As I opened my eyes and my sight began to clear, I couldn’t help but instantly dread the day that was ahead of me.  The clock read ‘6:43 am’, much too early for my liking; school didn’t seem like a good enough reason to have to wake up at such an ungodly hour every morning. With a frustrated groan I rolled over onto my left side so that I could face the wall rather than the window; perhaps I could avoid the sunlight that would soon start to trickle through the window between my curtains and sleep in today.

Moments later I hear a familiar creaking of floorboards down the hall and I quickly squeeze my eyes shut even tighter, as if that would block out what’s about to come. It had slipped my mind that sunlight wasn’t the only thing that could keep me from sleeping in on a Wednesday.

“Cayden, are you kidding me? It’s already seven fifteen and you know that the bus comes in five minutes. Are you trying to miss the bus again so that you have to walk and you don’t have to interact with other people? You need to start making friends; it’s your junior year of high school.” My mother yelled from the other side of the door. It’s morning interactions like this that lead me to start locking my door at night.

“Mom, it isn’t that I don’t want to make friends… you know that; it’s just that no one likes me.” I said back quietly. I heard my mother sigh in annoyance and walk back down the hall, leaving me to get ready in peace and solitude.

Slowly I sat up on the side of my bed and let my bare feet lightly touch the cold wood floor that was twice as old as I was… at least. As I stood up and made my way to my closet I couldn’t help but feel different, as if something was actually going to happen today, something positive for once. I brushed off this sudden feeling and open my closet with one swift movement and grabbed the closest pair of jeans. I put them on and walked towards my door, throwing a hoodie on over the shirt I had slept in the night before; I have no time to try to impress people.

The old stairs creaked under my weight as I slowly made my way down them; once I reached the bottom I didn’t even bother going into the living room to say goodbye to my mom; instead, I walked right to the front door, slipped on the nearest pair of shoes, and walked out of the house on my way to school.

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By the time I got to school it was already third period… study hall. I quietly walked into the room and straight to the back, sitting in the same seat I sit in every single day. Other students began to file into the room and not a single glance fell on me; I was invisible to everyone around me.

I put my headphones in my ears and hit play on my iPhone; I didn’t really care what song played, I just wanted to drown out all other sounds around me.  Only a few minutes had gone by when I felt a slight tap on my shoulder. I glanced up to see Selena Johnson standing over me, a huge smile on her face. Selena was the most popular girl in school so I just froze for a moment, thinking that perhaps she had mistaken me for someone else.  Slowly I pulled my headphones out of my ears and smiled faintly back at her.

“I don’t think I’ve ever talked to you before. What’s your name?” Her smiled beamed, almost lighting up the entire room.

“Cayden; and yeah, I’ve never talked to you before.” I said quietly as I put my headphones back in.

“Hey, don’t you want to talk?” She said as she gently pulled one of the earbuds out of my ear.

“I don’t talk to people much, as you probably have noticed.” I looked up, confused of what her motives were.

“Well, we will have to change that. Wanna eat lunch with us? Come sit at our table today.” She smiled and turned around, walking back to her group of friends to continue laughing and joking for the rest of the class.  I sat there stunned; I was confused as to why Selena had reached out to me, but at the same time I was happy and actually excited to sit with her and her group of friends; maybe I would even be able to become on of them someday.

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As I walked into the cafeteria an hour or so later, I was surprised to find myself walking to the left side of the room where the most popular kids tend to sit rather than walking to the right side where I usually sit alone and eat my lunch in silence. As I approached Selena’s table, she smiled at me and said something to the rest of the group that caused them to all stand up at once; this caught me off guard and my eyes got wide, I looked like a lost puppy.

“Ready to go?” Selena smiled and she walked towards me, leading the group out of the room; I followed not knowing what else to do. We all walked down the hall together to the gym; I looked around quickly, before walking into the gym behind the others, paranoid that we would get in trouble.

“Come on Cay!” Selena beckoned from the other side of the gym. ‘Wow,’ I thought to myself; she had already given me a nickname. I sped my steps up and got to where she was standing, the others were already on the other side of the doorway that she was standing in. “After you!” She smiled, placing her hand on my lower back and gently ushering me through the door.

When I emerged on the other side I was bombarded with an overwhelming amount of sunlight and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust. Once I could see clearly again, I noticed that we were at the edge of the faculty parking lot by the dumpsters, a place that was known for being a hang out place for druggies and “bad seeds.” I looked around slowly trying to figure out why we were there, I wasn’t used to being in compromising situations such as this.

“Since Cay is our new guest, I think she should get the first bump.” Selena smiled and reached in her bag. As I turned towards her, I asked myself, ‘Bump? What does she mean by that.’ That’s when my eyes locked on what she was pulling out of her bag; a dollar bill, a compact mirror, and then a small plastic baggie filled with a white powder substance. I began to panic, what was she expecting me to do? Did I really seem like the kind of kid that would be into this sort of thing?

As she poured the powder onto the compact mirror and rolled the dollar bill into a small tube, I began to shake. “Excited?” She asked, as if I were a junkie that was finally getting their first fix in months. She walked towards me with the mirror and dollar bill; she put the bill in my hand and held the mirror up to my face. I was so scared to do this, but I was even more scared of how they would treat me if I were to refuse to take a hit. Slowly, I put the tube up to my nose and placed the other end above the line of powder on the mirror. With one swift movement I breathed in through my nose quickly and ran the bill along the line. Almost instantly my body straightened and I sat up quickly, dropping the bill on the floor. My eyes widened and my heartbeat began to race; I felt as if all of the adrenaline my body could ever produce went flowing through my veins at once.

“Oh my God.” I whispered out loud; and that’s when it hit me, I was going to be hooked.