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Five Years Later

It was the annoying sounds of beeping that once again reminded Julianna Vaughn that she wasn't dead. The teenage girl opened her eyes and let out a defeated groan as she slowly sat up , staring at the big red box that flashed over the annoying sound box that woke her up every damn morning. Even in the summer. Of course it was never this early, that would be for morning shifts at the restaurant she works at, where she'd have to be up by eight so that she could get up, get dressed, mentally prepare, before she had to drive into the main part of town.

She spent all summer working at a seafood restaurant in the middle of town. It was a highly respected restaurant, it wasn't a chain one, lots of high class people would go there. The pay was great and considering that Julianna was the only source of income to keep their small, box size house, and on top of that, her college fund, she needed all the money she could get. She did consider working two jobs at once but she decided to make that decision in the summer of her senior year, well, if she were still here by that point. A wish that's always been one of hers was to close her eyes and never open them back up. To fall into the whole that swallowed away Charlie and to be with the one person she ever loved and trusted. To slip away, without the pain attached. But for now, working and school were the only things on the girl's mind. Not even her best friend, Noa Olivar was on her radar.

This summer, rather than spending it at parties with her only friend, Julianna found herself picking up every single available shift that she could. Not because she didn't want to spend time with Noa, but because Noa wasn't here. At the end of their sophomore year in June, three days after Noa's sixteenth birthday, Noa was arrested after police were tipped off about illegal substances in her apartment. Noa was arrested and charged for the use of illegal substances and spent her entire summer in juvie. She wasn't allowed to see anyone and was pretty much isolated for about one hundred days. Now that summers over, Noa still has community service, has to take urine tests every day for the whole school year and is even wearing an ankle monitor for the first month back to school. Julianna only knew this after Noa's mom, Marjorie Olivar, stopped by her house to check on her mother, Christine Vaughn. Chris, her nickname that Charlie gave her after rescuing to acknowledge her as a mother, has not changed. Julianna is still taking care of her everyday. Her smoking hasn't gotten better, sometimes she'll find drugs in their house that she hadn't heard of before, but the worst was her drinking. Her drinking had become a successive addiction. In the past year, Julianna can't think of one day she's woken up to her mother not passed out on the couch or a day where she hasn't come home to see her mother not have a beer or wine in her hand. Julianna has always been angry with her mother, yet she has slowly come to the terms that her mother was never going to change. Especially if she never gets professional help. It's not that Julianna hasn't tried to get her mother help, but her mother has always threatened her, bringing up past memories that caused Julianna pain. So she's stopped interacting with her mother all together, basically raising herself.

Julianna can't say she's clean either, all the bad habits she's picked up in the last few years. She has gone several months without harming herself and she was determined to stay clean. Smoking, not so much. There's a large supply at her home so taking a pack, her mother wouldn't even notice. As for drinking, after seeing what it's done to her mom, she's tried staying away from it. Some nights will get the better of her, and she's always so angry with herself in the morning, but she has gotten better. It is hard to do it without someone by your side. Noa was always there for Jules When she would have one of her anxiety or panic attacks as well if she was just having a really bad day in general. With her away for all of the summer, Julianna had to learn how to save herself. Noa has had problems in the past, a lot with eating since she's a runner much like Julianna, and always worried about her weight and making sure she was staying fit. However, Noa had been clean for over a year and looked like she was only going to get better from there. Noa has also dealt with a depressive episode due to feeling too stressed because of her mom. Julianna is not the only one with a dysfunctional family, in fact, that's how Noa and Julianna actually became friends.

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