Euphoria

Pilot. I

I was once happy. Content. Sloshing around in my own private, primordial pool. Then one day, for reasons beyond my control, I was repeatedly crushed... over and over by the cruel cervix of my mother, I put up a good fight, but I lost, for the first time, but not the last. I became a pretty big inconvenience for my mother since the day I was born. Born only a month before 9/11 also known as my fathers death day. Therefore Not only was I the baby my mother didn't want but I was also a reminder of the only thing she had cared about the most. Then, without warning, a middle-class childhood in an American suburb. Where I learnt how to catch a beating from my mother when I breathed too loud. Don't worry though it wasn't all bad. That's a lie. Life is bad but some of us learn to live with it. Others, like my mother learn to suffer in their grief and their sadness and they choose to let life control them to the point where they can no longer function without the thing that makes them feel peace. For my mother that was Alcohol and whatever painkillers she could get her hands on. So, explain this shit to me. How does a kid end up paying for the grief her mother suffocates herself with? It wasn't all bad I had two friends back at home. I know what you're thinking Jade how could you be a 8 year old with only two friends? You see I never went to school before the age of 8. Mom did a pretty good job at keeping me hidden from the system. So I only ever met my next door neighbour Rue and her best friend Lexi. But by the time I was 8 Rues mother had finally caught onto the fact that my mother was not in fact home schooling me like she had stated. And so child services was called. I don't remember much after that. Besides the smell of death walking into my Grandmothers house. She was rich. Beyond rich and she had told me some story that my mother had lost all contact with her after my Dad died and hidden me from her. But I knew that was a lie. You see someone with so much money could find anything if they truely wanted to. I guess she didn't really want to. Then again I couldn't blame her. She had cringed at the state I was in when she had first met me. She said I was too skinny (try going a week without eating anything). She said I looked dirty (try going without a shower for a month cause the bill wasn't paid). Turns out I was too much for her to handle at her age. She shipped me right off to boarding school in Australia just to make it better. I spent years trying to fit in. Until I realised it was all for nothing. I could make up whoever I wanted to be in another country. I could pretend I had a Dad. That I had a mother who loved me. I even pretended I had a dog named Rufus. Hell I even got a picture of a dog off of pinterest and everything but in the end none of it mattered. The world never became easier, that bad news never stopped rolling in whether it was school shootings in America, bushfires in Australia, A new disease that had been found. It never came to an end and quite frankly...I'm just fucking exhausted. By the time I was fifteen I had stopped pretending to be something I wasn't, I still sat with a popular crowd but I never said a word. Hoping people would forget I was there. Sometimes I used to see how long I could go without someone noticing that I was there. It was funny I just showed up one day, without a map or a compass....or to be honest, anyone capable of giving on iota of good fucking advice. And I know it all may seem sad, but guess what? I didn't build this system, nor did I fuck it up.

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It was a week before the school break. That's when I heard my name being called on the speaker. It's an awful feeling for a person. Everyones eyes turning to look at you as you raise yourself from the seat but what was worse was the principal coming into the room and asking for me as well. They just knew how to make it awkward. The walk to the office was even more awkward but I had learnt how to block things around me and focus on the air. It made me feel better. The air was invisible yet there and sometimes if I squinted my eyes hard enough I thought I could see it moving. Then again that could be the weed. I only used weed when I was truely anxious. I told myself weed was the only thing that was okay and on some occasions like parties well I'd drink. I wasn't going to turn into my mum if I used weed. That was the day they told me my Grandmother had died and to be fair that was all good and true. No skin off of my back but that's when I felt another presence in the room. A hand fell onto my shoulder and the smell of perfume overpowered the whole room. Mum.