by AnonYMous
She looked up at me and asked if I was sure I was okay. I wanted to shake my head and let it all out. I wanted to tell her everything, and crawl back onto the couch and bury my face in her lap again and let her keep me safe.
But I’m not a little girl anymore.
So I nodded and kissed her good night.
Now I’m sitting in American government, and I can’t pay attention. We just took a quiz that I knew about 4 answers on. I’m pretty good at guessing, but I don’t think Ross did as well.
Later …
Cam and Astrid came to lunch with us. They brought Mark with them.
A-W-K-W-A-R-D.
Lauren and Ross and I had to keep kicking each other under the table to keep from laughing. Every time Mark opens his mouth, he just sounds ridiculous.
It’s weird having had the experiences I’ve had now and hearing people talk who haven’t. It’s like they wouldn’t be able to even FATHOM some of the shit I’ve done.
When I was in the bathroom after lunch with Lauren, Cassie and Bethany came in to reapply their eyeliner as is their custom every other class period. When they walked by us on the way to the sink, Bethany groaned and said, Burnouts, under her breath.
Before I knew what I was doing, my hand jetted out and grabbed her blond ponytail and pulled her backward. She shrieked like she was being boiled in oil. I pulled her head back toward my mouth, and very quietly I said, Shut up, Bethany.
Lauren snorted with laughter, and Cassie got all sputtering and flummoxed, and said, Well, SCREW YOU! Really loudly. I said, You’d probably like that because nobody else has, that’s for sure. Then Lauren and I walked out.
God, I hate most girls my age.
Later …
Ross just texted me and Lauren that he’s skipping school tomorrow to go hang at Ian’s. Lauren said I should go to school with Cam and then come to her place instead of going to class.
I can’t take another day like today. I need to feel good again.
Screw AA. Screw community service.
I’m going.
April 1
I’m writing this in a new notebook.
I’m writing this in a new city.
It’s Sunday now. I’m a couple of hours away from home, a little town out in the desert.
When I woke up on Thursday, I wasn’t sure where I was. Turns out I was on the psych floor at the hospital. They wouldn’t give me anything to write with. They were afraid I was going to stab a pen into my throat or something. Or probably stab it into somebody else’s throat. Apparently I had been unconscious for a day and a half. When they finally let my parents come in to see me, my hands were still in restraints. I’d been scratching off my skin, and fighting the nurses and orderlies.
I finally started to piece it together. A week ago last Friday, I remember walking to Lauren’s. She had mimosas ready when I arrived. They were delicious—orange juice with champagne. We finished the bottle, then she drove us over to Ian’s. Blake and Ross were there already, and when we walked in, Blake said he had a surprise for us.
Blake took us up to Ian’s bedroom. It had a pretty view of the canals out the window, and Ross was already standing on the balcony outside in the spring sun smoking a cigarette. There was a tray lying on the bed with a pipe, a big Baggie of meth, a lighter, and a pile of syringes with orange plastic caps.
When Lauren saw the syringes, her eyes got big and she got quiet. She looked at Blake and said, For fuck’s sake. Are you kidding me?
But I saw them, and I knew. I felt the queasy feeling leap into my stomach. My mouth flooded with the metallic taste of meth. I wanted it again. That feeling. I didn’t cut school for the same old feeling. I wanted it different.
I wanted MORE.
Are those for shooting up Tina?
When I said the words, everybody’s head turned at once, and Blake smiled at me.
Why, yes, they are, he said.
Before anybody could move, Ross stretched out on the bed next to Blake and pulled up his sleeve. Lauren rolled her eyes and said, Oh my GOD. I HATE needles.
Ross just said, Whatever. You’ve done it before.
Lauren froze. I just looked at them both. Ross was staring out the balcony door. He had made a fist and shook his outstretched arm. C’MON DUDE. LET’S DO THIS.
