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| 07.27.03 [Sarah] |
"Sarah's dead."
"What?" I didn't understand how she could be dead. I had just seen her a few days before. Then I remembered what we had been doing that day. Tears sprang up in my eyes, but realization had yet to dawn on me. "How?"
"She OD'd, they found her at Mike's dead on the couch. It was an accident."
I knew what went on at Mike's, she didn't need to explain anymore. I ran away down the hall, tear dripping onto my shirt. I ran out of school and jumped in my beat up Chevy and drove home.
I managed to make it to the bathroom before I lost my lunch, I was sick to my stomach. I was just sick. Of it all. The memories of my last day with Sarah floated back to me in waves of melancholy spite.
*****flashback*****
I bend over the coffee table, rolled up dollar in hand, and snort the fine white powder up my nose. I fling myself back against Mike's couch and waited for the drug to take it's desired affect. I haven't slept in days, at least I don't think I have. Sarah sits next to me, Mike is tying the tourniquet around her arm, making her veins pop out in her thin arm. She is so skinny. Mike inserts the needle into the vein and I don't think that needle is sanitary by any means. Sarah hasn't been able to convince me to let anyone stick a needle in my arm yet. She too leans back against the couch and waits. We've been here everyday this week. Mike doesn't seem to mind though because he just gets up to answer the doorbell. The doorbell rings a lot here I've noticed. Sarah wants to party now, so we leave and make our way to Corrie's. She lives in a secluded neighborhood, she parties nonstop. I think this is normal. I don't see anything wrong.
*****flashback*****
I wake up with a jolt, my sober mind appalled at my behavior. Reliving that day's events is more than I can bare and my whole body goes numb. I wondering fleetingly is the needle was still sticking out of her arm when they found her, because that's how I picture it. I'm numb for several days afterward, in shock. Then I'm at her funeral, and I see her mother crying and I hear the preacher's words and I see her body in the coffin and my face flashes before my eyes. Please God, I pray, if you do exist, don't let me die like this.
I did drugs to escape the crap my life had become, but seeing Sarah lifeless in that grave made me realize that nothing I had been doing had made my life any better. My life was still crap I was just too strung out to notice. Sarah was only seventeen, she had her whole life ahead of her. I wanted to make sure I had a long life ahead of me.
Looking back on it now, I think I knew then that we had a problem. And then I feel guilty for not realizing it then, maybe if I had, she'd still be alive. I knew, and I didn't help her. So I had to help myself. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of Sarah and I hope she forgives me for not getting us help when I had the chance. I hope she's looking down on me and is proud of my recovery. I hope she's waiting for me in the afterlife so we can party together again.
Now I ask myself everyday when I look in the mirror: "Has anything you've done made your life better?" Now I can answer yes.
A True Story........
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