Guilty Read Free Page A

nowhere.
    The cold turkey, or clucking as Caroline had called it, had presented itself as endless hours of weird hallucinations. Dreams about scoring heroin where she would score it but spill it, nightmares where she could not get the needle into her vein. Police chasing her, dealers chasing her. A time warp had consumed her. Her brain had been racing and she was scared of all the crazy junk it was firing at her. Any light or noise had killed her head even more.
    Her mum had been her only anchor to reality and now in this pit she had lost her for ever. The mental, spiritual and emotional pain of this realisation was ineffable.
    She had experienced widely fluctuating temperatures; one minute Sadie’s bed sheets, if not tossed aside, had been dripping with sweat, the next she was begging Caroline to find her extra layers as she nearly froze to death huddled in a sleeping bag and duvet.
    Caroline had shown no disgust as she had stripped the diarrhoea-soaked covers from the bed, only to find the replacement ones covered in vomit a few moments later. She had bathed Sadie’s head with damp flannels, trying her best to soothe the terrible migraines, filled countless hot water bottles to try and calm the cramps. There had been moments when Sadie had managed to nod off but when she had woken she had felt that she had been awake all the time.
    Her mum had entwined herself around Sadie, hugging her tight, trying to absorb some of her energy, trying to halt the restless legs syndrome. Nervous pulses had run through Sadie’s body forbidding her to lay still. Suddenly and totally involuntarily, she would kick out but her mum was always there, trying to guide her safely through all these quicksands to the solid rock in sight.
    Trying, trying, and trying.
    Caroline had done all the trying for Sadie in her twenty-five years with her, but Sadie was realising much too late that there had been no sustained effort from herself on anything but living for the moment.
    Sadie had never had any interest in the past or future. The present was all that had mattered. The four walls now hemming her in were rudely awakening her to the ghost of the future; it was black, bearing a very miserable, wrinkled face, devoid of any love.
    Her saviour had helped her touch down and taken her to a place from which a new life had been possible.
    How had it got to this? Which was the day that led to this point of no return? She managed to wriggle her fingers and wipe her nose on the sleeve of her prison clothes. A musty smell immediately triggered more memories of that bedsit where she came so close to turning things round.
    She sighed deeply, more of a groan really. There wasn’t one day, she was convinced. Sadie was positive she had bad blood; a bad egg seemed to be a phrase that came to mind. The counsellors and Caroline had told her numerous times that each day was a fresh start but it wasn’t, it really wasn’t. She had been doomed from day one, she was certain.
    More tears stained her cheeks as she clenched and unclenched her hands, waiting. Waiting for what? She had no idea.
    How would she stay sane in a place like this? That was a laugh – her, sane! Funny how in moments of quiet reflection like this she could think rationally. Her thoughts were crystal clear now; not a glimmer of mental instability!
    Memories were what she was thinking about. What was her first memory? She tried to recall.
    Dad bouncing her on his knee, singing some sort of rhyme and the giggles, the giggles and giggles till she stupidly fell off and then suddenly the tears, the tears, the tears. How metaphorical, she sadly realised, of her relationship now with Simon.
    Bri and her sharing popcorn, snuggled together under a blanket, on a beanbag, watching Postman Pat. He, even though younger, so protective of her, when she got upset when Pat lost Jess, wiping her tears, hugging her.
    Surely they too must think of these times. They had existed. It would be a crime to deny them – how very