Sliding Into Home (9 page)

Like clockwork, my mom was always up at six
A.M.
, and five minutes later she would be in the shower. I’d sneak back through the sliding door while she was showering, put on my pajamas, crawl into bed, and pretend to be asleep. A few minutes later she’d get out of the shower and wake me up for school.

It worked every time.

I’d be a mess at school, of course, because I hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before and was coming down off a night of heavy
drug use. I would fall asleep in class and pass out on a bench during study hall or on the soccer field during PE. I was clearly in bad shape, but most people at school had already given up on me by that point so no one really cared.

One night, about a month into my routine, I snuck out at nine
P.M
. on the dot and spent the night getting messed up, as usual. But when I returned, the sliding glass door was locked.

My heart dropped. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t face my mom and the consequences that would follow, so I just went back to Mario’s place and stayed there for a couple of days while I tried to figure things out.

The plan we eventually put together was terrible. I didn’t have any clothes or money to buy new stuff, so I needed to go home and get my things. Even though I was only three or four months into my sophomore year of high school, I felt like I was an adult and ready to move out of my house.

Together, Mario and I marched over to my mom’s house, knocked on the door, and told her I was moving out. I wasn’t running away this time; I was packing my bags and leaving her, right in front of her face.

I could see the disappointment in her eyes. A part of her didn’t believe it was happening, but another part of her knew there was nothing she could do to stop me. I felt bad, but I also felt like I was doing the right thing by leaving. It was time for me to be on my own.

We walked out the front door—no need to sneak out the back anymore—and I turned and said good-bye. She just let me go, and I really thought that was good-bye for good. I was starting a new life.

Moving in with Mario was not a good idea, to say the least. Deep down I knew that from the beginning, but I was never going to admit it.

I quit soccer and softball, then quit school altogether. Instead of going to high school like a normal fifteen-year-old, I sat in an apartment and did coke all day long.

Most days I didn’t shower. I just rolled out of bed, went to the living room, and did a few lines. The coke mixed with a lack of funds led to me not eating very much, and I got really thin and became a scary-looking, smelly mess of a person.

Meanwhile, Mario was always talking about getting out of town and running away together to some luxurious place where we would be happy. But he was full of shit. He was never going anywhere. How could he?

During the day Mario worked in construction, but that didn’t bring in enough money. Most of his funds came from selling drugs. At all hours of the day people would come in, usually without even knocking, to buy bags of coke from him. If Mario was at work it became my job to handle the drug sales.

Some really fucked up people would show up at the apartment, and each purchase was different. Some would want a gram; others would want an eight ball, which is about three and a half grams. I’d measure it out, put in a Baggie, and make the sale. Everyone paid and no one messed with me because people knew Mario was a tough guy and was not fucking around. It was like our life was straight out of a mafia movie: we were the reigning mafia couple and everyone knew to be afraid of us.

Whenever we were out of coke, we had to go see a guy who was
high up the food chain in the drug-sales industry. He lived about fifteen miles away in the more upscale town of La Jolla, and his house was a real drug den, with lots of guns and scary people everywhere.

At one point Mario and I were in trouble because we weren’t making enough money selling coke (probably because we were snorting all of the merchandise). We didn’t have a TV and we were out of food so we had to go to the dealer and try to return the little bit of drugs we had in exchange for cash so we could live. Both of us were nervous, but we felt like we had no choice. We were like two crackheads heading over there, begging for a few dollars back. I don’t remember if we ended up getting our money, but I lived to tell the story and at that point I guess that was good enough.

Just staying alive was a top priority during my time with Mario. I knew my limits with coke so usually I did a few lines and that was it. As much as I loved getting high, I was not trying to hurt myself. I was past my depressed and suicidal days and I wasn’t going to go back to that dark place. However, I felt like I was alone in this new world, so I had to take care of myself. No one was going to jump in and save me. The whole time I was with Mario, I assumed my mom had given up on me, that she wasn’t going to be there for me anymore. Years later I found out that she was at home worrying every second. She found out that Mario was selling drugs and she desperately wanted to get me out of there but she didn’t know how. Worrying consumed her life, and she didn’t eat or sleep pretty much the entire time.

She even reached out to my dad for help, and at one point he got Mario’s number from my mom and called me at his house to tell me he missed me. He said he wanted to meet and catch up. It had been years since we had seen each other and I was suspicious, but for
some reason I agreed to see him. I guess I was still hoping there was some way I could save our relationship and have a dad again.

We agreed to meet at the Pacific Beach Block Party, a huge street fair in San Diego where adults go to listen to music and get drunk and kids go to play games and eat street-fair food. Everyone went.

When the day arrived, Mario and I went to the street fair to meet my dad. We had decided to meet in front of a specific bar on a specific street at a specific time. Everything was all set up for the big reunion.

