Addict

Part One- Prologue

Anymore, I feel like I'm just skin and smoke. Let me explain.. Ever since I was little, maybe, nine or ten, I knew I was different. No I didn't think I'd be a drug addict, or practically homeless, but I knew I wasn't gonna be what my moms wanted me to be at the time.

By middle school, around eighth grade, I had smoked my first cigarette. I remember it clearly. I was with some of my friends, Becca and Ray, both sophomores in high school. And I had been friends with them for about a year, we would hang out almost everyday at the park or at each other's houses. We all lived in the same trailer park.. Jakes Brooke.. Anyway, I had seen them smoke hundreds of cigarettes (and other things to be honest) but never, until that day, did I smoke one myself. And this is wrong, but I don't regret it either. It made me feel some way, I can't describe it, but it must have been fucking good because now it's an addiction that's been clinging to my side for four years, and I can't shake it. I was thirteen, seventeen now, and the cigarettes have become my best friend. Probably a terrible way to describe it, I would call it a disease if I were trying to sound like I wasn't fucked up in the head, but usually people don't ask for diseases. I wouldn't stop smoking if my life depended on it. I'd let it kill me first.

People always ask me why. Why I've let my life crumble, become nothing. And it's the most gut wrenching question to answer, because while the answer makes sense to me, I sound like an asshole to everyone else (except my friends of course, because they get it.) But this is how the answer usually turns out. You see, my moms, she wants me to be all these things that I'm not. She wanted an A student, who played sports, and went to church, and wanted to be at home every night at five-thirty so we could eat dinner as a family. But instead she got a kid who can't focus for more than five minutes, who only gets exercise if she's walking to her friends house, joking about "God and the Holy Sprit" in their living room, where she'll then eat dinner, and walk home after dark. Not exactly the ideal daughter. But my moms is crazy. She tries to control my whole life. Every damn second the bitch is screaming at me. It would be one thing I'd I did something. That's one thing about me, I own my shit, but she finds reasons to yell at me. It's hell. And I can't explain it. Only she and I get it. But she likes to pretend she's the greatest mom in the world. She tells herself and everyone else about the fun we had when I was a kid, and how I've changed so much. I don't remember having fun while she had a child molester as my babysitter while she worked at the bar and went out with friends from six A.M. 'till eight P.M. I don't remember her sleeping on the couch with a bottle of beer feeding me week old leftovers my grandmother made ever being all that fun. She has this fucked up idea that she created the perfect life for me, and I screwed up myself. I mean, sure, if I didn't have these addictions my life would be better, but it wouldn't be what she tells herself it would. She makes all the other moms feel bad for her, so they just think I'm a shit kid who hates my mom. I have reasons. But I don't owe that explanation to anyone really.

Besides, it's not like I'd get anywhere in life. I like doing one thing. Writing. And that's hard, being a writer. It's hard for great writers to get out and be successful, let alone shit writers- exhibit A, me. So what does a person with one unrealistic aspiration in life do? I'd rather do what I'm doing right now instead of trying to fix my life so one day I can be something I never wanted to be in the first place. At least now I'm having fun. Like all the adults will say, life is short. It's funny ya know, they only listen to those words until your idea of fun isn't what they had planned.

So I hop homes. About three years ago, I was fourteen, my moms called me from my room. I was doing good. I hadn't smoked in months. I had all B's, (except for one c, which should have been a B, but whatever) which was good for me, and I was even cleaning around the house, because she was "working" I knew she wasn't working though, because the paycheck and her hours didn't add up, she was partying, but I didn't want conflict, so I pretended I thought she was working. We were getting along. Things were good on the surface. Which is all she looked at. But she tells me, in simplified form "Listen, Kate. Your behavior is out of hand. I've tried everything. But you don't listen, you gotta find a new place to live by next week." She faked a few tears, pretended that this decision hurt her too, but it didn't. So I live with five of my friends, I go from one house to another, stay for maybe two days, then on to the next one. We all live in the trailer park, so it's not like I need a ride to their houses. Becca lives two houses down from my moms, Ray lives across the road from her, and all the others live right near. I like to stay with Becca and Ray the most though. We've known each other the longest, they're the closest thing to family I got. I don't think family means genes, or who fucked and ended up with you, I think it means who you can go to when everyone else is gone.

I don't mind the whole hopping houses thing at all really. I mean, sometimes I wish I actually had a home that I could go to every night, but it's the life I have, I gotta take it, and run.