3rd PLACE WINNER

Author: MARINA

Addiction in the Corner

I pressed my face on the cold sleek window, but all I saw was darkness. Where did he go? I thought to myself sad that he left. Fog formed on the glass, and I started to draw shapes in it while still looking, hoping to see something in the night. My dog crept beside me and watched what I did. I finally sat down on the fuzzy carpet, petted my dog, and kept a keen eye on the darkness. Suddenly, from seeing absolutely nothing outside, there was a quick flash of light. I stood back up and stared even harder where the light had come from. Another flash, this time I saw everything. The source of light came from him. He was sitting in his car and holding a lighter to his face. My stomach sunk to my toes, not again this just happened a few nights ago, he had said that was the last time, obviously it was not. I banged on the window hoping he would realize I saw what he was doing. My dog was alarmed by this and started to bark as well. I kept banging, and the glass shook while my dog kept barking. I thought it was a lot of noise, but it was not enough to draw his attention. He has to hear me now, I knew our noise reached him, but it did nothing; there were still flashes of light from his car. After a minute or two, he finally looked up and made eye contact with me and instantly hid in the darkness. What was a short time trying to catch his attention, felt like ages being trapped behind glass only to spectate. Now that he had finally heard me, I left the sleek window, and my dog quieted down, but now I had to face him when he came back inside. He was never the same as he went down and always smelled worse, but I did not pay much attention because I always hated seeing him like this.

Of course when I was younger I did not fully understand what he did in his car, all I knew was that it was bad and I definitely did not like it. Whenever we would play together, it was always extremely entertaining for me, and I thought he was having a good time too. Our time together was always poisoned with the memory of him going down to his car after. I would

always mention how I did not like it. He might have heard the words I said, but he did not hear the pain, sadness, and devastation behind my words. He could easily follow up my agony by saying he will quit. I knew it was a lame empty promise, but each time he said it, I had hope, maybe this is the last time. There was no surprise to me when he broke his promise, but it managed to make me feel uneasy inside.

I was young and saw Addiction living in the house with me in the other room. I had to compete with it just to spend some time with him, but I did not realize Addiction was leaning against him practically all the time. Addiction stole him and pulled him into the darkness when we could have been together making joyful memories. Instead, I have carried tainted memories with Addiction peacefully sitting in the corner. The malicious Addiction blocked his senses to see what he was causing. He could not see my suffering. He especially could not hear me yearning for him to kick Addiction out.