how addiction pisses on love.

i drove the three hours to anchorage the day before my flight from alaska. I don't know why I drove—Mitch liked for me to drive at the least convenient moments. On the way, he picked up my discarded Snapple can, poked various holes in it, put his mouth over the opening and breathed deeply. “This,” he grinned, “will work.” I immediately hated myself for getting that drink, as if my choice made any difference. He held the can like a trophy and I was so mad I was shaking.

I waited until the anger subsided and I could speak without showing how angry I was. “Can you wait to smoke up?” I am sure my voice was still a little strained. “Just, can you wait until I leave?”

He snapped, “Fine,” and threw the can into the back seat like a child, crossed his arms, and said he didn't know I had such a problem with it. As if all of our other conversations never existed. As if he never noticed that I left the minute he and his friends talked about getting high. As if I hadn't told him, before I left my entire established life in Hawai'i, that drugs were the one thing I couldn't—absolutely could not—deal with in a partner.

Perhaps, to him, those conversations never existed. We have a tremendous ability to ignore the things we don't want to acknowledge.

To the best of my knowledge, the can stayed in the truck. But there are still giant empty holes where I was alone that night. The hour I spent by myself in the hot tub while he was “talking to someone.” I remember his fidgeting, his impatience at times. It was our last night together—a night I knew would be our final night together ever—and sometimes it was like he couldn't wait for me to go away or fall asleep.

The next day he drove to the airport, and parked in the furthest possible spot from the airport doors. Neither of us cried. He said he was sure he'd see me again, and smiled when he kissed me goodbye. I lied and said I was sure we'd see each other again, too. Maybe we both were lying.

I walked alone across the parking lot, lugging my belongings with me. When I got to the door I turned around and the truck was still there, and I saw the spark of a lighter through the drivers' side window. My stomach... you know I can't say what it did. It turned to stone and dropped through my feet and through the concrete below and through that level and that concrete... It was one of the worst feelings I've ever had. I felt like crying and screaming and like I was making the smartest decision ever by leaving him. Maybe the best word for how I felt was desperation. I thought that, after so much waiting and not finding the right person and him not coming, that he was finally there, next to me, breathing forever.* A part of me was severing ties, and a part of me was incredulous I was leaving the man I thought I'd love forever.

I loved him with everything I had. I left my home—the only place that really truly felt like home—to be next to him. He was, and probably is, amazing. There were so many reasons to love him. I know he loved me, too. We just fit. We had the same passions and drives in life, we understood each other most of the time, and when we didn't get each other, we worked to understand. Everything inside of me knew that he was It for me.

Throughout our relationship, I called him “Advenio,” meaning “to arrive” in Latin. I was certain the Him had finally arrived. But over time, he was angry and mean and agitated—but only sometimes. There was a giant dark cloud over us when he would spit angry phrases at me as if I were nothing. I was no saint, mind you. I would react to those angry times, and definitely not with loving words. In the beginning, I was all open and loving and trying to understand and eventually he would come back to me. But I'm no stranger to drugs, unfortunately, and I always knew what was going on. I grew tired of the whole situation and eventually I stopped being open and loving. His withdrawals were hate filled and painful.

Like most partners to the addicted, I held on to the good. If he was The One for me, I would slog through the bad times and stick beside him. But I'd also made a decision that I wouldn't deal with addiction, so there were boundaries. Boundaries that were crossed too many times. That day, the final day when I was dragging my luggage across a parking lot because he couldn't even wait 2 minutes to get high, the last little string of hope was broken. To see our bond thrown aside by him because his addiction was more important—I can't say what that did to me. There is no fairy tale that tells you what to do in that situation.

Prince Charming didn't snort coke off his mate's back before he stormed the castle to kiss Sleeping Beauty. Lancelot wasn't too drunk to drive his horse. Cinderella's prince didn't take breaks to get high on his friend's couch and stare at the glass slipper. Addiction isn't talked about in fairy tales, or in polite conversation.

But it's there, peeing on the bushes outside of too many people's lives.

*Integrations, by Pablo Neruda