Breaking Bailey

by AnonYMous

  May 23, later

  I am . . . I’m going to try to write this down but . . . I just don’t know how. I don’t know how to say any of this. It doesn’t feel real. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and it’s all going to be some horrible dream from stress or the Adderall or . . . something. I can’t even feel the pen in my hands, but I’ve got to try.

  During first period, our headmaster got on the intercom and informed us that Emily had passed away.

  Metallic ringing filled my ears. I left class. I went to the restroom and vomited. I nearly went to sleep with my head propped up on the toilet seat, I don’t know why. Exhaustion? Emotional overload? Maybe my body was just trying to shut itself down so I wouldn’t feel anymore.

  When I came out, the headmaster and the school counselor, the one who had informed me I was dangerously close to going to summer school, were waiting. They spoke to me like I was a fragile thing, telling me that they were very sorry and that I could talk to a professional counselor on staff. They told me her parents would come by to get her things. They told me the funeral would be in two days. I think they said other things, but I don’t remember. I nearly collapsed. I realized I’ve barely eaten since brunch with Katy four days ago. They also told me that if I knew anything at all that could help Prescott or the police, to please say something. Then I asked. I asked what had killed her.

  Drugs, my headmaster said. He said that, unfortunately, the doctors could tell Emily had been using for a while but that for some reason, the last dose she had was different, and it sent her into cardiac arrest. By the time she got to the hospital, her brain had been cut off from oxygen for too long.

  For some reason, the last dose she had was different.

  Different because Warren and I had changed the formula. We’d made it stronger. We’d made it, like he said, more effective.

  We killed Emily.

  May 23, even later

  The headmaster and counselor offered to walk me home, but I promised them I would be all right and that I could use the time alone. But I didn’t go home. Home was the last place I wanted to go, to see Emily’s empty bed and know I was the reason it was empty. And what if her parents came to get her things while I was there? How could I face them? How could I even be in the same room with them? So I went to the lab like a coward. I sat on a stool and looked at Warren’s formula and for the first time realized . . . we’d nearly doubled the toxicity of it. Sure, meth was all poison, but what we’d done . . . if Emily had built up a tolerance to our previous recipe, then tried the same amount with this . . .

  As I was sitting there, horrified, the rest of the Science Club came in, tiptoeing, almost like they didn’t want me to notice. I looked up and caught Katy’s eye.

  Katy: How are you doing, sweetie?

  Me: How do you think?

  Drew: We’re really sorry for your loss, Bailey.

  Me: MY loss? She was OUR loss. Ours. Her friends’. Prescott’s. God, her parents’ loss.

  Warren, almost angrily: Yes. It’s sad, but this is what happens when you let addiction get the better of you. Just like my brother.

  I noticed that he wasn’t anywhere close to me. That he hadn’t hugged me or even taken my hand. He felt light-years away.

  Me: But it wasn’t like your brother, Warren. It wasn’t anything like that. Sure, she chose to do drugs. Got addicted. But she had no way of knowing that we’d made something far more toxic than she was used to.

  Drew: Wait. What?

  Me: Yeah. Emily died because our new formula was too strong. She didn’t know to use less.

  Katy, shaking her head: No. They can’t prove that. They couldn’t possibly know that.

  Me: I know that. Warren does too. (I threw the notebook with his formulas in it like a frisbee to him. He caught it but didn’t look down at the pages.) We need to track down every bit of this that we sold so more people don’t die.

  Katy: No. No way. That’s pretty much admitting that it’s us. EXPOSING us.

  Me: Maybe we need to be exposed!

  Warren: God, Bailey. Don’t be stupid. We’ll lie low for a while, go back to making the old formula. Maybe stop selling around campus.

  Me: That’s another thing. No one told me we were selling to Prescott kids. Was that your expanded market?

  Katy: You didn’t want to know. You never asked. I’m just doing my job. My job is to get buyers.

  Me: Something like that, you should have told me.

