Twenty2

By Grace Waters

***This book deals with difficult subjects, such as drug abuse, addiction, and mental disorders.***

Have you ever reflected on your life and thought, “If I knew then what I know now, my life would be very different”?

I want to be the one to tell you my story so you’ll understand me. So you’ll see more than some guy who’s been thrown in jail more times than he can remember. More than a guy who’s thrown away a promising future in baseball to party instead. More than the thug you see when you look at all my tattoos. More than what you see when I’m messed up on drugs, or drunk on more alcohol than humanly possible.

So listen up because I have a lot to tell you. Take a walk with me through my life, at a time when everything started to go wrong but I was too young to know.

If I could go back and know what I know now, everything would be different.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grace Waters
• Release date: Feb 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311194701

Grace Waters

Grace has always had a passion for writing, and has been doing so since she was a young girl. Grace's desire is not for fame or recognition, but she desires to reach out to others and relate to them in a way that no one has before her. Waters writes from experience in a humorous, light-hearted, but truthful manner, and only asks that the readers join in the experience! Waters lives her life by the mantra that "you can only fly as high as you believe you can, and when you reach the end of your belief, push through and fly higher".

Book preview

Prologue

Testing.  Testing 1-2-3.  Is this thing on?  Tap, tap. I’m just messing with you.  So, um, where should I start?  I guess I’ll start with telling you my name. Hey, y’all! My name is Chase and I’m what you’d call a troubled soul.  I joke around a lot, but that’s not a joke, by the way.  Have you ever reflected on your life and thought to yourself, "If I knew then what I know now, my life would be so different"? 

I want to be the one to tell you my story so you’ll understand me. So you’ll see more than just the image I outwardly project.  More than just a young man who’s been in and out of jail more times than he can count or remember. More than just a guy who’s thrown away a promising future in baseball so I could party instead. I want you to know that I’m more than the thug you see when you look at me and all my tattoos…and I’m more than whatever it is you see when I’m messed up on whatever drug I could get my hands on, or drunk on way more alcohol than the human body should be able to stand.

So, about me. Let’s start with the easy stuff.  I’m just all around awesome and I know it.  But I do have some humility about me.  Seriously, I can be a friend to anyone.  Take for example, the guards at the jail – they all loved me. Every time I was put in jail, they told me I was too good of a guy to be in there. And everyone I met everywhere else, including the other guys in jail, in school, and at work.  I’m not being conceited when I say this - everyone loved me and I knew it.

But I never loved me. 

So their love couldn’t fix me. No matter how hard they tried. And they tried, believe me, they tried. But that comes later in my story. Let’s keep this all in order or you’ll get all screwed up and not listen to the important stuff. 

My childhood was not perfect but it wasn’t completely messed up either.  I grew up in a really nice neighborhood in a small town.  I lived in a nice, comfortable house and never went without a meal.  My mom was always present in my life, as was my grandmother, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. In other words, my family was close and we cared about each other. It wasn’t like they didn’t care about me, where I was, or what I was doing.

I just didn’t care about me.  Or where I was.  Or what I was doing.

So listen up because I have a lot to tell you. Here we go.  Take a walk with me through my life, at a time when everything started to go wrong but I was too young to know it.  If I could go back and know what I know now, everything would be different.

Chapter One

Seventeen

My story starts approximately five years ago, on a typical night, hanging with my friends.

Chase, we need more beer, man, my best friend, Jon, yells to me across the yard where the latest party was in full swing.

What are you telling me for?  I don’t have any money, I reply as I down another beer and crush the can. Drawing my arm back, I wind it up and fire the crushed can like I used to pitch a baseball.  Strrr-ike!

That simple action brings on a million different feelings in me at once. Pride that I was once the youngest starting pitcher for my traveling, elite baseball team.  Pride that college scouts were coming to watch me pitch when I was just a freshmen in high school, already playing on the varsity team.  Regret that I let partying, something I secretly hate, take the place of something that for the majority of my life I loved dearly.  And regret - deep, burning regret - that I can’t be proud of myself anymore.  And if I can’t be proud of myself, then my friends and family can’t possibly be proud of me.  That thought reminds me of the looks of disappointment I see from people all around me when they look at me. 

So I pick up another beer to drown the voices, feelings, and pain that consume me so much I can’t even breathe sometimes.  Anyone got any weed? I need to pack a bowl bad, man. I can hear the urgency in my voice.  I need this escape right now. Someone in this group always has pot. When Corey pulls out his baggie, I’m instantly at his side with my lighter at the ready.

