Fly Until You Crash

As first semester came to a close, Addie was showing less and less enthusiasm for school or much else in life. Her friends had noticed this change but did little about it, not wanting to upset her. She no longer spoke about Justin, but because she rarely hung out with her group they had no idea if she was still seeing him or not. Anytime they asked her to do something, her response was that she really needed to catch up with school. Slade knew better than to believe this, but still couldn’t bring himself to find out what was really going on. He assumed the worst, that Addie was still with Justin all the time, and finally let it be.

Addie still wasn’t able to explain to Slade what she’d been through in the past three months, so she tried to avoid him as much as possible. He’d still talk to her in his usual happy way, but she could tell that he was becoming more disappointed with her every time she declined an invitation to hang out. She hadn’t spoken to Justin since the morning after she first took ecstasy, and he hadn’t made any attempts to come in contact with her. Addie quickly let him go, but couldn’t forget the things she’d done because of him.

In order to keep up with some of her barely passing grades, Addie took to a new and “less dangerous,” as she thought, drug. One day in her study hall she overheard the stoners talking about different substances they could get a hold of. One name caught her attention, and she quickly turned around to ask about it.

“You want Adderall?” one of the boys asked her incredulously.

“Yeah, I can’t let senioritis have an effect on me, I need to keep focused until the end of the year,” she easily lied. The kid shrugged and named his price, telling her to meet him the next day after school at a park on the other side of town with the money. That night, Addie made a withdrawal from her college saving’s account to get the pills, what she felt was her lowest point yet. She knew the pills weren’t necessary to make her happy, but she couldn’t bring herself to explain to her friends what had happened. She felt like a failure, and she wouldn’t let herself be known as one.

She first received fifteen pills, and planned to only take one when she felt incredibly low. After a week and a half of being on them, she increased to two pills a day. She started to hang out with her friends again, only once in awhile at first, but was quickly welcomed back into their old routines. No one noticed or made a comment about her new attitude, and she assumed they all thought it was because she had finally stopped talking to Justin, which they were all more than pleased to hear about. Slade still wasn’t convinced that his best friend was completely back to her old ways yet, but didn’t want to bring up what he hoped was dead and buried to figure it out. He was hoping that Addie would come around and tell him everything that had happened in those few months, but he highly doubted it would happen anytime soon.