Girl Seduced (The Girl Interrupted Trilogy Book #1) (9 page)

And a TERRIBLE craving for more.
  More meth.  I hadn’t even started on my makeup work from the hospital stay and Sabrina and I had used all of what we had purchased the night before.  I called Sabrina and asked her for the number to the guy she had purchased the meth from the night before.

“For real? 
You promised that you weren’t going to do this.  Jasmine, are you really thinking about this?  This just isn’t like you…”

“Look, Sabrina.” 
I knew that Sabrina was right and that this was not something I should be doing. If it was anyone else, I would be the one lecturing them about needing to get help. But it was just SO easy to get my work done and it felt SO good – everything felt so good.  Brushing my hair felt like a three hour massage.  How could I possibly explain this and not sound like an addict?  Can you become an addict after using a drug once or twice?  I was tired of questions and didn’t care.  I just wanted her to find me more of that drug.  For whatever reason, I just wasn’t in a mood to care.  I mean, this was Sabrina.

And that’s how
I began my friendship with Kenneth.  He was a “Hop and a jump” away, anytime I had $150 to spare and a paper to write…or I just wanted a good laugh.  He was sort of a dork on campus and no one really knew him and he always seemed to have a way to find places where no one would see us talking.  I could easily slip him money and he would easily give me more of “my medicine”, as I began to call it. 

Even though I had been told to find a therapist, no one ever really followed up with me and I never went to a therapist.  I thought a lot about that night, but I thought more about getting my work done.  And how I could get more of what Kenneth had to offer.  I wasn’t thinking in the least about therapy.  Like I really wanted to talk to anyone about stopping one of the most enjoyable things I had ever experienced.  I could picture it…

“Hi.  My name is Jasmine Stanton.  I was gang raped by seven unknown guys while I was high on meth and it was the most enjoyable feeling I’ve ever known.  I can’t wait to get high the minute I leave this office.”  I couldn’t imagine how a therapist would turn that situation into anything that would work in my favor.

Chapter Thirteen

It was a normal Saturday afternoon and fall was starting to waft into the air.  The leaves were turning colors, the airs was becoming crisp with the hint of winter coming, and school was about to be in full swing.  Stepping outside my apartment, I could smell cool air for the first time this year and knew that this was the beginning of my favorite time of year.  I had almost made it through my first year of college with an average GPA. Never having been an average student, this didn’t settle well with me and I was consistently trying harder, but the harder I tried, nothing changed.  Not the best, but it was college. (At least that’s what I told myself.) 

 
One professor in particular, Professor Diffie, and I had become very close. He wasn’t my English professor – he taught several humanities courses and I had taken his sociology course.  However, he had a dry, unique sense of humor that most people didn’t understand.  I understand him well and enjoyed going to his class every day. 

He had a friend on the Memphis paper who promised
me an internship when I was finished with my degree and I could hardly wait.  Professor Diffie was one of the few professors on campus who truly respected hardworking students and didn’t expect anything in return.  He wasn’t a womanizer – in fact, a lot of the students talked about him being gay.  I simply saw him as someone who dressed the same every day and who enjoyed his privacy.  And, if he was gay, it wasn’t really my business.  He was very nice to me and I was glad to have someone besides Sabrina to confide in.  Someone with less emotional baggage and fewer boundaries. 

Sabrina was really the only friend I had and it seemed like college had somehow torn the relationship that we had always had right down the middle.
I had known her since third grade at Eastside Elementary.  We met on the bus going home from school and a really big, nasty looking girl was picking on me because of my backpack and Sabrina, who didn’t even know me, defended me, ran off the bully, and we had been friends since that time.  Practically my whole life.

We stayed close – I saw and talked to her every day -
but she had her own social life and I stayed alone most of the time.  The meth kept me sane and, the farther and farther Sabrina and I drifted apart, the more alone I felt.    I would study after I took it, I would read after I took it – sometimes, I would just clean for hours after I took it and I felt absolute elation any time I took it.

I started snorting meth instead of drinking it and it was like the first time I had used it.  I only did it in private – in the bathroom where no one could see me.  When I was snorting it up my nose, I felt like the whole world was watching on a hidden camera somewhere and the police were going to bust down my door like they do on reality television.  But no one every busted down my door. 
Kenneth just kept taking my money, Sabrina just kept partying her ass off, and I just stayed alone, in my apartment, and snorted several times a day. 

It just kept becoming more and more desirable to me and using a little bit just didn’t make me feel as good as it had the first time I had tried it.  I was taking meth daily, at least three or four times, but no one knew – except for me and Kenny (we were becoming sort of friends – enough so that on our last chat, he ended it with ‘call me Kenny’.  So I did.).  He was happy – he was making a ton of money and I’m not sure what I was.  I felt almost out of myself, but in a really wonderful way – like I could fly if I wanted to. The “real” me was sort of out of town for a while so the interim “me” could get caught up and forget about that night.  That one night at that one party. 

