Life as We Know It.

Alison Maleah Davis

I groan, slamming my laptop closed. My life wasn't supposed to get this out of control. I wasn't supposed to end up like this. Drinking and smoking, partying every night of the week, not knowing the difference between reality and the thoughts locked in my head, sleeping with guys when I have a boyfriend. A boyfriend that I love and want to spend my life with. A boyfriend that is currently across the North Atlantic Ocean. A boyfriend proudly serving our country, while I'm stuck here.

As much as I want to think, or say that it's the distance between Austin and myself, it's not. It's my own fucked up notion on how love works; you can thank my parents for that. It's not supposed to be happy, easy, or perfect. Relationships are supposed to be hard work with fights and struggle. You know that it's real that way, you've fought for each other and in the end when all is said and done, the other person knows just how much you love them. My relationship wasn't, isn't, like that. Before Austin enlisted in the Army at the end of his senior year and my sophomore year, we never even had a disagreement. Austin just went along with anything I told him, no questions asked.

So when he enlisted, it came as a shock. Because he just did it, without asking or talking to me about it. I understand that it's his life and he can do whatever the fuck he wants but I was just getting used to the idea that relationships could actually work. They all don't have to be a train wreck like my parents' was. But he left to protect and serve and at first it was great but then it turned into lonesomeness. And the lonesomeness grew into a monster that demanded to unglue me. So I started to self-medicate. Alcohol, drugs, boys.

I mean there is only one boy; Tony. He's the exact opposite of Austin. That's probably why I like him so much; because he reminds me nothing of what I so badly crave. Tony is bad news though. When Gemma found out about him she nearly ripped my head off, threatening to tell Austin what I had been up too. She always threatens that, but she never does. As close as she has come to Austin, we'll always be closer. She knows that this is just a fucked up phase.

I was never big on booze until Tony and I met. Now I'm a perpetual lush; craving the way the liquor burns my throat and fogs my head. Soon Tony is introducing me to the life of drug use. I've done it all; weed, pills, cocaine, heroin, mushrooms. I'm not addicted, it's purely recreational. If I'm at a party, I'll do a line of coke just because it's there and I can.

When I first started going downhill, Gemma would immediately come to my rescue. Now she barely picks up the phone and when I see her next she doesn't even ask what I wanted because she already knows. I needed saving, once again.

But the guilt I have over it doesn't stop me from going out every night, getting fucked up and having sex with Tony, just like I did the moment I got off the computer with Austin. I just turn to my other two friends for help. Most of the time I call Natalie for help. Her dad is an alcoholic and her boyfriend dabbles in drugs so she's familiar with how to take care of my inebriated ass. But tonight she's not answering, so I call Lauren.

"Hello?" I her grumble into the phone, obviously I had woken her up.

"I need you to pick me up. I'm at SAC, Desmond Hall," I say then quickly hang up before she could say no.

Nearly an hour later I see her beat up Alero pulling up in front of Desmond Hall; the co-ed residence hall where one of Tony's friends lives. A I get in I notice that Lauren is still in pajamas; baggy gray shirt nearly covering her small pajama shorts, her slippered cover foot still on the brake pedal.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" she asked in an annoyed tone.

I glance down at the digital clock, the green numbers read a little after three in the morning. Oops. "I didn't realize."

"Did you realize that it takes a good forty-five minutes to get here and it'll take another forty-five minutes to get back home, putting us at almost four in the morning? I was a biology test in the morning."

"I'm sorry," I mumble but we both know that I don't mean it, so I don't know why I even say it.

I hear Lauren sigh and I know that she's rolling her eyes. "Pretty soon, I won't be able to do this anymore either; Gemma is right for giving you tough love."

"Gemma is a bitch," I mumble, this I mean.

Another sigh comes from Lauren. "How drunk are you?"

"Not that drunk, but I did a few lines of coke lie thirty minutes before you showed up, so I feel pretty good."

Lauren knows not to take me to my house, so she takes me to her home instead. She lives in a small condo with her parents. It's nice and warm and I love her parents. Everyone loves her parents. They're happy and funny and understanding. I constantly wish that I could have had parents like Lauren's.

Lauren and I only get about thirty minutes of sleep do to the fact that once I began to come down from my high, I realized I was way more shit faced than I originally thought. And Lauren was stuck taking care of me while making sure her parents didn't wake it.

I was still kind of buzzed when we pulled into the parking lot and it showed. My hair pulled up in a messy bun with a blue headband to keep the loose strands away from my face. The sweatshirt I'm wearing is Lauren's dad but it was the first thing I touched when I raided their drier, looking for something to wear.

I take a large breath and follow Lauren out of the car and venture into the school where the lights were a little too bright and the students were several octaves too high. But I made it through, and with only one incident where I rushed to the bathroom during lunch to throw up the rest of the contents in my stomach, which was basically just bile. When I came back to the table I noticed a look on Gemma's face; one that I didn't see often. Sad and remorseful, like she actually cared for me.