  Katy: I didn’t tell you so I could protect you!

  Me: And how’s that working out? My roommate is dead. They found our meth in my room. What do you think the next step is going to be? They’ll trace it. It’ll come back to us.

  Warren: Oh, Bailey. Don’t be stupid. It’s not like our fingerprints are on it or something. No one’s going to talk.

  Me: Yeah? Want to bet your future on that? Have we given all the dealers enough money not to squeal? What about our friend Mark?

  Warren, rolling his eyes: Don’t be dramatic. It was one incident. Compared to what’s going on, police will hardly be bothered.

  Me: One incident? Is that how you think of Emily’s death? An incident?

  Warren, biting: Yes. An incident. An unfortunate accident because she made a stupid mistake. She always made stupid mistakes. Completely led by emotions.

  Me: Yes, and you knew that about her, but you kept selling to her anyway, didn’t you? Was it just the money or did you like having that power over her? Did you love how she’d come running to you, needing a hit, begging for one? You love to see people at their lowest, don’t you? Makes you feel better about yourself.

  Warren, emotionless: Going to blame me for your own stupid mistakes too, Bailey? You think I don’t do the math? I know exactly how many Adderall you need to get through the day without the shakes.

  For one terrible moment, I thought I was actually going to kill him. The urge to run at him and wrap my fingers around his neck and squeeze . . . for what he’d done to me, for what he’d done to Emily, and probably Katy and Drew and who knows who else. . . . That urge was so strong I actually pictured myself doing it like some sort of fever dream. But I didn’t. I had too much blood on my hands already. I took a deep breath.

  Me: Our whole goal, in your words, was to make our product safe for addicts who were going to do this anyway. (I pointed to the notebook in his hands.) You made it lethal.

  Warren, unfazed: WE. WE made it lethal. You saw the formula and you said nothing. Either you understood and you didn’t care, or you are terrible at chemistry. I’ve seen your work, Bailey. I know you’re not. And now your roommate is dead. But it’s no more my fault than it is yours. We didn’t force her to use.

  Me: . . . But you did get her into it, didn’t you? You gave her that first hit.

  Warren’s eyes widened, like he was stunned that I figured that out, but somehow I’d known it since I found Emily with her lips blue. I’d known Warren was involved.

  Me: You dated her. Don’t you feel anything at all? Sadness? Guilt? Don’t any of you?

  Drew and Katy looked away from me, but Warren kept his eyes on mine. Steely.

  Me: And what about me? Did you ever actually love me? Or was I just another Emily to you? And we were just so easy to control, weren’t we? Once you got us hooked on pills, we needed you. Desperately. We couldn’t leave you. Couldn’t give you up.

  He didn’t answer. Honestly, his silence was answer enough. I picked up a glass beaker off the nearest table and threw it on the floor. Everyone flinched as it shattered, and the sound pushed me onward, like it was the auditory equivalent of my own heartbreak. I reached for another beaker, and another. I don’t know how many I smashed before Drew grabbed me from behind, holding me in a violent hug so I couldn’t use my arms. I screamed in frustration and kicked until I landed one, my heel meeting his shin with a painful-sounding thump. He let me go and I turned around, facing all of them, tears blinding me to their horrifyingly blank faces.

  Me: This has to st
op. We have to turn ourselves in. Emily’s parents deserve to know why their daughter is dead.

  Katy: You know what happens if you talk, Bailey.

  Me: Maybe you should consider what happens if you don’t.

  I ran out of the lab. No one tried to follow me, either to try to convince me to stay in the group or to shut me up. If it was the first, they didn’t want me; the latter, they think I’m too cowardly to actually turn myself in. Or maybe it’s both.

  But I’m not too cowardly. I’m done with them and their lying. I’m done with Warren, too. If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have lost sight of the important things. I would have noticed Emily’s decline. I would have noticed my own. But then he would just say it was my own choices that did this, wouldn’t he? He had nothing to do with it. I was the one who took the Adderall when he offered, knowing I was too tired to get all my work done. I was the one who joined the Club, even though they all knew I had no other friends. I was the one who didn’t know enough, even after they all swore it was best for me not to know. I was the one who took the Percocets when he offered, knowing that I was depressed about my mother.

