Is This As Good As It Gets?

My eyes were red and puffy, crying tears of pain, regret, loss. I didn't know what happened, I didn't know what went wrong and mostly I didn't know why I had to choose my life to go this way.

The last thing I remember; and I mean really remember was when I was seventeen years old and at my last real friend's house. We were throwing a new years party, having a little fun, drinking a little beer. Everything was fine; that is until someone busted out an eight ball. That's when my life started going to shit. The white powder looked inticing, and everyone kept telling me it would help me forget. Forget everything that had ever happened to me in my life; and that seemed like a plus. I was trying to forget the pain of losing him, the one who never cared about me the way he should have; the one who loved me only when she wasn't there to mend his broken heart. He left a hole so big in me that whenever I thought about him I couldn't breath.

I'd been trying to forget for a year; and now I can't remember anything, just like they said.

That's the last time I remember being straight. I don't remember when my last real friend walked out on me, I didn't care. I don't remember when I started degrading myself for just another hit. I don't remember all the fucked up things I did. I don't even really remember the birth of my child, I don't remember when OCS took him. I just remember that he was gone, forever.

That's when I decided it was time for me to straight myself out. To look for rehab, something. But, my addictionhad other plans for me. I fell into a depression, of course. All those feelings of lost hopelessness came back with the realization that everything I loved was gone from my life. Well, everything except the coke. I was going to fall even further down into darkness when I met the man who played a key role in my life. James Catron; a hardcore dealer with a soft spot for pretty girls. I was one of those girls he considered pretty. I got a discounted price, and a good time every so often.

Sometimes, I felt like he was an angel sent from heaven saving me with sweet mind-blowing salvation. When I was coming to my senses, I knew he was nothing more than the devil tempting me back into darkness. Whenever I was feeling like that, though, I just snorted another line and went back to my blissful delirium.

My life was slowly ending, I knew it but I didn't care. Everything was alright in this perfect tragedy. Hunter was slowly growing up, but I didn't know. I didn't care. He was off in some foster home. Every once in awhile I'd get a letter from the family telling me how my son was. Joy filled me for a moment when I saw them, but James had the destroyed. Soon, I wasn't even checking my mail anymore. That was when I let the devil take my soul.

James had never been a 'good guy'. He was only interested in cash, his next high, and the next girl he was going to be sleeping with. Being his best customer and the easiet fuck he knew, I soon became the highest bidder in his fucked up game. He moved into my house, paid my bills, but in exchange he got to tell me what to do, and I still had to pay him for any of his stash that I used. Which, to be honest, was a lot.

Those were the worst days; the ones where James took over and nothing, not even my own mind, was mine anymore...

But, I think I'm getting ahead of myself, maybe I should start this story from the beginning. The very beginning.