SIBLINGS

[6]

Indigo Chávez

I quit jazz, obviously. I mean, I already do weightlifting and shop.

I was just running away from Sullivan.

I'm so embarrassed about who I was and what I did last year.

I hate me, more than any of you do, wanna know why?

You may hate Indigo Chávez, but I almost killed Indigo Chávez.

I should've quit it so much sooner, and I'm not talking about the jazz band.

I wasn't there, y'know. That wasn't me.

That shit was, it was, evil.

I don't want to go back.

It's not just pills or weed or a little coke, it's fucking heroin. And not just heroin. Mixed with fentanyl. That shit will kill you.

At my worst, I injected 3-5 grams of black a day mixed with at most 5mg of blue

A lethal dose of fentanyl is, I think, 2.5mg because my old dealer, before Marty, would always brag that he sold me 2X the lethal dose.

But maybe he lied because I think I saw on a billboard that 1 milligram can kill you.

Marty is slowly trying to get me clean, and I'd still be injecting if it weren't for him. He makes sure not to sell me anything laced either.

At my worst though, my face always hurt cause I always had a breakout of acne and general just trying to tear my own face off because I couldn't live in my own skin, I was poisoning myself. My eyes were sunken. And I was always so angry and irritable. I hate who I was.

I still hate who I am, but at least I'm better.

I hate all the people who pretend to care or pretend to understand what it is like to live in the brain of an addict, or a depressed, or a bipolar, or literally anything that fucks you up.

You don't see me pretending to know what it's like to be bipolar, or have MDD, or anorexia, or be suicidal. Because I only vaguely know what it's like to have the last one, but I was going through horrible withdrawal. I'm not suicidal like everyone expects. I don't want to die yet.

I don't even remember half of what happened except after I got on to oxy. I just remember getting sent to rehab, the community service, the suspension, Mr. Sullivan kicking the shit out of me in a parking lot, and all of the detentions and lunch duty, and getting strip searched almost every day because I'm a threat to the school. And repairing the roof, and I know it sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but that is just scratching the surface.

In rehab, they made me go cold turkey. It was the most painful thing I've ever experienced. I wanted to die so badly because I was in what felt like endless pain. It felt like I was sick and was dying. My body could not function, and there were periods of time where I was just screaming for hours straight, on the floor, coughing up blood, vomiting, hallucinating, trying to peel my skin off to the point that they had to restrain me to a bed, which only made the hallucinations worse. I was just crying and begging for some kind of relief from the pain, some kind of buzz. I was even begging them to kill me. I may not remember everything after it or before, but I remember every second in rehab. I remember there was a point before I was strapped down, where I was gripping on one of the nurse's pants. I was on the floor, shaking, she walked in to do a routine check and as she was walking out I gripped the cuff of her scrubs and I begged for her to kill me and to let me just die. I gripped so hard I ripped her scrubs. I wouldn't shut up, I needed to die. She yanked her leg away, and I flinched and started trying to rip my face off. She screamed to other nurses that she needed a sedative. The booty juice. They put me asleep, and I woke up strapped down. That was the only drug I got the entire time.