Aishweriy's POV
When I told him I'd help, I meant it. I don't think Carter believed me at first. Not until I came back that morning with a backpack full of clean clothes, Gatorade, soup packets, and a promise I hadn't made out loud yet.
Aaron was gone for 1 week for a meeting in Boston.
I'd spent the early hours of dawn hunched over my laptop, madly researching opiate withdrawal. The symptoms rolled across my screen like warnings: nausea, muscle aches, insomnia, agitation, anxiety, sweating, runny nose, teary eyes. The severe cases: rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, dilated pupils, goosebumps, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramping. In the clinical language of medical websites, it sounded manageable. Uncomfortable, but survivable.
None of the articles prepared me for the reality.
"I don't want rehab," he told me that morning, sitting on the edge of his mattress like it might swallow him whole. His eyes were sunken, skin waxy and pale. "Don't even bring it up."
I nodded slowly. "Okay," I said. "Then we do it here."
He looked at me like I'd gone mad. Maybe I had. But I could see the desperation in his eyes—the way they flickered with pain and shame. He didn't have the strength to fight me anymore. Just nodded once, and that was enough.
I set up camp in his small apartment, arranging my supplies like weapons for battle. Electrolyte drinks to prevent dehydration. Anti-diarrheal medication. Acetaminophen for the pain. Soup that would be gentle on his stomach. Clean towels. Clean sheets. I'd read that people in withdrawal often sweat through their clothes and bedding multiple times a day.
What the articles didn't mention was the sound sweat makes when a body is trembling so violently that the mattress shakes. Or how it smells—not like normal sweat, but something chemical and wrong, as if the poison was seeping through his pores.
The first wave hit him around noon. We'd been sitting in relative silence, Carter flipping restlessly through a magazine without really seeing it, me pretending to read a book while monitoring his every movement.
He suddenly doubled over, a low moan escaping through clenched teeth. His body tensed, hands gripping the armrests so tightly his knuckles went white.
"What can I do?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
He shook his head violently, unable to speak through whatever was tearing through him. When he finally caught his breath, he just stared at her with hollow eyes.
Within an hour, he couldn't sit still. He paced his small apartment, arms wrapped tightly around his middle, face contorted in agony. His entire body shook uncontrollably. Every few steps, he would double over suddenly, face draining of color. The visible tremors in his hands grew more violent by the minute as he repeatedly scratched at his forearms, leaving angry red welts on his skin.
By mid-afternoon, the muscle cramps began. Carter curled onto his side on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest. His face contorted in pain as he clutched at his legs, a strangled sound escaping his throat. The withdrawal was ravaging his system, each symptom more brutal than the last.
I heated a damp towel in the microwave and placed it over his calves. He flinched at first, then relaxed slightly as the heat penetrated. I watched his face carefully, searching for any sign of relief in his tormented expression.
"Better?" I asked.
He managed only a grimace in response, his eyes conveying what words couldn't—this reprieve would be temporary at best.
I was right. The waves came in predictable progression, but with an intensity no words could capture. The muscle aches deepened, spreading from his legs to his back. His nose began to run constantly, not just a trickle but a steady stream that left his upper lip raw and chapped. His eyes watered so severely that it looked like he was sobbing. I wiped his face gently with a cool cloth.
His body jerked suddenly with another wave of cramps. Sweat drenched his shirt despite the chills that had him shaking under the blanket she'd draped over him. I could see he was fighting a war within himself—each minute an excruciating battle to not give in, to not reach for the very substance that had brought him to this hell.
During a brief moment of lucidity, his unfocused eyes met hers, a jumble of fragmented thoughts visible behind his gaze. Something about tapering, about what he should have done differently. The words never fully formed on his lips before another wave of nausea overtook him, sending him stumbling toward the bathroom.
I followed him with a glass of water and a damp cloth. I sat on the edge of the bathtub as he hunched over the toilet, one hand gently rubbing circles on his back while he heaved. When there was nothing left, I helped him rinse his mouth and guided him back to the couch.
His eyes rolled wildly, struggling to focus on my face.
"What happened, Carter? Is it paining again?" I asked him as we were watching a movie. I was going to touch his face, but he jerked away.
Tears spilled down his cheeks, mixing with the sweat. He tried to wipe them away with a trembling hand. "Don't look at me like this. I'm a mess." He turned away, his shoulders hunched. "I'm disgusting like this. Sweating and shaking and... just leave, please. I don't want you to remember me this way."
"I'm not going anywhere," I told him firmly, reaching for his hand despite his attempts to pull away.
"You don't understand!" he snapped, his voice rising with sudden anger. "I don't need your pity! Just go!"
"This isn't pity, Carter," I said, keeping my voice steady as I moved closer. "This is me caring about you. Yell all you want, but I'm staying."
His rage collapsed as quickly as it had flared. He slumped against me, too exhausted to fight anymore. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."
"Shh," I murmured, gently guiding him to lie down. "Try to rest now."
Eventually, his breathing steadied as he fell into a fitful sleep, my hand still clasping his.
