splitting drinks with a “new friend.”

I was lying in bed awake, thoughts racing, when Gwen opened the door and stumbled back into my place. 

“Hey babe, sorry I was over at Julia’s place and we had a drink or two.”

It was definitely on the side of 2, two shots, two mixed drinks, and two beers maybe.

“That’s ok, next time tell me where you’re going. I thought you were running errands?”

It took her a second to make up an excuse. 

“I was on the way to the store when Julia texted me, so I bought some wine and cheese and we had a little girls night in.”

That was the moment that I *knew*. 

I just decided to go to bed. I didn’t really want to confront her without having a night to think. She tried to climb under the covers with me but I honestly was very uncomfortable with that. I got up and told her I was going to sleep on the couch because I was having trouble falling asleep and I wanted to watch TV.

The next morning I made breakfast and decided to give her another chance to come clean. When she came into the kitchen I looked her in the eye and said,

“So where were you *really* last night?”

She replied, “What do you mean? I was at Julia’s all night. It was just me and her drinking wine and watching TV.”

“Ok so then who is Jason?”

Dumbfounded, her face confirmed everything that I already believed to be true. She didn’t even respond, she just walked away. I think she knew, that I knew, that she was cheating on me. She left her phone in the kitchen though, and I didn’t wanna leave anything to chance. I unlocked it and scrolled through her texts. I clicked on Jason, and there was a text from last night *after* she came back to my place. It said, “Hey Jasonnn ;) thank you for a good time. I never expected a short king like you to have such a big di–”

I slammed her phone on the counter. 

“Gwen! Get the fuck in here right now.”

“What?”

“Do you even love me? I know you’re cheating on me, was it just a hookup or do you even give a shit about how I feel?”

“Honestly, I don’t think I ever loved you. I’m sorry but I think I just *liked* you, and now I don’t.” 

She shrugged, as if it was some passing remark, incapable of affecting my emotions. But to *me,* it was as if she took my heart and threw it in a wood chipper. 

I dissociated for a moment, violent images of the mass of meat descending into those sharp slicing teeth. The ventricles were spurting blood 10 feet in the air, and then landing on my face and in my eyes. It started red and then transitioned into a deep, inky black. I looked down at my hands and all I could see was black, void of anything but darkness. The murky liquid dripped down my face and eventually blinded me, searing pain radiated outward. I wiped my face with my hands and then I was back in the kitchen.

“Gwen, get the fuck out of my place. Right now. I want you to pack all of your things. I want you to walk out that door, and keep walking. Walk out of my life.”

I grabbed my wallet, put on my shoes, and slammed the door behind me. I headed to my coke dealer’s apartment and picked up a financially irresponsible amount. Then I hit the club. 

The handicap stall looked like a blizzard by the time I got done with it. A warm and numb sensation crept its way into my face. My vision was razor sharp and my confidence exploded into an impenetrable suit of armor. Nobody could stop me. I pushed my way through the crowd to dance. The DJ obviously knew I was there. Every song he played was for me, I was the only one in that mass of sweat and shiny clothing that belonged there. Every girl that looked at me wanted me. I could see it in their eyes. 

Then I hit the slopes once more. I could feel every grain of powder enter my bloodstream, each line further numbing my face. When I left the bathroom I couldn’t feel my body. I had entered another.  I was astral projecting into a celebrity. I could tell that every person I talked to just wanted an autograph and a bit of my time. Every drink I pounded felt like water, like nothing. I wasn’t the life of the party, I *was* the party.

I started talking to this girl that really needed a Commercial Driving License for that *Dump Truck* of an ass. She took me back to her place and poured me tequila shot after tequila shot before we got it on. Hearing her moan with ecstasy only added to my high, every movement of her hips piercing me with euphoria. 

After the orgasm had faded and the post-ejaculatory regret kicked in, I put my clothes back on and wandered the streets. I was coming down off the cocaine and the alcohol had shifted from intoxicant to simply depressant.

I saw a woman walking with her boyfriend, her arm linked in his. The way they talked they just seemed perfect for each other, totally in love. When they got to a crosswalk I heard her say, “Jared, this is exactly how I imagined falling in love when I was a little girl. I really feel like you’re my soulmate.” They kissed passionately under the streetlights, the light perfectly reflecting off the puddles on the pavement, creating a blurry bokeh. 

The words of Sylvia Plath were suddenly in my ear.

“There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction--every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and excitement at about a million miles an hour.”