Many, many hits and accusations of hogging the bowl later, I’m flying high on some good shit. Add to that the twelve-pack of beer I drank just before hitting the bowl and I’m feeling no pain at all. Apparently what they say about reduced brain cells is right because I make horrible decisions when I’m messed up.  For instance…

Chase, man.  We’re.  Out.  Of.  Beer, Jon emphasizes each word as he holds the last ice-cold beer in his hand, turns it up, and chugs it.  We need more, dude.  This party ain’t over! 

I follow Jon, Corey, and Nathan to the car and the four of us head to the nearest convenience store. Did I mention we’re all underage?  With all the carding and shit that goes on now, and with as messed up as we all already are, there’s no way anyone will sell it to us. But there are ways around that, especially since we don’t have any money anyway.

Jon pulls up to the front door and I ready myself as the car comes to a stop.  I jump out, run in the store, grab a twelve-pack from the display stand just inside the door and make a mad dash back to the car.  Yep, I’m stealing it, right in front of the clerk and the cameras.  But I don’t think about that because I’m already so damn high. Everything is fuzzy, and funny, and surreal. 

I slide into the waiting front seat, slam the door, and Jon squeals out of the parking lot.  We’re heading back to the party scene that’s out in the country, down a long, dark two-lane highway, and away from any nosey neighbors and prying eyes.

"Chase, you’re the craziest som’ bitch I know.  That was awesome, man!  Damn, I’d never have the balls to do that," Nathan slurs from the backseat. 

I smile from ear to ear because I know I’m the life of the party.  If for nothing else, I’m good for a laugh and being known as the craziest of our friends. I’m the one who will do anything, no matter how illegal, how stupid, or how dangerous it is.  This is part of my reputation and outwardly, at least, I’m proud of how my friends rely on me to be their comic relief. 

No one knows this is secretly my shield.  This is my defense mechanism that keeps anyone from seeing through my carefully made façade that all is well in my life. That this life - the partying, the drugs, the alcohol - this is what I really want.  Well, I say no one, but I mean no one that I hang out with or party with.  My family knows the truth no matter how much I deny it. They can see it in my eyes and I can’t sit under their penetrating eyes for too long. It’s like they can see into my soul and if I don’t break the stare, they will break down this brick wall I’ve built around myself.

For now, I laugh at Nathan’s assessment of me, You know it, man! 

I crack open a beer and chug it down in seconds.  There’s another convenience store we need to stop at because one twelve-pack isn’t going to last us the rest of the night. Time to make another snatch and run so we will have plenty of beer to drink until we pass out cold.

Jon is driving and chugging a beer at the same time.  He’s already drunk and we’re swerving all over the road, but we all laugh and make fun of it.  We’re all invincible at seventeen and everything’s funny when you’re high.  And drunk. 

A thought hits me as I watch Jon’s hands on the steering wheel: I don’t have a car or even a driver’s license anymore.  Simple movements, really, slightly moving the wheel to keep the small, four-door piece of shit car between the lines. 

I lost my license exactly one day after I finally got it last month.  I was pulled over by the city police, given a Breathalyzer test, and promptly taken to jail for driving drunk. I can’t get my license now until after I turn eighteen and pay a huge fine.  Just add that to the list of things that make me want to forget everything that’s wrong in my life. This full beer can in my hand that’s already replaced the empty one I just threw out the window helps me do just that.

Back at the party, we’re all sitting in lawn chairs outside, passing around another packed bowl and drinking the last of the beer.  The last thing I remember as I stared up at the night skies was thinking to myself, Is this all there is to life? Is this all I’ll ever have?

I wake up the next morning, still outside in the lawn chair, hung over and hungry.  Despite the fact that pot gives me a terrible case of the munchies, we didn’t have any money to buy food.  In my snatch and run plays, I didn’t have time to grab food, too.  My stomach growls loudly as I shake Jon and Corey to wake them.

Let’s go to my mom’s house, man.  I’m hungry, and I start walking toward Jon’s car. A few minutes later, we’re all in Mom’s kitchen, raiding her refrigerator and cabinets. She comes in the kitchen and, as always, she welcomes my friends in her home.

Hey, boys.  Have fun last night? she asks innocently.  She doesn’t know what we did. She has no clue what we were doing and I’d prefer to keep it that way, at least for now.

Yeah, Mom, we did.  We’re starving!  Nathan’s parents had no food in the house, I lie so easily.  We weren’t at Nathan’s house and Nathan isn’t with us this morning. He took off with some girl we don’t even know late last night.

Clean up after yourselves when you’re done, Chase.  Don’t leave your dishes for me to clean again, Mom says.  We all respond with a yes, ma’am, and she leaves the kitchen with her coffee in hand. 

