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His body burns from the inside out, a prickling itch cracking out of his bones, as Spencer shivers on his couch. It’s too small to fit him unless he tucks his knees up, shoulder pressed against the arm and the soles of his feet flat to the other.
It hurts less to stay still than to get up and walk. He’d caught pneumonia in fourth grade and the muscle pains had been nothing compared to the aches sweeping over him in waves.
He tugs the blanket closer around him. The temporary relief from the cold is worth the fire as the blanket brushes his skin. Even the smallest joints in his fingers protest, wracked with invisible tremors. Spencer shifts, pushes sweaty hair off his forehead with a whine.
The TV remote clatters to the ground. He doesn’t reach for it: he isn’t really watching the television and the programmes mean about as much to him as the crappy infomercials jammed between. They hurt his eyes. Attention slips past like sand through his fingers.
Spencer shrugs the blanket off, hit by a hot flash. His clothes stick to him and despite the reek of sweat, he can’t find it in himself to get up and change. He isn’t sure he wants to. Getting up means he can go out, and going out means he’ll call his dealer and put an end to the neverending withdrawal, just a single hit, one last one—
Dilaudid withdrawal peaks in intensity between twenty-four and forty-eight hours. He’s made the first twelve. Just twelve more and it’s going to be easier.
His stomach cramps. The nausea has slowed down like the rest of him. Spencer bears his weight on sore bones as he hangs his head and retches into the basin he’d left. In the earlier hours he’d dragged himself to the bathroom to puke but his head hurts at the thought.
There’s nothing left to throw up. Hasn’t been since the morning.
Spencer rolls over and lets the TV sound wash out behind him. The couch is surprisingly cool and he lets the cold soak into his feverish forehead. His jaw aches with a yawn.
Sleep comes in brief naps borne of sheer exhaustion—Spencer hasn’t been comfortable enough to fall asleep intentionally since yesterday. He’d timed it so the withdrawal symptoms would kick in overnight but sleeping through the first part had been a hope rather than a real plan.
Deep in his gut he knows sleep isn’t going to happen.
A door slams. He jumps, heart in his throat, and Tobias Hankel is a brief figure in his peripheral vision. Spencer lowers his head back down and berates himself for the irrational—and it is—irrational thoughts. For following them.
His wrists itch. The skin is pale and clammy. None of the angry red scratches.
Hankel hadn’t let him go so long between doses. He’d only ever got to the intense craving stage, where he wouldn’t beg for more but wouldn’t put up much of a protest at the needle.
Spencer rolls over, groans at the pain. Trying not to think of dilaudid is a fruitless endeavour: he instead thinks of withdrawal, the natural starting point when nothing else can capture his attention, and back to the dilaudid.
So little. So little of it.
That’s all he needs. Enough to get him through the day.
He retches. Bile drips weakly into the tub.
And he knows how it works, knows dilaudid down to its molecules, knows how much he can give without overdosing, that spot where he can still function, the crucial amount. Spencer won’t share needles. Won’t get an infection. He isn’t one of those unlucky statistics because he knows how to get around it.
The rope burns. His eyes fly open. Just the blanket.
Just the blanket, in his apartment, in D.C. Just him.
Spencer kicks the blanket off, bundles it down the end of the couch. His teeth chatter. His hand is prickling with pins and needles but his face radiates heat. Breathing hurts. Existing hurts.
His gaze clouds over. Elongated shadows drape across the floor as the TV flickers. Spencer’s shoulder strains as he reaches for the glass. Water sloshes over the rim as it trembles in his grip.
The water comes back up before he puts the glass down; it slips out of his hands and thuds to the hardwood. His kitchen is across the room and a mile away. He should be hungry. That had been another problem the dilaudid solved—the hunger pains didn’t hurt when he was high and withdrawal saps his appetite.
Eleven hours to reach the peak.
Spencer knuckles his eyes, presses his palms against his forehead. Eleven hours then what, another twenty?
The floor creaks, and despite himself, he struggles upright to check. Nothing.
Maybe if he kicks the drugs, Hankel will go with them.