Addictions part 1

     Elaine sat up quietly in her comfortable full sized bed, stretched her arms out over her head and yawned deeply. Taking a quick glance at her clock she realized she had slept til almost 4 in the afternoon without quite meaning to. She had left her window open the night before, leaving the pale pink and black curtains fluttering softly in the gentle breeze that had bathed her body as she slept. The night had been just cool enough to not need the fan sitting next to the window but warm enough to keep her from pulling the heavy pink comforter up. Instead she had stretched out under her favorite set of  black satin sheets and slept like a baby after her night out on the town.
      Thursdays were always busy for Elaine. She worked from seven in the morning until seven in the evening for an elderly lady that lived down the road. The work was not by any means strenuous, merely consisted of some mild cleaning and shopping. For the most part she was just a companion, a friendly smiling face to accompany a lady that otherwise seldom saw family or friends. Elaine worked the same hours four days a week and as Thursday was the last day of her work week she scrambled around to ensure that her employer would not want or need for anything until she returned to work again on Monday morning. For a job that took little to no mental or physical capacity Thursdays always left Elaine feeling slightly worn out but just as she had done the night before she always found the energy to go out with some of her friends. It was her thinking that since she was only 22 years old she deserved to go out and have some fun at least once a week. So after work on her last work day she would meet up with her friends and make a run for the nearest club in the nearby city. It was Friday now though and she had somehow managed to sleep the entire day away.
     Sighing softly to herself, Elaine swung her legs over the side of the bed where she sat dangling them over the edge for a few moments before standing up and wandering over to the opposite side of her room where she had carelessly dropped her purse some twelve hours earlier. Picking up the delicate white beaded purse she began digging around for the pack of smokes that she could have sworn were in there. She had no idea how she always managed to lose her cigarettes in a purse that was barely big enough to carry them with her cell phone and lip gloss but they always seemed to disappear under random receipts and pieces of paper that got tossed in. Extracting the green and white pack and a lighter Elaine opened her bedroom door and started down the hallway to the living room, pausing halfway to look absently at a picture of her and her family on one of the vacations they had taken together before being startled by a teasing voice coming from the living room.
      "Bout time you crawled your ass outa bed girl" laughed April, Elaine's mom. "We were starting to think you had died in there or something."
      Reaching the end of the short hallway Elaine looked at her mom and grinned before sticking her tongue out and joking back "if I had gotten outa bed any sooner today you woulda been wondering what was wrong with me.. you wanna make up your mind already".
     In unison April and Elaine let out somewhat girlish giggles much like those that can be heard up and down the halls of a high school filled with sixteen year old girls. Both ladies enjoyed these little teasing moments together. They had gone through too much hell in their relationship not to appreciate the times when they could joke and laugh. Personality wise the two could not have been more alike, which in all honesty was probably the reason the two did not always get along.  Looks though were a completely different story. April at 5'7 stood five inches taller than her daughter with short red locks of hair, a rounded face and blue eyes that were so dark that they could at times be mistaken for black when the light caught them in a certain way. Elaine was short in stature with longer honey colored hair and soft pale blue eyes that had flecks of green twinkling in them when she was sincerely amused by something.
      "Well you must have had a good time last night with as late as you made it in" continued April "I know I went to bed after 2 and you were still nowhere to be seen."
     "Yea well.. you remember how it goes, you haven't gotten that old on me yet. Go out with a few friends, drinking, laughing, and having fun- time just gets away from you." teased Elaine. "Cmon remember back in the 50's... it wasn't that long ago was it"
     April picked up the closest tanned and black decorative pillow to throw at her daughter. Laughing Elaine stepped aside and made an off hand comment regarding her mother's aim as she opened the front door and headed outside for a smoke.

Prologue

     Elaine looked woefully down at the piece of paper sitting in front of her on the sturdy oak desk. The pain and hurt could be seen clearly in her soft deep blue eyes as they filled with tears that spilled forth as her shaking hands scribbled out the needed information on the simple white pieces of paper. She had promised herself that she would hold herself together through this last meeting and she reminded herself of that promise as she hurriedly brushed the tears from streaming down her face and sat the plain black pen to rest beside the papers she had finally finished filling out. Scooping the papers together she handed them back to the lady sitting across from her and used the chair to steady herself as she slowly stood, feeling as though her whole body was shaking like a rattle being shaken furiously to soothe a baby's yelling. Elaine shook hands with the lady and hurried as best she could out to her car and struggled to unlock the door, wondering why she had bothered to lock it in the first place.
     Crawling into the seat and shutting the door she did not even bother to start the tanned and rusted little Ford that she had spent the last three months trying to get. Instead she dropped her forehead onto the steering wheel and let the tears fall. Not even bothering to pull her honey colored hair out of the way she sat in her seat and cried, the sobs tearing through her as her body made attempts to drain itself of the hurt and pain that seemed as though would never go away. The only thought that seemed to stay in her head for longer than a fleeting second or two was that Alex, her Alex, was gone from her life forever and there was absolutely no way in this great wide world that she would ever be the same woman again. Addiction had torn through her life, wreaking havoc and destruction before finally taking everything from her that she once held dear to her heart. Addiction had shown her its deepest, darkest side and ruined her faith in humanity before finally taking her Alex from her.
     Elaine started her car with no thought as to what direction she was actually going to take. Pulling out of the parking lot and turning left she headed out on the long stretch of highway and just drove. Her mind wholly and completely consumed with thoughts of the past. Searching for the answers that would offer any modicum of explanation as to how she ended up where she was presently. Too scared to lend any thought to the future she immersed herself in the past and thought back to the unseasonable warm day in April three years ago.