On My Own

“Zacky, calm down,” Stephanie said, running a hand up and down his arm. “You’re scaring my best friend and that isn’t okay. Hell, you’re scaring me and I didn’t do anything.” I scooted back and ran a hand through my hair.

“I want to know when she was going to tell him.” Zacky’s face was still angry, but his tone was a little softer. “He’s my best friend. He loves her.” Zacky pointed to the Tiffany’s bracelet on my wrist. “If she loves him then she’ll tell him right now.”

“I…” I didn’t think I was ready to tell Matt. I hadn’t told Stephanie about everything. I wanted Matt to know those things though. I wanted him to know about everything that I had gone through. I just didn’t know if I could handle talking about everything. But, if I didn’t tell Matt, Zacky would and it would be worse. “I’ll tell him.” My voice was barely audible, but they heard me.

Zacky said he’d drive and headed out the door. Stephanie helped me up from the couch. “I am so sorry. Zacky kept mentioning how it was weird that you were at my house without me and I accidently let it slip that you were living with me and he got the story out of me.” I nodded and got into the backseat of the car. “Are you mad at me?” I shook my head because I couldn’t be mad at my best friend; I would’ve put this off longer which would’ve actually been horrible.

Zacky pulled into Matt’s driveway and I followed them up to the door. Zacky rang the doorbell and Matt opened the door. “What’s going on?” Matt asked, looking from Zacky to Stephanie. They each took a step to the side and his eyes landed on me. “Adeline, is something wrong?”

“I need to talk to you,” I mumbled. Matt nodded and stepped to let us all through. I sat down on the couch and looked down at my lap. I felt the couch sink next to me when Matt sat down and heard Zacky and Stephanie sit across from us. The news was on the television. “I’ve been lying to you about something really big. My name isn’t Adeline Armstrong. My name’s Brittany Perkins.”

“The runaway from Los Angeles,” Matt whispered. I nodded. “This whole time you’ve been lying.” I nodded, a tear escaping the corner of my eye. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I looked up and into Matt’s eyes. He was hurt and mad and it was showing. “We’ve been dating this whole time and you didn’t think that maybe you should tell me?”

“In other news, police investigators reported that doing a secondary search through her bedroom revealed several bags with pills including Ecstasy, Morphine, LSD and Devon. Investigators also said that they found empty bottles of alcohol. Family and friends had no comment.”

A few more tears fell from the corners of my eyes. “I tried to kill myself and it didn’t work. That’s when I decided to run away,” I mumbled.

“How could you do that?Do you have any idea how bad those drugs are? And do you understand how much your life is worth?” Matt ranted. I jumped and scooted away from him. Zacky jumped up and pulled Matt away. I heard the door close and tears continued falling from my eyes.

“He’s only upset because he loves you. Just give him a moment to cool off,” Stephanie soothed, sitting next to me and rubbing my back. “I know he’ll listen to your story and understand.” I shook my head and rested my face in my hands.

“I fucked up,” I whispered. Stephanie continued rubbing my back for a few more minutes before the door reopened. I looked up and wiped my eyes. Zacky walked in with Matt following. Stephanie went back to the other couch and Zacky sat next to her. Matt slowly sat down next to me lifted my chin with his finger. His thumbs wiped away my tears and I took a deep breath. “Can I please explain what happened?”

“Please do. I want…no I need to know why you did this,” Matt said. I nodded and took another deep breath.

“Since freshman year, everybody in my family has been fighting. My brother and his girlfriend, my sister and her boyfriend and even my parents for the first time ever were fighting. One time, my mom even threw a beer bottle at my dad. The scariest thing I ever witnessed was my brother smacking his girlfriend. I couldn’t go near him for weeks.

“I usually just stayed out of the arguments. Then, I finally started telling everyone to be quiet and almost got attacked by my brother’s bimbo. My family started arguing with me over stupid things and then my grandma did the worst thing ever. I got into a fight with her because I said she didn’t have any authority over me. I stormed over to my sister’s house and she literally threw me out.

“When my family fought and I had enough, I would go drink. I went and got drunk and did stupid things. At some point, I’d end up at a friends’ house and just sleep it all off. A few times, I did Ecstasy and was addicted for a couple of months. Until one of my best friends threatened to give up on me. He told the rest of my friends and they realized how bad it was at my house.

“That’s when my friends told me I needed to run away. They saw how much sleep I wasn’t getting. They saw how much I was drinking. I showed up to school once completely drunk and had one of my friends pick me up before I got busted. I had one friend talk so much about me and make me seem like a horrible person.

“Then one day, not long after that I had another argument with my mom over my grades. Even though I had a B average, she wasn’t happy. Even though I was still in school and my brother and sister dropped out, she wasn’t happy. That’s when I tried to kill myself. And when that didn’t work, I had to do the next best thing I could; I had to run away from Los Angeles,” I whispered.