A letter to Cameron

A Story by sammy.sunshine

the addiction to chaos

I’ll never forget.

2005 - Ill never forget the day we met. I had heard that you and Kim were a thing, I sat on the couch at Sean’s party and asked you if you had sex with her. I think in my mind that would have been a deal breaker, but since you said no.. Fair game. I was leaving the party intoxicated and my shoes were missing, I put on the closest flip flops by the door and left. The next morning Tyrone messaged me asking if I took a pair of sandals home, come to find out they were yours and mine were under the couch. I brought them back to you, and I would like to say the rest is history.. But the story gets pretty interesting.

Ill never forget at Tyrones house when we stayed up all night talking in his bed with Nicole lying next to us. We never fell asleep, my body couldn't relax. It was the most intense case of butterflies I’ve ever felt.

I found out you had a girlfriend and messaged you on myspace saying shucks. (letting you know I was interested but you were also much younger than me so I could wait).

Id see you around and would eventually give you the nick name little baby cam cam. Ill never forget the ringtone I set as your default Marvin Gaye - Lets get it on. I still cant listen to this song without thinking of the years I was excited to see you, the butterflies. Your girlfriend was cute, there was no denying. I remember seeing her and thinking - yeah you guys are pretty adorable I'm not gonna mess with that-So I didn't. I waited.

2009- A couple years went by and you text me… saying you were sober.. And wanted to hang out. Ok. I came over. I remember being so hungry I snuck and ate a granola bar from my purse while you were in the bathroom. Ill never forget you coming to pick me up at Adams in the snow storm. And then again on new years from Kyle and Carlo's house when I went to bed with Carlo but called you to come get me.. And thats when I would like to say it all started.

The snow days. Was a good excuse to be “stuck” at your house. Although I should have known when my uncle dropped me off at your house and Dustin asked me what I was doing with you and that you were trouble. He warned me. Although I'm sure he doesn't remember, maybe he does.

Ill never forget the first time I caught you snorting something before we went grocery shopping at winco one night. You said it was Xanax and for some reason that was better than oxy in my mind, although I'm pretty sure it was oxy.

I think this is the timeline of us.. From my point of view.

I fell in love with you so easily and I'm not sure why. You were toxic. Addicting. Chaotic. Yet something inside me was connected to you so soon. I think I felt your heart. And how broken it was.. I wanted to help. I wanted you to get to the root of your issues before you started drowning in drugs and sadness.

When you told me you were sober in that text I believed you. Why wouldn't I? Why would someone lie about that in the beginning?… And so it starts. Why would I ever doubt someones feelings for me in the beginning? Isn't this when its supposed to be fresh and exciting? It was for me. You were intoxicating. The way you would touch and hold me, I really felt like you knew what love was and deep down you were capable of showing another human. But how? Looking back, that was such a false expectation I had. How in the world were you supposed to show me love when you hadn't been taught what love was.. how loving someone else felt, or how being loved felt. How to express anything, any emotion, any fear, how could you confide in someone else when no one had shown you the value of love? I expected to be loved by you because I was shown love since the beginning of my existence. I knew that I loved you. I knew you were capable and by god I was gonna prove myself right.

I've realized I try to prove myself right to the point of exhaustion. Just so I can Say I KNEW IT!.. Cool.. Then what? A sense of self righteous I guess. What a sour ego to keep up.

Ill never forget my birthday in California. I knew something was off.. The way you stormed out of the amusement park kicking trash cans because I cancelled a rollercoaster when you were playing a game, and we literally had no time before our shuttle came. Ill never forget you storming out of our hotel, and me taking a bath in an empty hotel room on my birthday. Crying. You met someone outside our hotel, I'm sure for drugs, I just didn't want to believe it.

2010 - Ill never forget sitting on your bedroom floor while you left to buy drugs before you moved to Vegas. I was alone, in your old bedroom, empty, crying because you were leaving, because you didn't want to spend the last hours of your time in Vancouver with me. Weed (or so I thought) was more important. Little did I know you were running away from a demon, but getting your last high before you made the trip to move to Vegas. A year into a relationship with someone and they cant figure out that you were using, probably every day? I would have kept me around too, best of both worlds.

