Lucy in the Sky (22 page)

I know.

It's not what I expected to write, either. I just realized that I've been having a lot of fun with Cam and Astrid, and even Mom and Dad. And I didn't have any drugs to look forward to, or drinking. In fact, I barely thought about that at all after we left the college.

Excitement without drugs. Who knew? I've looked forward to stuff every day!

We went to these AMAZING museums this week. There was an exhibit at one about the history of fashion and I couldn't stop looking at it. The museum was in this beautiful park, and I wandered around looking at the plants and trees. Then we drove over the bay on a bridge that was so beautiful it gave me goose bumps.

As I stood there, staring out at the water, the sun broke through the clouds and glinted into my eyes. I squinted at the fire-colored arches of the bridge as an idea tried to take shape in my head: college, fashion, the museum. Something about this place feels right. I don't know what it is. I could imagine going to work at that museum. Do they have a graduate degree for that? I should ask my dad.

I texted Ross and Lauren a picture of me with the bridge in the background. Lauren texted me right back: SOOOOOOOOOOOO GR8!!!!!

I am still laughing about that. Usually she's the one who takes forever to respond. It's weird that I haven't heard back from Ross at all.

Tomorrow we drive back home. I guess I'll call Lauren when I get there. Usually I don't look forward to a car ride that long because reading or writing, or even playing around on my
phone, makes me a little carsick. I wish I had some of Lauren's Xanax.

Oh well.

At least Astrid is here. She's been really fun to talk to. Cam has been less crazy, too, probably because I'm not hanging out with Lauren and Ross. This has been a fun time. I keep thinking about college and the museum. I'm not sure what it is, but something about that place made me feel so good, so peaceful on the inside. I kind of wish I could go there every day.

March 18

Lauren just finally went to sleep.

Oh. My. GOD.

This is fucking crazy.

We got back home, and Lauren was at my place hanging out on the front porch, which is fine, I suppose, except she's never done that before. She gave my mom this big hug, and then me and Astrid. Mom was all happy because she worries about Lauren sort of being by herself all the time, so she was happy that Lauren was there, and even though she was tired from the trip, she insisted that Lauren stay and have dinner and even invited her to sleep over and go to school with me tomorrow.

The minute we were all inside, I grabbed Lauren by the
elbow and pushed her up the stairs to my bedroom. I could tell she was H-I-G-H.

But it was weird. It didn't seem like it was a coke high.

Because it wasn't.

She was on METH. Fucking CRYSTAL METH. Her eyes were all darting around and she wasn't making a lot of sense. I got Mom to let us order pizza. Told her we had to study for a big chemistry test. Luckily Astrid had already headed home so she wasn't around to verify.

I got back to my room after I ordered the pizza and closed the door behind me. Lauren had one of my dresser drawers open and was organizing and refolding all of my T-shirts. While we were waiting for the pizza to come, Lauren told me all about it. Her ex-whatever in New York had started dealing meth. Lauren had always been really snobby about it. She said she'd always laughed at people who did meth because they were poor and meth was cheap and dirty and cooked up in a trailer.

But they were out of coke one night in New York, and so she tried it. She told me she tried to snort it, but it burnt like hell, so she smoked it out of a pipe, and she said it was amazing. She got so high on just a little bit of smoke, and it lasted for a LONG TIME. Hours instead of minutes. She said it made you feel like you were alert and awake like coke, only less happy, more warm and safe and secure. And like cleaning.

Luckily she'd taken some Xanax. I texted Ross and told him to get over here QUICK with some weed because Lauren needed some help coming down. NOTHING. I was starting to get worried, so I texted Ian and asked if he'd heard from Ross because I hadn't. I found some Tylenol PM in the medicine cabinet in Mom and Dad's bedroom and forced Lauren to take two with a slice of pizza that I had to almost shove into her mouth so she would eat it. She kept laughing and saying she wasn't hungry.

Then we watched two movies, and she finally started to doze off.