I was nervous because I didn’t know what I would think of him or what he would think of me. I knew even the slightest inappropriate remark or action on his part would set me off, and I sort of felt like I was setting myself up for disappointment. But I went through with it anyway.

Mario and I got to the meeting spot and waited. At about ten minutes past when we were supposed to meet, my dad still wasn’t there. I started to get mad, but I continued to wait it out.

A few minutes later I saw him walking toward me. My heart was racing. I started to think about what I would say to him, and how I would react to whatever it was he was going to say to me.

He had told me he missed me over the phone, so maybe he had a whole big speech planned about how he wanted to be part of my life. Maybe he was going to try to be a good father.

He got closer, and I began shaking.

Then, just as he got within a few feet of us and I opened my mouth to say hello, he looked at me, walked right past, and headed
down the street toward a friend of his. The bastard didn’t even recognize his own daughter.

We might as well have been miles apart. We weren’t father and daughter, we were two strangers.

I was pretty upset after that, so Mario got me drunk and tried to help me forget about everything. I survived. I always did. But my drug habit was turning into a nightmare pretty quickly, and one night soon after, I almost didn’t survive.

Mario had a bunch of people over to his house and we were all doing lots of coke. Line after line, I just kept going. Like I said, I usually knew my limit and stopped myself when I hit it because even though I was a druggie I was still fearful of anything bad happening. But that night, for no real reason other than the fact that I just stopped caring about life, I threw caution to the wind and kept doing more and more.

Brittany was there, and she and some of our other friends were telling me to stop. I didn’t want to listen. My nose started bleeding, but I just wiped the blood away and did another line. I was out of control. My eyes started rolling back in my head and everyone started freaking out.

Brittany screamed, “Oh my God!” but she was the only one who really cared about me.

I was shaking and choking on the blood that was dripping down the back of my throat. The group took me to the bathroom, put me in the tub, and ran the water, and I kept yelling, “I’m fine!”

I wasn’t fine. I was in serious trouble. Everyone thought I was dying, but no one wanted to get in trouble so they didn’t call an
ambulance or take me to the hospital. Mario didn’t even do anything to help me. He just left me in the tub.

Eventually I worked my way from the tub to the bedroom, where I recovered on my own. I still felt terrible, but the shaking and the bleeding stopped and my eyes were back where they were supposed to be. At one point, Mario walked in with a CD topped with a pile of coke.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yeah, a little,” I replied in a sick little girl’s voice.

“Want some?” he asked, shoving the CD in my face.

I was so pissed that I slapped the CD out of his hand and sent the coke flying everywhere.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he yelled.

I was thinking the same thing.

After a day or two, when the drugs had completely worn off and I was able to think straight, I decided that I had had enough. All the rehabs and different schools never made a difference, but that night I’d almost had an out-of-body experience. I saw myself falling apart, nearing the end, and it wasn’t what I wanted. I wasn’t going to live like that anymore.

Something hit me and I sat in bed and screamed at the top of my lungs, releasing all the negative energy inside of me. I was done—for real this time. I knew I had to change my life.

Mario was already at work, so I put all of my stuff in a trash bag and on the way out I wrote on the little chalkboard that hung by the door, “Sorry I had to leave you. I will always love you.”

That wasn’t true—I never loved him. He represented a terrible time in my life, and I always remember him as being a part of that. But writing that I loved him seemed like the nice thing to do. As it
turned out, Mario ended up getting married, starting a family, and getting his life together in a way that made even my mom happy for him when she heard the news. I guess once he found
true
love, Mario was able to put a stop to some nasty habits.

Even though I did a lot of drugs and stretched myself to the limit, I never felt like I couldn’t stop at any time. I never felt like I
needed
drugs; I just really, really liked how I felt when I was high. There’s a difference.

I was able to make the decision to stop using and actually follow through, and almost instantly I was a new person.

I felt so good about myself. The hard part would be convincing the rest of the world that I was turning things around.

I left with my garbage bag of crap, nervous to face my mom again. I had lied to her and promised to change so many times, but I’d never come through. How could I ask her for forgiveness again?

I decided to try a few other options first.

I called my dad’s mother and asked to crash with her, but she shot me down. I think I even tried my dad, but that didn’t pan out. Finally, I called my grandmother and explained the situation.

“Grandma, I took some bad drugs and I nearly died,” I said tearfully. “I’m done. I want to turn things around.”

She started crying.

“I want to come home,” I said. “But I can’t face Mom. I can’t look at her.”

She said she would talk to my mom and explain the situation and try her hardest to get the two of us back together.

“But even if I talk to her,” she said, “you’re going to have to be an adult and walk back here and apologize face-to-face.”

I knew she was right, and that it was time to start playing by the rules.

CHAPTER 8
 

All Work and No Play

I was terrified to go back home. I had left that house a strong girl without a care in the world and I was returning a thin, rundown shadow of my former self. I got to the corner of my block and stopped.