Life as We Know It

chapter two: phone calls

My sister called me at 3 in the morning on a Saturday. "Hello?" I answered groggily, waking up. "I know, why didn't you tell me?" she said, more like slurred. It was exactly three weeks after I found out. "Tell you what?" I asked. "That you're sick, baby," she slurred. "I'm fine," I whispered. My family (other than my mother and father), didn't need to know and that included my older sister, Theodora.

Theodora lived with her boyfriend in a different state. She usually called me early in the morning, and drunk like right now. "Don't lie to me," she said. "I promise, go to sleep it's late," I said, laying back on my pillows. " I love you."

"I know, go to sleep."

***
She called me again in the next four days, completely sober. She had no recollection of the nights before, and I wanted it to stay that way. My friends also called me during the week and invited me to hang out with them. I went to movies and had dinner with two of them.

They continued to push for me to venture out and go out with them; I said no.

***
After I got sick, I went to school very little and graduated early. I was sixteen when I graduated, having to explain why I was ahead of everyone else. Although I didn't go to school, I took online classes and became one of the smartest in my class.

My friends didn't think much about it and my boyfriend at the time, who I broke up with after two weeks, liked dating a high school graduate. School for me was fairly easy; I had friends and my teachers loved me. I left when my friends were juniors and having fun.

***

The first time I got high, before I was sick, was when I was fourteen and in ninth grade; a freshman. It felt weird and like my head was on a cloud. I was sitting with my friends on a pick-up truck, on a sunny day, when someone decided to bring out a joint and light it.

Now, I wouldn't be caught dead with something like that. My lungs couldn't handle it.