I don’t want her to know what a screw up I am.  I know it breaks her heart that I quit baseball and quit school before I graduated.  She already had to come get me out of jail for underage drinking, driving under the influence, and a drug possession charge. She doesn’t make much money, but she scraped together enough to buy me a used car when I got my license. I lost the car when I lost my license.  Add it to the list of my regrets.

After we’ve stuffed ourselves, Jon and Corey leave and I find my mom in the den.

’Sup, Mom? I ask with a smile as I sit beside her on the couch. I’m close to my mom, probably closer to her than anyone in the world, and I’m not ashamed to say I’m a momma’s boy.  I love her with all my heart and I don’t know what I’d do without her.

Not much, Chase. What do you have planned for today? she asks, genuinely interested in where I’m going and who I’ll be with later tonight. I’m ashamed that I’m about to lie to her.

Just hanging with my friends. Nothing special, I give my standard response, knowing that we’ll be getting high and drunk again tonight.  Same party, different house.

Mom reaches over and runs her fingers through my thick, wavy hair.  I can see the love in her eyes as she looks at me.  Just be safe, Chase.  I worry about you.

Ok, Mom, I lie to her while smiling.  She has no idea all the stupid things I’ve done when I was totally shit-faced and had no regard whatsoever for my safety.  And I don’t want her to know – ever.

It’s really not my intention to lie to her or hurt her. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why I keep doing it. Looking back and knowing what I know now, I would’ve stayed home with Mom. My friends would’ve taken the backseat to the time I could’ve spent with my mom and my little sisters. 

Like the movie Groundhog Day, I keep seeing the same scene playing over and over in my mind’s eye, but I can’t change it now. I didn’t stay home, I didn’t spend the time with my family, and I can’t change that now either.  My decisions in life made me who I am, but my regrets are what eat away at my very soul, making me feel hollow and grim. 

Regret fills me with shame and disappointment in myself, like a self-fulfilling prophecy that I’m helpless to break.  These are the scenes that keep playing through my mind. 

The what-ifs that never were.

Chapter Two

Eighteen

Since I quit school, I have too much free time on my hands, or so my mom says.  I say that partying with my friends all night and sleeping all day takes up plenty of my time.  She doesn’t buy that line of thinking so I’m forced to get a job. Whatever. The money will help me buy more pot and beer so it all evens out in the end. Since I haven’t gotten my GED yet, my choices of employment are extremely limited.

So, I’m not even joking when I say my mom’s friend, Ginger, pulled some strings and helped get me on at our friendly neighborhood graveyard.  I said I’m not kidding so quit laughing.  I took a position as a groundskeeper, which means I mow and trim the grass over the entire, huge, enormous, gigantic graveyard.  Everything is kept very neat and orderly for the families so I bust my ass all day long. 

My favorite part of the entire place is in the lower section, overlooking a small pond and shaded by large pine trees.  This is where I take my lunch break every day now, sitting under the cover of the trees and wishing I were fishing in this pond instead of sweating my ass off in the heat. Still, having a paycheck is nice and I can at least afford to take my girlfriend somewhere cheap to eat.

My girlfriend is my high school sweetheart, Monica.  She’s been my world for the longest time and we’ve talked about getting married one day.  She doesn’t drink or do drugs and absolutely hates it when I do. That’s why we’ve only recently got back together after an extended breakup. She vehemently hates when I’m messed up and won’t have anything to do with me. Needless to say, we’ve been on again and off again so many times, my family asks if we’re still together nearly every day.

It’s been a few weeks since my last snatch-and-grab, booze-filled, pot smoking night with my friends.  I have my own stash of pot I keep hidden in my room and I sneak out on the back porch late at night to smoke while my mom and sisters are asleep.  So far, that quiet retreat time and my time spent with Monica has made my life bearable. 

The problem is I have these major peaks and valleys that cycle through me.  After so long of being good, I seem to snap and go off on a huge binge.  One major trigger point for me is Monica and our fights, which are pretty frequent because one of us is always pissing the other off. 

On my lunch break, under my tree in front of my pond, I have too much free time to reflect on everything that’s wrong in my life so I call Monica to talk and pass the time.

Hey, baby, she answers her cell, How’s your day?

Hotter than hell.  What are you doing? I ask in between bites of my sandwich.

Just laying out by the pool, she says, and I instantly picture her in that barely-there bikini she wears.

Who’s there with you? I ask, jealousy fills me over whomever’s with her and disappointment that it isn’t me.

Dee and Kristy. We’re about to go for a swim. I’ll call you later, okay? 

I hear the girls splashing in the water in the background, calling Monica to come join them, so I let her go.

Okay, baby. I’ll see you later tonight, right? I ask her.

Yep, I’ll come get you around seven, okay?

