It was my junior year in high school and weekends consisted of smoking marijuana in the back of Evan’s seatless 1994 Dodge Caravan. In the end, 12 of the 17 occupants (many my closest friends) were sent to rehabs or wilderness camps or boarding schools.
Meredith was one of my best friends, and had been for nearly a year. She was smart and open minded and beautiful, and could out-rap Eminem. We’d sit around her back yard during the early part of the school year, discussing religion and philosophy, sex and love, art and dance and music. She was such a talented writer. I will never forget some of her poetry, it still rings true to me.
Soon the leaves were falling off the trees and we added Frederico the Bong to our circle. This was fine, but when Coco the Spoon came along I began to get worried. Our conversations had gotten darker, she was unsure of her sexuality, unaware of her potential and uninterested in how much we all loved her.
She had become quite promiscuous, she had slept with at least 8 guys and 3 girls that semester. Her classes, which had always interested her, were “boring” and “stupid” and all that she cared about was the van. I remember hiding a quarter ounce of weed in my locker while hers was searched, playing lookout for her and her other money/brain wasting friends. I didn’t mind, I loved Mer and liked everyone else, and it was fun pigging out and watching Dexter’s Laboratory with them afterwards. But the conversations had basically ceased, all that was left was meager justifications of her drug use.
When I found out she had been using heroin, I told the school psychologist. They brought her in and confiscated two coke spoons, an eighth of chronic, a bowl and five tabs of acid. She was fuming. I haven’t been able to look her in the eye since.
Meredith went into an outpatient program with the Hazelden Foundation, and has made a conscious effort to stay away from drugs and alcohol, and has been successful (with a lot of work) for over 2 years. Even though I’m extremely happy about all this, and proud of my decision, I can’t look her in the face and tell her that it was I that ratted her out.