Ill never forget your 21st birthday in Vegas. Doing bump after bump of cocaine. Dancing all night. Your brother was dating Mithka and to get me out of the house you told me I needed to get new shoes for the dress I had planned on wearing. I wonder what you did while I was gone? I mean, I already know.. The feeling I had when I left to go shopping wasn't a good one. I knew.

Ill never forget that I stole my mothers methadone and believed it would help you in Vegas, little did I know you sold it to that weird couple in exchange for other pills. We smoked weed in his dads apartment? First time I ever used a toilet paper roll and dryer sheet to mask the smell. We also did Percocet that night. See, I thought it was fun because I was visiting Vegas.. I didn't know this was your daily routine.

Ill never forget when I came to Vegas for halloween. You told me to buy a sally costume and you would be jack. I did. You didn't. You spent the entire day sleeping. This is the day I text Vanessa and asked her to look up signs of heroin use while I was sitting in your bathroom. She sent the symptoms and it was then, I knew. We went to the casino where you played cards all night, like I didn't exist.

This same trip to Vegas a girl came and knocked on your door while we were smoking a blunt and you awkwardly got up and slid out to talk to her in the hall.. This is when it got weird. You went somewhere.. And I got on your computer. Heres where I saw the tagged photos of you and Whitney from a week prior to my visit. You and I weren't friends at the time, due to our on and off again toxic battles with one another from different states.

I felt a pit in my stomach looking at how awful you looked in these pictures.. So high. So gross. And with Demario? I cant remember. But something else was weird. The comfort in her smile creeped me out. I knew something was off.

It wasn't until I came home and went to the doctor for my annual pap to find out that you had sex with Whitney and contracted chlamydia. To be honest, I really don't even think it was Whitney. I think it was someone else but she was an easy target, that poor girl. Ill never forget when I saw her at the mall and Vanessa had to talk me out of punching her in the face while she was working. Instead I just casually approached her and told the customer she was helping that she has stds. I don't think finding out from a doctor that you cheated on me was the worst part. I think the worst part was when you made me prove it to you.. And then blamed me. I remember sitting in the doctors office just thinking, and trying to make excuses for you.. “do you HAVE to have SEX to get this?!” I just couldn't believe it. I still didn't leave you.

Ill never forget my birthday in Vegas coming to see you. I remember I was wearing a grey vans hoodie, lucky jeans and white vans shoes. I got in your silver Volkswagen golf and instantly put my face in your neck. Your smell with a hint of dove sensitive skin soap. I felt safe. Your family asked me to talk to you about going to rehab.. So of course I sacrificed my trip to do this. You ended up spitting at me, punching the wall by my face, throwing my make up bag across the room and throwing my suitcase on the sidewalk. That was fun.. I got a hotel and you showed up at my pool without me telling you where I was the next morning. The night before I made a list a list of what I wasn't going to put up with from any male in my life, I still have it. Wasn't until recently I actually follow it. The day was s**t, my dad threatened to kill you and I ended up back in your bed with my nose in your neck.

Ill never forget when you went to work and I was using your computer only to find naked pictures of your ex. recently opened. That is gross, thanks a lot.. That night though was the worst, instead of spending time with me, you went to your neighbors house, all night. I hate you.

Ill never forget the night we planned to do ecstasy.. Lol we took a shower and I got out and looked in the mirror and while I was doing so you said “whatever you do do not look in the mirror omg sam.. What are you doing” LOL. You laid with me all night and comforted me, told me to tell you what I was feeling, seeing, dreaming and I did. You were always the best at comforting me while we were on drugs of any sort together. Writing this I'm realizing how much I enabled you. Were you always comforting because you didn't want me to ruin your high? In my mind, you actually cared and there it was.. The glimpse of hope. Ill hold onto that for the next couple years.

2011 - You came home and went to rehab. But before you went.. We did heroin together. I wanted to understand so badly. I wanted to know why you couldn't give it up. Thank god this isn't the part in the story where we both go down hill. I didn't understand it. We went to pick it up from a sketchy neighborhood and we came back, put it on foil and smoked it. I needed fresh air. we went outside and sat on your front porch. you were smoking a cigarette and the smell made me vomit. Apparently this is common with your first time, vomiting.. but thats part of the reason I still didn't understand.. I wasn't willing to risk trying it again.. if i felt like s**t the first time, thats enough to make me want to stay away. Why do people go back? They believe the hype, and then the hype becomes their sad disillusioned reality. I remember lying in your bed talking, telling you how much I loved you, and at that point I thought - I kinda get it..

