Meth

I was reading the news one day, and I said out loud ¨Whatever you do, don’t try this meth stuff. No one gets off of it, it must be the worst substance out there.¨
I don’t know why I said it to you.
You were crossing the room and you stopped right there and looked at me, with this little smile and said, ¨Why are you telling me this?¨
I told you because no one can get off it. It makes you crazy.
You asked me how I knew. I told you everyone knew that, it is all over the news, all the time.
I was a bit suspicious, then, from the look you had on your face. You looked proud. A bit incongruous for the topic.
I was a bit surprised when you started leaving brownish stains on the pillowcases. You said it was from nicotine in your hair, from standing in the casino all night in the smoking section.
I was surprised when you stopped eating breakfast, changing the schedule in our house, or asking for food and then letting it sit for hours. When you used to scarf it down like you were starving, for years.
I did not understand why you were losing weight when the rest of us were still gaining.
I was perplexed when you started using herbal lotions and oils on your skin. On your face!
I did not understand why your bad tooth began to look so much worse, so fast, that you had to get caps put on.
I did not even pay attention to the pipe in the new apartment on the kitchen counter. I had never seen one before, I thought it was a kitchen utensil your mother had put there, something from her country. I thought pipes were round on the end, not flat like a wheel.
I got suspicious, though, when you changed your morning routine and started locking the bathroom door. Going in once to wash, and then again with the lock, before getting dressed.
I was used to you taking all our money, but I thought it was strange you would no longer let us use it for diapers or food.
I don’t know why you stole my check, or lied about our tax returns for years. I never signed those returns, you know.
I still do not understand why you obsessively remembered past incidents wrongly, berating me for hours in the middle of the night about things that never happened, so I would remind you of what really happened, in a Herculean effort to reassure you that your feared outcomes never occurred.
I blamed the beatings on your sick mind. I thought you hated me because your new girlfriend did not know about me. I kept asking you to tell her about your kids, so you wouldn’t take out the frustration of your double life on my body.
I believed you when you said you didn’t want the new jobs you got because you heard some rumor or another about the boss or the working conditions, always a week after the drug tests. I really believed you.
When I put it all like that, in a list, you look like a typical meth addict.
A recovered addict explained it to me, a month later, like it was a fact.