follow me instead

37 7 7
                                    

song: march to the sea

no one looks up anymore
cause you might get a raindrop in your eye
and heaven forbid they see you cry
as we fall in line

trigger warnings// drug mentions, suicide mentions

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We all sat in a circle on foldable chairs. The total of kids being eight, not including the counsellor that sat at the front of the circle. Silence kept itself present as we all either stared at the ground or each other. The counsellor watched all of us then clicked his pen, a look of tiredness on his face.

"Ok guys." He clicked the pen one last time before setting it down idly. "Im Chris. Chris Salih. And I noticed that all of you are here for drug related issues, correct?"

A few of us nodded, while the others stayed silent. I remained silent, too ashamed to even acknowledge that I did those things. Although everybody already knows I did.

"And that is not something you should be ashamed of, because those things happened for a reason. One of my co-workers overdosed a couple of months ago, and I miss him more and more everyday." Chris smiled sadly, his eyes looking pained at the mention of his fellow employee.

A kid beside me with fluffy brown hair sitting atop his head with pale skin and big lips interrupted him. "Why are you telling us this exactly? Is it supposed to help us?" The boy didn't look like he was trying to be disrespectful, that's just how it came out.

Chris looked over at him. "Whats your name, young man?"

"It's Brendon." He watched him, his elbows on his knees as he leaned on them.

"Well, Brendon, it is if you make it. Drugs isn't a pleasant topic, especially if you've grown to have an addiction because of them." Chris leaned back a bit. "See, my co-worker wasn't addicted. He just... He-"

"Killed himself." Brendon finished for him, his tone seeming cold now.

"Yeah he... Killed himself." Chris looked a bit stunned at the boys interjection. And I would be lying if i said I wasn't stunned myself.

Brendon leaned back in his seat, the legs squeaking at the sudden change of weight. "Yeah. I expected that. But, when you do drugs, that's going to happen. Thanks for telling us a story about your friend, but we had already come to terms with that when our parents made us come here."

A few of the kids nodded in agreement, some of them murmuring to each other. I looked down at the toes of my shoes, they were scuffed.

"And what exactly have you guys learned from your past experiences with drugs?" Chris seemed to ignore the entire conversation completely, pushing it to the side. Which, reassured me a bit.

"Not to get caught." Another boy piped in, making the others cackle. The boy had a smirk on his face, his hair short and a bit of stubble on his face. "I'm Pete, before you ask."

Chris didn't look all that amused, his expression annoyed. "Thanks for that, Pete. Any others?"

"...They end something you can't get back." I felt the words come out of my mouth before I could stop them, feeling everybody quiet and stare at me.

Chris looked at me, interested. "They do, dont they. Anything else you want to say?"

"That the majority of the time you do them because a friend is doing them... And you wanna look cool." I blinked and cleared my throat. "That in the end, it's just one gigantic mess. No matter what the drug so happens to be."

He nodded, his eyes inquisitive. I heard Pete clear his throat dramatically after I had been done talking. "So... What you're saying is, drugs always ends up bad in the end?"

I nodded, not knowing whether i should talk or not.

"Ahhh... Are you here because mom and dad were shocked about your weed obsession?" He looked at me with a hard gaze, looking also amused.

Brendon looked at me, his eyes full of sympathy. It made an annoyance grow in my gut as I looked at Pete in the eye. "Yes. Also my heroin, cocaine, alcohol and tobacco obsession. Oh! And lets add in that I also overdosed and my parents were the ones that found me. But, I'm sure you've done worse, haven't you Pete?"

The boy blinked, not knowing how to respond. But oh no, I wasn't finished.

"And lets not forget the fact that my parents will never look me in the eye again because I did that shit and didn't say anything. That I wanted to be "cool" and ended up almost dying because of it." My gaze flashed to everybody. "Are you all proud of that? Are you proud that you could have left behind boyfriends and girlfriends and sisters and people who love you just because you 'couldn't say no?!'"

Everybody remained silent.

"What I thought," I could feel my voice steadily rising as my anger grew. "And we couldn't make the right choices. We couldn't do what we knew was right because of our own selfish stupidity. No, those people didn't put the bottle or cigarette in your hand, you did. And that will always be your fault. But, you can walk down the right aisle right now. You can go the opposite direction and make it better. But you all have to try. We have to try. And maybe in the end, it'll be okay."

A few of the kids looked like they were going to cry, while the others were rendered speechless, including Pete. Brendon looked at me in awe, a trace of pride in his eyes.

Chris nodded, his eyes sparkling. "Thank you... What is your name, exactly?"

"My name's Josh." I murmured, suddenly feeling a tad self conscious and wanting to get the attention off of me. "Wait... Who was the man that died?"

"His name was Tyler."

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and about this time of every year,
the line will go to the ocean pier,
and walk right off into the sea,
then we fall asleep

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