Hooked The Making of an Addict

Chapter One: The Beginning

My name is Aaron. My life has not been the best. I've spent most of it either taking care of my mother or being locked away in my room hiding from my dad when he came home. I never had a lot of friends. No one I could really turn to. No one to share my secrets with. So I'm writing them down.

My parents were teenagers when they found out I was going to join this world. I'm sure they had other plans but their parents, my grandparents, forced them to get married and bring me here. I wish my grandparents had stayed out of it. My parents should have never been parents. They were too young.

My mother was diagnosed with lupus shortly after I was born but being teenagers with no diplomas my parents could barely get good enough jobs to pay the rent. There was no way to pay for the medication. Things got worse when she had to quit her job. The pain became too much for her. Eventually her organs couldn't take it anymore. They began slowing shutting down until she became a thinner, paler, sickly looking version of herself.

My father gave up at that point too. He would leave for work on Monday and not come back until he needed a shower and new clothes. The rent wasn't getting paid. He was blowing all the money on trying to live out the teenage years that he never got. And he made sure to let me know that everything that was happening was fault every chance he got.

I guess that's the real reason why I never had friends. I didn't want to ruin their lives too. That's about all I am good for.

After a year of my mom suffering in horrible agony her body finally just shut down. I had kissed her forehead to tell her goodbye before school and when I returned home I found her. She was laying peacefully in her bed. She didn't look sick anymore. She almost looked happy. I would have been happy too to get away from this life. Away from me.

I called the ambulance, unsure of what else to do. When they arrived they asked me what funeral home we had plans with. I didn't know. Then they wanted to know where my father was. I didn't know that either. I had to watch them take my mom in a body bag, alone.

Sixteen year old me didn't know what to do after that. I tried for days to call my dad but he refused to answer. I was scared he would be even more angry when he got home to find out Mom was gone. All I could do was hide in my room. I didn't even bother going to school.

I just waited for my dad. But he never came home. Eventually the police showed up at my door. They wanted to speak to my father. I told them he wasn't home and they wanted to know when he would be back.

You could tell by the look on their faces that they knew he wasn't coming. I felt like they knew something I didn't know when they asked me to pack an over night bag. They tried contacting both sets of my grandparents but they hadn't had anything to do with me in years so I knew they wouldn't let me stay with them.

I didn't have anyone else. My mother was dead, my father was missing, my grandparents basically disowned me. I had no one. I was alone.

The officer informed me that I would be taken into state custody until my father could be located. I had to leave what little bit of comfort I had to go to my first of many temporary foster homes.

I spent most of that night laying in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar house, in a neighborhood that seemed like a fairy tale. The streets were lined with equally shaped houses that had perfect green lawns and bright flowers planted along the front of the houses. Every single one looked almost exactly the same.

The one I was placed in looked like it came from a movie set. Everything was so clean and perfectly placed around they house. It didn't feel like somewhere people actually lived. It didn't feel like a home. I was almost to scared to get under the covers because the bed was so perfectly made.

I finally felt myself nodding off. I prayed that when I opened my eyes all of this would have been just a horrible nightmare fabricated by my over active subconscious.

But then I woke up. At first I was terrified. I had truly managed to convince myself that I would wake up in my own home. I didn't know where I was or how I got here. Then with a sudden headache everything came flooding back. I could feel my lungs tightening. I was slowly but quickly losing my breathe. All of my nightmares were coming true at an alarming rate.

"Take a deep breathe Aaron and focus on my voice."

I heard her. But I couldn't see her. It was still dark. I still couldn't breathe when she put her hand on my shoulder.

"Take a deep breathe. It's okay."

I took a deep breathe and could feel the oxygen returning to my lungs. It sent tingles down my body as my muscles started to loosen.

"Good now another one. Just keep focusing on what's around you."

I took another breathe but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be focusing on. I couldn't see anything. My breathing had finally slowed. Now all I was doing was shaking. What has happening?

"Just relax, lay back down. It's going to be okay."

I wanted to know who she was but I was too scared to ask in case this was just another dream. I just did whatever she told me to do. Something about her voice was comforting. It made all the bad feels I had just disappear.

I laid there for what felt like hours waiting for her to leave too. But she didn't she sat quietly on the edge of the bed until I fell back to sleep. I didn't know what was reality at this point but I was okay with what ever this was. I felt her body shift. I knew she thought I was sleeping and was going to return to wherever she came from.

I didn't want to be alone again.