Anna

Untitled Part 1

This story only has one part to it; one short, blunt part. It begins with two characters. It ends with only one. It's not a funny story, it's not romantic, it doesn't have a happy ending, but God, it coud have. Yesterday some man off the streets offered me a Ziploc filled with something I knew wasn't powdered sugar. His hands were shaking and his eyes were dull. I spat right in his face and walked away. You'll understand why by the end of this story.

"Come over," she whispered in a low, airy, voice. She didn't sound like her usual self, and at once, I knew she was high.

"God damn," I breathed, my hand tensing around the phone. "Invite me when you're sober," I spat. Right before I hung up, she said something else.

"What?"

"I can't," she said in the same ditsy tone.

"What the hell do you mean you can't?" I knew I was being rude but I didn't care. She knew how I felt about her doing drugs and I knew she didn't care.

"I'm going to die high." Something deep in my gut told me she wasn't lying; she wasn't just saying that to convince me to visit, no, she was really going to die.

"Fuck, what are you talking about?" My voice was begining to shake.

"Come over," she breathed again, this time even softer than the first. And before I could hang up the phone, I was already out the door.

I hopped on my bike and rode the three blocks it took to get to her house. It wasn't until I got to her door, I realized it was snowing. I was wearing a t-shirt.

I barged in, knowing her mom wouldnt be home, or if she was, she'd be drunk and passed out in the bathtub again.

"Anna?" I shouted, sprinting up the stairs two at a time. I got to her room and creaked open the door.

"You came." A smile lit up her ghost-white face and made crinkles around her bloodshot eyes.

"What the hell did you take?" I picked up a few empty pill bottles sprawled around her room; Adderall, xanax, and some others I didn't take the time to bother reading.

She shrugged. "A little bit of everything I guess."

I stared at her. She was laying on her bed, her tiny body in a t-shirt and sweatpants that wouldn't have even fit me. She was staring a point off into the distance with an idiotic smile painted on her face.

"I'm going to die high. Don't you think that's pretty ironic?"

"Anna, you're tripping out here, I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about," I said, trying hard to keep my voice steady. Her room reaked of marujuana and cigarettes.

"No, no," she slurred. "Hear me out." She paused for a few seconds. I hated seeing her like this, all doped up, not even in control of her own body. I hated being in this atmosphere, empty pill bottles at my feet, the stench of weed invading my nose, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a bag of white powder.

"I'm going to hell, Brian! I'm going to hell!" she started laughing hysterically. "Isn't that funny, Brian?" She giggled some more.

"I don't know who you are anymore, Anna," I growled through my teeth. "I hate who you've become."

She studied me with red, puffy eyes. "I'm high as fuck. I'm going to die tonight. And when I die, I'm going to hell. Hell's got to be the lowest point in the universe. You see?"

It was so completely stupid I wanted to sit down on her stained carpet and bawl my eyes out. I hated drugs. I hated what they did to my best friend.

"Tell me, Anna," I whispered. "Do you even remember who you used to be?" She was playing with her fingers as if they were action figures. "Brian, I can't even remember why I told you to come here!" She started laughing again; a sick, synthetic cackle.

"Do you remember who we used to be?" I breathed, on the verge of tears. She stared at me with a blank expression. I leaned in and grabbed her face in my hands and kissed her so hard. As hard as I wanted to the day I first saw her get high. But instead of kissing her that day, I ended up pulling her away from the group of doped-up boys and demanded answers.

"How long has this been going on?" I had shouted in her face. I remember brushing white powder off the tip of her nose, as she looked up at me with dead eyes. Despite what she said about dying tonight, I think that was the real moment Anna died. Or, at least, that's when she became dead to me.

The weeks following that, I avioded her, but at the same time, I began to follow her. I took note of where she went after school, who she talked to in the hallways behind the lockers, the classes she was failing.

Then it was two weeks ago, when I bumped into her in the hallway, and she dropped her backpack. Out came six little pill bottles, scattered across the floor.

"Who the fuck are you?" I whispered to her, as she frantically picked up her drugs.

"I'm sorry, Brian," she whispered back, unable to meet my eyes. Her tone of voice told me she was sober. For a moment, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time: optimism. Maybe there was hope for Anna--maybe there was hope for us.

Then, she proceded to throw salt in my wounds. She uncapped a vial and popped two small white pills into her mouth right in front of me. "Look," she began, but I had no interest in anything coming out of her mouth. I turned and walked away. I didn't look back. That was the last time I had talked to Anna.

I pulled away from her, tasting tobacco on my tongue. The girl was so infected with drugs, I wondered if I would get high from simply kissing her. I got no satisfaction from it. It was if I had just kissed a stranger.

"I'm scared to die, Brian," she whispered. I turned away as a tear rolled down my cheek. For a moment, she sounded like her old self: Innocent and softspoken. But I knew better. This was still not the Anna I had fell for months ago. That Anna wasn't coming back.

"Don't you get it?" My voice broke. "You've already died."

We were both quiet for a couple of mintues, until her airy voice broke the silence.

"My mom hasn't come home in four days, Brian." I didn't know what to say. I turned back at Anna and realized she was crying. Was she coming down from her high? Was the dopamine finally seeping out of her skin? A part of me wanted to hug her and kiss her, but another part wanted to spit in her face, walk out of her house, and leave the front door wide open until the frigid air cracked her bones.

"I'm sorry," I said. My voice was cold.

"Will you take me to the hospital when I'm ghost-white and my heartbeat has stopped?" I didn't answer. I couldn't answer. The lump in my throat felt like a mountain.

"I'm sorry, Brian." Her watery eyes looked up at me, and I remembered how she looked up at me that time in the hallway. She may have meant it, but it didn't change anything. She was still going to overdose.

I turned away again, unable to look at the pale, feeble girl on the bed; a girl I didn't even recognize.

"I think if I wasn't so in love with drugs, I might have been in love with you," she whispered.

Everything was still and quiet for a moment. My heart stopped beating and my hands stopped trembling. And then, a cap popped off a vial of pills.

"I think--" I heard her pour a handful into her palm, "--I know if you weren't so in love with drugs, I would have been in love with you," I whispered.

I didn't turn back around. She sobbed a couple of times, and then everything and still and quiet again. Anna was gone; both Annas were gone. I didn't feel empty. The Anna I loved had died months ago.