Trying to live

Chapter 19

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Summer before junior year

Dear diary,

I really want to go home! 

I can't stay here. 

Someone died again. A teenager. I mean, they got admitted because they're troubled, right?

They need help and apparently they get help here.

I can't phantom how hard it has to be on the parents, to know that their child died in a facility that should be able to free them from their addictions and troubles. 

Mrs. Denvers is extremely worried, so are the others working here. 

No matter how hard I tried to act normal or like Mrs. Denvers said "I know, it's hard but you have to move on", I just can't.

She even told me that it's not long and I'd been gone. But it seems long. 

And being with Maya doesn't help. She doesn't care that people died. She acts like this happens everyday, says they probably did something stupid.

And maybe they did but that doesn't mean they deserved to die.

Beginning of junior year 

Dear diary, 

I was all consumed by the deaths of these teenagers. I didn't know them but I cared how their families  and friends would be affected. 

I was scared and terrified.

I still lived on because I had to fight with my own problems.

If I was more attentive and wiser, I'd knew right away, who sold them heavy and unknown drugs.

I never blamed myself for their deaths but I blamed myself for not seeing the signs.

I came back to Lakewood and nothing was the same. 

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"I didn't overreact, right?" Susan asked my Grams with her hands on her face.

After we ran away from the Hillton diner and probably the police, we found shelter in a deserted park. As I looked at the park and the nearby playthings for kids, I'd understand every parent, who didn't want their child to play here.

We had no chance but wait for grandma's personal driver. She didn't trust anyone but him to drop me home. Grams and her friends would go back to her home.

Grams sat down next to Susan and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Of course not. Right girls?"

Henrietta and Betty nodded. 

"And every girl does this," Grams continued enthusiastically. 

"Right," I drawled out. "Every girl makes a revenge plan for a relationship that ended years ago, just to get that one thing back - a toupee. So, what are you going to do with it? Sell it?"

They all stared at me. I shrugged. "What? I don't think anyone else wants to wear a toupee that's already this old. It's worn out and ugly."

"Plus, who knows what Greg did with it," I added.