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Chapter 24

I drove carefully, procrastinating my arrival to school.
The thought of Caleb asleep under my covers made me almost immediately regret leaving the bed. But I knew I had to go to school. Then I thought about the left over meth and I really was regretting it. My hands tightened around the steering wheel of the car as I debated turning around.
I felt like I was in a haze, half out of reality. My eyes were heavy but I was awake and was no where close to falling asleep. The rush was gone but I was still high. My heart was still beating and it was in my blood. My phone vibrated several times until I picked it up. It was Zaya, again.
I was hearing voices all night.
Why won't they stop?
Dammit Ashley answer me.
Aha, I am dying.
I rolled my eyes and quickly replied to the girl.
Stfu. Ur okey. Almost at skool
I didn't get a text back.
I hit every stop light there was on the way to school. All 4 of them. My body was tingling and everyone sounded so far away. Like they were in a world apart from mine. They were in a world apart from mine.
Because I've created my own world. I still felt the high in my veins, I grinded my teeth knowing I could be higher. As I sat at a stop light, I noticed a couple sores on my wrist. They hadn't been there yesterday. I reached over and ran my fingers across them, resisting the urge to pull at them, to pick them away, to dig at my skin. I licked my lips and lightly stepped on the gas. I watched the road bend to reveal the start of the school parking lot. Kids shuffled half asleep into the doors and I picked the parking spot farthest away from everything. I wanted to be alone, left in my haze. Though, sure enough, as soon as I pulled into the spot, my passenger door opened. I looked over to see Zaya. I pulled my keys out of my ignition and watched Zaya shiver in my seat next to me. "How did you know where I was gonna park?", I asked her. She smiled at me. "Easy, I just went to the most secluded part of the parking lot where all the celebate fucks park".
I eyed her. She was speaking abnormally fast and kept moving her jaw. "Are you calling me a celebate fuck?", I asked. She laughed, high pitched and quiet. I realized I had never even asked how old she was. What if she was a freshman, only 14 or 15 years old? "Zaya. Dont talk so fast. People can tell your tweaking", I whispered. She smiled at me happily. "I guess I've never cared enough to fix that. And no one cared enough to point it out", she said. I opened the car door but Zaya pulled it closed again. She reached into her pocket and handed me a bag. It was meth. "How did you get this?", I asked her. "Seems I got my own connections".
She pulled out a pipe. At first I thought she was suggesting that we smoke crank in a weed pipe then I realized it wasn't a weed pipe. She sprinkled the meth into the pipe and ran a lighter underneath it. I thought back to my promises of not getting addicted. I'm not addicted. I can stop at any point. The thing was, I didn't want to stop. I did not want to. She got the bowl rolling and handed it to me.
I inhaled all the crushed up pills and ammonia and all the unknown cuts in the crank. I tasted every chemical. After the bag was gone and we were 20 minutes late, I walked to my first hour. I was high, in my rush. My body was tingling with energy and AWAKE. Man was I awake. I felt like I could breathe when I was high. Zaya walked with me to classes. Our blank faces and grinding teeth. She yelled at anyone who bumped into her. Even if she purposely ran into them. I smirked at them, not caring. In fact, it was a little funny. We were walking to sixth hour when I stopped to get a drink. I bent over and pressed the button because my mouth was dry. I was so thirsty.
A boy was walking by and I suppose he accidentally brushed by Zaya's arm. I turned around the same moment she grabbed him by his head she smashed it into the cement walls of the hallway. I cringed at the sight of his head cracking into the wall. In seconds, a circle was around the two of them. No one pulled Zaya off of the boy and he never really had the chance to defend himself or block his face. He lay unconscious on the ground as Zaya profusely beat his face. His eye was swelling and blood was on the floor. She stood up, not having realized that kids were gawking at her. "What? You've never seen a girl kick ass before?", she screamed. A few kids backed away from her, terrified. But I knew it was the drugs talking. Seeing her like this made me wonder if I'd ever do the same thing. She was shaking when she grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the kids. She was smiling like a maniac and I was pretty damn sure that she was pretty damn crazy. I followed her, excitement in my veins. It burned. But it felt so good. I could still taste it in my mouth. Maybe that's why I wanted even more. Because it was literally on the tip of my tongue and every time I swallowed I felt it in my stomach. I felt numb and whole all at the same time, even hours after we had smoked. A thought creeped into my head.