A Tiny Force of Unstoppable Coolness Chapter 3

Up until high school Cody and I stuck with our jock/honor roll student friends. Freshman year brought on a whole new mess of boys to chase and parties to find. Hanging out at the skate park smoking cigarettes became much more fun than going to football games. Cody drove her parents big truck around with me in it, making stops at Taco Bell daily. We were so free those years, 15 and 16 years old, no serious boyfriends,  (but a whole lot of crushes) and friends of every kind imaginable. The boys we met at the skate park definitely became our favorite to chase. We would drive out to the woods to escape our tiny town, bouncing around like we had not a care in the world. Jerome was our favorite place to go. We seldom had money for more than gas but we didn't care. We'd walk all over the place and talk about how much better life would be once we grew up. Little did we know that that freedom that we were craving so badly would lead to our downfall and many years wasted in early adulthood. Little by little we began experimenting with drugs. Cody was always a step ahead of me, which reassured me that it was okay. I knew it was bad, I knew it would lead to trouble. But it was an escape and not to mention a whole lot of fun. Looking back at our choices, I wouldn't change a thing because it made me stronger in the long run. For Cody it was a different outcome. I had all of my first experiences with Cody by my side. First was weed of course, freshman year. By sophomore year we had a whole new group of friends, all of whom experimented too. That's when pills came into the picture which eventually led to speed, coke and for Cody, opiates. Alcohol was there too but Cody never really cared for drinking as much as I did. At this time both of our families were fighting with drugs and alcohol as well, but we swore we would never end up like them. When you are 17 its really hard to believe that you are shaping your future with the actions you take everyday. Our sophomore year was the first time Cody ever expressed to me that she had feelings of extreme depression and had thoughts of suicide. Which of course she assured me were just thoughts that she couldn't control but that she was in control of her actions. During that year she got really fed up with her surroundings and decided to move down to Tempe to live with her aunt. Her depression was only distracted for a bit by that move and it wasn't long until she moved back to Humboldt with me. My dad was in way deep with meth at this time, and I loathed seeing him everyday. After a big fight with him I chugged a bunch of vodka I had in a water bottle in my closet and ran away to Cody's house. It was easier for me to accept Cody's family's addictions than it was my own dad. Living with Cody was insanely fun. We would stay up all night, talking, drawing, writing, smoking, drinking.... It was a constant sleepover but I knew that I was digging my own grave. We lived together the whole summer before senior year, doing meth or whatever drug we could find daily. I knew that if I was going to have any sort of a future after high school I had to get out of my environment. I moved to Texas with my sister for the first semester of senior year, in hopes to get clean and start over. I missed my friends and my drugs more than I could have ever imagined. I flew home for homecoming, and smoked speed the entire weekend. When I returned to my sister and my nephew I knew I couldn't stay there any longer. I felt guilty for wanting to do drugs when I had my family there helping me. So I transferred back to Bradshaw and moved back in with my parents. The remainder of my senior year all I did was speed. We ditched every single day to get high. It killed Cody to see me so hooked and this was the beginning of the end for us. She began to pull away, said she hated seeing me like that. I didn't want anything else but to get high and stay in my room. She had a job and an apartment and a cell phone and I was literally a lump of skin and bones in my room. Cody moved to Washington to escape her family once again. I missed her so incredibly much and mourned the end of our innocence. Neither of us could stay away from AZ for long though and it was only a couple of months before she got homesick. At that point I was living with my mom but my dad was in rehab. Since we had little money I wasn't doing the meth as much anymore and Cody moved in with me. Those months she lived with me were so fun. We would party every night and drive around in my Geo Metro singing and smoking cigs. We were two peas in a pod again. But alas, nothing is permanent and she rekindled her relationship with her ex and little by little she became his instead of mine. They both loved pills and I preferred speed, I felt like the third wheel and decided to make new friends who partied like I did. We lost touch big time this time, only talking every six months. We would take turns flaking out on each other and I became extremely resentful towards my little Cody.