Violets Are Blue

chapter 9: Violet

I walked out of the house, eating the trail mix Abigail made for me. I took a bus and made it near the law firm. From there I walked. It was only three blocks away.
The building was a little small. White bricks, with a very high thin triangular roof. I know it was probably way bigger than than it looked. The building was just between two larger buildings. I was greeted by a nurse who wore light grey scrubs. She was white with red hair.
“Welcome to Harold and Co. self-help and rehabilitation clinic,” She said, with a smile, “Is there anything I can help you with today?”
“Yes,” I said, a little nervous. I didn’t want to talk about my mother yet, “Do you offer advice to victims with a family member who is, or used to be, a drug addict?”
“Yes ma’am we do.” She replied.
I followed her into the back rooms of the clinic. I passed a room that’s for visitors. There were many people there. Some of them were recovering drug addicts, and their families were there to visit them; some of them were already recovered but still stayed here. The drug addicts would smile when their family would talk to them, my mother smiled when she would see me but it looked nothing like theirs.
I felt happy for them. They were fighting for a better life. I don’t understand addiction, but I know that quitting can be hard, and it takes discipline, faith, and commitment to beat it. I wondered if this place can help my mother find the will to fight her addiction, like the people here. Does she even want to fight to end her addiction? The nurse led me to the advising office.
“Here you can talk to ex-addicts, who will tell you their personal past with addiction, as well as what they did to fight their addiction.”
I thanked the nurse and walked in. There were many ex-addicts talking to current addicts and family members alike. I saw the lady from the other day. She was wearing a white sundress, with black sandals. She was sipping coffee. I chose her.
“Hi.” I said, as I walked up to her.
She turned to me with a nice smile. Her face looked a little better than usual from last time. She was actually quite more beautiful than I thought.
“Hello,” she said back in a calming voice, “You’re the girl from a few days ago.”
“Yeah.” I said, unsure how to start the conversation. The lady saw through me.
“Sit down, get comfortable. We can start by introducing each other. My name is Liliana Sanchez, but you can call me Lily.”
I sat down. “My name is Violet.”
“Hello, Violet. What brings you here?”
“I would like to know what you went through, while being an addict and recovering.”
Lily chuckled and said, “How much time you got?”
“Enough to hear it all.” I said.
She sipped more of her coffee and began to tell me her story.
“It started when I was sixteen. I was at a party, and I decided to try cocaine out of peer pressure. What most people think is that addiction only starts when people have depression or have other gateway drugs, but it can also happen to people who were in the moment, or under peer pressure. Once I tried it, I liked it. It gave me a feeling of euphoria, and safety. I wanted more. My friends kept on supplying me, and my parents gave up on me, after finding out. Some people would think that something like that would cause a drug addict to see the error of their ways.” She paused and looked at her coffee for a bit, before continuing, “It is only the hardest point in our lives where we need love and support the most and when it doesn’t come, you need to find something to handle it. I used the drug to numb any feeling I had. People don’t understand that most of the time a drug doesn’t make the drug addict, it’s the need to escape their reality that does. I needed it to live. I needed it to make it through another day. Unlike some addicts, I used it to get away from my problems, and some used just for the sake of it, but we all feel the same emotion. Regret of ever doing it in the first place.”
I wondered if my mother did it just for the sake to do it. But that couldn’t be true. My mother used drugs due the loss of me and her life with my father. I focused back on Lily’s story.
“After that I found myself in the streets, or spending the nights in dope houses. I needed to make money so I did what I could.”
I saw a tear fall from her right cheek.
“If you want we could talk about something else.” I said feeling sorry for her.
“No, no, it’s ok.” She replied. “A lot of ex-addicts cry while telling their story.” She pointed towards three other ex-addicts who were telling their story. They had tears, but they still kept their smile, I looked back at Lily and she had that same smile, “It's not sad for us to talk about it, it’s empowering. It lets me know that I’m able to overcome obstacles when no one else would help me.”
“Please, continue.” I said, comforted by her words. She was a wonderful woman full of wisdom. I admired her colorful and calm attitude in such a black and white world.
She sighed, “I sold myself to get my next high. I did everything humanly possible to both men and women. I felt disgusted with myself, but I found it worthwhile when I shot-up, smoked, or snorted it. When I couldn’t sell myself, I stole. I stole from random people, I stole from friends, and I stole from my own family just to get more of what I needed to feel happy. What many people don’t know is that after your first hit you are at your highest. After that your body will start to get used to it, and you’ll need more and more to feel that high from when you first used. In reality after years of using you won’t feel it anymore, and your body has just become so used to it, it wouldn’t function properly without it.” She gulped down the rest of her coffee. “I realized that while I was using, I could have easily recovered but I saw no reason to. What life would there be for me? No job will hire me, no one will respect an ex-addict. So I kept using.”
