My life is terrible. Terrible things come in threes. For one, my mom is a substance abuser, which really is just a euphemism of saying that she’s a drug addict and an alcoholic.

Most days, she isn’t lucid enough to get through the day to keep herself from tripping or bumping into things(I have to hide a lot of glass away from where I suspect she’ll walk towards next because of this.)

I usually find her out cold on any random couch like furniture we have and there are bottles or clear packets of some white crushed substance, drugs no doubt, in it that I have to put far away from her unconscious reach.

Sometimes, it’s almost like taking care of a child.

It’s exhausting.

Two, my dad is….dead. I lost him to car accident when I was , now I’m not really sure because my memory’s a little bit blurry on it, 9 or 10 and mom and has never been same after that. I remember going to his final resting place for the first few months religiously to visit him and to let him know I missed and, try to, resume our normal father-daughter relationship even while he was gone. How fucked up is that? I cried myself to restless sleep for a week after that realization while staring at his grave stone. His funeral wasn’t that much better to be honest but that’s based in in fact that not much of his family on his side came for his funeral. I just hope he knows how much I miss him.

And, last but not least, I have a lost of low self-esteem issues. But what I mean is I have literally no confidence in myself whatsoever. None. Nada. Zilch. I don’t think I’m good at anything; I’ve tried to be but I just end up doing a poor job of it so I gave up trying in well, anything really.

Apart from academics that is. At least, that’s one thing I can control. But the feeling just never really goes away you know?

So you can imagine my surprise when Adena, the most popular girl in town, it felt that way to me, walks up to me on the first day of high-school with a friendly smile and all, and says Hi to me. I was gobsmacked; surprised is an understatement.

I didn’t even know what to say for the first few seconds and we just stated at each other in awkward silence, on my part I didn’t expect this to happen but what was her excuse?at each other in complete astonishment and confusion before I finally found my voice.

“U-um, H-Hi? Were you-Did you mean to tell me that o-or is there someone else behind me you meant that to?”

She smiled more, remarkable green eyes flashing against my brown ones as the met across short distance, and I kid you not, my heart fluttered. “Of course I meant you. Who else would I mean?”

Her reassuringly tone brought me down back to earth before my mind could take off into imagination where I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and made me immediately welcomed to this big new scary establishment when no one else seemed to want to take notice of me or even look at me.

I get it though; I must not have been anywhere near their radar of priorities so they needn’t spare me a blind glance. But she, she took that first brave step into the unknown towards a new student and greeted her in a friendly manner even though she didn’t necessarily have to.

Just with that one act of amiable kindness of character, she’s made an unsure and unconfident student feel welcomed. And for that alone, I owed her my life.

She made my life instantly better; I felt like a weight had been taken off my heavily burdened shoulders. How many time had I wished for something or someone else to make my life easier?

And how many times had it come to fruition I steady of frustration?

I didn’t-couldn’t allow myself to really-trust her yet.

She was too good to be true.

She must have sensed this because the next thing she said shocked me more than she could have ever laid out on me. It still baffles me till this day.

“I know you didn’t expect me to be nice to you but hopefully I can change your mind about that perception. If you’ll let me that is, don’t wanna overstep boundaries.” She exclaimed with such a perfect warm smile on perfect lips. I blinked then eyed her in suspicion.

“How do you plan on doing that? By merely tying to charm me with your perfect presence?” I ask as I clutched my books closer to my chest, as if I couldn’t even trust her around my books; Lord knows what she’d do once got her hands on them, going straight to the point as I didn’t try to hide my suspicion and my distrust of any random human act of kindness towards me.

“Perfect presence? Never heard that before but okay. Will you let me show you around school and show you the ropes? You do look really new here.” She offered as she easily slipped back into amicable conversation that I only knew to be between the people graced with the precious term of besties.

I quirk an eyebrow at her as I even to suspect some other ulterior motive, never minding her comment about having never being called a perfect presence( I was nervous okay!!) “And if I say no?”

Was it really that obvious that I just moved here?

She shrugged. “I hope it doesn’t come to that but, ’ll have to find some other way for you to trust me. Maybe carry your books for you. Or at least show you the rooms to your classes, would be the least I could do anyway. ” She scrunched up her nose in thought. “I don’t even think anybody did that for me on my first day.” She added as an afterthought.

I swish my feet to and fro as I contemplate my options, the noise of teenage chatter becoming white noise in the background with the rough scratches of shoes against polished tile floors, and looked down in between the books I held closely to my protective bosom, my diary with deep blue leather cloth that spiralled beneath the heavy paperboard cover that sheathed it, curvy spirals decoratively splashed across of what lay atop.