It's not until now writing this part where I realize, in order for you to feel these things people are lucky to feel everyday, you had to be high. The root of your sadness is so much deeper than the average human. I am lucky to be loved I feel it everyday.. thats more than you can ever say and that, breaks my heart. How is this possible? I don't need anything to allow myself to be happy, I have too many things to be thankful for. Your sad soul, my heart breaks for you. You are incapable of feeling a sliver of the happiness that I feel about life when you’re sober. My little baby cam Cam, I am so sorry.

Ill never forget driving to rehab and picking you up so we could have sex in my car. This is when I knew you weren't sober. How did you get to leave the facility while in rehab?! I didn't want to believe that after all our hard work and efforts of getting you there that you wouldn't be taking it seriously. In my mind, why wouldn't you accept the help that was being offered? Why did you want to stay broken? Why didn't you want to heal? You must not have thought it was possible to feel better than you feel while high. My friend, living life feels great. I always wished that for you. I wish you could just live.

You were “sober” on subxone, or so I thought. I would drive you to work everyday. Ill never forget when I was driving to my house and you were on your lunch break crossing the road right in front of me over to the apartments, known for drugs. I knew. But why would someone who just got out of rehab, on subxone, just got a new job, new apartment, why would you ruin that? You had to be going across the street for something else.. Right? … Please be something else.

Ill never forget how you persuaded me to move in, if I didn't AJ would and we wouldn't have any alone time. It was a one bedroom and all. I should have let him, he wouldn't have, or maybe he would so you two could have your drug escapades in peace. I moved in.

Here it is..

August 2011- Ill never forget celebrating my best friends masters degree graduation. I came home to find you playing that stupid f*****g xbox. I heard it in your voice. You were high. That gross froggy nasty s**t voice I thought I would never hear again. I was so drunk, you knew I would be. You thought drunk sam couldn't see high cam.. I felt sick. I rolled out of bed to sit by the toilet vomiting. You came in with a bowl of top ramen.. Why? Lol. I remember looking you straight in the eyes and dumping the ramen in the toilet and flushing it. I wanted to hit you then. Your face looked fat and lazy. Your eyes were glossy and it looked like a struggle for you to keep them open. You were so gross and high. I couldn't comprehend.. even drunk sam was thinking no way, theres no way.. sam youre drunk and paranoid, ignore it.

I go to bed. you dont.

Youre taking forever i dont hear anything, you think im passed out. I roll outta bed, walk through the door turn left to find you lighting heroin on foil. I punch you in the back the head. Everything i thought just came true. You’re high and I cant stop hitting you. The rage inside me is literally uncontrollable. I remember pretending to forgive you just so you would get close to me and I could hit you again in the face. I took every dish out of the cupboard that your mom bought and threw them across the room at the wall. couple holes later.. I knew you loved those stupid paintings you spent so much money on. You were always into spending money on nice things and obsessing over them. I guess you could love things. I decided to ruin them. I took a knife and slashed Xs through the middle of them, one went through and sliced the couch. I looked around the room searching for something else to destroy. I found it. The glass behind the mini bar where we kept our books, I wanted to ruin it, I knew you would have to pay, you were the only one on the lease. I punched it as hard as I could, hoping it would shatter or at least crack. Instead my hand shattered. The adrenaline was pumping through me so much I didn’t feel it. You got close to see if I was okay and I punched you in the eye. I then took all the picture frames we had and stomped on them. I cut my feet and started to bleed everywhere. I see you standing in the kitchen light trying to process everything in your high state. You’re in slow motion. You tell me im bleeding and im glad. I knew what i could do next to have you spend more money on this apartment. I would rub my bloody feet throughout the entire apartment, making sure to stain the carpet. I broke down and locked myself in the closet. you warned me the cops were coming. i couldnt stop crying. I had called my mom to tell her i caught you smoking heroin in our apartment but she never came. I threw my phone in the midst of it all and forgot to make sure she was coming to rescue me. She never came. You tried to come into the closet so I kicked the door and made a couple holes. great, more damage. The cops come. you tell me not to step foot outside because you knew someone had to be arrested and you were going to take the fall for all of this. They ask me why you have a black eye and i said “i hit him, of course i did. what the f**k would you do if you found your boyfriend smoking heroin in your apartment?” i got arrested. he didnt care that my hand was shattered in two places, he actually didnt believe me. He handcuffed me and i tried to tell him it hurt so bad. he took me with no shoes, no purse, a shattered hand and a broken soul.

