Real Life: 3 Girls in Rehab - Page 2

It’s Too Late Now

I couldn’t wait for the party. My mom was so happy that I was going to a party that she said she’d watch my brother and sister.

Everyone from school was there. I recognized faces but I didn’t know any names. I wandered around, trying to look like I was having fun, but wishing I had never shown up. Just as I was about to leave, I saw the two girls from gym class. They seemed pleased to see me. They introduced me to the guy who I had talked to on the phone.

I was so relieved to see him there. I wanted a pill so badly. He took me by the hand and walked me outside. He didn’t say a word. He just looked around very quickly, then pulled out a little plastic bag filled with pills from his pocket and asked if it was what I was looking for.

I wanted to grab the bag and just swallow a pill right then and there. But there was the matter of paying for them. He leaned over told me he knew of a "sales position" where I could make enough money to buy as many little pills as I wanted. That didn’t sound too bad, so I gladly offered to take the job. All I needed to do was sell a couple of pills around school to other students. It sounded simple enough. He told me when to meet him each week, where he would give me the pills and I could give him the money and he’d give me all the pills I needed for myself.

It sounded like a good plan. But he warned me about a few things. "If you are caught, you don’t know who I am," he said. "And you have to sell all the pills I give you or you don’t get any for yourself."

The rules sounded okay. But I had one more question. "What if I change my mind and I don’t want to sell anymore?" I asked. "It’s too late now to change your mind," he said, and walked away, leaving me with my bag of pills.

Feeling Good

Each pill made me feel good for about six hours, and when I started to feel like I was coming down, I’d take another one. I was feeling good all the time. It didn’t take long before I was selling pills to other students as if I had been doing it all my life.

I became popular with a lot of the kids at school. It seemed like everyone knew my name. When I got home from school, the telephone rang nonstop. My sister and brother didn’t care. All they knew was that I wasn’t looking over them like I did before. And my mom was really happy I had made friends at school. She never knew I was on drugs, and even if she had suspected, she wasn’t at home long enough during the week to notice anything strange going on. I needed the little pill all the time now. I was so happy all the time. My grades were dropping and a few teachers pulled me aside to find out if everything was okay. I told them I had to work after school to bring in extra money for the family (most knew about my living situation) and it was taking time away from my studying. But I promised them I would try harder.

Life seemed great. I called the pill my "magic friend." I sold more than enough pills during the week to earn my own pills and extra spending money. I eventually ran out of closet space with all the new clothes I had bought. So I started buying my sister and brother clothes and toys, and then my mom some nice stuff. They were all so pleased. When my mom asked where I was getting all the money, I told her I had taken a paying job at school tutoring other students. I told her I was making great money. She didn’t question me again.