Him

Sono tuo - I'm yours

"How'd it start." I question, my hands were still in his and he was still too shaken up for me to take it away.
We were still sat in the car. We shared our familiar silence.

"I was 15, I was at this private school at the time. My dad insisted that I be put into one of these upper class schools. It was a Catholic school, prayer in the morning, prayer at lunch, prayer before dismissal. I felt like I was being suffocated wherever I went, it didn't help that I had a much harder time with communication back then. I never made any friends, never attempted to either... In public school making friends seemed a lot easier. People just cling on to the person that makes them feel less unhappy.

I didn't mind not having friends. It was how strict they were. They used to go as far as requesting that I cut my hair because it was just a tiny bit over my eyes. My mother always taught me that sometimes complying just for the sake of peace was much more important than fighting without a real cause, so I complied." He said quickly. He stopped playing with my fingers and dropped my hands in his lap.

"I was never bullied really but these group of guys started crowding me. They would force their way into my space wherever I went, they even started showing up in my home and telling my mother that we were friends. my mother just being grateful at the thought of me not being 'lonely' at the new school, would feed them abundantly. She'd make them their favorites and help them get comfortable. After a while they started showing up so much that I just assimilated with their presence.

We had this leader, Luca.
Luca was much bigger than the rest of us and he sounded and acted so much more mature. Talked about sex like it was something on his chore list. He even took Us to a prostitute to lose our virginities. After that I guess we all started to think, We were more adults than the adults. We skipped school to join Luca to smoke cigarettes and hit on girls. I don't know why Luca chose me but he spent a lot of time focusing his attention on me. Tugging on my hair, calling me a puppy when that wasn't enough to fill his humiliation bucket he'd move to anti-Semitic nicknames that I was too willingly stupid to acknowledge the connotation behind them."

He said and then he bit his lips. His lips are now quivering as he continues to speak.

"He said he brought it from some older guy by the park. Everyone was way too scared in the beginning, I don't know why I felt like I had to prove myself to him but I did it. I snorted a whole line, all alone. just so I could look cool. My friends noticed nothing happened to me immediately and followed along. "

"It was such a rush, we danced all night and laughed. The next day we were so much closer, we had shared a secret so deep that if it ever got out we'd be in big trouble. We didn't do anymore for a little while. We were all still a little freaked out all together. Luca invited us to a sleep over at his house. He makes more lines for us and we were all hesistant. We had all listened in health when they discussed addiction and we knew that doing it once and getting away with it without having a dependency was a gift in itself but we were also daring.

It became a routine after that. Sleep over- cocaine. It was fine then because I was constantly out of my body. I was constantly numbing my mind, it was great, like all my insecurities melted away from me and I could express myself however I wanted whenever I wanted to. I felt like I was 7 feet tall and never wanted to feel anything that was different from that. He always had something for me, even when he didn't buy enough for everyone else he'd give me something. Until about 5 months later he had to move. Things started spiraling from there. He left me with everything he had left and it wasn't much even if it was a lot I couldn't help but over indulge, in fear that I wouldn't have anything left." He looks down ashamed. "And then there wasn't any more."

"All of friends were angsty but it couldn't hold a candle to how I was feeling. I'd been over indulging every chance I could get. I needed it, everything inside me was screaming for it."