  Mom. God, I miss my mom. And I’ve missed my dad so much, and now I won’t see him for a long time. I know what will happen now. I’ll call up the cop, the nice lady one. I’ll tell her everything. And if the Science Club tries to use that collateral against me, it’s okay. Because I’m going to give that cop this.

  My diary. Maybe it won’t count for anything. Maybe I’ll still take the fall. But if they corroborate the events in it, find some evidence that I haven’t lied in these pages, maybe . . . just maybe, it will clear my name.

  So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to call that cop.

  I’m in my room now. Emily’s room. I wish I’d been a better friend to her. I wish I’d listened to her warnings. I wish I’d just listened to her. Maybe then I would have understood that the girl who seemed so bitter and jealous sometimes was a product of Warren Clark.

  I am probably going to prison. I will never do the Princeton program, never go to Harvard. I may never graduate from high school.

  I guess Warren is right, though, even if he is partly to blame as well. This is all because of what I did, choices I made. My heart hurts so bad, almost as bad as when Mom died. I’ve done so much the last couple of years, hoping to make her proud if she can see me from Heaven, if Heaven exists. Now I know that if she’s looking down at me, she must be so disappointed.

  I need to calm down. I can’t think when I’m hurting this bad. I’ll calm down, then I’ll call the cop. Maybe a Percocet won’t hurt. How could it hurt now? Soon enough I won’t be able to take them anyway.

  * * *

  I took one. It looked so small in my hand. Such a tiny thing to help me face such a huge problem. Emily is gone. Forever. It’s my fault. And these pills are so damned small. They can’t change that. But another can’t hurt. I know I’ve built up a tolerance. That’s what addicts do, and I’m an addict, aren’t I? That’s why I get shaky without pills. That’s why I’ve lost all this weight. Just a few more. Just to stop from feeling so much. Then I’ll call the cop. She seemed so nice. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Something about her smile kind of reminded me of Mom.

  It’s not that many. They’re so small. I’ll just finish the bottle and it will all be okay.

  Wiltshire Gazette

  May 25

  Just days after Prescott Academy was left reeling from the drug-related death of one of their students, the academy is again facing the loss of another promising young life.

  A seventeen-year-old girl, a junior at the academy, was found dead in her dorm room yesterday after a brief search by campus security when the young woman failed to attend classes that day. She was the roommate of the other teen who died unexpectedly this week. Though the first death remains a mystery—crystal meth was found in her system but has yet to be directly tied to her heart failure, according to the county coroner—the newest death was likely caused by drugs. According to the police report, the seventeen-year-old girl was found holding a handful of Percocets that were not prescribed.

  Headmaster William Stevens issued a formal statement calling on all students to come forward with information about drugs and drug use on campus and asking that space and privacy be granted to the grieving students at this time.

  Headmaster Stevens also went on record earlier today to say that there has never been a drug problem at the prestigious boarding school before, but that this year, in particular, the community of Wiltshire and the surrounding areas have been hit hard. The headmaster stated that he expects the students of Prescott to rise above the temptations of peer pressure and believes that the school provides plenty of support and care for the student body. He added that counselors and therapists will be on hand for the next week so that students can work through their grief.

  A Prescott student who wished to remain anonymous said that the headmaster’s view of the drug use at Prescott is naive at best and willfully ignorant at worst. He said the pressure the school places on students to excel in every subject and task often leads the students there to turn to chemical stimulants keep their heads above water academically.

  Though there are no leads as of yet as to how the drugs are finding their way onto school grounds, Detective Gina Eisley of the Wiltshire Police Department believes several pieces of evidence found at the scene could lead to answers the shaken school community so desperately needs. In a small press conference this morning on the stairs of city hall, Detective Eisley revealed that one item, a leather-bound book believed to be the journal of the most recently deceased junior girl, was being analyzed by the narcotics department for any information it could provide.

