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Chapter 1
                 'The only thing we need to fear is fear itself.' -Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said that, but the first man to ever say it to me is sitting right next, on this broken down & beaten couch in his rusty, rotten, "normal" ,or at least what seemed to be normal, house in old town Chicago, Illinois. He sat there, like many times before, watching me take my 9th or 10th hit, I've lost count by now, waiting to take his last hit before he goes to work.
He lights a cigarette, Marblo Red our favorite. As I finish & pass him the Glass, he hands me the cigarette. I take a long & awaited drag off of it & hold in for a good minute & exhale all the carbon monoxide & fumes from my lungs as he snorts the last line off of the mirror.
Glass is a type of term for the drug meth. You can: Smoke it, snort it, or shoot it. Either way as long as it's in my system I really don't care. Actually, now a days I don't much care about anything... School? Dropped out. Work? Got fired for smokin' on the job... Friends? I have a total of three, Coke, Glass, & Weed... Family? None I guess... Well none that care anyway... Well there is.... Oh, wait, no, they stopped caring long ago... Eventually they all did. I guess I'm just a person that can no longer be help or saved. I used to be, when my mother was still around. I used to be bright & optimistic, but after my mother left I guess I just gave up. She's gone now. Oh well right??? Life is fucking life right & that means time for another line, or maybe I'll throw in some relaxers.
      "Hey," I say just barley turning my head toward him as he sits there, blown & dazed, "Where's the M.J.?"
      He turns & points at the table blankly, "Right there in front of you??" He questioned, sustaining a few words I knew he wanted to say, but I'm glad he didn't we'd just end up fighting again.
      "Oh! Snapple!" I say acting surprised, "Wanna smoke a bowl or 2?"
     "Only one, I have to go to work soon & I want to be semi-sober," he says with no ambition.
     'Semi-sober? Dude you're totally fuckin' blow just like me' I think to myself. "Alright," I finally say as I sit up just enough to reach the weed & pipe. Just for the sake of conversation I say, "How is work at the hospital anyway?"
     He looked at me with enraged eyes & nearly yelling he said, "It's fine. Every thing's fucking fine. I'm making money, I have an income. What do you do? Where's your fucking job? Oh that's right; you got fucking fired for being a dumb-ass. What the hell Macaybre? Why do you ask so many damn questions? Why the hell do you f*ing doubt me!?"
      "I was just fucking asking! I'm not doubting you! I'm sorry I asked! I just wondered! I was just trying to have a decent covo, yo. Wanna know why I fucking asked?? Cause we never fucking talk anymore! All we do is sit down her & get blown off our asses! We used to have fun while we did this; we used to talk for hours!! But now it's just a daily fucking nothing! Just like everything else in this world!!!!" I realize I'm yelling & nearly crying, "Now what? Your to damn blown all the time to say a damned thing to me or anyone else!"
      "Whatever, dumb bitch." He wasn't listening, he always says that when he's not listening.
     So I finish loading the bowl & say, "You get firsts." & hand him the pipe & lighter.
     He takes a big long hit & hold it in, "Macaybre, baby," He says as he exhales. I already know what he's going to say; he says it every time we fight, thinking it makes everything all better... It never does. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to snap at you,  it's just work is killer right now & I'm trying to make the best of it. I hate it when I upset you."
   'Then don't do it...' I say to myself. "I'm not upset, you just don't get me anymore."
I say as he gets up.
    "I'm sorry Baby girl," he walks over & kisses my forehead & walks over to the stairs, "You comin' ?"
    "No." I say before I take a hit & hold it in for a good two minutes.
   "Okay, just don't let yourself go to far, at least while I'm not here," he says. Like he cares.
     "Kay." I say as I exhale, thinking to myself, 'He doesn't care, he never has & never will.'
  "Love you." He says as he walks up the stairs.
    "Ya right..." I mumble under my breath. The only thing he has ever cared about & loved are these drugs, the drugs that fill my body right now... The drugs we're both addicted to.
   He comes back half way down the stairs, "Oh, & Caybre?"
    "Ya?"
   "Clean the house while I'm gone." & he walks up the stairs, out the front door, & into his car to go to work. Honestly? I hope he get into a terrible car crash & is D.O.A so that me & Beau go to our aunts, or at least Beau, I don't think she'd want me... I'm damaged goods...
  'Finally,' I think to myself, 'He's gone, I don't see why he has to be such a jerk all the damn time. I mean the least he could do ids be a little nicer, I am the one he goes through to get his sh*t. He never has time to do it himself so he gives me the money, sends me out there, hoping I don't get caught & rat him out.'