I thought about flying that afternoon.  I was dusting the room and changing the sheets and the window was open and the breeze kept blowing into the room and catching my breath.
  I had been dreaming about flying since I was a little girl.  I wasn’t ever sure what the dreams meant, but I would literally flap my arms in the dreams and take off…and I could fly above the town – not really high, just enough that I could look down at the houses and cars and people beneath me.  I would sort of float through the air, but I was still flapping – and flying.

  I snorted a small amount of meth – just enough to feel the rush and I walked over to the window.  Staying in a dorm had been the pits, especially three stories up.
We had tried hard to decorate it and make it ours, but every hole in the wall had to be patched and painted, four square white walls were all that was allowed and there just wasn’t much anyone could do with that.  Everyone heard every sound we made – if we accidentally coughed too loud, the neighbors would beat on the walls (and likewise).  The roommates below us were a young couple who stayed up all night, their old, rusty bed beating against the wall all night long.  Sabrina and I would try to cover our heads with our pillows, but sometimes it was more fun to listen and laugh. It was college and it wouldn’t be forever.

Jonathan had become really distant lately, and I couldn’t
figure out why.  God, was he gorgeous.  I thought about him all the time.  The first night we met, he was such a hero and after that, we started seeing each other quite a bit.  Quite a bit turned into every day and Jonathan and I became inseparable very quickly.  But even he didn’t know that when I was “going to the bathroom”, I was really getting high.  I really believed that Jonathan was my soul mate and that he was the one who I would finish college with and marry one day. 

One night, we had gone to see one of the movies that the college showed in the atrium theatre.  It was a romantic comedy and the movie turned into a beautiful moonlit stroll, a walk back to my dorm, me taking a quick trip to my bathroom and, before I knew it, Jonathan
and I were having making love.  It wasn’t sex.  It was emotion-packed. Not just twenty minutes and we were finished.  It was the kind of love-making that you read about in magazines.  We made love for hours – we fell onto the floor, laughed and got back into the bed, and kept making love in every possible, imaginable position one could think of.  The touch of his fingertips anywhere on my skin sent electric shocks through me all over, so trying to describe the feeling of his whole body completely connected with mine is impossible.  I don’t have any idea how long we made love that night.  When I woke up the next morning, he was gone, but there was a note and a flower on the pillow – “Love you, babe – call me later.” And a smiley face, drawn on the note.  I knew the smiley face was a subtle way of saying thanks for a great night – just knowing Jonathan and knowing how he reacted to the wildness and the passion of that experience, he had never experienced anything like that either.

I picked up the flower, breathed in the aroma of the petals, stretched and looked at the clock. I stood at the window, remembering that morning, and remembering how much I loved Jonathan, how great life was, and how really late I was for chem. lab that morning.

“OH MY GOD!  11:30 in the morning!! I’ve missed Chem Lab again – Oh, God, I’m going to fail this class…” and I ran into the shower, threw on clothes and with wet hair and half of my belongings thrown into an oversized bag I ran to Chemistry.  I was late and the Professor was not Professor Diffie and this Professor was NOT happy about my tardiness or my unkempt appearance at all.

After that night, he just didn’t call for a couple of weeks.  I would leave messages, and even one afternoon I ran into him on the Green.  “Is everything
OK?  I haven’t heard from you.”  I tried to kiss his cheek, and he drew back a little, like he was uncomfortable. 

“No, I’ve just been really busy.”  He smiled. 

“Everything’s just fine – I’ll call you this afternoon.”  But he didn’t.

I stared out the window and leaned out just enough to smell the air.  The Green was full of students, studying and hanging out, and no one really noticed me.  I closed my eyes and, for a moment, I just got caught up in the unbelievable rush that had come over me.
  I didn’t realize it, but I had started crying, thinking about Jonathan.  I had tried three times again this week to call him, and he hadn’t returned any of my phone calls.  Did he have a new girlfriend?  Had he decided after we slept together that I was not the kind of girl that he wanted to be with? 