  The Wiltshire Police Department urges anyone with information on the deaths of the two Prescott students to call their tip hotline at 555-6384.

  READ ON FOR A GLIMPSE AT ANOTHER RIVETING TALE OF ADDICTION. . . .

  Lucy in the Sky

  by

  Anonymous

  July 4

  Dear Diary,

  That’s ridiculous. Who writes “Dear Diary” in a diary? I mean, who writes in a diary at all? Shouldn’t I be blogging?

  This is lame.

  July 5

  Okay, so this isn’t going to be a diary. It’s a journal. I guess that’s the same thing, but “journal” sounds less like I’m riding a tricycle or something.

  Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 16.

  It’s so weird sharing a birthday with your country. Always fireworks: never for you. Mom always plans an actual birthday dinner—usually the Saturday night after July 4th so that I can have a day where we celebrate just for me. It’s fun, kinda like having two birthdays in the same week.

  We’re not big July 4th celebrators … celebrators? Celebrants? People. Whatever—we’re not big on July 4th. Usually in the afternoon we have friends from school over and walk down to the beach to play volleyball. There are lots of nets at the beach just down the hill, then we haul ourselves back up the canyon to our house for a cookout in the evening. My brother, Cam, invites his friends from the varsity soccer team. Mom gets my favorite cake (the one with the berries in it). After we gorge on grilled meat and birthday cake, we all crowd onto the balcony outside my parents’ bedroom and watch the fireworks down the coast. You can see the display at the pier really well, and the ones in the cities just up the coast shoot off too. Last year Cam (nobody calls him Cameron except Mom) climbed onto the roof from the front porch so he could get a better view, but Mom freaked and said, CAMERON! Get. Down. This. Instant. Mom’s big on safety.

  I got a lot of cool presents yesterday. Mom got me the swimsuit I tried on at the mall last week. It’s a really cute two-piece with boy shorts, and this fun, twisty top. Dad’s present to me was that he’s taking me to get my license this week. I’ve been practicing with him in the parking lot near his office at the college. He gave me a coupon for one “Full Day with Dad.” On the back it says, “Good for on
e driving test at the DMV, followed by a celebratory meal at the restaurant of holder’s choosing, and a $100 shopping spree/gift card to store of choice.”

  He made it himself out of red construction paper and drew this funny little stick figure on the front. It’s supposed to be him. He draws curly hair on the sides of the round head so the little man is bald on top like he is. The coupon is sort of cheesy, but so is my dad. I think it’s funny. And cute.

  Cam got me this journal. We’ve been going to this yoga class together, and the teacher is this woman named Marty with bright eyes who talks about her birds a lot. She told us to get a journal and spend a few minutes each day writing down our thoughts and feelings.

  I just looked back at everything I’ve written, and it’s mainly thoughts. Not very many feelings. I’m not sure how I feel right now. I mean, I guess I feel fine? Happy?

  No, just fine. I feel fine.

  I also feel like people who have birds are sort of weird.

  July 6

  It’s funny that Cam bought me this journal. It’s one of those things I would never have bought for myself but secretly wanted. I don’t know how he knows that stuff. I guess that’s what older brothers are supposed to do: read your mind. I mean, who actually goes out and tries the stuff that their yoga teacher says to do outside of class?

  Cam got way into yoga last summer when he had a crush on this exchange student from England named Briony—like Brian with a y. (Really? Who names their kid that?) Anyway, she wouldn’t give Cam the time of day, so when he found out that she went to this yoga class, he started going to the same one. He bought a mat and this little bag to carry it in and just happened to show up in her class like, Oh my God! Wow! What a coincidence. Briony never went out with him. I didn’t even know she’d gone back to London until I was teasing him about how he should be glad Briony didn’t do something like synchronized swimming. He was like, Briony moved back to London right after school got out.