  "It's me!" I've started to talk to myself again. "He's known me my whole damn life! Have I ever once ratted someone out!? No!" I take another hit even though I've already started to hallucinate myself in the room with me, but it's not the me you see before you, it's the real me, the me before my mother died.
    'Did you tell on Beau every time he took your stuff or stole a cookie from the jar?"
   "No!" What!? Myself is, or was, powerful...
   'Did you ever once tell when someone cheated off your papers? Or made fun of you?'
   "No!" Am I really alone? Am I really that weak, hopeless & lonely?
  'Are you a damned RAT!?'
   "No!" God, I'm blown...
    'No! No is damn straight, No! No... Now you're just a damned drug addict. An addict that can't, won't, & will not stop. No you're not a rat Caybre, you never were. You never were an addict either. Never once did I think this is where we would be. Look where you are Cay, in his house, in his basement doing his drugs!! You keep this up & all you'll ever be is worthless. Worthless to me, him, our mother, your family, your friends, & the world. You'll forever be that piece of gum on the bottom of every shoe that's stepped in & out of your life, that one that everyone eventually scraps off & throws away... I mean come on, Cay!! You're so blown you can barley fucking move!!'
    "Not true!" I make an attempt to get up. Unsuccessful.
     'See, that's what I thought... Worthless, useless, & helpless. Just like him.'
   "Ahh! Shut up!"
  'You need help."
    "Shut up, Shut up!!"
    'You need out!'
     "Shut up! Shut up! Shut the fuck up!!!!!"
     'Cay! You need me!!!!!!'
   "Shut up! I'm not like him! I'm not worthless!! I'm not useless!!! & I'm definitely not helpless!!!!!!" I'm yelling at the top of my lungs at a figment of my blown mind, "I don't need help! I don't need out!! & I certainly don't f*ing need you!!!" Have I officially gone insane??
   'Fine. I'll leave, but know that now you're completely alone, so do what you want. Waste your life! I'm done!!!!'
   "F* YOU!!!" Ya.... I've gone insane...
   'No, Macaybre, fuck you, fuck this, & fuck us. I'm done trying. I've done all I damn can. We use to be a team. We used to work together! What the hell happened?? We said this would never happen & this would never get this far!'
   "Mom died... That's what happened..." Tears fill my eyes, "She left us! She gave us on us!!" Now I'm crying.
    'No, Cay, You gave up on her...'
     God, myself makes a point.... A good one at that...
As I sit there, now on the floor & utterly alone, my knees curled to my chest, I rock back & forth, back & forth. Not thinking, not speaking, not smoking, not doing anything except breathing, rocking & crying.
"Is this really what my life has come to? Utter aloneness? No one around to help me?  Or protect me? No, no one here… No one here at all," those last words echoed in the iron heater about five feet away from me. Making those words echo through out the whole basement making my cry harder & rock a little faster.  I rest my head on my knees, keep rocking, back & forth, & repeat the only word that comes to my mind…
"Why? Why? Why why why??" I repeat aloud, "Why!? Why me? Why did she leave? Why did he come back?? Why this? Why here? Why now!?" My voice starts cracking from all the crying so I just stop speaking & sit there in the silence of my own echoes.
In that basement, on that floor , in those echoes, with those words hanging over my head, "I'm…. alone." I've figured that speaking to myself gives me some sense of security.
'Because you've finally hit rock bottom.' Great myself is back.
"What come back to watch my demise? Thought you left? Thought you were done & didn't want to be apart of this? Of us?" I look up at myself, tears still streaming down my face. I make another attempt at getting up to show her, & myself , that I'm not completely incompetent. I get half way up & get dizzy, even then, I stand all the way up & start towards the stairs.
'Don't do this to yourself, Cay. You know you don't feel well & you sure as hell know you can't make it up those stairs.' She talks to me like I'm worthless, I really don't  blame her, cause I am.
"Oh!? Watch me," I challenge, determined to make it up those stairs & to the bathroom to puke out all the drugs I've put in my system in the past hour. The hallucination of myself just stands there & watches my pathetic attempt to walk up the basement stairs. Sick to my stomach, I stop half way up & lay there in the middle of the stairs.
'I knew you couldn't do it.' She's still talking down to me & I'm still crying. She has black, what seems to be mascara running down her face like she's been crying too. God, I feel like shit...