They deserve it all.

The chats.

"Mom ... why do you have that?" She stands there and I feel the blood drooping down my face and hands until it pools at my feet and only a breath makes me think I'm still alive before I find somewhere to hang onto.

"Drugs ... Willow, really?" She sits down, the drugs tossed on the table. "Willow, I know you're a responsible and mature child, but don't do this to yourself."

"It doesn't affect my body, I'm not quite human, Mom, it's not so terrible." I say with a shaking, nervous smile.

She sighs and notices I'm trembling when I sit down. "It's bad for you whether it affects your body or not, it's bad for your mind, for your mental health."

I feel my lip trembling when I see the sticker on the zip lock bag. "I'll stop." I say fast as I softly move my shaky hands towards the bag. "I promise, I'll stop."

"No ... Willow, you won't. And that's not okay. I've seen your stash before, I was shocked, you know, it hurt me when I saw it." She shakes her head and gets a hold of the bag before I do. "The first thing I thought was that you were using it to make some money at school or through friends. But you have a nice job and so do I and we're comfortable, so I thought to myself, 'what am I doing so very wrong that my daughter resort to drugs for what must be, if not wealth, comfort'."

I sighed and smiled a little, my lip still trembling. "Mom, it's not your fault. I just, I was a little overwhelmed- exams, you know, but I can assure you I'll stop."

She shakes her head again. "No!" She presses her hands against her heart, one of them holding the bag. "When I saw you that night ... you looked terrible. You were mumbling to yourself, sweating, shaking, laughing, crying and you pushed me, you hit me and you pushed me away and I didn't know why or what I had done or what I could do and I felt clueless. That isn't going to happen again. I'll make sure of it."

"Fine. I won't smoke anymore. Just give me the bag and I'll make sure it's gone."

She scoffs. "No, I won't let what happened to your friend, happen to you."

"Mom," It's the first time my mom had mentioned Emmaline since her death, it took me by surprise ... surprise seen so very obviously on my face. "She overdosed on opioids, weed is basically harmless in comparison."

"I'm not talking about her death, I'm talking about her life, her whole life, her ways of doing things. I'm talking about her suicide attempts, the chats, do you think I hadn't noticed when she'd come here, the smell and her eyes, her out of state giggling, it was obvious, the alcohol ..." She glances at the bag in her hands. "The weed!"

In that moment I suppose I didn't just feel angry, I felt guilty, I felt bad. She angered me by acting like this affects her more than me. Like I wasn't the one who needed drugs to distract myself from this overwhelming pain, like she was the victim here, like her best friend died, like Emmaline meant something to her besides the girl that would come over and take me off of her shoulders. She just found out, she might be my mother, but she never acted like it, she's here and she lets me sleep in her home and makes me feel at home and feeds me and all that, but she sure doesn't act like a mom. I don't have to ask her for permission for anything, she's not overprotective in the way that she makes herself out to be, and I bet she didn't even feel that shocked when she saw my stash, I bet she just hated that she didn't know. That I was doing something wrong under her roof and she only found out I was doing really bad, when I was at rock bottom, when I pushed her. And then I feel guilty, I let my guard down. I took those pills, I didn't lock my door, I wasn't in the corner of my room, my music wasn't on. I was in an unlocked room, higher than the sky, yet somewhere completely else, and I was on my bed. She could see me when she walked by, she could hear me instead of my music. I let my guard down, I made her find me. I did that. But the guilt is no match for the anger I feel.

I feel the room spinning and a ringing sound is all I hear, I don't even hear the chair as it crashes to the ground when I immediately jump up. My mom flinches and also jumps up, the bag still plastered to her chest.

"You." My voice breaks and cracks and I can't do much besides clench my jaw until I feel like my teeth will shatter. So I speak through gritted teeth with my hands balled and my head becoming a whole lot redder. "You went through my- my phone?" She nods as if to make me look crazy for reacting as I do, making my blood boil even more. "You can't do that, mom, those were private chats!"

Those chats ... the late night calls, the begging her to wait while I rushed to her. The talking of drugs, boys, girls, bodily changes ... that was private. I wouldn't mind her checking my messages with Ally or Alice, but Emmaline was different, with her I was a whole other person. She only took out the highest of me, never a neutral emotion. Either was I jumping from happiness, or running in desperation. And if ... if she read the chats, did she read about the days I begged her not to do it, the video and audios I sent her to listen to whenever she thought of self harming ... she did?

"For how long ...?" I ask her.

"I could ever since I bought that phone for you."

I shut my mouth closed with my a hand on my face. I don't know what to say so I yell. "That long!" And then it all floods back to me, the audios of me crying, bawling my eyes out, begging her to look at the bright side. The searches of how to be a better friend, the tests we took together to see if she had depression, I know what all of them meant, but to the eyes of a mother ... she must have thought something was wrong, she should've. Yet she sat here, every day, smiling at me, waving me off to school, smiling and bringing cookies when I was working, telling me to stop being so sad, to smile more, scolding me over small things, acting like I'm normal, like if what she saw on my phone wasn't a cry for help ... she could've helped. But only when it affected her did she show concern ... only when it affected her.

But she shuts me up quickly with a finger lit on fire, her finger engulfed in Elemental Magic, a finger so very close to my zip lock bag. "Don't you dare raise your voice as at me!"

I stop balling my fists and I stop clenching my jaw, I feel the blood flowing faster yet evenly through my body. I don't feel so very dizzy anymore and instead my voice is now soft and sad.

"I'm sorry!" I say quickly. "I'm really sorry, I am! But please, just don't—" She brings her finger closer to the bag, obviously entertained at my sad attempt to not burn the last bit I have left of her. "MOM!"

I shove the table with a hard push against her hips, making the bag fall out of her hands, making the flame die out and making her hiss.

"You dare hurt me!" She yells as I attempt to run to the other side of the table and grab the bag before she does.

She's still faster than me and scoffs as she keeps me kept in a cage made by compact air, the thing I wanted to learn so badly. And she makes me watch as she burns it, I watch and I scream and cry and I can read her expression as she does. Addict, she must think, fucking addict.

Without any conversation do I feel the presence of Willow again after so long. She lends me her strength, my strength and I can now get out of the cage my mom made for me. I burst out of it and I push her away and pin her to the ground, breathing so very heavily over her, my tears falling on her face, my snot, my drool, my hurt, my overflowing grief until it makes her drown as well. I watch as the last bit of it has been burnt to ashes. And maybe my mom understood when she saw me scooping up the ashes that it wasn't the weed which meant so much to me. I take it in my hands, some of it dissolving right before my eyes, but most of it stays dry while I grab a new zip lock bag, still crying, still wailing, still hurting.

"Willow ... I'm—"

I forget everything I have ever been taught about respect and all or any bit of kindness or care I felt towards her turns to vapor like Emmaline did, like she did to the last bit I had left of her.

"Fuck. You."

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-Love, me :)