Euphoria

Content warning: drug use

The snow looks white from afar. Pure white. But the closer you get to it, the more you can see that it’s actually grey. The snow looks white from where I’m standing. 

      *

I can’t stand here forever in this book store, right across from where there’s a party going on just underneath my feet. People must have started drinking by now. Some might be high. It doesn’t matter. Maybe I can’t go to this party after all. Maybe I’m not ready. But I suppose I have to at some point, I have to get back into the world. 

      *

It takes me another hour to build up the courage to walk across the street, and another ten minutes to try and get down the stairs. I feel a pit building in my stomach, a wave of nausea spreads over me, and I stumble down the stairs. Nobody notices. The burden on my shoulders has been lifted, if only temporarily. But not quite yet.

*

 I feel euphoric, but not exactly. More like disconnected from the world, dancing in my own fantasy world. Stumbling along, pushing past the people, but laughing at the same time. Someone spiked my drink.

*

 This is why I didn’t want to come. My past has come back for me, like it had promised it would so long ago when I outran it.

*

 Somehow, in my euphoria of drugs, I managed to get outside. The air clears my head. I see have 150 missed calls from my best friend. A message saying, “I’m done with life. If my best friend won’t even be there for me, then there’s no point in living.” I laugh. She always sends these dramatic messages. I give her a call. No response. I call her again. No response. I give her 20 or so missed calls. No response. Panic floods me. It usually only takes one or two calls. I’m a douchebag. This must have been her last straw, and now she’s not gonna talk to me ever again. But somewhere in my heart, even I knew that much worse had happened. 5 minutes later, as I’m walking home, I get a call from her. Relief floods me. “Oh thank god. Rach, I’m so sorry, I got a concussion and feel down the stairs, I couldn’t talk for some time.” I lie. She is more important to me than anything. It is her mom on the other end of the phone. She is crying. “Honey, I’m so sorry, but she’s gone.” I am confused. “Did she run away again? I can find her, easy, give me a few minutes.” She sobs harder. “No, she’s gone for good this time, I-” I interrupt, the panic building up to the heights of my senses, drowning me. “I’ll find her don’t worry-” She is sobbing so hard her words are incomprehensible. “Devi, dear, she’s dead. She committed suicide.” I puke all over the sidewalk. It’s her dad. Her dad would never lie about this. She is gone. 

*

Something is building up inside my stomach, though I don’t know quite what it is. Is it fear? Nausea? Am I pregnant? What is happening? I won’t admit it to my body, but I know that thinking of her is making me dizzy again. My father had left us long ago, my mother worked hard. I had no siblings. These parties, drinking, getting high, it all helped me escape from my present. The reality of that time was I was truly and utterly alone in the world, but Rach helped me. She used to say, “Devi, it’s okay, your not alone anymore.” Rach and me had been friends since the 4th grade, but we had become best friends in middle school. She helped me in ways not even my own mother could. I was not alone anymore. But then she left. And I was alone again. 

*

“Devi, come here.” My mother beckons to me from the sofa, sitting in her black saree. “Are you okay, Devi? Do you need any help from me, a therapist, possible?” That day, I didn’t know what had gotten into me. “No! Amma, all I need is for you to actually be around for once. Then maybe none of this would have happened. I never had a concussion the day Rach died, I was drunk. I was high too, because some douchebag had spiked my drink. I Never knew, Amma! I could have helped her, but I really never knew.” 

*

After that day, I could see that my mom was trying to be around more, at least for me, if not for herself as well. But today, I had snuck out. The feeling of euphoria, the same feeling I had felt when I had been drugged was somehow in my system again, even though I hadn’t drank anything. And I just stumbled into an empty room, and when I turned I saw Rach. 

*

Rachel looked like an angel, though she always did. Her smile was a beautiful one, one that could light up her whole face. “Devi, come lay down next to me.” I walked to the bed where Rachel was laying, and she turned to me and said, “Devi, you need to let go. I’m gone. Do you hear me? This will be the only time I will ever say this, but you need to go party.” I shook my head. “No, your not gone. Stay here with me. We can stay like this forever.” Rachel laughed. “No, Devi, we can’t and you know it. I’m gone, and you need to accept that for starters, it’s not your fault, and you also need to accept that what happened with me was a whole different story.” I was sobbing now, and I was crying, really crying for the first time in years. Something had opened up inside me and the burdens had been lifted off my shoulders. “Devi, let go.” Rachel whispered to me. “No! No! I don’t want to let you go. Can’t you see how much I need you? For god’s sake, I’m crying, Rach! I’m crying!” 

“Then cry, Devi, cry.”

Rach no, don’t leave me now. 

“Devi, you need to move on. Make new friends, maybe get a boyfriend, find someone who makes you happy, truly happy. And when you find them, never let them go, okay?” 

“NO! Rach, please don’t go! PLEASE!”

Don’t leave me Rach. Not again. 

“Goodbye Devi.” 

There is nothing I can do now, except properly say goodbye, make it count. 

“Goodbye Rach. I love you, you know that right?”

And she is gone with a blink of my eyes.

*

I wake from where I am lying on the bed, alone. After last night’s “dream”, I decided to really go to sleep, and now my head is clear. I know what I need to do. And what I need to do is let go. I need to let go and move on. 

                    5 years later

I am in my second year of college now, and I can say I’ve moved on. I have a boyfriend, and I’m friends with people who really do make me happy. But every time I smile, I make sure to smile just one more time, for Rachel.