|Four.|

Trying to start writing again.

From the first shakey syllable uttered from her lips, even over the phone, I could tell something was wrong. Standing in a crowd of people I managed my way outside to listen to her numb voice repeating the details of the night over again to me. I vaguely remember asking, almost pleading, to let me go to the hospital with her. I remember it almost as much as I remember chugging sugary alcoholic drink down my throat, stubbing out a cigarette with my phone in my hand angrily yelling through a phone, "What the f**k did you do to her?" My  voice was hoarse as the phone was hung up and I wiped the tears away quickly, making a promise I would later vocalize to her to never leave her and be there for her. 

Watching somebody die hurts, but I would have to argue watching somebody turn into a shell is a whole different level of pain. After the incident the anxiety attacks came almost as frequent as the drug binges and restless nights. Once bright eyes had turned into storm clouds that coaxed me into ingesting things that a 13 and 14 year old shouldn't even know exist. February brought storms that we weren't capable of sheltering ourselves from even if we had prepared for the whole winter. Her mother was in full blown active alcohol addiction feeding us mariuana, xanax, and cruel words. By the middle of the storm we were both battered by our own wars, slightly drifting from each other into different realities. Even in my drug induced state, I remember clearly telling her she was going to die, she was going too far. I begged her to sober up with me while tears fell from my eyes once again.

Lies - as much as we swore up and down we wanted sobriety, neither of us would admit to the other that we didn't want to face the world through a clear lense. "I can handle just smoking.", "This is just a one time occassion, I haven't done this drug yet.", "It's a special occassion, let's just have fun." We covered up using together with simple excuses ignoring the fact that she weighed maybe 100 pounds or the fact that I had been up 48 hours and sleep would not be finding me anytime soon. Guilt ate me alive and fear pulled at my heart as I began to realize I did not want to die while my brain rain a million miles per hour late at night, I slowly began to pull away. I sat in my living room floor at age 15 begging, screaming, and crying at my mother and grandmother to put me through a rehab program, because I'm terrified of myself. They turned their heads the other way, unsure of what I was even talking about - I hadn't been home maybe 8 days in months. In the next week she announced she was going away to rehab clinic, I didn't even bothering wiping my angry tears away. Days later I caught myself having to bite my tongue when talking to people about her, "She doesn't even want the help, she's being forced to go. She just popped enough pills to kill a horse before walking into there." Hate fueled thoughts ran through my mind as I tried to force myself to get better without a slight crutch.

Influenced to get back into school through a girl I had long lost touched with, I was introduced to a drug program she was in. I learned words of co-depedency and cutting out toxic relationships at 16. "She's still on drugs, you can't save her. You guys are drowning each other." I learned to view the world and its emotions instead of running the other way. I learned that marijuana is not a part of breakfast and cocaine is not an afternoon snack. I learned that, yes you do actually have to get out of bed today and no you cannot go run the streets all hours of the night. While in the process of all of this I met a wonderful group of people of different backgrounds, which almost none have even touched a substance in their life, let alone abuse it. At age 17, I cried harder than I ever have in my life when I realized I made it to 8 months sober and I realized that I could believe these people when they hugged me almost as they were squeezing the pieces of my soul back and muttered the words, "I love you."