I get to the police station.. i take my very first ever mug shot.. they had me take two because i was making faces, i think they were trying to help me out here. Intake- asked me if i felt like commiting suicide, which i replied “of course, who the f**k wants to be here??” well.. that landed me the padded turtle suit.

Ill never forget my first naked body search, bend over and spread your cheeks. youre joking right? I started crying. please. please i just broke my hand on my boyfriends face for drugs i dont have any hidden in my a*****e. please. i begged. i was humiliated.

ill never forget sharing a cell with the lady on meth that sat across from me and picked her apple apart with her nasty dirty fingernails. and the s**t - literal human feces that was smeared all over the walls. i woke up and my padded suit was falling off.. i couldnt pick it up becuse my hand was twice the size and purple. the officer asked me if i punched the jail cell wall.. yeah you f*****g moron.. thats what i did. idiot. idiot. idiot.

ill never forget my call to my mom where i sent her to get my bail money from my serving book at the apartment where you were sleeping. she said “samantha, no one deserves what you did to his face”… yeah mom, i think some people do ps thanks for coming to save me when i told you i caught him smoking in our apartment… what the actual f**k MOM???

I did do one thing right, i played nice after that and you didnt make me pay for any damages or press charges. You also owed me $400 so i guess were even. I will say i felt my entire world crashing down on me that night and i wanted you to feel the same or worse. Little did i know, youve already felt that. so ruining posessions of yours didnt really matter, it was just another thing you had lost control over. we broke up, i moved out and went to court mandated anger management, but I didnt stay away. I never stayed away. I craved your toxicity. your chaos. your hurt. maybe i could still help you. wrong.

2012 - Ill never forget in Disneyland when my brother said “sam, i’m so glad to have you back” it was then I was over you. I moved on, i dated new people.

2014 - I went back to school and you and i were on and off per usual but this time no one knew, or did they? My mom always knew. I never let you go. now you were living at mikes. good. bad. good. bad. over and over again. I planned my first trip to Thailand. I stopped by your house one night. we had plans to watch a movie and then all of a sudden you werent messaging me back. i thought oh he fell asleep, he says i can always come over and that he wants me to so i did. I opened your bedroom door to find you sitting on your couch in the dark with the light from the tv shining on your disgusting face. Your hair was long on top so it was just hanging in your eyes that were half open. You were wearing a grey sweatshirt, the one with the red sleeves, one of my favorites on you. You were high. It was the most unattractive I've ever seen you look. I instantly wanted to ruin your high. I told you I wasn’t leaving I would just sleep on the couch and you could sleep on your bed. You were standing over me at this point. Never in my life was i ever scared of you. Every time you would puff up at me i would look you in the eye and almost dare you to actually do something. That was one thing you were never going to do - intimidate me, ever. Never in my life did i think you would actually pull me up by my hair to get me physically off your couch. I was shocked. I remember instantly crying. I dont even thank anger management for this, i was crushed. if people could feel their hearts breaking it was at this exact moment. you did it. you finally crossed the line I never thought you would. and yet.. this still wasnt enough for me to walk away. I did that night, i called amanda in my car. I then went to thailand and decided you actually werent worth my time anymore.

Ill never forget seeing you after i got back from thailand at walgreens with that ugly jameson tan shirt and your cute rvca shorts that were disgustingly dirty and had blood on them. you told me you were gonna sail around the world with your friend moon. my heart broke. you were so high. the saddest part about all of this is you werent afraid to show me anymore. you used to hide it.. and now.. its open. youre high in front of me talking to me, without even thinking i could tell. you acually arent even worried about it. youre so high you think its normal.. my heart breaks again. my poor little baby cam cam, what has happened to you.

This still wasnt the last..

I saw you after this at mikes house. We had sex on your floor, you were fat. I stopped and decided I couldn't continue, I felt gross. The cameron I knew took care of his body and held pride in himself, where did you go?