Blake smiled. Ian held a spoon with its handle bent and filled it with crystal meth, then held a lighter beneath it until it was liquid. Blake pulled the orange cap off of a syringe, sucked the meth up into it, then he held it in his teeth while he swabbed Ross’s arm with an alcohol pad. Carefully he eased the needle into a vein. Ross flinched and then closed his eyes as Blake pushed the plunger on the syringe, then pulled it out, recapped the needle, slid it into a small coffee can on the bedside table, and said, Who’s next?
I turned to Lauren and asked, You’ve done this before?
Ian just laughed. I realized he’d already shot up. He said of course they had. Where did I think they’d been when they missed school those days since I’d walked in on Lauren and Blake?
I knew one thing for sure in that moment: I would not be left out again.
Ross opened his eyes with a loopy smile and quietly said, Hell, yeaaaaah.
Ian walked over and squeezed in behind him at the headboard of the king-size bed. He bent over and kissed him long and hard on the lips. He smiled and said, Feel good, mister?
Ross focused his eyes back on me and said, Better than good. I’m freaking Superman.
I rolled up my sleeve. Lauren just looked at me, then shook her head.
I said, Lauren. I want this. I’m not getting left out again.
Blake got everything ready and told me to make a fist. I did, and he tapped around on my arm, then took an elastic strap and tied it around my arm near my shoulder and told me to squeeze my fist harder. I looked down and saw a light-blue spiderweb of veins start to pop up from the bend at my elbow.
The alcohol swab was cold.
The prick was fast.
As Blake pushed down the plunger, I heard bells. I kid you not. BELLS. INSTANTLY. Some people will tell you that it takes a while, but not for me. At that moment I was the sexiest, smartest, funniest, most powerful, amazing person in a perfect universe that I created. I felt the tension drop out of my shoulders, and I lay back on the bed, laughing. The sensation was instant, and delicious, and I knew right then and there that everything was warm and perfect, that everything had always been perfect, that everything would always be perfect.
Everything else comes in snapshots.
Lauren finally agreeing, and Blake shooting her up.
Running along the canals with Ross.
Taking my shoes off at the beach with Ian.
Finding Blake and Lauren naked in Ian’s bed. Laughing and joining them.
Feeling Blake’s body and Lauren’s body and my body warm and naked and perfect.
Seeing my phone across the room, ringing and ringing. The text messages flashing across the screen: CAM CAM CAM CAM MOM MOM CAM DAD DAD DAD CAM MOM MOM MOM CAM HOME HOME HOME DAD CAM MOM …
I guess we were there at Ian’s for a long time. Days. The nurses in the psych ward really wouldn’t tell me much, just that I was checked in on Sunday, one week ago today. I finally came to around Wednesday. I was released from the hospital early this morning, and Mom and Dad walked me to the car in the hospital parking deck. We stopped at home so that I could pack a bag. Mom told me I’d be leaving town for a month. Dad told me he had my cell phone for now, and that I couldn’t call, text, e-mail, or even leave a note for Lauren or Ross.
Cam came into my room as I zipped my suitcase and sat down on the bed next to me. I asked him what happened.
He said that Mom and Dad called the police when he got home from school on Friday night and no one had seen me. He said that the police told Mom and Dad they had to wait 24 hours. Cam was sure we were at Blake’s and had driven up to Malibu with Astrid to check. He’d also gone to see Ross’s mom at the hotel. She didn’t think it was a
ny big deal, as Ross was usually pretty much on his own.
By Sunday morning Cam was sure I was with Ian somewhere, but he’d never been to Ian’s place, so he didn’t know where he lived. That’s when he went to the yoga studio and explained the situation to Marty. She looked up Ian’s address in the computer at the studio and gave it to Cam.
Cam raced back home to tell Mom and Dad he’d gotten Ian’s address and we needed to go over there, when his phone rang and it was Ross calling him. He said that when he picked up, Ross was hysterical. Crying and shouting. He kept yelling SHE’S DYING. SHE’S DYING.
