The Adventures of Ghost and Purp

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TW (also spoiler to the year of life I describe): drug abuse, suicide

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As I look at the sunset, surrounded by people that I love and who love me back, I can’t help but to think back on the events that lead me here. How the universe gave me the worst year of my life to force me to where I am now. How without that tragic ending that began my 19^th summer, I would not be who I am. I want to say it was luck, or lack thereof, but there is no denying the divine presence that took a life to give me mine.

               I used to be a normal girl. At eighteen years old I had graduated with a normal 3.25 GPA, had received a normal scholarship to a normal school, except it being an all-girls university. I had never really stood out except for the stutter that I had since I could talk, that led to me having very few friends. I had a normal boyfriend, Logan, and normal parents, and I was heading off to live a normal life.

           I had dreamed about going off to college and starting a brand-new adventure that would lead me to opportunities I had never expected for myself, but that was only somewhat true to what really happened. My dreams of college life had shattered pretty much instantly when the other girls found out I was not religious. When I had found the catholic school, I figured it would be like Catholic high schools where people just went for a good education, but that was not the case at St. Catherine’s University. I quickly found myself without friends in a state where I neither had a car, or family that was within a four-hour drive from me. I was very thankful that I grew up in the age of Uber when I found an opportunity to at least leave my dorm, Excision.

I had never been to a rave before, but I loved, and still love, the music that brings out the dance in people. So, I went. I took an average Uber ride over to a pretty average event center and, to be honest, I had a pretty average time while I was there. Then, things stopped being average. I walked out of the event centers doors at the end of the rave and turned on my phone to see I was almost out of battery. No problem, I had thought to myself, once I signaled for the Uber, I would be good to go. I pulled up the app, put in my location and the location of my door, and then… nothing. Not a single Uber in my area, in St. Paul, MN! Absolutely unheard of, I remember grumbling to myself. I had not brought my credit card or any cash either, thinking that an Uber would be very easy to obtain, and I found myself stuck.

Then, I turned around. Immediately I locked eyes with a tall, dark, blindingly handsome man talking to a very pretty and petite girl around my age. I had been shocked at how quickly he pushed that girl away, much to her dismay at losing a handsome guy she thought she had in her grip, and headed my direction, never once losing eye contact with me.

 “This is a strange question…” He said, also taking me by surprise, “but, are you cosplaying?”

My shock doubled and I let out a small laugh at the absolute absurdity of this situation. This was HIM! A guy I had never once met in my life until now but I just knew, I knew deep down inside that this guy was one hundred percent made for me and me for him and someday we would be walking down the isle today. It blew my mind, and he was asking me if I was cosplaying! The absurdity of it all!

“I’m not,” I had said, looking down at the purple corset and matching mini skirt I had on, “but who did you think I was cosplaying as?”

He has scratched the back of his head, looking like he didn’t quite want to say, but he did anyways. “Oh, just this character named Caitlyn from this game I play, sorry about that.”

“Caitlyn from League of Legends?” I had laughed for real that time, he was just as much of a dork as me. Also, just as much of a dork as my boyfriend who had originally shown me the game…

We had talked for awhile and then he offered me a ride back to my dorm when I had told him about my Uber situation. That’s how I learned that he was only a year older than me and going to school not even two miles from mine at the all guys college. He played rugby, had almost the same exact music taste as me – he knew who Die Antwoord was! - and his personality was outstanding. He smoked weed, just like me, and dabbled in a few other substances like I had.

That’s how it began, and it continued leading on and on as we fell more and more in love with each other. Finally, he told me he loved me, I said it back, he dropped me off at my dorm room, and I called my boyfriend and broke it off with him. We started going to raves more frequently and started using LSD and Molly when we went.

Together, we got wrapped up in an organized group of dealers, and while I wouldn’t like to call it a gang, I have to, as I have seen body’s leaking out blood and had sold thousands worth of substances. That was how we earned our names of Ghost and Purp. I tried for a very long time to make myself feel better about this, as I didn’t and still haven’t ever touched meth or crack or heroin, but at the end of the day, we were drug users, abusers, and sellers.

