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“If I may,” Phil rested his head in his hand. “What brings you here?”
Dan raised an eyebrow at the pale man sitting in front of him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you don’t really strike me as someone who’d do drugs,” Phil explained. His raven black hair shined in the 3 am McDonald’s light, his what he liked to call ginger roots threatening to escape his scalp.
“And you don’t look like the kind of person who’d sell drugs,” Dan slid his skinny fingers across the greasy table in front of him. “But you gotta do what you gotta do, right?”
“I guess,” Phil shrugged.
The quiet, empty McDonald’s was only filled with the sound of employees gently working in the background and Dan tapping his bone-thin fingers against the table. The parking lot outside the window next to the booth Dan and Phil were sat at was completely empty apart from the cars of employees’ cars parked around the back, and Dans’ sitting patiently in the corner of the lot.
Dan was skinny. Skinner than he was a few months earlier, without a doubt. His body looked so gentle, like it was ready to crack and fall apart at any moment. He was bruised up and down his entire body, and his normally rosy cheeks had gone dead. His sleepless eyes had no light in them, and the bags under his eyes were constant.
He looked rough.
And Dan decided that it probably a mix between the depression and the meth.
He told himself that the two canceled each other out, but they didn't. Not really.
Dan looked the familiar stranger sat in front of him up and down. His blue-green eyes almost seemed to shine, and his body language seemed awful neat and put together for a drug dealer.
“But really though, what brought you here? You’re in a McDonald’s an hour away from your hometown with hollowed out eyes,” Phil gestured. “Your curls tell me it wasn’t always like that.”
Dan looked down and scratched his eyebrow, making an attempt to hide his eyes.
“I don’t know. Mental health, I guess,” Dan said sadly.
Phil nodded, urging Dan to go on.
“I used to go to a therapist, and they told me I had depression n’ shit. And I was trying to get help for it, really. Though, a few months ago I broke my hand and they prescribed me some kind of opioid for the pain, and it was just a downhill slope from there,” Dan flickered his eyes up and down. “I started spending all my money on drugs, and so I couldn’t really afford therapy anymore.”
Phil nodded again in understanding.
Dan tapped his fingers against the table in a pattern.
“What about you? What made you get into…” Dan gestured at Phil and his bag that sat next to him on the booth. “This?”
“The drugs part or the dealing part?” Phil smiled.
Dan said nothing.
Phil cleared his throat.
“I started using when I was like, God, what? 18? 20? I don’t know. As for why, I couldn't tell you. I think I just wanted an excuse to get away for a bit, or maybe I just wanted to be cool, I dunno,” Phil pushed up his glasses further up his face.
“My dad constantly begged me to stop when he found out, as did the rest of my family. I was already too far gone, I think. I just ignored them, mostly. Tried to justify to myself that what I was doing was perfectly fine. I didn’t care that I was killing myself. But I did try to quit more times than you could count on all your fingers and toes.”
Phil smiled sadly.
“Last year though, my dad died. His death absolutely broke me. And at first, I got worse. I was high, or drunk, pretty much every single day. I tried to get rid of it by being high all the time, but it didn’t help. It just took all my money.
“One morning I woke up with a hangover and a broken pipe on my floor and I decided that I needed to stop. I realized it was what my dad wanted from me. He wanted nothing more than for me to get better, I think. So that very morning I threw out every single drug in my house and checked myself into rehab.”
“Wow,” Dan marveled quietly.
Phil reached into his pocket and took out a chip that looked like it was made of plastic between his fingers. He held it up in the air to show Dan.
“14 months,” Phil almost sounded like he was bragging.
“Impressive,” Dan replied as he watched Phil stuff the chip back into his pocket.
“I know,” Phil giggled.
“Would you ever want to get better?” Phil asked. Dan wondered for a second if he was crossing a line.
“Sometimes I think that I would like to. But there’s nothing really making me want to stop, I guess,” Dan answered after considering it for a moment.
“Why not?”
Dan looked down and then back up again.
“Honestly? I’m sad as hell. And plus,” Dan leaned in and lowered his voice so that nobody could hear him. He knew nobody was listening, but he still shifted his eyes to make sure. “Meth is fun as hell, man.”
Phil chuckled and reached his hand up to cover his mouth.
Dan wondered why he did that. A habit he developed when he had yellowed teeth from smoking so much, maybe? Or perhaps he was just insecure. Either way his smile was gorgeous and Dan was almost upset by how Phil unconsciously wanted to hide it.
“I don’t think I could quit even if I wanted to anyway. I don’t have it in me,” Dan continued.
“Sure you do.”
