When Amy Met Harry

                                                                                                                                                                        They say two addicts cannot recover together.  They say it makes recovery harder for them.  They say you should stay single in your first year of recovery.

I met Harry in a motel, we were both there to buy crack.  We sat in silence, I was lying on the bed on my stomach watching the TV which was turned down.  He was sitting on the old ripped couch along the wall.  The dealer was in the bathroom selling a gun to his uncle I think or maybe he was trying to impress me by saying that’s what he was going to do.  Harry was waiting for his sister who was in the bathroom with them trying to buy crack.

The silence was broken when Harry asked me for a lighter.  I extended my arm and he leaned forward to reach for the lighter.  He lit his cigarette and I stretched again to take back my lighter which he was so slickly trying to slip into his pocket.  Lighters are like gold in the crack world.  To this day, Harry still has the habit of slipping my lighter into his pocket.

I noticed his lower lip was pierce with a small spike, his ears had matching silver  half moon earrings with spikes on the ends.  He had barbed wire tattoos around his arm and the theater happy and sad faces on the inside of his forearm.  I am a sucker for tattoos and piercings but I still tried to act uninterested.  Harry asked for my number anyway, I gave it to him.  The people emerged from the bathroom, Harry and his sister left to go down to their motel room.  I admit, I was intrigued by him, blond hair, blue eyes, small build but large muscles, he was not my type.

I left the motel when the dealer started to try and get with me.  I was not interested, I bought some dope and left.  I smoked it on my way down the thruway to my sister’s house where I was living at the time.  It was July 3, 2010, my father’s birthday, he passed away a few years before.

A text message appeared on my phone while I was nearing my sister’s.  It said something like, “It was nice to have met you Amy. Wanna get together again sometime?” Not sure what to make of it I did what I normally do in unknown situations, I ignored him.  Then he texted again the next day, and the next.  I responded, “sure, let’s do something,”

We made plans to hang out that Saturday night, I blew him off.  The next day I spoke to him on the phone and he said he had blown off his cousin’s wedding.  I later found out there was no wedding but at the time I felt so guilty I hung out with him for the afternoon and that evening.  He bought me $40 worth of crack which I took one hit and throughout the rest of night we kept giving it to his sister.

We talked and snuggled on the dingy motel bed.  His sister’s boyfriend was an older man who had paid for the room, they were living there temporarily.  There were two queen sized beds one was Harry’s.  He didn’t admit it but he lived there with them.  I admit I had an amazing time with him. I did not want to leave.

Harry and I had a rough start because we were in active addiction for the first 6 to 8 months of our relationship. We have been through a lot together both good and bad.  Through it all we have stayed together.  Last summer I relapsed, Harry refused to sit idly by a watch me slowly commit suicide, he packed his bags and left.

It was not until December 2012 that he believed I was changing and he came home.  I watch him sleep every morning engulfed with gratitude that he is home.  I have never felt this kind of love before, he is my rock, my other other half, my soul mate.

True love stories never have endings, true love stories are greater then that, true love lasts an eternity.