We loved each other very much but neither one of us could pull ourselves from the grip of addictions hand. We fought, we made up, we did drugs. We loved, we made love, we did drugs. We were happy, we were sad, we did drugs. Eventually, summer was starting once again and I would have to return home and face my failing grades, failing heath, and worst of all, my parents.

They did see what had happened, my parents, and while my dad took it in stride and helped me get into drugs anonymous and continued to help me sort out the thoughts and feelings that had lead me down that road, my mom started a drug addiction of her own. It was strange really, to have a parent so upset about your use of LSD and Molly that they have to take to the bottles of wine, at least two a night, and extra sleeping pills, It’s strange to see a parent deal with your drug addiction by taking up their own and not even realizing it. That’s life I guess, though, it’s never just black and white.

While I was on the road to recover, I was still very much in love with him, with Mike. He had not escaped, but I was very close to slipping out of that grip. My weight had gone up from ninety-two pounds to one-twenty-five and I was starting to look like my old heathy self, while he continued to look more like a shadow fading away at the days end. I did love him though, and I believe that’s why I went back with him to celebrate my 19^th birthday.

He picked me up outside my parent’s house and drove the four hours back to St. Paul where we would be staying at his friend’s house for the three days before he drove me back. We talked and laughed the whole way and I was just as much in love with him as I had ever been. The first two days went without a hitch, but that third day is when things really went downhill.

For my birthday he had scored us some LSD and I was very hesitant to take it, being that I was on the road to recovery, but eventually, I did it anyways. About halfway through the trip he could tell I was not having a good time and he had started to feel bad about pressuring me to do it. Like any emotions one faces, when you are on that type of substance the feeling is multiplied. He eventually really freaked out and left our friends house to go and calm down. When he came back, I could tell he had taken quite a few of something, as he went and immediately passed out on the guest bed. Half way through the night he got up, threw up, then passed out again, and that’s when I called Logan so I could at least try to end my 'trip' in a calm state and so I would eventually be able to go to bed.

               The next morning, I woke up before him, no surprise, and went for a walk to clear my head. We both knew I would be going back home today, but I hoped we could end it on good terms. My mind filled with all of the things I could say, but none of them encompassed both my love for him and the love I needed to have for myself to pull away from him. Eventually, I went back to the house and he was up.

               “What the fuck are you still doing here?” He spat at me and I immediately knew he was not fully recovered from the night before.

               “Well, you’re my ride home…” I shrugged, trying not to stir the pot.

               “Call your fucking mom, I’m not driving you.”

               So, I did, and my mom started driving the four hours to St. Paul. Mike left the house to go back to his, completely ignoring all of our protests about how he was still messed up from the night before, how all of us were, and that he should just wait a few hours until his friend Nick got back and could take him home. He didn’t listen to our advice, he never did. My mom picked me up, we drove back home, and my 19^th birthday was done and over.

              Two days after that trip, I was out frisbee golfing with friends when I received a call. I looked down at the screen to see Susan, Nick’s mom, and I press the ignore button. Right away, I get a call again, and I already knew what had happened, but I didn’t want to face it. I pressed decline again. A few minutes passed before my phone dinged and I get a text: Call me ASAP. I sat down heavily on the green grass, not caring about my white shorts, and stared at my phone for a long while before calling her back.

               “Mike…” I waited, tears streaming down my face silently, her voice told the whole story but I waited for her to speak the words, “Mike killed himself last night, Nick and Brad found him this morning.”

               That’s when my world ended. It hurts having your world shattered, especially when everyone else’s world keeps spinning. While there is a lot that has happened in the four years since the day I got the call, I can remember it like it was yesterday. That single phone call set the rest of my life into a direction I never expected it to go. It led me to the brink of losing my mind, although I went cold turkey and got sober that day, and eventually I moved down to Tulsa. It led me to meet a lot of great people, and a lot of horrible ones. It led me to the realization that it is better to love someone then it is to be completely lost in them. It led me to the knowledge that you must be the main character of your story, otherwise your story can end at someone else’s hand. It led me to sitting hand and hand with someone I love, with our friends and family around us, with all three of our dogs playing in the yard after a day spent looking at our budget to figure out how much we will be able to spend on the house we want to buy next year. Every horrible thing that happened led me to right now, sitting and looking at the sunset with content.