I don’t remember where I went wrong, just that I went wrong. I had a bright future waiting for me. But for me, the world was never enough. I wanted more.

I drank. I smoked. I took drugs. Every form of pain disguised as pleasure. I even played around with the hearts of every girl I went to school with.

But the party I thought was never-ending had a definite end and I was headed for a big fall. I was having too much fun to see it coming, but it was approaching and fast. Way too fast for me to get out of the way.

My fall began one evening when I went cruising with my best friend Billy. As we cruised around, we drank Mad Dog and vodka. Our poison grew from that to blended whiskey, gin, and whatever other liquor we could find, then to drugs. Cocaine. Heroin. Meth. You name it.

The higher and drunker we got, the more dangerous we got. By the time we were at our highest, we drove to the junkyard. There, we were met by Sammy and his sister. What happened next was, and still is, a haze. I don’t really remember it, but I was told later that I had shot Sammy to death. I don’t remember what was said about his little sister. Had something happened to her?

No one seemed to know. And I couldn’t remember. But reality seems to have an eerie way of coming back to haunt you when you have a case of drug-related amnesia. A real painful way.

It was a bright morning, and warm, when the police came to arrest me. There had been a new break in the case, they said, and all the evidence pointed to me. Of course, Billy would be arrested too as an accessory to the crime. After all, it had been his gun that had been used.

No, no, no! My mind screamed, I couldn’t have killed anyone! I don’t remember a gun! I don’t remember anything!

But amnesia, or even pleading ignorance, does not work well in court. Especially when you’re a known drug-user and all around troublemaker. It only digs your proverbial grave that much deeper. So does being a smartass and pleading the fifth or not working with your attorney.

And every step I made during the sentencing did just that. Dug me deeper into the hole I was in. So deep so that I could never dig my way out. And I was about to find out just how prison was going to feel.