By evening, he couldn't get comfortable in any position. Sitting hurt. Lying down hurt. Standing hurt. He alternated between them all, finding no relief. I tried asking him what he was feeling, hoping understanding might help me find some way to help. His response was incoherent mumbling, punctuated by groans. When he did form words, they were disconnected fragments that made little sense.
"Inside... burning... can't... please..."
The nights were the worst. His body refused to let him sleep, even as exhaustion threatened to crush him. Carter would drift off for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, then jerk awake, gasping, his body betraying him with another wave of discomfort.
"You should sleep," he told me around 2 AM. "One of us should."
I shook my head. "I'm fine."
"Liar," he said, but there was gratitude in his bloodshot eyes.
I'd read that distraction could help, so I tried everything. I read aloud from books I found on his shelves. I played quiet music. I asked him questions about neutral topics—his favorite movies, places he'd traveled, what he wanted to be when he was a kid.
Sometimes it worked, for fleeting moments. More often, he was too consumed by the physical onslaught to focus on anything else.
The first night was hell.
He was cold, then boiling hot. He begged me to open the windows, then screamed when the wind touched his skin. I changed his sheets three times as sweat poured from his body in sheets, soaking through to the mattress. By the third, I was too tired to fold them properly—I just balled them up and threw them in the corner. The room reeked of sickness and fear.
The withdrawal transformed him physically in ways I wasn't prepared for. His pupils dilated so wide his eyes looked black and alien in his face. Goosebumps covered his skin like terrain on a relief map. He yawned constantly—another symptom. These weren't normal yawns of tiredness, but something his body was compelled to do, over and over, his jaw stretching painfully wide until I feared it might dislocate.
He threw up violently, repeatedly throughout the night. Not just once or twice, but seemingly endless rounds of painful retching that brought up nothing but bile and left him gasping, tears streaming down his face. His hands shook so badly he spilled water all over his shirt. I held the glass for him after that. He didn't say thank you. He didn't need to.
"I can't remember..." he muttered, looking at me with sudden confusion. His bloodshot eyes narrowed. "Who are you? Why are you in my apartment?" Fear crept into his voice. "What are you doing here?"
I took a deep breath. This was the third time in the last hour he'd forgotten who I was. "It's me, Aishweriya. You asked me to stay with you, remember? Through this... process."
He stared blankly, then recognition flickered briefly in his eyes before another wave of pain contorted his features.
Dawn broke, marking twenty-four hours since I'd arrived. Carter had finally fallen into a restless sleep, his body too exhausted to fight anymore. I sat in a chair beside his bed, watching his chest rise and fall, afraid to look away in case he needed me.
My phone buzzed. Aaron. I silenced it.
When Carter woke, the cycle began again, but worse. The symptoms typically peak around 72 hours. We were approaching hour thirty, and I could see it happening before my eyes.
His legs twitched and kicked involuntarily, a torment that made him curse and grip the sheets in frustration as his limbs betrayed him with violent, unpredictable movements.
"I can't control my own body," he said, voice breaking. "Do you know how terrifying that is?"
I didn't. I couldn't. All I could do was press another cool cloth to his forehead and tell him it would pass.
By the second day, he couldn't walk without leaning on the wall. His knees buckled. His breath came out in gasps—like his lungs were caving in. His shirt was soaked through with sweat despite the room being cold; it poured from him in waves that left dark patches on the sheets and pillowcases.
The diarrhea started in the afternoon—explosive, uncontrollable episodes that left him humiliated and weak. He rushed to the bathroom for the fourth time in an hour, or the way he apologized each time, as if his body's rebellion was somehow his fault. Once, he didn't make it in time, and the shame in his eyes as I helped clean him up nearly broke me.
"You don't have to stay for this part," he said, face flushed with shame. "Nobody should have to see this."
"I'm not going anywhere, I have told you many times right?" I replied, and meant it.
I read to him. Anything I could find. Old poetry books from his shelf, a half-torn novel he said he never finished. Sometimes I don't think he heard me. Other times, I'd see his hand twitch in rhythm with the words. That was enough to keep reading.
My phone buzzed. Aaron again. Ten missed calls now. The texts were becoming frantic.
Where are you? I cut the retreat short. I called our neighbors they said you're not at home.
I silenced the phone. I couldn't explain this to him. Not now.
As evening approached on the second day, Carter's agitation peaked. He couldn't lie still, but he barely had the strength to move. The result was a restless torment—shifting, groaning, his body fighting itself. Suddenly, he lurched forward and vomited so violently that specks of blood appeared in the basin I barely managed to get under his chin. His eyes rolled in terror at the sight.
"Am I dying?" he whispered. "It feels like I'm dying."
The third day, he screamed at me.
I was trying to get him to sip a little soup. He knocked the bowl out of my hands, the hot liquid splashing onto my arm.
"Stop treating me like I'm fucking helpless!" he roared. "I didn't ask for your pity!"
I froze. My body stiffened like a wire pulled too tight. But I didn't leave.