Dan shook his head, crossed his arms and leaned back in his booth. “I’m useless, to be honest. I haven’t told my family, and if I had friends then they wouldn’t know either. I couldn’t ask for help, because who the hell would I ask?”
His big brown eyes stared up at the ceiling.
“I could never, not in a million tears tell my family. I couldn’t look my little brother in the eye and tell him that I’m essentially killing myself from the inside out.”
Dan blinked sadly and looked back down at the table. His arms rested crossed over his chest and he let himself breathe deeply for a moment.
“Meth is way too much to quit anyway, I almost never want to stop. You don’t ever miss it?” Dan titled his head.
“Oh, God, everyday,” Phil smiled. “I especially did in the beginning. Hot flashes are the least fun things in the whole world, but drugs are the most fun. Sometimes I still wish I could just pop a few pills and trip balls a few hours when I get stressed.”
Dan chuckled. “Yeah, see, I could never do what you did. I just couldn’t.”
Phil shook his head sadly.
“You could get better,” Phil pointed out. “You could go admit yourself into rehab, and find a job somewhere. You could get better, Dan.”
Dan tilted his head. “You’re not very good at your job.”
“What?!” Phil scoffed. “How am I bad at at my job?!”
“You’re supposed to be selling me drugs, and here you are telling me to not do them at all. I am paying you, you know that right?” Dan teased.
“Whatever. It’s like giving candy to a baby, this job,” Phil shook his head and reached up to his forehead to push up a loose strand of raven black hair.
“What?” Dan laughed.
“You’re not supposed to give candy to babies! Kids, maybe, but not infants! You know what I mean,” Phil defended himself.
Dan laughed, and silence followed.
“Look, Phil,” Dan said after a moment. “As much as I appreciate the lecture, I’m gonna start having hot flashes myself if this never ends. You got my shit or not?”
“Oh right,” Phil unzipped his backpack next to him and took out a small black fabric bag with what Dan assumed was filled with packets of meth. Phil slid the bag across the table, and just as Dan put his crinkled money on the table and reached out to grab the bag, Phil slid it back again.
“On one condition,” Phil raised a finger at Dan. “You go to a rehab meeting with me next week.”
“Sorry?”
“I don’t know anything about you, Dan. Hell, I don’t even know if Dan is your real name. But I care about you. We’ve met maybe 3 times, and yet I already know you’re not a lost cause. You’re not like all my other clients. You’re just sad, you’re lonely. I can see it in your eyes,” Phil frowned.
Dan looked down, but Phil put his free hand on Dan’s chin so he would look at him again.
“You just need help, and I know you can get it if you want it. You can get anything that you want. You just walked down a bad path and got stuck, and now you think there’s no way out.”
Phil leaned in closer and his deep, deep blue eyes clouded with sadness and empathy.
“But there is.”
Dan looked at Phil, feeling as if he could cry. He knew that Phil was right, but he would never admit it.
“Did you get that from somewhere or did you just come up with that all by yourself?” Dan teased, covering up his real emotions.
Phil smiled and leaned back into his seat.
“That’s what my rehab leader said to me when I was going through withdrawal,” he smiled, looking down at his lap. His eyes said that he was reliving some story, only a few months old in his head.
Phil looked back up at Dan, his gaze beautiful and convincing. He probably wasn’t even trying, Dan thought. He was probably totally unaware of his own beauty.
“Fine,” Dan grunted, falling victim to Phil’s look. “I’ll come with you to rehab.”
“Really?” Phil beamed.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dan waved, and gestured towards the small bag in Phil’s hand. “But first you gotta give me my shit.”
“Oh, right.”
Phil slid him the bag and Dan handed him a small pile of cash in exchange. The amount in his hand was the exact same it had been the last few times the two had talked.
“Make it last,” Phil stood up from the booth and looked down at Dan. “That’s the last bag you’re gonna get from me, and if you want some more you’re gonna have to go to someone else.”
“I will, thanks,” Dan stood up after Phil. He stuffed the bag in his sweatshirt pocket and reached out his hand for Phil to shake it. But Phil ignored it and took Dan in a hug.
Dan’s eyes widened and he chucked lightly at the surprise embrace. He hugged Phil back, aware of the bag pressing into his stomach through his sweatshirt pocket.
“I’ll call you and give you the address and whatnot,” Phil pulled away and put his thumbs in his pockets.
Dan nodded and headed for the door.
“Oh, Dan?” Phil called after he had walked a few steps.
He turned around to look at the man across from him.
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
Dan smiled and held back a laugh.
“I won’t,” be promised, and pushed open the glass door to leave.