Cam started crying while he was talking, slow tears flowing out the corners of his eyes as he soldiered through the story. Calling an ambulance, giving them the address, certain I’d be dead before they arrived. He said, I really thought I’d never see my little sister again.
I asked him why Ross thought I was dying.
He looked at me and said, You don’t remember, do you?
I shook my head.
April 2
I’m at a rehab in Palm Springs. It used to be a motel that was built back in the ’60s. The rooms are all centered around a swimming pool. Sounds nice, I guess. I wish it felt nice. I went to my first meeting today. The rules are strict. Up at 7 a.m. I have to make my bed, then report to the kitchen for breakfast. Afterward we all have chores, then group therapy starts at 10 a.m. and goes until 11:30.
It’s part 12-step meeting, part counseling. I’m the youngest person here. There are mainly gay guys, one grandma who got busted cooking meth in her mobile home, and two girls who used to be strippers.
We have lunch next, then more chores, an hour of free time, then another group session. After dinner, we all load up in a big gray van and go to an AA meeting someplace in the city.
April 3
I had an individual session with the therapist at the rehab this morning. He had a mirror that he handed me and asked if I knew how I got the scratches on my face.
I’ve been putting some ointment on them that Mom gave me when they dropped me off. The scratches on the right side are deep, and hurt when I roll over in the night accidentally. I’m really worried they’re going to scar.
I told him that I don’t remember.
He said it was from the heroin.
I told him that I didn’t do any heroin.
The he handed me a photocopy from a file folder he had in his hand. He said it was the toxicology report of what was in my system at the hospital. He said that the paramedics had wheeled me in dead, pumping air through my lungs with one of those squeeze thingies like you see on the emergency room shows. They gave me the highest amount of epinephrine you could give someone, and then shocked me twice before my heart started again.
The word “heroin” was circled on the report.
Later …
I was cleaning the toilet in my bathroom for inspection and I had a sudden flash. I don’t know when it was, but I saw Blake grinning at me and saying, This is even BETTER than Tina. Don’t worry. You’ll love it.
I don’t remember anything else.
April 5
I didn’t have time to write yesterday because I had to go to the doctor for a checkup during free time. I am so pissed that they make you keep your lights off at night. I can’t really sleep and I wish I could write in my journal.
I don’t really know how I feel about being here. I said that in group this morning.
Randy, the counselor who runs group, said that was okay. That the reason we’re here is to start feeling better.
I told him I didn’t know if I felt bad.
He said, No, no. I mean we’re here so that we start FEELING better; feeling EVERYTHING better. Right now, you don’t know what you feel. We’re here to get you in touch with what you’re feeling.
April 6
I don’t know if I can take it here anymore. I still feel like a zombie. Last night I woke up having bad dreams and cold sweats. I dreamed that Lauren and Ross were out by the pool. They were trying to get me to sneak out with them, and when I finally did go out by the pool, Blake was there, holding a scalpel. He had a big grin on his face and he kept saying, IT WON’T HURT! IT WON’T HURT.
I sat up in bed, panicked and sweating. I went into my bathroom and turned the water on in the shower as hot as it would go, then I sat down in the tub and cried for a really long time.
This all feels so hopeless.
What am I doing here?
Later …
I told the group about my dream today. Randy said that it sounded like I was feeling BETTER. I got SO MAD when he said that. I started crying, and I yelled I FEEL LIKE SHIT!
He just said, But you can feel that. Your feelings are starting to work again.
I told him I didn’t want to feel the bad stuff better. That I just wanted to feel GOOD.
He said that’s the tricky part about feeling better. You don’t get to pick what you feel, you only get to start feeling it. All of it.
Later …
The weirdest thing happened tonight at the AA meeting we go to in town. This girl who was maybe only a year or two older than me spoke. She talked about all of this stuff that I TOTALLY related to. Her name was Amy, and she was the first person I ever heard speak at an AA meeting who said anything that remotely sounded like me.