March 19

Lauren is still zonked out. I have to wake her up soon so that we can take showers and get to school on time. I'm sort of exhausted. I didn't sleep very well last night thinking about Lauren doing meth. Part of me wants to try it, but I know that it's one of the most addictive drugs that there is. I mean, I've seen all of the videos in health and read all of the pamphlets and the warnings. The police come and talk to us about it every year. They show us picture of people with TERRIBLE acne and abscesses who are delusional. None of them look like Lauren, that's for sure.

But I wonder how long it will take for Lauren to start to look like them?

And if Lauren does it, I don't know if I can say no.
Sometimes I think I'm just not a very strong person when it comes to drugs and drinking. Fuck. That's a really scary thought, and now I'm crying.

I'm going to talk to Lauren about it. I'm going to tell her that if she doesn't stay off crystal, we can't be friends.

Later …

I'm sitting in U.S. history. I had The Talk with Lauren. She started crying immediately and saying, I know, I know, and promising that she would never do it again. She hugged me so tight that it almost hurt, and she begged me to help her. She said she needed my help.

I told her I would help her; that we'd go to AA and actually talk to some of the people there about it. I was scared enough to actually get one of those blue books and read it. She nodded and said that was a good idea. She was crying and said that she knew this was her last chance, that none of the other girls at school would even look at her and that if she lost me as a friend again, she couldn't handle it.

I hugged her and said: Then stay off of crystal.

I haven't seen Ross this morning, which isn't that big a surprise. He's been late a lot this semester. But it's totally weird that he hasn't texted me or anything. I have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that he and Ian got back together.

March 20

It is 4 a.m. on a Tuesday, and I am high on meth.

I didn't meant to be.

But I am.

I'm not tired at all. I feel like I could go to school and take a test right this second. I feel good, and in control, and really … peaceful, somehow. I feel like everything is going to be just fine.

Ross finally called me back after school yesterday. He asked if he could come over. I said yes, mainly because I wanted to talk to him about Lauren, but also because I was hoping he'd have some weed on him, which he did.

When he came in, we said hi to my parents who were headed out to dinner with friends, then a concert series at Dad's college. Thank God they were. And thank God Cam was over at Jason's. He's spending the night over there, working on some project they have due next week.

We went to my room, and I was talking to Ross about Lauren and how she'd been doing crystal, and he asked if I wanted to smoke some weed. I didn't think it would be that big a deal.

But it was. Once we were really stoned, Ross looked at me and said, I need to tell you something.

He said that he was bored during spring break. When Lauren
got back, she called him and said she was over at Ian's place. She and Ian kept texting him to come over, so he finally did. He said that when he got there, Blake was there too, and all of them were smoking meth. Ross said he almost turned back around and walked out the door but that something in him wanted to try it. Ian told him meth would make him feel like a god.

Ross said, I just needed to try it. Just once.

It was so great that he smoked it for 4 days. He said that the sex was incredible—the best he'd ever had.

My heart was racing as he told this story. I felt the tremble in my knees and the sweatiness in my palms return. The old excitement was back, and even before he finished talking, I knew I had to try it too.

When I told him, he smiled and pulled out a clear glass pipe about the size of a pencil, but a little wider. Carefully, he took three tiny pebbles from a little plastic Ziploc bag and placed them in the end of the pipe. Then he took out a special silver lighter and flipped open the top. A blue flame sparked to life, but this was not the flame from a regular lighter. It was a steady burning flame that was hotter. He held the flame under the pipe until the rocks at the end melted into liquid, then bubbled slightly and boiled into a white vapor. Ross carefully sucked the white vapor out of the glass tube, then held it and exhaled.

The smell was acrid and chemical. Not skunky like pot, but sharp and toxic.

He held the pipe out to me, and I carefully placed the end in my mouth while he held the lighter. As the smoke filled the tube, I inhaled.

The taste was bitter and metallic. My mouth and eyes watered as I held the smoke in my lungs. Then I exhaled.

We both did this again.

And by the time I took the second hit …

I understood.

