It sunk in further when all the teachers at school did was the same thing, only louder and with far more authority than my parents had since my parents at least couldn’t control when I used a washroom, and if they could they didn’t abuse it to see how long before the boy who cries every day wets himself. The kids at school were my only hope, but they just brought me over to their house stripped me down and made me play disgusting games. Life made no change with age, until my 13th birthday when I was passed a joint. It was unreal.

Before that point I would play video games until my parents physically forced me out of my room. It’s taken days before for them to come, so I just sat without eating sleeping or stopping until they did, so I’ve looked like I just came out of a Nazi camp since before I could talk. With pot I didn’t have to be in a literal constant state of use, which meant I started socializing for the first time since 2nd grade.

I lost my virginity to my first girlfriend a few months later a few weeks after getting together and attributed it and all my other recent happiness to drugs and only drugs, since that was the only thing I could see that had changed about me. Before that point I didn’t even have any mutual acquaintances who were my age and female, let alone any gender or age, so to suddenly have that kind of a relationship was a surprise to me to say the least.

After a few months of selling all of my worldly possessions so I could be smoking piles of weed larger than my lungs as often as possible, sex and hanging out with my new friends I decided it was time to give E a try. It was crystal meth not even crushed in a pill so impractically huge that it looked like it was meant for bears. I picked it up at school from one of the 12th graders I hung out with, went home for lunch and did 10 huge lines of what was to become my favorite vice for the first time in my life.

I had English class when I got back, and it was just an all-class floor-hockey tournament. Plus since I had an administrative green card to be as late as I wanted because I was an 8th grader with half 9th grade classes (which ran on a timetable farther ahead than the length of the 8th grade lunch) I thought getting high at school was the thing for me, especially since my grades were actually going up, putting me in honor role for the first time ever. At that point I had little drug games I’d make up on the spot and immediately play. I didn’t think it would hurt at first and the more I played them the more into them I got.