This girl TOLD MY STORY!
She was 14 years old and a freshman in high school when she and her friend started drinking. Then smoking pot. Then doing Ecstasy. Then doing coke. Then doing meth.
She talked about how all of these things made her feel in control, and pretty, and confident, and happy, and like she had something to look forward to.
Eventually she said she was shooting meth and then shooting heroin.
She ended up going to juvenile hall and being locked up there for 6 months. While she was there, she started going to an AA meeting they held, and she got a sponsor who walked her through the 12 steps. She said that she didn’t really believe in a “capital G” God, but that her “higher power” was the accountability that she’d found in the rooms of AA. She said that even if you didn’t believe in a god or a higher power, you could still come to AA and you didn’t have to drink or use just for today, no matter what.
I think my mouth must have been hanging open, because she came up and talked to me afterward. She gave me her phone number and her e-mail address. I told her that I didn’t have a phone right now because I was at the rehab.
She smiled and said that she went to that rehab too. She said she’d see if Randy would let her come visit me.
For some reason when she said that, I started crying.
Then this girl named Amy who I don’t even know hugged me. She whispered into my ear, Let us love you until you learn to love yourself.
I hope she comes to visit.
April 10
I’m so excited! Amy actually came to visit me today. She said that Randy was glad she wanted to come and talk with me. During our free period, we lay out by the pool. She’s one year older than me and is graduating from high school next month. Then she told me that she was going to the college where my dad works this fall to study to be a music teacher. When I told her my dad runs the music department at that college, she was like NO WAY. She’ll have my dad for a class next fall!
Amy said I should watch out for little coincidences like this. She said some people in AA call them “God shots.” When I laughed, she said, Yeah. That’s kind of silly. I just like to think of it as all things working together for good.
Before she left, I asked Amy to be my sponsor in AA. I don’t really know what all that means, but I know that you’re supposed to have somebody to show you how to work the steps and to check in with if you feel like drinking or doing drugs. I’m not even really sure that I’m an addict yet, but I feel like most teenage girls probably don’t get DUIs and then overdose on heroin and end up in rehab.
I know that in a couple of weeks we have “Family Day” coming up, where Cam and Mom and Dad will come
down and I’ll have to talk to them about all of this. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. When I think about it, I get that nervous feeling in my stomach. I feel so guilty and so ashamed that I’ve put everyone through this.
The first step in AA says, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.” Amy said that I could substitute any drug I wanted for the word alcohol if that made it easier to understand. She also said that overdosing and getting a DUI and being high on crystal at school sounded pretty unmanageable to her.
And you know what we did when she said that?
We laughed! ’Cause it was like the UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR!
It felt really good to laugh with Amy, especially about something that has been so bad. Maybe all of this will work itself out after all.
April 18
I have been working on my AA steps so much that I haven’t had much chance to journal! Doing the steps involves a lot of writing about a lot of different stuff, mainly about the people you resent, and what your part is in those resentments. Eventually I’ll have to make a list of people I’ve hurt by drinking and using drugs so that I can make amends to them, but that’s later, and Amy says not to worry about that yet.
Anyway, here’s what’s been going on:
1. I’ve been talking to my parents and to Amy on the phone every day.
2. Things are rocky with Mom and Dad. Mom still cries every time she talks to me. Dad is really quiet, like he doesn’t know if he can still trust me. They’re getting ready for Cam’s big graduation party, even though it isn’t until next month.
3. I’ve been allowed to check my e-mail a couple of times. Ross sent one e-mail that said he was sorry about everything that happened. Lauren sent an e-mail saying she was sorry that my parents shipped me to Palm Springs. She said that school is lame without me. I wrote both of them back and told them all about my rehab and Amy and how I felt really good about the changes I was making. I told them that I hope they check out some other AA meetings back in LA. I said that it made a big difference when I heard someone who was our age talk about addiction.