The Clara Effect

Mat

I was listening to my Mom talk on the phone about my dad, she was half drunk, half naked and smoking pot.

Then my phone lit up the dark room, light hurt Mom's head.

"Hello?" I said, I was happy to hear it was Flora, but her tone told me that I shouldn't be.

"Mat," she said, "I have some." She paused, Flora did that a lot, "Some very bad news." Her voice broke, and I sat up, no longer listening to what Mom was saying about my dead beat father, I put my full focus on my friend.

What she told me I didn't believe.

What she told me knocked the breath out my lungs.

What she told me I couldn't take, it was like a pill too big to swallow, and I choked.

"This can't be happening," I whispered into the phone long after Flora was gone. Tears welled in my blue eyes, eyes that she had once called pretty.

"Fuck him, left me for some bitch at his fucking office with two fucking kids," My mother's voice came crashing into my ears, and I didn't want to hear any of it. It was too loud, she was too loud, my thoughts were too loud. "Was our kid not good enough? FUCK NO! What the hell was-" I ignored her insults and placed myself next to her, she passed me some of what she was having and I smoked it like it was my last day on earth. I kind of hoped it was.

***

I didn't go to the funeral, I couldn't move out of my bed let alone be surrounded by people who were suffering so much, I couldn't handle it. I also had a pounding headache from being all night and drinking way too much. Clara would be upset with me, she would tell me I'm being stupid, that I had a future. But Clara's not here no more, and I'm tired of always saying no to things that could possibly help my forget.

She was my best friend.

And I thought I was hers. God, I wanted to be mad, so mad, but I couldn't be mad. So I smoked her away, drank her away.

Summer was a blur of doing things I regretted.

Summer was me trying to escape the inescapable, to forget.

Nothing my mother had was strong enough to fight off the pain, but I was too scared to start saying no again after saying yes all summer, so I avoided her too. But I craved the burn of alcohol and the smell of weed. I wanted to feel the bubbles again and the high that seemed endless and too short all at the same time.

I loathed myself for turning into my mother, for being everything I spent my seventeen years trying not to be. But I deserved that loathing, I didn't even notice she was hurting, I didn't even know she was in pain. Some best friend I am.

You are a failure.

One hit.

You should be with her.

Two.

No one truly wants to stay with someone as pathetic as you.

Three hits.

The world slows and I don't feel so bad, I looked at my mother in this Euphoric haze, surprised at how alike we look, the only difference between us was that my red hair was shorter than hers and she had brown eyes instead of blue. I giggled.  

Maybe I should go with Clara. I laughed at the thought and Mom laughed with me even though she had no clue what I was laughing about.

There was six days until school and I was preparing by getting high, I laughed even harder, but I no longer felt the joy.

***

I groaned as a light filled my room, I had a text and it was from Flora.

"Five days until school starts, are you ready?" Her text glowed against my face, and I thought deeply about replying. What would she say if she knew what I had been up to? Panic swallowed me whole and an hour later I was still thinking about it, but I hadn't replied at all.

That was what I was like sober, panicky, in pain, filled with grief. It ached to see myself spiral like this, it was out of control, I was out of control. But I needed it all to cope. She wouldn't understand how much I needed it. So I deleted the text from my notifications and laid in bed until I felt ready to deal with how quickly the days were passing now. School was coming to me faster than I wanted it to.

And I didn't get out of bed that day, I laid there all day, pretending that I was someone else and trying to convince myself that I needed to get up, that I needed a shower, but I didn't care. I just laid there. And when it became dark again, I laid there some more, letting a new kind of darkness consume me, one I never saw coming.

One that would tear me apart slowly until I was nothing, until I felt nothing, and I only gave it fuel. I helped it take my light away, I helped it kill me. It was my fault after all, I failed a person who saw good in me, who saw greatness.

I deserved this, and no one could convince me otherwise.