• I guess you could say you quit. Your glazed eyes rolled back in your head, your body humped up against the wall. You couldn’t hear me shouting over the booming music, (if you could hear at all), and I couldn’t really see you under the blinking strobe lights. But I could tell. Something was wrong.
    Crank; the monster, ate you alive.
    Razor -sharp teeth sunk deep into your flesh and bit. The first night you were offered a smoke. ‘come on, it won’t hurt you.’Oh my god, I thought you were smart. All those times I copied your geometry homework. All those test answers you uncovered to me. Damn it, why did you take that smoke? I was supposed to be the stupid one. That was my life: the druggie, the alcoholic, the loser. The nobody. You were going to be a doctor.
    Crack, ice, speed, weed, and whatever you could get your hands on. You snorted it, you smoked it, you injected it, and you were never going to have enough.
    I didn’t like your red-rimmed eyes. You came home with burns on your arms. You were too jacked up to realize what was happening. Too stoned to feel the pain, the searing of your skin as they held you to a stove burner and laughed. You liked to feel accepted. You laughed along with all the other rejects.
    Then came along your buddy, Jack. Booze and drugs, ha ha, you’re so clever.
    Take a swig of that bottle, kill a little more of your brain cells, pop another Valium, batter a little more of life out of yourself. Break my heart a little more. I begged you to quit. I reminded you that you were going be a doctor.
    But you didn’t care; you were prisoner of the monster now. So wasted. So high. So stoned. So addicted.
    I’ve been sober for three whole months. That’s one accomplishment I reached for you.
    Seeing you like that: beaten and bruised and burned and high. So ******** high. I knew I had to quit. For you. That big fat brain of yours just couldn’t take the abuse. Sizzled like it was hit with a bolt of lightning and gave out.
    Your heart went thump,
    thump,
    t h u m p.
    And those lights were so damn bright. And those other kids didn’t even notice, couldn’t even tell that you were dying while they were dancing to the music. Smoke clouding the room, people swaying drunkenly to the beat. And you, slumped on the floor, a needle still stuck in your arm, shadows of crystal meth still dancing behind your lifeless blue eyes.
    You dumb ********.