You Must Be the One

Gold & Silver 3/4

Well, did she make you cry
Make you break down
Shatter your illusions of love?
And is it over now, do you know how?
Pick up the pieces and go home

Over the years, she'd come to learn that the reasons for why people used were never the same. Childhood trauma, depression, never quite feeling at home in your own skin, peer pressure; a need to fit in. Access, availability, something to do. They just liked the way it made them feel, plain and simple.

With her, it wasn't just one thing. There had always been an ache, an emptiness in her that nothing could fill. For awhile, she'd convinced herself fame was the answer; the movies, the television roles, the notoriety, the money...she was sure the more she had, the more fulfilled she would be.

Nothing else in her life could provide quite the same level of euphoria, of bliss. It connected her to people, to herself. One hit and all of her anxiety disappeared, the pressure to look a certain way, gone. She was more lovable, more fun to be around. Charming. Smart. Not even sex could replace the rush of dopamine she got from a single bump.

She'd smoked pot in high school at the occasional party, during her brief sojourn at NYU, but she hadn't cared for it, finding it made her jumpy and kind of paranoid and not at all mellow like her friends claimed it would make her.

Hard drugs were a different story. The first time she was introduced to coke was at a party in Hollywood and she had only done it out of some sense of morbid curiosity. To be polite, maybe, to her host who'd offered.

She wasn't planning on falling in love. It was just supposed to be a casual dalliance, a fleeting, occasional thing. She played over and over in her head at night; the what-ifs. What if she had been shown a crystal ball, seen all the trouble she would be in for, what she'd lose...would she have gone ahead with it? Or would she stepped away, stopped before she even started?

The really terrible thing was, like a jilted lover, even having the foresight that she did, if cocaine had been right there, right in front of her, she would've taken it back, fallen head over heels once more.

She slept over Natali's place on Friday night, perfectly content to camp out on the sofabed with a bowl of popcorn and Casablanca, their go to when they couldn't agree on what to watch.

In the darkness, she studied her sister's features thoughtfully, watching the light from the television flicker across them in patches.

"Do I have something on my face?" Natali joked, poking her lightly in the ribs.

The gentle teasing was a relief; the night prior had shaken the younger woman, she could tell. It wasn't like her to fall apart in front of anyone; family included, and Natali had tried her best to comfort her, to provide reassurance.

She shouldn't have to. It's not fair to her. She should be able to have her own life without worrying about me all the time.

"Nah. I just want to say sorry. About the other night."

Natali rolled over, shooting her a quizzical look. "For?"

She propped up on an elbow. "You don't have to take on my problems. Not fair to you."

"Hey, no. Nope, none of that. Look at me." Her brown eyes were serious. "You're my sister. We're family. I love you. That's all you gotta know, Stef. You're not a burden. You're a real pain in the ass sometimes, but you've always been like that."

A corner of her mouth turned up. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, and you know I mean, too. I'm not going anywhere, Stefani. You'd do the same thing for me. Or anyone else in your life that needed you. No questions asked."