I lit up a cigarette and began to stroll towards the “bad part of town.” I didn’t really walk this way very often but I honestly had no regard for my safety. I just wanted to feel something. Even anxiety would have been welcome, the fight or flight can be exhilarating at times. I craved that blood pumping, high energy, euphoric at times rush that adrenaline can provide. I used to bungee jump and drive a motorcycle because I was addicted to it. Eventually the rush wasn’t enough though. I built a tolerance to it. I also just didn’t have anybody to share those experiences with these days. 

All my friends had moved away and stopped responding to my texts or just stopped making plans with me. I truly was alone except for when I was with Gwen. That’s probably why she left me, she realized that nobody really liked me, and she wasn’t sure she did anymore. It was an easy decision for her apparently. 

I sat down on a beer crate in the abode of a homeless man living under a subway overpass. He started talking about how he was dope sick because he couldn’t afford another hit of smack. At this point I didn’t give a single fuck about what was the “responsible” or “acceptable” decision. Nobody was going to stop me, nobody was going to tell me what to do.

I told him I would pay for his bag if he hooked me up with his guy. He jolted up from his “chair” and told me to follow him. 20 minutes later I had a syringe in my hand and my new friend “Sam” was wrapping a belt around my bicep. 

This was it. I should have been nervous but I just felt nothing. I had no feelings anymore, that wood chipper hollowed me out. My chest cavity had no heart, just an inky black slime remained.

I missed Gwen. She made me stable, prevented me from going on benders like this. Now I had nothing to live for. If I wasn’t ever going to be enough for her how could I ever be happy in life? My family had never loved me. One day they went on vacation and the babysitter dropped me off at a foster home. I was 4 years old, unlovable, but abandonable. 

It seemed like abandonment had finally caught up with me once again. Sam prepared the needle and asked me how much I wanted. I told him I didn’t want to wake up. He seemed to understand and we walked up the road so that he wouldn’t be associated with what was to happen. 

I remembered thinking deeply about suicide methods when I had read *The Bell Jar* years ago. Plath wrote, “The trouble about jumping was that if you didn't pick the right number of stories, you might still be alive when you hit bottom.”

A knife was too painful and there was too much blood(believe me I hate blood that's why that wood chipper hallucination came to mind so readily). Pills were just a pussy move, if it was gonna be drugs I wanted to do something really *bad*, something you really shouldn’t do if you want to live a good life. And guns were too quick, no drama.

When I finished that section, I decided I was gonna make it heroin. For being so bad for you, it's so romanticized by society. I remember seeing this quote from a Polish politician when he was advocating for more sensible drug policies, “A jump from the sixth floor is definitely more harmful than taking heroin, yet we don't forbid building sixth floors.” I think Plath would have asked him at what number of stories does heroin become worse than jumping. She would have had fun writing about that I think.

Sam helped me find a vein and the needle slid under my skin, the prick didn’t even register. I felt no physical pain anymore. The numbness had spread to my brain, not chemically, but emotionally. 

The first word I uttered to Gwen was when she was just about to start a new chapter of that painful and sad novel. I started a new chapter with her and by the time the book ended, nothing was left but a letter from the author. A letter from the author for the book of my life should have been something I put a lot of thought into. But typically that happens on a deathbed, and the bed I was laying on was made of cardboard and broken meth pipes.

I opened the notes app on my phone and I was tempted to write *Fuck You Gwen*, but she wouldn’t have even cared. I just typed out a short will, leaving everything to Sam, mentioning that he was a friend of mine. I typed some identifying information and tried my best to make it so that the police would know it wasn’t foul play. He deserved a better life, I hoped he would go to rehab or something, turn his life around and not turn out like me.

With no affairs left to take care of, I eased the plunger of the syringe towards my vein. The amber shaded liquid disappeared into my arm, making my blood a smoothie of cocaine, alcohol, and heroin. I immediately felt the smooth and reassuring hand of Lady Heroin, she caressed me and told me that all was well with the world. I had nothing to worry about anymore, I had no problems waiting for me when I came back. Where I was going there were no earthly problems. I closed my eyes and reality seemed to “melt” away, the sensations that I normally experience were entirely foreign. Everything was deeper and thoughts and feelings *floated* through my brain as it separated from my body, and soon my body separated from the ground. I visualized myself laying on top of a cloud, drifting by like I was on a lazy river through heaven. The cloud ascended higher and higher until the sky turning into a blinding white, I was entering purgatory. The last thing my consciousness created was a voice that uttered the last line of that Dickens’ novel that reminded me I was in “the worst of times.”

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”