this chapter contains a fairly large amount of destructive behaviour in it, including alcohol abuse and self-harm.
i've put a set of stars around the possibly triggering mention of self-harm, which I advise you to skip over if needed.
for the record, i am not promoting camille's behaviour in the slightest. I simply aim to portray her ways of coping, and i'm very aware that they're harmful. although she is a fictional character, please be aware that i'm trying to convey real struggles that people face. if you are planning to be immature regarding these topics at any time, with all due respect, click off this story.
please read this chapter with caution.
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CHAPTER THIRTY SIX what comes around goes around
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WITH MY LAST liquor bottle in hand, I walked the roads from the Chateau that were all too familiar for my liking. My blurred eyes watched each car slow down past me, taking in the sight of the utter mess that I was. Some part of me even started recognising some of the vehicles, the intoxication in me not being enough to erase the memories of this neighbourhood.
It was a quality that I needed least, especially since I was heading back to my house.
I hadn't stepped foot in that building since the night of May's accident. My mind could only imagine the state I had left it in, and how everything had come full circle. Where I was once innocently hoping my mother had changed, I had now changed into her. I was far too exhausted to care at this point, every bad word I had spoken against her coming back in a hypocritical sense.
'Merrimac Lane' read the sign at the start of the road, followed by a series of run-down homes with equally disturbing stories attached. I wasn't the only person with problems on this island. Each figure had a life of their own; some worth living, and some like mine.
Life was a cruel lottery. Either you were lucky enough to win a set of loving parents who nestled you in a white-picket paradise, or you were stuck on an endless carousel of substance abuse and an absent face in place of a mother.
That was the difference between me and Kiara; she had everything I wanted in life, yet wasted away each opportunity I would've killed for.
It was clear that no one in the group ever fully understood why she'd hang out with us. Whilst we were off working 9-5 shifts and slaving to even get a solid meal on the table, she got to live the 'Pogue life' from the comfort of her Figure 8 estate. I brushed off each questionable quality of hers, all for the sake of preserving the one friendship that wound up destroying me.
