Addicted

2

"Ocean! Wake up!" I lifted my head the best I could, I was so drowsy and still on a high from yesturday.

"What's wrong April?"

"I just wanted to wake you up and tell you I'm leaving, I gotta go. This is the hour when guys with a lot of money come around, and I need to go get more stuff so I can have us set for later." April ended up getting twisted into being a prostitute a few months back, she's so far gone that she doesn't care about what she does for drugs or who she does. I won't lie, sometimes I'm the same way too, but I try to only do it when I'm in need but sometimes it's not always like that. "I'll be back later on, I left you some pills."

"Alright, thanks." I said grabbing the bag and getting my stuff, it was around 4am but I was gonna go out too, it was a start of a new day and that means I needed a new high. On my way out I popped the few pills she saved me, and walked down to the subway station. I sat there for a little while, nodding in and out cause I was so fucked up. Around this hour, all the dealers and junkies like me were out on the prowl, looking for what they needed, and they all flooded up the subway station.

"River! That's your name right?" A drunk woman that I recognized said as she was stumbling over to me. I'd see her everytime I would get down to the station early, I got high with her a couple times too. "Nah, it's not River it's Lake."

"No, it's Ocean."

"Aw damn, girl I was close enough. Ocean, Sea, Puddle, whatever. Listen, you got anything on you we can make a trade?"

"I got one more pill left, you wanna give me a few cigarettes?"

"Yeah, yeah. Let me get that." She gave me the two cigarettes and I gave her my last pill, I popped about three before I got here so I needed something to help calm it out. "Thanks girl, I'll see you Pond." I laughed and shook my head, reaching in my bag and realizing I didn't have not one lighter on me.

"Damn it." I said slowly getting up and walking towards the bathrooms, cause sometimes I would find lost lighters anywhere near there, but of all days not today.

"What you looking for?" A guy that was standing out by the bathrooms said looking at me up and down. He was tall, brownskinned and skinny with a lot of tattoos and looked like he was one of the dealers cause he looked too clean to be like me.

"I just need a lighter."

"You look like you had a lot of shit already, I can see it in your eyes. I like them by the way they're so bright and blue."

"I have, but that's my business. And I heard it all before, my eyes are blue and beautiful, thanks that's nothing new. You have a lighter or what?"

"Yeah." He said reaching in his pocket and handing me the lighter. I lit my cigarette and stood there with him for a little longer, sometimes I liked to be nosey and see what someone had to see if I could get some of what they do have. "What's your name?"

"Ocean."

"Your name matches those pretty ass eyes of yours, that's beautiful. Why you out here in the streets like this though? You too pretty for all this shit, it's a nasty ass world out here."

"Yeah I been in this 'nasty ass world' since I was 12, that's why I'm out here. I don't see myself leaving either, this is all I know."

"Shit happens sometimes, I get it. You got a boyfriend?"

"Nah, I don't do that shit. I just like to get high and fucked up, drugs is my boyfriend."

"Well I got some things you might like, but you gonna have to earn it though, I'll give it to you if you don't have money, but you know what I'd want." I took some totes of the cigarette and looked over at his devious eyes and his smirk of a smile, but my mind was all for it cause my mind was on one thing and one thing only.

"How much of it you got?" I said blowing out the last bit of smoke and throwing the end of the cigarette on the ground.

"As much as you need." He said and he grabbed my hand and walked into the bathroom with me, going into a stall and locking the door in the process. I wasn't proud with what I would do to get my drug, or money. It wasn't my first time, and sometimes I'd hate myself afterwards, but I was so alone and numb that the feeling would go away, cause I know this was all I had for my life, it wouldn't get any better.

****************************

It was late in the afternoon, I was sitting up against the wall in the building, by myself at the moment. I came back early cause it started to rain, I didn't wanna be out in that and I had enough stuff for the rest of the day and night. I was already so high, nodding in and out as I sat there. I felt so empty, and alone, it was like I was dying. Until I heard some footsteps coming up the stairs, it could've been anyone cause this was the spot, people were in and out both old and new faces, and this was a face I knew.

"Wow, you're back. I can't believe you're still alive, they said you were dead." I said to the girl that was coming over to me. She was about 17 years old atleast, she's a runaway from Jersey, for the last few years she's been in and out of here. Few months ago they were saying she died, but no one was too sure of it.

"Yeah, I had ran off with this guy, but I escaped out of it, now I'm back around here." She said coming to sit down next to me.

"Been there, done that."

"I know, it was just something I had to run from, I was tired of him beating me half to death, taking what I would earn. I needed to get away."

"Right, right. I understand." I said listening to her telling me all about what she's been going through.

"We ran away to Connecticut, it was scary how much he just treated me so differently, it felt like I was home all over again. Do you ever get that feeling Ocean?" I sat there in silence as she said that, cause I was so dazed out but at the sametime I was slightly thinking about what she had said. A million memories came rushing to the front of my brain, hitting the sides of my head like bullets. My head started pounding and I felt my heart begin to race. There was times when I'd feel like I was back home, when guys would rape me, or beat me, my mother's boyfriends would do the same to me.

"You know sometimes she would be sitting right there, watching or getting high cause in exchange she'd give them me, her addiction was more important than me. Or sometimes I would hide, and watch them beat her up from the closet I would hide in, sometimes I'd be in there for days. I'd go days without eating I'd try and sneak out the closet to get anything I could find in the house when she would leave."

"Ocean, I'm sorry for making you think about all that-"

"What really got to me most is that she knew they would rape me, or touch me and she wouldn't do a thing about it. How do you sit there and watch as your two year old child gets raped? How do you sit there?!"

"Relax, you're gonna end up getting too worked up-"

"She would put up this act in front of the child services people, like she was mother of the year. She would make me lie, threaten to beat me if I told them anything. My mom used me to her advantage and my dad is no where to be found, because I was just a whore's child. I wasn't his child to him, just a whore's. I wasn't good enough for him to be around for, he could've tried to save me! No one tried to save me I wouldn't be here where I am if I seen what normal life was!" I said as I started to shake and get out of breath, and sweating. From me being so high, my heart was already half ass racing, and making me upset was even worse. Right now, I was nervous for myself. My mom died from an overdose, and I know that would probably be the way I die too, just like her cause it seems like I did nothing in my life right, all I knew was how she was, I only knew to live like her.