Two Years Ago When I met a Girl…..

by yARN pUNK

I met a girl when she picked me up while  I was hitch hiking back from the health food store.

Her name is, well, I’ll call her “Mirror”. She was seventeen, with three different colors in her hair,and she was driving this great big mafioso looking thing down an old country road.

AND she picked me, a hitch hiker, up. like it was it was no big thing to her.

My first response after the normal howdy do’s, was;” Okay, first off, we are on this desolate back road, in the middle of BFE ,and corn fields forever. How do you know that I am not going to pull out a gun or a knife and slit your throat, or blow you away for your ride, or WORSE?”

She snickered and said,”Cause’ I can tell .”You aren’t that kind of person!”

My responsewas ,”How can you even  pretend to know THAT?”

She comes back with; “I can just tell”!

“Anyway, aren’t you glad I picked you up?’

“Of course!” I said, “but you need to be more careful!”

She dropped me at my house, and that was that.

I was left with hoards of memories sweeping my mind. Memories of myself at her age, along with her responses to my concern, and her total disposition, I knew I was staring into a mirror of my past!

I would, for sure, be seeing her again!

It was approx. two weeks later that I saw her, in a little mustang, as I was walking my dog on that same old road.

She pulled of as she turned the stereo down, I think it was blasting some new girl band, “Hey girlfriend” she says with this sweet little sideways glance, as if she’d known me for a lifetime, “whatcha up to?”

Small talk over we decided ot hang out, so she came over to the house, we talked.

I got to know her situation a bit better, then I knew that I was looking into that mirror of my past once more, and that I had been placed into her life for a very special mission.

I also knew in my heart that according to what she was telling me, that she was headed for the same disaster that I had put myself  through, at that exact age, but I did not yet know what to do about helping her.

I was to find out, a little more than a year later, that i could not have done anything to stop it from happening at first, but that it was during the “aftermath” or the “beginning of the end”, where I would be called back into her life to “play my part” so to speak.

SO!

It was about a month ago, when I went to Spruce Pine to a thrift store with my neighbor, that I would be standing there looking at an old quilt that I wanted, but could not afford, when I hear this soft, sweet, little voice call me by my name….”Romy?’ “Is that you?”

“OMG I can’t believe it!”, and so on and so forth.

She was handing out Krispy Kreame doughnuts. So  I knew she’d gotten herself into some kind of trouble, and that she was doing community service for it.

Sure enough she had.

I gave her my  telephone number, and that was that.

It was about three days ago when I got a phone call from her, asking if she could come by to see me that afternoon after school, that she needed to talk, so she did come on by.

Now, I need to back up to two years ago again so that you know what is going on here…..

She hung with me that whole summer, and then into fall. I got to know her parents very well, and I became a sort of “big sister to her, and as I then thought, pretty close to her parents as well.

She had never been with a boy at that time, but she had made an attempt at a relationship with a girl at school, which turned out disastrous. It even landed here in trouble at school, with the cops, and with the DSS here in town. Her mom was going through chemo and radiation, and so was I. SO I really had a lot in common with almost every member of her family. Thus I became like a member of their family!

I knew from my own life, and my experiences at that age, that she was dabbling in some kind of drug activity. I just did not know what at first.

I got her to open up to me.

It was then, that I found out  she was stealing her dad’s 40mg Oxycontin and his 1mg klonapin out of his locked box.

She was not only snorting them, but she was selling them as well!

SO….. She was getting in with some pretty savory characters at that point, to say the least!  it was, OF course not long before she met a  guy, who was good looking, manipulative, cunning, most of all he had a raging monkey, the size of Detroit, on his back!

Sadly, only I COULD SEE IT!

Her parents couldn’t see in him the evil that i could.

So when she started seeing him, I went to her parents, with my premonitions, they said that I was over  reacting, and that i was too attached to their daughter, that I should just stay away for a while. Her mom’s words:”I mean really, Romy, he is a MARINE for goodness sakes, and the only reason he is home right now is to save his son from his drug addicted mother!”

They’ve  only in the recent past, found out, that he is using the boy as his meal ticket with the welfare and  department of Social Services here, and that he had been  using their baby for his other selfish adgenda of feeding his monkey and his disease.

“How could you even say such things about him!”

In my mind I was screaming, “Because I know this asshole. He is addicted to drugs, and he told me in the beginning, that he’d been doing dilaudid with his MOTHER. And well, we all know that the only way to do those damn things, is to shoot them up in your veins…DUMB ASS!” PLUS I even know his name. His name  is Daniel, I know him well, I ruined most of my young life trying to win his love. Only I did not know that I was up against something much more powerful than another woman, or anything else, for that matter! There is no match

I was talking to myself, but I knew it then. I was talking about my own experience with my first and truest love of my entire life. The ruination of me! The waist of more than half of my life!

My beginning of my end! The start of my lifetime of  heroin addiction and horror!

I also knew in my heart, that this would be the beginning of her end, and the beginning of her own horror. I also knew, that if she were to end up with this nobody bastard, that she’d be sticking needles in her arms within the year……

Again back to today……

After she called asking to come by last week, she did.

It was then that she took me into the bathroom and she says;”Romy, Do you want to know how bad I am on these things now?”

I answered for her with ,”So. DO you know how to do yourself?” “Or is that why you are here?”

The tears in my heart would not be held back, for I was looking at myself in the mirror. I have seldom felt such a sadness within me, as I did at that moment. She pulled up her sleeve, and there it was. so familiar..The same arm, same hole, same color, same thing. I wanted to puke.

She was so surprised as she asked;” How did you know Romy?” “How could you have known?”

I did not answer her then. I left the room not knowing WHAT to do or what to say.

I was at a loss for the first time in my life, the words just would not come!

She has just left my house, and my heart is heavy.

She came to me today for reasons that she, herself could never have understood.

I asked her what she was up to, she said she did not know, that she was just out driving, and ended up at my place.

I shared with her my story, and my reasons for caring so much about her.

I told her about the mirror, my addictions not only to drugs, but to the stubborn dream that  I had carried with me for eighteen years.

I answered her questions. I completed her sentences. I felt her heart breaking, and I helped her to let go.

She was so shocked at what I shared with her about myself and my own life, that it brought her back into her own reality, and out of the web of lies a deceit that had been woven around her.

I feel good!

I feel lie she KNOWS now.

She sees through me, that we are totally capable of allowing someone elses demons drag us into oblivion. And that their misery can so easily consume us, and take over our very life!

I held her for a long time. We cried together.

I cried for her,but I also cried for the girl that I once was before Daniel, before NYC, and before the misery.

She cried for me, but she also knew that she was crying her own tears for herself, her kind heart, and for that which could not be. She cried  grateful tears, as she knows now, that she is not lost. She is not alone.

And that I’ll have her back, whatever the cost.

Her spirit is strong, she will succeed, she got what she needed most.

A friend and kindred spirit and wisdom from me.

It hit me then, There was my reason for being on that old back road, hitch-hiking two years ago!