Induced Euphoria.

It’s the drugs that make her heart race;
it’s the alcohol that makes her head spin.

It felt as though cockroaches swarmed underneath her skin, her weak finger nails clawed and scraped, trying to break them free. Sweat poured down her already moist forehead and her eyes darted anxiously around the room, failing at focusing on just one thing. It was another day without a fix, another day without a high.

She struggled underneath the pissed stained sheets; it was too hot to breath, too cold to move. Her head screamed for a hit of weed, a drop of acid, a bump of coke, but her heart said no. It wasn’t just her heart though. Her sponsor, her mother, her siblings, her friends all told her no. “You’re so selfish,” She remembered her mother saying. Spit rolled from her lips as she wiped the snot from her nose. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying but her addicted daughter could care less. “She’s not selfish, she has a disease,” Her older brother argued. He was always on her side, even when she thought she was the worst person living.

Living, alive, surviving, those words weren’t in her vocabulary. She was a walking zombie, always strung out on some sort of drug. She never had a preference, if you handed her a pill, a powder, or a liquid, she would down it, not even knowing the name or the effects. She was dangerous, a danger to herself, her family, her friends.

“What happened to my little girl, what happened to my little Laney?” Her mother would cry. No words would affect her, not even the sobs of her older brother and he never cried. He did only once, when they found her at the bottom of the stairs that led to a park his friends used to skate at. She was curled into a ball, her hair stringy and greasy, her skin bruised and flakey. She had over dosed on a new drug she was testing, a new drug called heroin.
Matthew Sanders could recall the day like no other. Laney hadn’t come home that night, any other day it wouldn’t be such a big deal but he knew she would never forget to come home on his birthday. In the kitchen sat his mother and father, one was on the phone and the other was biting their nails. “Is it okay if I go skating with Jimmy?” He asked.

“Sure, just don’t be out to late, we’re going out to dinner.” His mother smiled, a weak one at best. Matt knew his parents didn’t want to go out to eat during such a heinous time in their families’ life but they also had to keep some normalcy.
“Jimmy!” Matt called from across the parking lot. He noticed Jimmy standing near the stairs, his board somewhere in the bushes and a look of complete terror written across his face. “You okay?” He started running toward his lanky friend, worried at what might have happened.

“Man, I think that’s Laney.” He pointed at the bottom of the stair well and Matt’s heart dropped. There lay his two year younger sister, tangled in a puddle of mud. That day was horrible, one of the worst birthdays the Sanders family had ever celebrated. That was also the day they decided to enter Laney into rehab.