Nothing like fresh air on ice.
Every breeze went by solemnly reminding us how it felt to be alive and breathing. Our heads were
lulling as we recklessly slurred things about Kirsten Marie Jacobs, this feisty
tramp in our grade, everything else said in a retrospective nod to what would've
been, had we not chosen this life. It wasn't like this happened overnight. No,
gradually, we'd find ourselves in the rundown motel boarding on the exit from
town, smoking pipes of crystal and snorting opium like we had actual business touching speedballs. But we were alright.
—
I ended up blacking out and waking up next to Shawn in the cop-shop. No sight of the others, though I did hear Derek screaming from a cell down the hall. The word 'drug induced psychosis' was repeated several times before I zoned it out.
Waiting was tedious. I just wanted to go home.
Til the words hit me like a ton of red bricks.
"Deceased seventeen year old by the name of Anthony Forrester," the officer spoke.
What?
My stomach churned in a mix of both anticipation and dread as I waited for further elaboration. "Blood test detected fentanyl in his system. It wasn't just the meth. Kid stood no
chance of surviving."
"Fuckin' teens these days. They got the option to make the proper choices out here and there
they go slamming their heads into walls."
Their heads turned to the hallway, presumably where Derek Kingston remained, secluded, likely self-harming in some fucked up state of mind.
"Literally." The
second officer remarked, his tone of speech devoid of any emotion.
Beside me, Shawn Mayfield
woke from his daze. Likely from being previously blacked out as well, he began
speaking slowly. "Did I hear that right? T-tony. He's dead?"
I looked down. Never had I heard his voice crack, not once in my life.
"Excuse me," I raised my free hand at the police. "Is our friend going to be okay?"
The cop didn't hesitate to appear next to us, for what we hoped would be an answer to our question. He unlocked the handcuffs to our seats instead and finally replied, "We called his parents. His mother is on her way. You guys better go home."
I never knew until that particular moment I found myself looking back on the somewhat vibrant past now gone, how bleak the four walls of my bedroom could have become while pondering alone in my thoughts. They edged into me, like they had spikes of their own. A friend of mine, gone. Somehow all three of us survived and Tony was now dead. Never to hear from him again, I felt a morbid sense of being lost. There was something strange about death and closure that vigorously snubbed every person who ever experienced grief. Which I felt to the highest extent.
It was stupid because this wasn't even my fault. Derek thought he was picking up opium, not something stronger and more lethal. I was no friend of opiates in general. Why did I do them?
Why couldn't it be him who left us?
Fuck.
—
My mother comes to my door and knocks gently. She is aware something is wrong that I haven't given her enough time to figure out on her own. The police never informed her of the motel incident, or that our friend died to an opioid crisis, becoming a
statistic. instead of saying anything, she offers me a snack.
Comfort food as she must be assuming I had a mystery girlfriend just leave me last night for some other guy. I wore my graveness on my sleeves as though attending a burial. She never woke to see that I was gone all night. Her ignorance is bliss.
Wish mine could be. It felt like I needed a moment I never got to myself to take in the truth and somewhat accept it. How do you accept this shit?