Pathways of the Broken

I’m surrounded by darkness. All around me is a sea of nothingness. In the far distance, I see something approach.

"Theo, I love you.” it says. I’m scared.

“I- I love you too.” I reply, hoping to appease the thing.

“You do?” It asks, with an eerily joyful tone. “Thank you Theo.”

Suddenly the ground around me turns to sludge. I’m sinking.

“Thank you so much.” it echoes.

...

‘Ugh, not that dream again,’ I think as I rub my eyes awake. When I open my eyes, I realize that this is very much so not my bedroom.

’Shit. Where am I?′

I had a massive headache and my back was numb from a painful night’s rest. The latter was likely because I discovered myself to be unceremoniously positioned on what felt to be a wooden bench. This was not the first time I had woken up in an unfamiliar environment so I did what I always did: I sat up and tried to work out where the hell I was. Upon taking in the scenery, I noticed that the wooden bench I had slept on was one of many in rows that faced a podium. Above the podium was a sculpture of what must have been Jesus on a cross. Dammit, I was in the church again.

“You’re up, good.” a man with a black robe-like garment and a large cross around his neck spoke from the bench to my left. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Why good?” I asked curiously, trying to process what was happening.

“I was worried you wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” replied the priest. This answer did not satisfy me but I nodded nonetheless. We sat in silence for a while after that. I felt a bit dizzy but overall I was physically fine.

That’s what I thought, at least, until my right hand began twitching uncontrollably. I quickly hid it in the pocket of my hoodie, praying the priest wouldn’t notice.

“I should get going.” I said, grunting as I stood up and began to walk towards the exit.

“Withdrawal?” The priest asked. This stopped me in my tracks. My heart was beating so fast I seriously thought I was about to have a heart attack.

“Huh? What are you talking about? Stupid priest.” I all but growled those words out behind what I really hoped was a charming smile.

“I might be stupid but I know what an addict looks like. This is the fourth time you’ve done this in the past three months.” After the priest said this, I noticed he looked sad. I knew that, for whatever reason, I was the reason the priest was sad. Ruining the mood of the people around me seemed to truly be my specialty.

“Well I’ll be out of your hair soon. My parents have summoned me to go back home. I’m being picked up tonight.” I made another move to leave but the priest stopped him once more.

“Do you have any on you?”

“What?”

“Do you have any of your drugs on you?”

“Why, you want some?” I meant this as a joke but the priest didn’t seem to find it particularly amusing. Anxiously, I dug the nail of my pointer finger into the flesh on my thumb, scraping back and forth. It’s a painful and bad habit that seemed to come to be instinctually in times of stress. The priest was silent for what must have been a minute, which only served to give space for my mind to spiral destructively.

I’m a failure. They see right through me. I hate myself.

I was sweating now, I realized, and my right hand had gone from twitching to spasming intensely.

Finally, the priest relieved me from myself by responding. “We offer a service here. We don’t advertise it because we’re not certain if it’s legal, but we allow addicts to come in and use while we’re present.” I shot him a questioning glance. Noticing my expression, the priest continued; “we know we can’t stop someone from using but we know that one of the most damaging parts of addiction is when people get high alone. We just want to do what we can.”

“I see.” I said, although truthfully I did not actually get what was going on.

The priest seemed to sense that I didn’t know what to make of his words so he clarified them: “I was asking if you have any of your drugs on you to see if you would be willing to sit with me while you use.”

This caught me completely off-guard. I think I had vaguely heard of this kind of thing, but it had never really occurred to me to seek it out. I thoughtlessly fidgeted in my pockets with my left, non-spasming hand, and found that I did indeed have some pills in my pocket.

For a second, I considered my options: I could either do Oxy with a literal priest, or I could wait to get home. My body didn’t delay in making the decision for me, as a sharp pain entered my abdomen.Fuck. I bent forwards and put my hand over the painful spot instinctively. At that moment, I caught the reflection of my shadow on the shiny flooring. I looked really, really terrible. I was a twitching, writhing beast. I needed to fix this.

I shuffled to the side of the nearest bench and got down on my knees beside it. Tentatively, I pulled out a pill and put it down on the bench and began disgracefully crushing it. I did it slowly, expecting the priest to stop me, but he didn’t. I had truly been given permission to get high at church. Working more efficiently now, I used my credit card to methodically make a line of white powder on the bench. After rolling up a dollar bill, I blocked one nostril and put the dollar bill in the other and proceeded to hungrily snort it up. Relief flowed through my body. All the pain was washed away.

I pulled myself onto the bench the priest was in and sat to his left, leaning backwards into the bench while staring towards the podium.

“Tell me about yourself.” The priest said.

“Fuck, what is there to say?” I think that if I was not high, I may have been a bit more tentative to swear in the church. Thankfully, the priest was largely unperturbed.

“What’s your name? Where are you from? How old are you? What led you to be passed out on a church bench for the fourth time in three months?” I smiled a little sheepishly at that last one.

“You have a lot of questions priest-y sir,” I slurred out. “I’ll answer your questions in a minute. I just need to breathe for a second.” I was just so happy. I wished I could always be this happy. But I couldn’t be. Not without... some help.

