We Are Broken (Tayley)

The Beginning

It was my senior year and I was ready to live it up. I had waited my entire life for this and now that it was here I wasn't letting go. I had already made the cheer team, which I was stoked about even though I really only had one friend on the squad. Her name was Sarah-Beth, because her parents were both dead set on the name they chose, so the just called her both.

I used to love going to her house because she had two moms, only both of them kept their own last name so everyone refused to believe they were legitimately married. I used to laugh at her all the time because she had two last names, too. She was Sarah-Beth Jardine-McDougall. I just thought that was funny back then.

Anyway, Sarah-Beth had a lot more friends than me, but we were still the closest. This just meant I got invited to a lot of parties with a lot of people I didn't know very well and did a lot of bat-shit crazy stuff. I was that awkward goody-goody kid before I met her, but then she got me to trade my ballet shoes for a cheer uniform and gave me a pack of cigarettes. Over the years a lot of people have said that she was a bad friend for doing it, but I felt so much better about the world and myself after she did.

Anyway, I was skipping with her one day and we were smoking behind this dumpster when she asked if I had ever done drugs. 

"Duh, dumbass, you were there." I laughed.

"No, I mean like the heavy shit. I mean weed's fun but it's just that. I mean the serious stuff. Heroine, stuff like that." She grinned. She had a really high pitched voice and if it were coming from anyone else I probably would've told them to shut up after everything they said but for some reason I was okay with it on Sarah-Beth.

I shook my head. "I've got a scholarship. I don't want to fuck that up."

She wrinkled her nose mockingly. "Don't be a pussy! I met this guy last week and he could hook us up with meth if you're up for it. I think I'm going to try it out."

I shook my head. I don't know what it was about Sarah-Beth that made me different. I swore around her, drank, did drugs, but I only ever wanted to do them when she was there. This was the limit, though. I did some pretty stupid stuff but meth crossed the line between fun stupid and idiot stupid.

Twirling my cross necklace with two of my fingers, I took a drag. "I mean, I'll hang with you while you get stoned but only because you get fucking hilarious when you're baked. Don't try to make me take that shit, though."

"Alright, Hayley. Good job showing you're not a total bore." She laughed.

Our visit got cut short when the bell rang. Flicking my cigarette butt on the ground, I headed to my next class. I didn't skip often, usually only once or twice per month and never more than one class at a time.

A little bit more backstory, whenever Sarah-Beth and I would get high we would do it with this group. They were the kind of friends that would say 'Hi' when you passed them in the hallway but wouldn't really talk to you outside of school unless they had a reason. We also only did shit like that on Fridays or Saturdays because I could handle being hungover on weekends but it was miserable at school.

Anyway, for the next few weeks I didn't do anything too bad, just smoking really. I did a lot of stupid things, I knew it back then and I know it now, but I wasn't an idiot. I was careful about what I did, and I still focused mainly on schoolwork. I only did the drugs that you couldn't get addicted to, other than smoking, and I drank on more than occasion but I didn't get full-on drunk very often.

I knew that the only way for me to succeed in life was to do well in school, so I made sure I did that. Like I said, I was a straight-A kid. I really did try, too. The first few times Sarah-Beth did meth, I didn't. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. It's a longer story than that.

I will tell you, though, she wasn't the same after the first time she took the drug, though. People say you're not, but I never expected her to be so different.

This chapter was pretty short. I'm not sure if this story is going to be a lot of really short chapters or if they'll start getting longer any time soon. Either way, thank you for coming and reading this! It's actually really hard adjusting to this immediately after ANBoR, but I hope it's good. I love you all, and let me know what you think!