“What made you quit?” I asked.
Her smile started to fade a bit. “With all of the sex I did to get more drugs, I got pregnant.” She said.
It was dead silent. I couldn’t even talk. How can an addict raise a child, and more importantly where is it now? I let her continue.
“I still continued to use, but only little by little. I wanted to keep the child but I couldn’t sacrifice the drugs. I ended up overdosing. The mix from the pregnancy and the drugs had a bad result. I survived but……… I lost the baby.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.” I said to console her. I understood why people said they were sorry now. I just said it. It was because they were sorry for me having to experience that pain, when my father died, as if they could have done something about it. I was wishing I could have done something about Lily’s loss right now.
“Thank you,” she said, “After that, I started to take better care of myself. I had to for my lost child. I realized that I needed to fight for my life back in order to make the life that I couldn’t have happy. It was my fault that I lost it. I always wondered what life would have been like if I never lost the child. Would I still have been using or recovered? Or will I have quit, to take care of my own baby.
I got cleaned, after nearly six years of using. The programs took me close to six months, as I was dealing with psychological problems about my dependency on drugs. After everything I been through, I felt the need to help others, so I became a full time life-coach for recovering addicts at this clinic here for the past six and a half years.”
“That was a powerful story.” I told her. It made me tell her why I’m here. “I came here to ask for help. My mother is currently a drug addict and I was hoping if this place would help her.”
“Of course,” Lily said. “This is a voluntary, self-help clinic, as long as she is willing, she can join.”
Willing. I thought long and hard about that word. Was she willing? I know she has been using for a little over seven years, sometime after she officially lost me. After that many years of using will she want to quit? It took Lily six years to quit. Will she need more time to figure it out herself?
Unlike Lily, she never had a reason to get herself clean. I wish that I could have been her reason, but I can’t wish for everything to be perfect in my life. I wondered what my mother thinks of herself right now. Is she like Lily? Who knows what she is doing, but doesn’t see a life after getting cleaned? I decided to let my mother know that she can be cleaned, and that people still do care for her.
I made it home by sundown, I walked a little slower to look at the many brochures I was given. I didn’t read them; I just skimmed through the paragraphs and looked at the pictures. I walked in to see Abigail looking at TV. I began to notice for a while that she was getting a little thicker; my only guess is that all that eating is catching up to her and it's finally showing. Ten pounds doesn’t sound like much but it changes your body a lot.
I wondered why she chose food to cope. It made me wonder about what I’m coping with. Do I have a cope and not know it? Something that would get me through this? I feel like I already gotten over the the death of my father, maybe I haven’t. Maybe my coping was making sure I make him proud. If that’s not it then I don’t know what it is.
“There’s food in the microwave for you.” Abigail said, pulling me back into reality.
“No thanks, I’m not hungry.” I responded.
“Violet, I know you haven’t eaten anything today, I can see it.”
“What the hell do you know about me?” I snapped back. I hated to admit that she was right. I was hungry, but I won’t give her the satisfaction
“You know what I mean; there is no need to get angry for no reason.”
“I do have a reason. You are my reason. Your existence just pisses me off. Your ways, your past, your relationship with my father, your fucking face.”
I saw that I struck a nerve. I felt the need to be angry at her now. This was my way of getting back at her for causing my mother to be what she is today, for keeping my father away from her, and for keeping me away from a stable, happy,  family.
“There is no need for such language, Violet.” Abigail said raising her voice and using a stern tone.
I smiled a bit hoping for her to snap too. “Come on do something, I want you to.” I walked closer to her. “Just understand that once you hit me, you’ll lose everything. I’ll make sure of that, bitch,”
Abigail took a deep breath. She stood up from the couch and walked out of the room.
“That’s what I thought!” I yelled.
I walked up to my room. I slammed the door and laid on my bed. I felt bad that I did that. I wondered how she is now. I regret tempting her. I can see that she is trying to care for me but I couldn’t allow her to. Did she think that she could just replace my mother after being the reason why I lost her in the first place?
I know my father loved Abigail, and a normal child will find a way to love their step-parent for the sake of their biological parent but I wasn’t a part of that group. I only wanted to see my parents get back together. Their separation was so sudden and Abigail just appeared. Did she expect for me to love her right off the bat? Now my father is gone but she’s still here.