I stepped back to lean on the windowsill, but forgot that I had left a spray can of furniture cleaner and the rag I was cleaning with on the floor behind me.
All I could think about was Jonathan.  Should I try to find him in person again?  Maybe I should just come clean and tell him everything – that would explain the wild, crazy night.  Maybe he thought that I was experienced and that’s what ran him off… 

My foot caught the
polish can and I slipped.  I tried to catch the windowsill, but in a split second, but for what seemed like an eternity, I lost my balance and began to teeter.  I didn’t realize that I was as high as I was on the meth that afternoon, but I was.  The wind was still blowing in the window, but my focus was on the can that my foot was balancing on.  Time stood still.  The can went flying across the room and hit the wall. I watched it fly across the room. My foot came out from under me and my torso landed on the windowsill; and then my body followed, falling out the window. I saw the window above me, but never thought about the ground beneath me.  Slowly, slowly, I fell – floated – to the ground beneath me.  All three stories down onto the concrete patio on the first floor. It seemed like it took forever.  I remember looking at a cloud that was surrounded by a million stars.  I tried to count them and then, as if in a dream, I heard people screaming.  My body slammed hard on the back.  My head broke wide open.  I could feel it open.  I tried to move my arm, but it wouldn’t move.  I saw blood in my eyes and then – blackness.  Peaceful blackness.  Nothingness.

Chapter Fourteen

             
I was asleep, but I was faintly asleep. I was aware of people around me, talking, but my eyes were closed. My head was buzzing and I could faintly hear voices, but I didn’t want to open my eyes.  It felt so good just to be asleep.  I reached up to scratch my nose, but my hand was restricted by something…

             
I opened my eyes and glanced around.  I was in a hospital room, in a bed, and had two IV’s in my arms.  I saw Sabrina lying on the foot of my bed, and the sun was just coming up outside my window.  I couldn’t see very well – everything was really blurry, but I tried to look around the room. I turned my head and

             
“OW!! Oh God…” I thought to myself, turning my head felt like someone had taken a vice, put it on my head and twisted it as tight as it could go. I could see people on the other side of the room but I couldn’t make out who it was.  I kicked my foot to try and wake up Sabrina – I just didn’t think to call out her name.  Talking wasn’t even something that came to mind.

             
Sabrina stirred a bit and looked up at me.

             
“JASMINE!!  Oh, my God…guys look…NURSE!!”  She stepped outside the hospital door and started screaming for a nurse or a doctor or anyone.  As I started to see more clearly, I could see mom – you could always count on mom being there – I was sure she had a can of chicken soup hidden in her bag, ready to whip out the Tupperware and put it in a microwave. If I was laying in a bed, then obviously I was sick. The other person walked up behind mom and put his hand on my leg.  It was Jonathan.  All I could wonder was why he was here – he was still not speaking to me.

             
Sabrina had come back into the room at this point and a doctor came into the room.  He was an elderly gentleman with a kind face and a “belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly”.  I remember thinking “Is this Santa Claus?” and then my stupid thoughts were interrupted by everyone talking.

             
The doctor asked them to be quiet, but no one could quiet Sabrina or my mother. 

             
“Jasmine, you had us so worried!!”  Mom was crying and Sabrina was squeezing my feet.

             
I started searching my memory but really didn’t’ have time to think about how I had gotten there or who was standing with me.  The doctor, followed by two other doctors, a nurse and an orderly, quickly took control of the situation and began checking monitors, IV lines, my vital signs and talking among each other.

             
“Hello, Ms. Stanton.  My name is Dr. Broughman.  I’ve been taking care of you for a few days – how are you feeling?”

             
I looked around the room.  Monitors were everywhere.  My body hurt all over and I tried to sit up and look a little bit, but couldn’t move. 

             
“Hold it there, Seabisquit,” Jonathan laughed and patted my hand.  I couldn’t see very clearly still, but as my eyes started to clear, and my mind began to comprehend, it was very clear that I was in a hospital room.  I tried to scratch my eye, but my hand wouldn’t move.  Nothing would move.  I tried to talk, but my mouth was full of…of…something…for a moment I had a very scary flashback – unfamiliar for a moment, familiar for a moment – and I started to whine, wondering where I was, why I couldn’t move or talk and why I felt so fuzzy.  Oh, God, not again.  Tears started streaming down my face, but somewhere in the far recesses of my mind, I was able to reach logic and realize that I was somehow in a safe place where I was being cared for.

             
Jonathan continued to speak. “Sabrina, sweetie, how do you feel?”  I looked at him and he was smiling, but it was a smile that you give to someone who has lost a loved one or been diagnosed with cancer – a condescending, pitying smile and that scared me worse.

             
I tried to talk again. “I….ccccc….” I was trying to say that I couldn’t talk, but he finished it for me.

             
“You can’t talk because you have a breathing tube down your throat and another tube down your nose, into your stomach, to feed you.”  It was then that, like a baseball bat in the head, it hit me that I was in a hospital bed.  Why a hospital?  How did I get here?  How long had I been here?  I tried to look around the room and there was a whiteboard with names and numbers that looked like dates, but I couldn’t make them out. 

             
About five minutes, five decades, I’m not sure how long went by before the doctor spoke.