“I forgot Clay was coming home that weekend,” I continued my story coming out of the past. “He found me and I wound up in the emergency room.” After that, I was sent to rehab. I spent two months in their learning how to cope and remembering who I was. Then they released me. They told me I recovered fast. I think I just told them whatever they wanted to hear to get out of there. I felt like I was just another sob story in their eyes. I couldn’t take the way we were treated. I went from unlimited freedom to lock down. Besides I’d had enough of the drug. I didn’t want to be a screw up anymore. When I came back, it was July. I called Alyssa, Jeremy, Skyler, and Kristi. Nobody ever answered. Part of me was glad, but the other part was devastated. They really only did care about getting high and having fun. They didn’t even try to find out if I was okay. My friends didn’t care if I would have died. That’s when I realized I needed a fresh start. I need to get far away from this place. I didn’t know if I was running or embracing a future, but I just knew there wasn’t anything for me there anymore. My dad couldn’t deal with me anymore so he was more than happy to send me off to my aunt’s house. She agreed because he almost begged. I wear a wrist band or a long sleeve shirt all the time now to hide the scar, but before I left for L.A., though, I stopped into the principles office and left a note on his desk. I enlightened him on Alyssa, Kristi, Skyler, and Jeremy’s favorite hobby. I left it anonymous, but I’m sure they’d know who left it anyways when I didn’t show up for the next school year. The notes the one reason that they called me. They wanted to settle the score, even though they had already taken everything from me…”

“So, then did you do it tonight,” Ashley interrupted with a scared tone to her voice. It made my whole chest hurt. I remembered how it felt to let people down.

“No,” I replied wiping away the tears that now drenched my face.