They Found You On The Bathroom Floor

The moment I saw you, my brain turned to overdrive. I rushed to your side, not caring about the blood around you, rushing to get my cell phone out of my pocket and to hold you at the same time.

I gasped loudly as my back crashed against the locker behind me. A fist hits my face again and I try not to yell, not to give them that pleasure.

“Stop…please!” I hear someone gasping for breath from the floor. I turn my head to see you, the new girl, being kicked in the ribs several more times by the stupid jocks, before I feel a sharp pain in my stomach, from a punch whats-his-name captain of the football team just gave me, making me bend over. An elbow hits the back of my head as I bend, making me fall to the floor.

Everyone around laughs, I hear a couple taunts and then footsteps walking away. I lay on the floor, trying to keep the tears from rolling out of my eyes as I hear you sobbing uncontrollably not a couple feet away from me.

I sit up, looking immediately at you. You’re on the floor in fetal position, holding your sides, crying your heart out. I move to be next to you, and put my hand in your shoulder, trying to soothe you, no longer aware of the pain I was in a moment ago.

You wince the moment I touched you, looking up at me in fear. Your eyes fill with relief as you notice it’s not someone else trying to hurt you and you sit up too. We sit there for a couple of seconds before I feel you launching yourself at me, resting your head on my chest as you cry. I instinctively wrap my arms around you, letting you cry.

You stopped crying after a few minutes, slowly pulling away from the hug.

“I’m sorry,” you say looking away.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, they’re just a bunch of idiots.” I answer, not really understanding why you were sorry.

“It’s my fault they hit you. You were just walking by. You shouldn’t have tried to stick up for me.”

“Nonsense.” I say. “My name’s Gerard.” I add.

“Maria,” you smile lightly.

“Welcome to Belleville high, Maria,” I say sarcastically, but smiling. “You ok? Wanna go to the school nurse before she leaves?” I ask standing up and holding out my hand to help you stand up.

I think I saw a look of worry cross your face, but it disappeared as soon as it had come, making me wonder if I had just imagined that.

“No, no, I’m ok,” You say quickly taking my hand and standing up.

“No…no no no no no no…” I whisper, barely audible as I wait for the ambulance, tears running down my face. “No no no,” I kept repeating.

This isn’t happening. Not to you, my best friend in this world.

“Haha… I knew it!” You smiled widely, knowing you’d been right all along. “I totally knew you digged Bert McCracken.”

“Fine, you win. I am bi, and I like Bert,” I accepted.

“You know I’ll still love you always, don’t you?” You asked, noticing my nervousness.

“Yeah, but my dad found out. He didn’t like it one bit, now there’s a shitload of trouble at my place.” I explained to you.

“I’ll always be here for you, Gee.”

I could hear the sirens near by.

“Hurry the fuck up, please! Please hurry!” I whispered, holding on to your limp body, closing my eyes to avoid the horrible sight that was this bathroom.

“C’mon, Mary. I won’t tell anyone. You know you can trust me,” I plead with you. “I’ve told you everything…”

We were sitting on a bench at the farthest place in this park. No one ever came to the park, so we loved it here. You had a huge bruise in your cheek bone, a busted lip and I could tell you had bruises on the rest of your body; you just covered any skin that might show.

“I’m sorry for not telling you before, Gee,” You said sadly. “My-My dad… he abused me. But it’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last time. I’m just protecting Loren, she’s too young…if he did anything to her, I’d never let myself live…”

You started crying at that point, and were unable to carry on. I hugged you, letting you cry on my shoulder.

The paramedics arrived, entered the house and started shooting a whole load of questions I answered as best as I could, although most of my answers were only a couple words long. I was in shock, even though I should’ve seen it coming.

Bert had invited us to this party at his place. He welcomed us at the door, smelling strongly of alcohol. We would probably be pretty loaded in a couple of hours. I didn’t care, I needed to get away.

“Shit, you need to relax, sugar,” he said to me, noticing I was stressed.

Bert led us to the living room, and introduced us to a couple of his friends. James, Quinn, Jeph, Mike, and Kyle.

Bert talked to Kyle for a couple of minutes and Kyle stood up. Bert handed me a beer and we sat down together. You sat near, just next to James. By the time Kyle came back we I was on my third beer, but I noticed he was carrying something.

He handed a bag full of some white powder. Cocaine. Bert smiled and thanked him.

“This’ll help you relax, Gee,” Bert said, smiling and giving me a sloppy kiss, before putting it on the table and making some lines with the cocaine. I turned around to see if anyone else thought this was wrong. No one was paying attention. Bert inhaled the coke.

You walked with James right next to us. You looked at the coke in the table, mesmerized.
Just like me, you knew what it was, and wanted to try it. Your eyes told me that. My attention was drawn back to Bert and the cocaine. Bert started smiling like an idiot and nodded. I lowered my head and inhaled the white powder.

All of this is my fault.

You were carried to an ambulance in a stretcher. You looked so pale.

We were sitting in the park again, under a tree. We were high from the coke. I smiled like an idiot and you started laughing at me. I felt the strange urge to kiss you. So I did.

You didn’t seem surprised, and responded immediately. When we broke apart we kept smiling. Little did I know this was the first of many kisses to come. But that’s all we ever did: Kiss.

“Because we are friends, but closer. And that is our way of expressing it.” were your exact words, telling me not to worry about it.

“Let’s just avoid doing that if our boyfriends are around, yeah?” I said.

“Yeah. I’m not sure either Bert or James would like that.”

One of the paramedics asked me to come with you in the ambulance, since I was the only person that was with you at the moment.

Bert had just broken up with me. I was a complete wreck. You held my hand while we walked over to the alleyway we always found Kyle by.

“Hey, you two. I’ve got something even better than just plain coke this time. You should try it out.” he said to us.

I wasn’t really paying attention, but you two talked for a while, before he gave you a package, and you paid him.

We walked back to your house. Your whole family had gone on holiday. We went to the living room and sat down in the floor near the coffee table. You opened the brown paper bag, letting it’s contents fall on the table in front of you.

Our usual amount of coke fell out, along with a bottle of brown liquid and two syringes.

“What’s that?” I ask, feeling curious.

“Heroin,” you smiled.

I sat there watching you for about 5 minutes before actually speaking up. I was quite shocked by the fact you’d bought that. I didn’t like needles but I wanted to try it. Bert once said it was even better than coke. Ugh, I didn’t want to think about Bert.

You had already put the liquid in the syringes, and were looking at them mesmerized.

“Fuck,” was all I said, before taking one with my left hand.

You looked up at me, surprised. You take the other one, and took hold of my free hand with yours. You inserted the needle in your skin without hesitation, pushing down the heroin into your system quickly. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply before following your lead.