Ross texted Lauren after I smoked, and she was there within minutes, it seemed. I can't really be sure. She came armed with painkillers and muscle relaxers, which she said would help us go to sleep when the time came. Eventually they both went back home, but the time to sleep never came.

I've never felt so sure of myself as I do right now on this drug. I feel this level of certainty and safety that I've never possessed before. I feel like I could easily explain why this was the best choice I could've made to anyone who asked: Cam, Mom, Dad. I feel like even questioning my judgment would be foolish.

I feel like THIS was how I was MEANT to feel: confident, perfect, beautiful, sexy, in control, smart, and more certain of myself than ever.

I was grinding my teeth a little, and Lauren told me that's just an effect of the speediness of the drug. She told me to take half of a muscle relaxer or a little bit of Xanax.

I heard Mom and Dad come home several hours ago, around 11:30 p.m. I turned off my lights and crawled under the covers in my bed. Dad peeked his head in my door, and I pretended to be asleep.

But I don't need to sleep tonight.

I don't want to miss a single moment of how I feel.

Later …

Ross and Lauren and I left campus for lunch before Astrid and Cam could find us. We piled into Ross's pickup truck, and he drove toward Venice. I didn't even have to ask why. Ian was happy to see us. He said Blake had just been by. We hung out for about a half hour, and he gave us each a small hit of meth, just so we could get through the day at school in case we started to feel tired.

It's so funny, sitting here in class, high as a kite, but hearing everything and watching everyone around me. No one knows that I'm high. No one even suspects it.

I'm just following Ian's instructions: Talk as little as possible. It's when you start talking that people might be able to tell.

Later …

It's almost midnight, and I finally feel just a little bit tired. Not really sleepy, but I can tell my body needs to rest. I took a muscle relaxer that Lauren gave me. It seems to be helping a little bit.

I'm only sad that this feeling has to end.

I'm going to lie down and close my eyes to see if I can sleep.

March 21

Today sucks.

I slept for about 5 hours, and when I woke up, I felt like the underside of my shoe. My head hurts and I was so groggy I could barely talk. Mom said I looked pale and put a hand on my forehead to see if I had a fever.

Something about the way she did that just made my skin crawl. I told her I was FINE. I could tell I hurt her feelings when I snapped at her, but Cam was sitting across the table giving me the damn stink-eye. I can tell he thinks something is up.

Oh. My. GOD. This day cannot end soon enough.

Lauren isn't here, and Ross was about 10 minutes late. He said he wouldn't have come except his mom is off today and the only thing worse than being at school is being at home with her. We're walking over to Lauren's at lunch.

Later …

Ross smoked us out at lunch, so I feel softer around the edges somehow, a little less like I've been hit by a dump truck. I still don't know how I'm going to make it through the rest of the day. Ugh. Now I'm in this weed haze and I feel miserable. I'm not sure what I liked about pot before. It seems like such a lame high next to Tina.

LOL. That's what Ian calls crystal: Tina.

He texted Ross and told him that he should have the girls over this weekend because his friend Tina was coming.

March 22

School has been a complete fog for the past few days. I barely passed our chemistry test on Tuesday. I was stoned, and sore, and hadn't even studied. I've never made a D on a test before. Something in me doesn't care. I hear this voice in my head say that I should care, but I just don't.

I went home yesterday after class and crawled into bed and went to sleep. I slept until about 10 p.m. and wandered into the living room while Dad and Mom were watching TV. Mom jumped up and reheated some chicken soup she'd made me earlier. She asked if I was okay and said she'd thought about waking me up for dinner but wanted to let me sleep because she knew I was fighting something off.

Can you imagine if I told her I was fighting off meth?

The soup was delicious, but I still felt like I was moving under Jell-O. After I ate, I curled up on the couch with her and Dad. Mom put her arm around me, and I closed my eyes on her lap. There was something so peaceful about it. I felt like a little girl again, like I didn't need to worry about anything. It made me miss being little. It made me wonder who I was growing up to be. My eyes were closed, but they filled up with tears, and I got a big lump in my throat. When I got up to go back to bed, there was a wet spot on the throw Mom had spread across her lap.