We sat in silence for about 15 minutes. I didn’t care. My body may have been there but my mind wasn’t.

Eventually, I began to speak. “My name’s Theo. I think my father would kill me if I told you my full name so let’s leave it at that.”

“Nice to meet you Theo. Tell me more.”

“I’m 18. I’m originally from New York, but my parents moved me out here four years ago.”

“I see. So your family moved here when you were 14?” At this I let out an insincere chuckle.

“Nah, when I was 14 they found out I was using so they just shipped me off here where my misadventures wouldn’t affect the family.” I could feel my expression became sour. “Isn’t that fucked up? Your 14-year-old is an addict so you just buy him a house in the middle of nowhere?” I had no idea why this last part came out. I hadn’t actually told anyone that.

“Did they ever tell you why they... handled it that way?” The priest turned to face me for the first time since I had woken up. I angled my head in his direction in turn to meet his eyes.

“Is what we talk about confidential?”

“Of course,” the priest replied.

“Then I’ll tell you the truth. Just know you’re the only one in this town other than my house-staff who will know this information.” I hesitated for a second. Was I really doing this? Was I really going to tell the priest everything? For whatever reason, it seemed I was. I fidgetted as I spoke by stroking my arm with my hand. Skin always feels so soft when you’re high. “But first, can I smoke in here?” I asked this last part as I pulled out a box of cigarettes and a lighter.

“You wouldn’t be the first, and you certainly would not be the last if you did,” the priest replied. It would not truthfully have mattered if the priest had said no, however, as I was already lighting one as he replied. I had mostly posed it as a question out of formality.

After taking a few drags of the cigarette, I began, “My dad is one of those really wealthy guys that owns like a million other companies. I don’t think most people really realize that most major businesses are all owned by one big guy up at the top. My father is the one at the top. Last I checked, he’s one of the wealthiest people in the world.” I paused at this to take another couple drags. “Extreme wealth, power, and influence has it’s upsides, but it also means you have a lot of people praying for your downfall. My parents sent me here because they didn’t want, like, a huge scandal or something. They bought me a house here where no paparazzi bothers to go, and they even send me a generous allowance. I think they only send me the allowance because they’re afraid if they don’t I’ll steal or become homeless or something.”

“The way you talk about it, I get the feeling you’ve thought about this a lot,” the priest remarked.

Sighing, I replied, “yeah well, I’ve had about four years with next to nothing else to think about.”

“That must have been hard. Struggling and alone for four years. I’m so sorry.” I examined the priest, and I got the feeling he wasn’t lying. He really did feel bad for me.

“Yeah well, it’s whatever.” I said this with as much I-don’t-care attitude as he could muster. I really didn’t like how sad I had made the poor guy and I wanted to seem strong so he wouldn’t feel that way any longer. The truth was, however, that my words weren’t even vaguely convincing.

We sat in silence once more as I finished off my cigarette, which I proceeded to put out on a donation plaque which was on the back of the bench in front of me. The priest winced as though I was putting the cigarette out on him. He looked like he wanted to say something, but chose not to.

“So,” the priest said to break the silence, “you’ve been living here for four years. What made you start coming to church all of a sudden?” The priest’s neutral expression cracked a bit and a corner of his mouth lifted. He quickly corrected himself, bringing his face back to neutral.

I felt my face flush at this. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I know this is stupid, but when I was a kid my grandmother used to take me to church every Sunday. I really loved it. I’m not sure if I really gave a shit about Jesus and his teachings or whatever, but it felt good to think that there was some guy out there who was always there for me.” The priest nodded to show he was listening. I clenched my fists and continued: “after she died, I tried to keep going to the church, but it just didn’t feel the same. I just didn’t feel God in the way I used to.”

At this moment, as I bore my heart to the priest, I felt incredibly weak. I unclenched his fists; they felt limp, like I had used up all my energy to clench them in the first place.

I sighed and continued, “the first time I came here was a few months ago, on the anniversary of her death. I wanted to see if I could feel the way I did back then. I didn’t. I decided that if I couldn’t feel God on my own, I would force myself to feel him, so I did a bunch of acid and came back. I actually felt him, man, I felt Jesus. As you spoke at that podium, I truly believed he was there guiding your words. It was amazing. It became a part of my routine to do acid and come here every Sunday. I don’t really know how I ended up passing out here four times either though, I don’t really think acid is meant to do that to you, but that’s at least why I’ve kept coming here.”

A salty tear entered my mouth, and I realized I had been crying. I sincerely hoped I hadn’t been crying for too long as that would have been extremely embarrassing. I looked to see if the priest was judging me for it, but I realized that the priest was also crying.

“Shit man, please don’t cry for me. I’m not actually that sad, it’s just the drugs. They fuck with my emotions, I’m really sorry.” My words were coming out frantically.

“No, I must apologize. I shouldn’t be letting my emotions get the best of me right now. I feel I am not going to be the most... helpful right now. You’re free to stay here and come as often as you’d like, but I think I need to do some... thinking.” The priest gave me a raw smile as he got up. I stood up as well, and we both walked out our separate doorways: the priest to his office, I to leave the church entirely.

As I exited the church, I sighed ruefully. Back home I go.

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A.N.: Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of Pathways!