2015 -You moved in with my cousin and did meth and heroin together. You couldn't leave me alone. It was like you had to torture me. Why though? Hadn't you done enough already? You couldn't let me go, I see that now. It wasn't intentional hurt. It wasn't about me. It never has been about me. I see that now. I couldn't then. I was working on rebuilding myself.

I got my life together while yours continued to fall apart.

Ill never forget when you moved to new Orleans. Taylor called me and said someone had tagged you in a photo on facebook and it was the worst she has ever seen you. I didn't want to see it. I already knew. But I couldn't care anymore.

2016 - I saw you on valentines day. The feelings were gone. I remember looking at you and my heart hurting, your poor face… cameron, where did you go? How did you let this happen to you? The scars. Your hair.. Its too long, and if its that long learn how to properly put it up. You didn't look good. I wanted to hold you. I wanted to hug you and just let you feel comfort. Not in a sexual way, I knew you would have gotten your hopes up if I did reach out to hold you so I didn’t. I felt bad for you, like a wounded puppy, I still wanted to help you. I wanted you to feel whole, or at least a little more whole than what you were. And when you left I was fine. You apologized for the first time ever. So that was nice. I felt nothing.

2017 -Im moving to Thailand and packing up my room, I have to get into the attic and polly is in Seattle. You come over, yet you continue to go to your van. Same behavior. I was shocked you were so disrespectful. You weren't even trying to hide it. your phone going off and now you're glued to it. hello? can we communicate and you stay off your phone at 11 pm? it cant be good, and you must still think I'm stupid if you think i don't know. but this time i didn't care. ill wait until you make up an excuse and once you step foot out of my door, you're gone forever. i knew it was coming, it was just a matter of when. i toyed with the idea in my head of asking you if you had to go but i didn't wanna give you any excuses. i needed you to make up one for yourself. i didn't wanna make it easy. so i didn't. and when you rushed out at midnight i shut the door and let you go. You continued to text me telling me all sorts of lies, again with the lies? Shut up it's insulting after 7 years of this you still think I'm gullible or tolerant of any of your s**t. But it wasn't about me. You’re damaged. Your sense of reality is gone. You're in too deep. So I left. Moved to Thailand.

Here I am moving to Vietnam august 7th and I'm thinking about you. We talked through messenger last night for like 5 hours. I got 1.5 hours of sleep for school today and yet I'm still up at midnight writing this because I finally feel I'm healing. Ill never understand addiction, but I finally understand that it was never about me. No matter what I did or didn't do, I could not fix you. I tried to show you love but that was never going to be enough. Huge life events happen to me and you're still the one I wanna talk to. But I'm afraid, which cameron am I gonna get this time? Im lucky, I believe I got the semi hopefully sober at least for a little while cameron last night. I had to write this. And you have to know by now I can tell in the way you text, walk, talk, smell, look, breathe when you're high or using at the time or around the time.You are transparent to me now. And I think thats the only way you should be. People should start off transparent. Begin every new relationship transparent. The sad thing is you aren't this way out of your own will.. I have made you this way in my eyes with negative experiences. If only it was the good kind of transparent.

June 14th 2017 ill never forget the pit in my stomach when i asked you if you were ever sober in our relationship and you replied with no. never. so who did i fall in love with? was it real? this hurts. here you are again, breaking my heart. this time with the truth. never? not once? everything i felt, you didn't. everything i thought was real, and was holding onto, wasn't. We got along so well at times but i guess that wasn't real? you stole 7 years of my life for me to now question everything that was us. did we have sober sex? was that real? we never had a sober connection. nothing about us was actually us. I knew all of this.. i did.. but i didn't wanna know.. I am still hopeful. How? I’m not sure. Every piece of me was grasping for the straw that said; yeah i was sober a couple months or weeks or days or ANYTHING. No.. Never.. Not a chance? Wow. That feeling when your heart breaks is happening all over again. So now what? I thought we were soul mates. But how is that possible when my soul wasn't connecting to yours at all? it's an incredibly sad feeling I'm left with yet again. As Leslie said it “Loving people without fear is true love.” I loved you without fear, I will always have love for you. I will always be on your side. I am so grateful to be able to have no hatred in my heart for you. I don't blame you. I’m finally healing.

Heres to being the strongest person you know.

Friday, June 16, 2017