We met at a week-long event in September. The very first day, he caught my eye. “Work on your speaking skills,” they told us. We were supposed to get up in front of the group assembled and say a five minute speech about a random topic chosen out of a box. Any volunteers? I cowered in my seat. He on the other hand put a lazy hand up, like he would get up as a favor to us all. And up he went. His speech was fantastic. No mumbling, no hesitation, no self-consciousness. All the traits I associated with myself were not apparent in him. Not even slightly. He intrigued me to no end. I went up to him in break time, complimenting his speech. As we talked, he pulled out a cigarette. I remember being horrified at the thought of a guy his age smoking. It’s such a bad habit! From that day on he was a constant figure in my life. My very best friend.
As I learned more about him, I learned more about a lifestyle I had only seen in movies and bad sitcoms. He was constantly at parties, getting wasted. Weed was a must-have accessory for him, without it his pockets would feel empty. The drugs.. The drugs were endless. His life revolved around self-destruction. He claimed he was having fun. I was disgusted but at the same time, a bit curious. As the months passed by, life turned on me. My parents were getting a divorce, I was moving, I suffered a broken heart, everything was all wrong. He was with me one day, we were sitting on the sidewalk in front of the movie theatre, when he took out a cigarette. I took it from his hand. More than anything I wanted him to stop me, for someone in the midst of all this craziness to care about my well-being. But he didn’t. That was the day I had my first cigarette. Such a small event but nonetheless, it all went downhill from there.

Every time things got bad at home, smoking was my reprieve. I had found my way out. After a while I decided it wasn’t enough. We made plans to meet at the park. I tried to convince him to let me smoke some of his weed. At first he was against it, arguing that it wasn’t worth it, that I was better than this. In the end, I got my way. Being high was not what I expected it to be. Instead of that “euphoric” feeling everyone can’t get enough of, I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach. Still in the days afterwards, he’d stop by after school, we’d get in his car, and after a bit of nagging he’d let me get high with him. It became routine. We had gotten so close. I had become just as dependent on him as I was on his substances. On a late July night, as we sat in our special place in the garden next to my building, he admitted his feelings for me. I liked him, I swear it. But was I ready for this? I wasn’t sure. I knew if I denied him, I would lose him. And for me that wasn’t an option. What would I become without him? So when he leaned in to kiss me, I gave in. I could taste the alcohol on his tongue.

Relationships aren’t easy. Ours was a mess. Tragedy kept striking and we were both suffering. Even as my downward spiral continued, I would not let myself get into drinking. To me that was a line I wasn’t willing to cross. Fast forward to late August, we were at a friends house. I got high, he got wasted. I safely crawled into bed that night, but he got caught by his parents. His mother had had enough. This was the last straw. I got the message the next morning from the phone he swiped from his sister. Grounded till further notice. No going out, no phone, no life. I moved a week later. We didn’t get to say goodbye. And even though we were only a couple of hours apart, the distance between us seemed endless. When he could, he’d call from his house phone without his parents knowing. During one of those calls he made me a promise. A promise he’d stop all his s*** for me. I was his priority now and once he was out of his prison he wouldn’t do anything to get him back in there, back to being away from me.

So I waited. I was in a new place, with new people, and I had no clue where I belonged in all this newness. I had stopped smoking since I had come her, determined to get a fresh, clean start. I couldn’t get used to being away from everything I once knew, didn’t know which life to hold onto. I wasn’t fitting in at school, my mother took out all the divorce madness on me, and my grades were reaching an all time low. I needed him. He made everything better. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about my problems at the beginning. Worrying about how he might see me. Pathetic? Over-dramatic? Worthless? He was class president. He had the highest grades in school. Everyone loved him. And regardless of his grounding, you could tell his parents cared a lot about him. He was my polar opposite. He would never understand. But he did. I know it may seem that we seemed horrible together. Unhealthy. But it wasn’t. I loved him and even the thought of him miles away kept me going through all the tough days. When we talked, all my problems instantly faded away. As always, he was my savior, even in his absence.

The grounding kept getting extended. Weeks turned into months. His 18th birthday came and went. Some days I felt like I would die from how much I missed him. Three months passed. Three horrid months. The day I finally saw him, I knew I was right. He was worth the wait. Everything that had once stood in our way had gone. He got his license, so he could drive up to see me. And the drinking days were over. It was finally going to work out. We were going to make it.

Stanford, Yale, Princeton. He was aiming high for college. And I soon came to realize that even without the grounding holding him back from me, he was still unreachable. The amount of work he put into school was astounding. And I tried to understand, to not feel neglected, but weeks passed and I still wasn’t seeing him. His finals came around, his future depended on these next exams. But once again, tragedy struck, and his beloved uncle passed away after his second exam. He failed the rest of his exams, ruining any chances of an acceptance to his dream colleges. And so it began again. It started small. A pack of cigarettes. A joint. Till he was back in full swing. I had been clean all this time and I was disappointed in him to no end. He used his uncle’s death as an excuse for all his actions. Still I held on. I believed in him. I knew he could change for the better. I begged him to stop. This wasn’t a path I wanted him to be on. I worried for his safety, his future, his life.

My worry turned into anger at him. Did he not care about hurting me? Disappointing me? Once again, he dragged me down with him. I went back to smoking, loving the guilt I saw in his eyes as I took the cigarette from him. New years eve. I opted out of going to a party, wanting to spend my time alone with him instead. Innocently. The night was going well, when he pulled it out. Some spray thing he claimed was a drug. Its effects lasted only for a couple of minutes but were pretty hardcore, he explained. And after watching him take hit after hit, I finally decided to join him. It was the most terrifying experience imaginable. My senses all failed me and lost myself to darkness whilst still awake. All I wanted was for it to end. My ears wouldn’t stop ringing. And as I began to come to, I couldn’t believe what I had done. I had taken drugs. I had finally stooped that low. He was laughing at my reaction, asking how much I loved it. He stopped laughing after I finally looked at him, realizing that it wasn’t a joking matter anymore.

I hated him. How could he? You don’t give someone you care about drugs. This past year, every wrong thing I did, was in his presence. And I was finally beginning to realize how much of a bad influence he was on me. He had been talking to me as I got lost in my thoughts, begging me to say something, anything, but he had soon given up, and went to sit on the sidewalk waiting till I was ready to talk. He pulled out a cigarette. In that moment, I knew that this choice was going to define who I was. To the right was who I thought was the love of my life, smoking his problems away as usual. And to my left was a street I knew I could find a taxi in to take me to the safety of home. I had to leave. This love was destructive. Nothing good could come of this. It was time to give up on this. But I couldn’t. My fear of letting go of him held me back. So I got up, and walked back to him. I smiled apologetically. He put out his cigarette and took my hand as we went to enjoy the rest of our night together. And as the time passed the voice in my head telling me to leave started to get quieter, easier to ignore. Till finally, it was gone.