notice; cash

medicine

cameron came to school different. he looked much more... happy, or something like that. he'd never smile, and if he did, you could immediately tell it was fake.

"why so happy today?" one girl asked him.

"nothing much. i just feel different." he chuckled.

yeah, you look different.

"why you staring at him, nash? you got a crush?" my friend asked. i laughed, trying to cover it up.

"what? no! me liking cameron dallas? dude, no way in hell!"

school ended, and i headed home.

walking down the street, i heard leafs being kicked across the smooth pavement. i looked behind me, cameron was skipping.

he skipped past me, a plastic bottle falling off his bag, falling on my foot.

i picked it up.

medicine?

cameron's been taking pills.

"i swear, guys, cameron takes pills, but i don't know why." i admitted to my friends. we were at my house.

"of course he does, he's a suicidal freak. i'm sure he pretended to be happy today so we could notice."

"c'mon, nash. the medicine is driving him insane." my other friend told me.

indeed, cameron did become insane, but soon calmed down when he started having fans.

he became famous, dropped out of school, and stopped having pills.

well, at least that's what i heard from the girls at school.

i, too, dropped out of school, the same year as cameron, but different months. he dropped out in may, i dropped out at the end of the school of the school year, december.

i didn't keep in touch with my friends, or really anyone from the school.

when cameron left, i became depressed. everything i did made me sad, or frustrated.

i started cutting, and tried to commit suicide multiple times, blaming myself for everything that cameron went through.

mum found out i cut when she found a blade full of blood inside the toilet cabinets.

after that, she made me go to therapy take medicine.

"you've got a warm heart, you've got a beautiful brain, but it's disendicating from all the medicine," she'd always tell me when i'd cry.

my therapist would always tell me, "you can go home. it's just irrelevant. it's just medicine." but still, i never gave up.

i have this hope in me, that one day i'd finally be happy and be able to let go of the past.

i now know what it's like to be in cameron's shoes.