Just Like Them

    My name is Alisa. I grew up in a huge city that never slept. There was never a time you were truly alone, and to some people, I guess that could have been comforting. Not for me, no, I had to escape, because after the one person you truly love dies, you can't look at a town or it's people the same. You can't feel like you did about your friends after you know. My friends helped kill Jackson. 

     He was always reckless; it was in his nature to do crazy things. I still remember that stupid grin of his that would show up whenever I caught him doing flips off the front porch, or sometimes the roof. He'd just smile, give me a kiss on the cheek, and run in to play games. I never thought that...I guess I did, but I was never around to check. I worked two jobs, he worked one part time, and didn't go for the most part. He wanted to stay with our daughter, Mae. They were a pair, those two. She's still just like her father. Sometimes, when she's sleeping, I'll hear her cooing his name. She's only one, and he died just last month. I didn't think infants could mourn. I was wrong, I suppose. She seems to take it harder than I do. She cries more than she ever did before, but what can I do, you know?

      Anyway, he'd go out sometimes, and I thought nothing of it, until my friend Luise told me that Jack was doping. I didn't believe it then, and even now I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. Why would he do something like that when he has a loving, caring family? I think back and I remember Jackson coming home late a few nights, and he looked completely drained. Not tired, no, he looked...run down. Like when you take paint and you keep adding thinner until eventually, it just looks like coloured water. That's all he was then, coloured water.

      I should have done something. I mean, I could have helped him, I could have saved him! It just got progressivly worse until eventually, I didn't know who my own fiance was! He'd just walk in the house whenever, sit on the couch, and play games all day. He's leave his one year old daughter home alone in her crib while he was flying on acid with the people I called my friends since I was 13 years old.

     Then, there was the day that he died. I'm the one who found him, you know. I was driving home from work, so excited to come home to him and Mae. He called me, told me he loved me, and hung up. I thought, well, what a strange thing to just call and say. He never did that before, it was just random. I wasn't worried or anything, though, I thought he was just being romantic. So I got home and threw my bag on the table when I noticed a note on the table. It was all scribbled, but at the end, I could read "I love you both more than myself.". Of course, I got a little bit nervous, which now, looking back, I had every reason. Walking around the house, I called his name, because I heard Mae crying and thought he was playing with her while he was high again. I got in the room and saw Mae laying there, crying in his arms, and him, slouched over. He looked so...pale. I took Mae from his arms and placed her back in her crib, going back to wake Jack up. So I shook him a little, but he didn't move or moan or anything. I kept trying and trying to wake him up, until finally, I just gave up and called 911. Mae and I sat waiting for them for about twenty minutes. They got there and took him away.

     Later, we found out he overdosed on multiple drugs, all of which he got from my friends. When I confronted them, they all got the same "oh shit" look on their faces. Guess it finally hit them that doing this would kill them, too. Granted, they haven't stopped yet, and I doubt they ever will. They're totally hooked. It's been a month since Jack died, and going through his things, I found all the pictures from when we were dating and the pictures from when Mae was born. Under each, he wrote a heart. I broke down crying, screaming for him to come back, but he never will. Mae has to grow up without her father because of a damned habit he had that he didn't feel like giving up. I didn't want him to go, I said I did sometimes when I was drunk, but I never meant it. I loved him so much it hurt. But, like always, he had to be just like them.