Instead, I sat beside him again, carefully wiping the spill from the floor.
"I know you're not helpless," I said softly. "That's why I'm still here."
He broke down after that.
Curled into himself like a child. His shoulders shook so hard it hurt to watch. I held him until he stopped. His face was wet against my shirt.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to yell. I'm just—so tired. I'm so fucking tired of fighting."
I brushed his hair back, his curls sticky with sweat. "I know," I said. "But you're doing it. You're fighting."
The physical symptoms were only part of the battle. By the end of the second day, the psychological effects were becoming more pronounced. I wasn't prepared for the depth of despair I witnessed.
"What if I do all this and I'm still empty inside?" he asked during a brief period of lucidity. "What if the drugs weren't the problem? What if I am?"
"The drugs weren't the solution either," I said gently. "They were just a pause button. But you can't pause life forever, Carter."
He stopped throwing up after day four, though the nausea lingered, making him gag at the smell of food. But the anxiety never left.
Sometimes he'd jolt up from sleep, gasping for air. His hands would claw at the sheets, like he was drowning. I sat with him through every panic attack. I didn't say much. I just held his wrist gently, anchored him with soft words, and told him the storm would pass.
It always did. Eventually.
In those two days, I saw Carter at his most vulnerable, his most raw—all the layers of protection and performance peeled away by pain and necessity.
"No one has ever seen me like this," he admitted during a quiet moment.
"Why me, then?" I asked. "Why trust me with this?"
He was quiet for a long moment. "Because you're a stranger," he said finally. "Because after this is over, you can walk away and never see me again. No history. No expectations. No disappointment."
I didn't tell him I had no intention of walking away. Some promises are better kept than spoken.
As the forty-eight hours drew to a close, I could see subtle changes. His pupils were less dilated. The goosebumps had subsided. His hands were steadier.
"You should draw again," Carter said that evening, his voice hoarse but clear. "Paint. Whatever it is you used to do."
I looked up from where I was folding another blanket.
He was sitting upright now. Skin pale, but eyes clearer than they'd been in days.
"Carter..."
"I mean it," he said. "You love to paint, and I don't know what's stopping you, but don't let anything control you. Ask me how it feels. " He trailed off. "You shouldn't have stopped."
I sat down beside him.
"You think I could make art about this?" I asked. "About what you're going through?"
He nodded slowly. "You should. People need to see it. Not the polished version. The real thing."
His fingers reached for mine, weak but steady. "Show them what addiction looks like. Not the mugshots or the statistics. This. The fight. The fear. The things you forget when your body turns against you."
I looked at his face—hollowed out but still full of heart—and for the first time in months, I felt like I could breathe again.
"Okay," I said. "I'll do it."
The forty-eight hours were almost up. The clock on the wall showed 6:17 AM. Aaron would be back from his retreat today, wondering where I'd been. Carter still had a long road ahead—the acute withdrawal was just the beginning.
"What happens now?" he asked, sensing the shift.
"Now you keep going," I said. "One day at a time."
"And you?"
The question hung between us, loaded with everything we'd been through in those two days.
"I go back to my life," I said honestly. "But that doesn't mean I'm out of yours."
He gave me a tired smile. "Aaron's a lucky guy."
"Aaron doesn't know about you," I admitted. "About any of this."
"Will you tell him?"
I thought about Aaron—I can't tell him he would be so possessive about it. He hates Carte,r although he has only seen Carter one time than only he has told me not to meet him. He had blocked' Cartor's Number I can't tell this to Carter
"I don't know," I answered truthfully.
Carter nodded, understanding more than I'd said. "For what it's worth, I'd understand if you didn't come back. This was... a lot. More than anyone should have to witness."
"That's not how friendship works," I said.
He raised an eyebrow. "Is that what we are? Friends?"
I thought about the intimacy of the past forty-eight hours. How I'd seen parts of him that even his closest loved ones hadn't witnessed. How he'd seen me—not the carefully constructed version I showed to Aaron and my family, but the raw, resilient core of me that could sit in the darkness with someone else's pain and not look away.
"I think we're something," I said. "I'm just not sure there's a word for it yet."
He smiled—a real smile that reached his tired eyes. "I can live with that."
My phone buzzed on the table. Aaron. I would have to answer eventually. I would have to find a way to explain my absence without betraying Carter's trust or my own growing certainty that the life I'd been building wasn't as solid as I'd thought.
But those were concerns for after. For now, I sat beside Carter as the morning light filtered through his blinds, illuminating all the dust particles we couldn't see in the darkness.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "Not just for helping me through this. For seeing me."
I nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. In a world that had reduced him to his addiction, I had seen the person beneath it—complex, flawed, fighting.
"Thank you for letting me," I replied.
Outside, the world continued turning. Aaron would be waiting. Questions would be asked. Explanations would be demanded. But in this moment, watching the sunlight crawl across Carter's worn floorboards, none of that seemed to matter.
We had made it through the darkness. Whatever came next, we would face it in the light.