In the middle of my relapse it was cold. I just finished a photo shoot with Chris. Her thinness impressed and worried me. Her legs were like sticks in boots. She shook and twitched in the cold. She would compose herself and stay still or jump in perfect half arches when I shot. She would go back to shaking and twitching in between. She looked fantastic in almost every frame. Her eyes were blue and sick-looking, too big. She wore a scarf that was 20 meters long or it seemed that way; it was a very long scarf.

I said I would walk Chris to her bus stop. I could’ve just gone home. I had a whole camera card full of photographs I could work on. I loved working on photographs. But I didn’t go home to do what I loved. I wanted to walk Chris to her bus stop at the bottom of the hill.

We walked and talked about the place where we both met. Neither of us had gone back, we both said we didn’t need to. Her sister was worried about her, Chris said, but there was nothing to be worried about. Her mother was on her case too.

I didn’t know she had a sister. Suddenly, there were people I had to add to my knowledge of Chris – a sister, a mother, too – who worried about Chris, telling her to get her act together. There were normal, regular-people parts in Chris’ life, she wasn’t just an orphaned rock star who when on the bender tended to smoke too much rock. Baffling.

She said her sister was kind of “square.” Compared to Chris a lot of people would be so I didn’t really get an idea about her sister out of this description anyway. But what’s with all this sister and mother fussing about? How was Chris doing now anyway, really? .

Really? She was doing fine and, honestly? It was just a question of self-discipline, just the way of thinking and being responsible for yourself.

I said I knew what she was talking about. I, too, was self-disciplined enough to manage on my own. I wondered – in that instance – if Chris was lying to me. Because I was lying to her. Did she notice that we just walked by the sign pointing to the liquor store? Will she go back to the liquor store once I left her at the bus stop? You wouldn’t notice the sign unless you looked for it, unless your brain was trained to spot signs like that. The sign was very small. And there was no way of knowing that there was a liquor store in the building to our right, unless, of course, you knew that there was a liquor store there. It was a new liquor store, but if you didn’t live around here how would you know? Chris didn’t live around here. She lived in the market. There was one liquor store near the market. I didn’t live there but I knew.

At the bus stop, we hugged. Promised to keep in touch.

I walked back up the hill, the building with the liquor store now to my left. I walked slowly. The camera was bouncing off of my hip so I stopped to shove in my large camera bag. I walked to the top of the hill. I turned left.

In front of the liquor store I thought about Chris. What is she was honest? If someone like Chris was staying sober and managing, Chris, a rock star crackhead who I heard gave head for $20, or less, why couldn’t I? Or was Chris waiting for me to go away, on the bottom of the hill, letting the bus drive off? So that she could go to the liquor store?

I stood in front of the store.

I never stood in front of the store, I would always just go in. Every time, as if diving off of a diving board. But this time I stood in front of the store and I waited. First, I waited for Chris to show up or not. Second, I waited not to go in. I had already made a decision to go in. No, the decision was made for me, it was in the back of my head, but I was lying to myself about waiting for the decision to go away and change its course. It wouldn’t change its course because of third. Third: there was a sudden realization and a terrifying conclusion: I would go in anyway because I had no choice, there were no decisions, the action was prompted by an involuntary muscle, a breath going in and out, it was a part of a natural process for me.

I sat on the concrete tree planter. People went in and out of the store. My mind went all over the place, but it mostly swirled round the bottle, or whatever was at my centre at the time. And then I let it go, my mind, while I just sat there and sat there and waited for nothing. Finally, I got up and went in.

The relief once I left leave the store, my fix hidden in the camera bag? Unreal. True happiness. It was as if someone suddenly adjusted focus on the world around me, added an extra bounce to my walk, sang a sexy song to my hips, made me giddy with anticipation.

I had it. I had it and I was okay. Should I get another one, just in case? No, one was enough. I wasn’t going anywhere tonight. I usually wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t need to go anywhere anyway.

Chris never showed up. She probably took the bus and went home. It was the one thought that bothered me while I was still able to talk back to my thoughts that evening.

Jowita Bydlowska | Contributor

Jowita Bydlowska is a writer and photographer in Toronto, Canada. You can find her other stuff at Ryeberg.com and at Lightstalkers.org.

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