Rough Drafts by J. A. Armstrong

were you
thinking?”
    Scott
hung his head. “I wasn’t thinking, J.D. That’s part of being an addict. You use
to stop thinking. You use to stop feeling whatever it is you don’t want to feel ,” he said.
    “Yeah,”
Jameson chuckled in disgust. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.”
    “No,
it’s been long enough. Say what you need to say,” he told her.
    “Just
tell me what happened.”
    “Are
you sure you want to hear that?” he asked her pointedly. Jameson nodded. “Okay.
After you left…Craig and me…Well, you know we started hanging out with Bobby
and his friends.”
    “Yeah,
I remember. Cut to what happened after you both supposedly sobered up,” she challenged him.
    “We
did, J.D. Both of us. We were both sober.”
    “Until
that night? Is that what you are telling me?” she asked him heatedly.
    “No.
We’d both started drinking again, smoking a little pot. That was it, as far as
I knew,” Scott said. “That was it for me. If Craig was doing anything else, it
wasn’t with me, J.D.”
    Jameson’s
temples twitched with tension. “So, what happened then?”
    “Craig,
he wanted to go to this party. Some girl he was interested in was going to be
there.”
    “Shelley,”
Jameson said softly.
    “Yeah.”
    Jameson
was positive she was going to get sick. Shelley Davis had been at the party
too. She was also rushed to the hospital that night. She, unlike Craig, had
survived her overdose. “And?” Jameson prompted Scott to continue.
    “We
went. You know that.”
    “And
you thought that would be a good time to start shooting up again?” Jameson
asked him.
    “I
didn’t shoot up, J.D.”
    “You
were so stoned that you don’t even remember!”
    “No,
I remember that. I snorted some coke, okay? I drank—a lot. I smoked some weed.”
    “Well,
that makes it better, then,” Jameson said with disgust.
    “No,
it doesn’t. The thing is, J.D., Craig
wanted to be alone with Shelley. I didn’t know he was going to get high with
her. I thought they wanted...”
    “I
think I get the picture,” Jameson said.
    “I
took off with Bobby. We were out back when Shelley’s brother came running down
screaming about Craig,” he said.
    “You
remember that,” she pointed out.
    “I’ll
tell you what I remember. I remember trying to run back to the house. I know I
was running but it felt like my legs were stones,” Scott told her. Jameson
watched as his breathing began to grow shallow and his face started to pale. “I remember stumbling in that
room. Craig was,” his voice trailed off and Jameson noted the tears streaming
down his cheeks. He looked up at Jameson slowly and shook his head. “I remember
screaming to call for help. Then…I don’t remember anything…nothing until there
were all these people flooding into the room. I
know he was…he was dead, J.D. He was already dead,” Scott choked. “I
didn’t want them to take him. Then it would be real.” Jameson felt hot tears
pour over her cheeks. “I couldn’t save him, J.D. I was too stoned. I was too
late. I should never have gone there. I should never have left him. So maybe
you are right on some level that it was my fault.”
    Jameson
closed her eyes and took a deep breath. God,
I wish Candace was here. She looked at her cousin. “No, it wasn’t,” Jameson
said.
    “If
I hadn’t been…”
    “Yeah,
maybe,” she admitted. “But, I’ve asked myself that question for years too.
Maybe if I had been around you two wouldn’t have gone down that path at all.”
    “J.D.,
none of what happened was because of you.”
    “No.
I guess it wasn’t. Craig didn’t die because of you either, Scott,” she said. “I suppose that I always knew that. Even if
you had been there to call….He died because he took drugs. His choice.”
    “Don’t
be mad at him,” Scott said.
    “I’m
pissed at him,” Jameson said as she wiped away her tears. “I lost my two best
friends because of his stupidity.”
    “No,
you didn’t,” Scott said.