"Go to bed, Amy."
I stare out the window mumbling words to myself. He insists I'm sick and must go to a hospital if I don't calm the hell down.
"Do you have Valium?"
Adam closes his book.
"Look, go to bed or I'm calling Mom. I know you don't want to deal with her."
I feel my face twist.
"Mom?!"
"You're acting like a schizophrenic and this needs to stop." He warns.
I grab my jacket and head for the door.
"Where are you going?"
"Out."
—
The music is psychedelic as I dance with my date. Nothing could possibly aggravate my mind. He shoots me up in the bathroom. We continue to dance, eventually making our way to his car, where we don't even wind up at his place before I find myself unzipping his pants and giving him head in the front seat. What a beautiful night, under the city lights, and for once I am not that girl.
Amy Carmen Vaughan. A voice in my head says. It sounds like a demon. However I'm not frightened. I am safe in John or whatever his name is' car.
When we get to his place, that is when all goes to shit. He has a drug addict for a roommate, tracks all up her arms, resembling a dead person walking. She is into opiates. You can tell the way she appears to be sleepwalking.
"Hey, Jane," John or whatever says. "You wanted to bang some ice before Amy and I went upstairs?"
What the fuck?
I partake with them, sitting at a coffee table in their skanky den. Jane smells of cigarettes and unwashed hair. I watch her broken cracked lips wrap around the oil burner pipe as she opted to leave her veins for heroin. She is speedballing.
"Give me your arm." Josh — yes, that's his name! — says, breaking me from the daze I was in watching Jane smoke meth.
He shoots me up again. It must be a higher dose than the last time he did, because the rush is insanely good. Euphoric. Crazy. And? Suddenly, my mind is entertaining the zombie thing again.
I close my eyes and beg when they open, I do not see what I am imagining. Jane and her cracked lips, with missing teeth and rotted skin. Jane is a zombie too.
I open my eyes. She appears normal. I have a relieving sigh as the high — which is better than sex, by the way — amps my senses up further, my confidence, my good mood until I am paranoid again.
I go to the bathroom to calm myself by adjusting my makeup. I don't close the door in case I have the chance to hear them talking shit about me. I reapply my faded eye shadow, red on the crease and bottom lash line followed by a waterline eyeliner application in black. My favorite stage look. As I'm applying the last stroke of liner, something catches my eye in the mirror. I look to see who is standing through the mirror. It looks like Jane, undead.
It's a fucking zombie!
I scream Josh's name, insisting he get his ass up here.
"What?" His eyes are full of concern.
"Help me please. Don't let it eat me alive." I hide behind him from the zombie in the bathroom.
He grabs my shoulder. "It's just Jane." He says sternly, sounding fed up with me. "She was coming to see if you were okay. I accidentally gave you my shot instead."
"I'm so sorry." I apologize to Jane, who is scowling at me. She doesn't even need to tell me what a cunt I am, it's written all over her face.
We didn't end up fucking. He sent me home for being too obnoxious and what he described to be 'psycho'. He was kind enough to drive me back, and provided tips on how to take care of myself better. So long, Josh.
—
"It's five in the morning." Adam says when he finds me pacing the halls upstairs. "Please don't tell me you're on drugs right now."
"I am not." I stop walking and lie.
"Then go to bed."
This is one of the worst nights of my life. I lay in bed high as all hell, listening to music turned down enough so I don't get scolded. My mind will not rest on what a fool I am as of lately. Am I truly sick?