I agree to the time and let her go.  I’m so looking forward to tonight.  We’ve been together, off and on, long enough and I know I love her.  I’ve loved her for what feels like forever.  She’s a year younger than I am and she’s smoking hot.  Let’s face it, neither of us is exactly innocent, but I plan on marrying her someday.

My workday pretty much goes the same every day.  There is no variation of duties except when it rains.  I come in, I mow and trim the grass, I pick up any stray garbage, brave whatever weather Mother Nature throws at me, and I go home filthy as hell.  The structure keeps me sane, though.  I know what to expect, I know what’s expected of me, and I know what to do.  I’m good at physical labor – it doesn’t bother me like it does some people.  I work hard when I’m at work and I play hard when I’m off work.

But today, I’m glad my workday is done so I can see Monica.  Showered, shaved, and dressed, I stand in front of the full-length mirror in my mom’s bedroom, admiring the view.  She’s in here just chatting with me as I finish getting ready.

I look in the mirror and say, "Damn, I look good.  Even I would date me.  I would totally turn gay for me."

Mom bursts out laughing at me and I look at her like she’s crazy. 

I’m serious. If I saw me out somewhere, looking this good, I brag, using my hands to showcase my body, "I would totally turn gay for me.  I’m hot." 

I keep a straight face as long as I can before I burst out laughing with her.  Mom and I are always kidding around with each other like this.  We’ve had a really good relationship since I moved back in with her. 

I lived with my dad for a few years when I was on the traveling baseball team.  He lives about a couple of hours away from here, and while I loved the baseball team, I really missed my mom. I still came to see her and she came to a lot of my games, but it wasn’t the same without her.

Oh, Chase, you are so funny, boy! she playfully replies. I kiss her cheek goodbye and leave to go spend time with Monica.  Nathan pulls into the driveway just as I walk out and I see Kristy in the car with him. They’ve become a hot item lately and it’s nice to be able to double date with our best friends.

We pick up Monica, grab some takeout pizza, and go to Nathan’s house.  His parents are gone for the weekend and we’re all staying with him tonight.  Nathan hooked us up with some beer just to chill out while playing cards, watching TV, and having fun together.  Monica knows I’m not going to get all shit-faced, crazy tonight, so she’s fine with me having a few beers.

Chase!  You are cheating, man!  There’s no damn way you can win that many hands in a row! Nathan accuses as he slapped his cards down on the table.

I’m not cheating!  I’m just good, man!  I goad back at him.  I really am good at Spades and I love the game. Many hands and beers later, I’ve won more games than anyone else and we decide to call it quits. 

Monica and I head to the guest bedroom while Nathan and Kristy head to Nathan’s room.  It’s late and we’re all wiped out, but to be perfectly honest, I’m just ready for some time alone with my girl.  Like I said, neither of us is exactly what you’d call innocent, but tonight is the first time we’ve had a whole night together.  I plan on taking full advantage of it.

Monica, are you ready to get out of those clothes and into something more comfortable? Like the bed? I ask with a wicked grin.

This makes her giggle as she reaches for me.  She’s much shorter than my six-foot frame, so she has to stretch to wrap her arms around my neck. My arms go around her waist and I pull her close to me. Our lips touch, softly at first, then our kiss quickly turns urgent and needy.  A moan escapes from the back of her throat as she presses even closer. I greedily consume it with my mouth and return one of my own.

Babe, I love you, I whisper lovingly.  I do love her with all of my heart and I want to spend the rest of my life with her.  I’ve told my mom, grandmother, and aunt several times that she’ll be my wife one day. They smile and laugh, like I’m too young to know that for sure. But I do know and I will show them one day.

I love you, too, Chase.

Helping her out of her shirt and shorts, I quickly undress and we fall into bed, our mouths still glued together.  This isn’t our first time to have sex, or even our first time together, but every time feels like the first time with her.  Holding her, loving her, and feeling her love makes every other girl fade to black in my mind. 

She owns my heart and body, she rules my mind, and she makes me both sane and crazy.  With a touch, she commands me.  With a word, she can either shatter my world or make it right again.  So much of what I do and what I am hinges on her.

Afterward, I hold her in my arms and fall asleep with the most contented feeling I’ve had in a long time.  When she looks at me, she doesn’t see the juvenile delinquent that others see.  She sees me – Chase.  She sees the good in me and makes me want to be a better man, for her.  This helps me to forget the regrets, the mistakes, and the negative thoughts that plague my thoughts. She calms me and gives me a purpose for living.

The next morning, I wake way too early since I have to work another long day at the cemetery.  Monica gets up with me and we get ready together, acting like we’re already married and just leaving