Story Time

Whenever I meet someone new, one of the first things I wonder is what role will I play in the story of their life? Will I be a main character, or someone just passing through? Will you write chapters about the time you spend with me, dedicate paragraphs describing me and take note of the little things about me like the way my eyes look green in the sunset or how I snort when I laugh too hard? I do everything in my power not to be a simple footnote in the story of the life of people I want in mine. When I met you, all I wanted was to be more than that…but now, I wish that I was.

We met in the summer of 2018 in that old diner off of Main Street. I noticed you standing at the Jukebox trying to pick a song.

“Play “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. It’s a classic” I suggested, and you flashed me a crooked smile before putting it on and made your way over to me.

“It’s funny you say that, I was going to pick that one anyway, it was my mother’s favorite!” I wasn’t sure if you were telling me the truth, but it didn’t matter. I was eager to have any conversation with you. In my head, I could picture the paragraphs starting to take up multiple pages. I kept note of the way you smiled only out of the right side of your mouth and how every time you weren’t sure what to say next you bit your bottom lip and scratched your temple. I noticed the way you talked with your hands so expressively, yet you don’t seem to notice that you do it because you almost knocked over your coffee mug full of hot chocolate three times.

“We are closing up here, guys” the waitress warned us as the clock hit 10:00pm

“I don’t want this story to end here…here’s my number, I hope I hear from you.” I said, slipping you a napkin with my number, testing to see if you were interested in making me a character in your story. At the time, I was happy that you wanted me in it, but neither of us knew that this was the beginning of the end for you.

I wanted to be someone that brought your story to life. I wanted my presence to be something that would make a reader start turning the pages faster, sucked in to events we went through together. I didn’t know introducing you to the thing that I had thought sparked something in my life would be the thing that would take the light out of yours.

We were on our first vacation together on the Island of Maui when you first found out about my habit. We had only been together three months, but things were moving fast.

“What the hell is that?” You asked me, pointing at the bag of fine powder in my purse as you sipped on your guava cocktail that you got from the bar. I hid it further in my purse, trying not to draw attention to anything.

“I’ll show you later.” I took you back to our room and showed you what I had for us to try there, thinking you would be excited to try something new with me.

“Excuse me, WHAT? We have been together all this time and I just now find out that you occasionally sniff dope on the weekends?!”

“Relaaaxxxx….it’s not big deal! It can't be that bad to try, I know people that do it all the time and they're totally fine. If you would just try some with me, you’d see it’s not a big deal.” You were resistant at first, probably because you knew better. You tried it with me that day for the first time and I didn’t even like it. I had never done it before then and I thought maybe if we did it together, it would expand our story. We were exploring the world together, trying new things, and having fun. I had thought that would be the end of it, but that’s not what happened at all. All I had done was introduce you to the new star of your story.

Before the end, it consumed you like you had consumed me. You dedicated your time to the high and left me to myself most of the time. I didn’t even see you for a week before your final sentence was written. You replaced me with a needle and I wish with everything in me that it didn’t turn out to me lethal.

“Drug addiction is a battle, not everyone will survive it.”

That was the only line I remember hearing at your funeral, everything else was going in one ear and out the other. It was said by someone I bet was not even important to your story at all but felt obligated to be at the closing of your last chapter.

It wasn’t the drugs that killed you, even though that’s what they all think. It was my fear of being insignificant, and now, I wish more than anything, that I was nothing more than the girl at that old diner who told you to play Crazy by Patsy Cline on the Jukebox.