I fingered its turned weakening pages with caution as I thought, a caress of what would be like a lover’s you have against one’s skin for the first time; unsure but still passionate. “I don’t know….I’ve always been told not to talk to strangers…..buy then again that is how you make friends.. so I guess it’s okay. For now.” I condition firmly as I agree to her desire to befriend me.

Her smile stiffens a little but never once does it lose its shine; it almost seems to be too big to contain such a miniature face like hers, how does she do it? Even as I come bearing bad news, it remains stainless as steel.

“But if you let me down, I won’t ever talk you to again, am I clear?”

She nods her affirmation, oddly not shocked in the least bit of my condition.

“Crystal.”

So I then went about my first day of high-school and we to teach and every one of my classes without wasting a single second with the assistance and guidance of Adena, who true to her word never overstepped her boundaries and tried to force me into anything I wasn’t comfortable with already, led me through the whole tour of school with impeccable time keeping. Huh.

I guess she was serious about this whole friend thing. But how long will it last before either she gets tired of me or realizes that I’m not worth it and leaves me friendless and lonely?

It took me till almost the end of school however to realize that I didn’t even know her name.

So before she had the chance to dash out of the school parking lot, her shoulders kept doing this weird raising up and lowering down thing in circles so I could tell she was antsy to get somewhere, I mustered up the courage to tap her shoulder and ask her. “So…what’s your name? I just realized I don't know it.”

She looked at me over shoulder with a slow relaxed smile. “Adena Çelti. What’s yours?” She asked after having not wasted any time in answering my question.

One flip. I return it, although bashfully aware of our close proximity. “Daisy Asghar.”

“That’s a beautiful name.”

Coming from school and seeing my mom out cold on the couch, which I’m sure she just fell upon, is not out if the ordinary; it’s normal. So I wasn’t all that too surprised to find her passed out on the couch in the living room.

Her long cinnamon legs hung over the edges of the green olefin fiber, her unmoved face turned out towards the back of the couch where I can tell her drool is dropping onto quite unceremoniously with half an open quietly snoring mouth.

Her back rose and fell as she slept soundlessly, unconcerned and unconscious form dead to the world and its sad harsh realities. Her pills and bottle of alcoholic friends lay emptied on the floor underneath her dangling legs.

I sigh after watching her for a few moments longer in her blissfully ignorance that has been in the slave between me and her for as long as I can remember after dad died and walk over to the other couch to pick up soft blue wool blanket that is t too scratch against her skin but not too smooth that keeps her in her knocked our state. I walk back over to her and staring at a her again, lift the blanket in the air, short edges softly smacking air, and gently spread on her unconscious body.

I leaned forward and placed a kiss on her forehead, like how she used to do when I was little, a motherly gesture I all too well know that I miss, “Night mom.”

In bed, I laid awake, thinking but listening in fir any signs or signs of her waking up, thinking of what life has been so far.

I was 9 when I first noticed something was wrong with my mom.

Flashback

Dad had been an overnight shift now and hadn't been home for several times a week in a few weeks and the empty side at the dinner table was a constant reminder but I had to remind myself that it was okay, he was doing for me and mom so we could be happy together without having to worry about money so I dealt with it. I didn't let my feelings cloud what was important to him.

It was a rainy day after I'd gotten back from school and seen as the day hadn't been that bad I thought hey why not ask mom if I could go over to a friend's house and play with them till dad came back. Mind you, I didn't have that many friends or people to talk to. He had a habit of coming back on the late nights of Thursdays and I didn't want to spend the whole day doing nothing but waiting and waiting.

Plus, the test they gave us had come back with my score and I was excited, bursting with happiness at this point to show it to mom that I could hardly stay still. I couldn't wait to see the proud look on her face for me.

I peeped into her room and saw that she wasn't in so I slipped in, my floral shorts quietly swaying in with me, and plopped myself upon their bed to wait for her. That's when I noticed a piece of paper that I'd never seen before on her bedside table. Its edges looked marked with dirt and aged with use.

I stood up and as the curious little child I was I went over to see what it was. She's never kept, or been compelled to anyway, anything from me, why would she start now? As she was open and trusting of me, I was open and trusting of her. We had a better relationship this way.

I picked up the white folded up paper with my little inquisitive hands and turned it over so I could read it. It had a little weird cursive writing I couldn't understand no matter how much I looked at it(Dad usually joked about doctors having that type of handwriting) I flipped it over and rolled my eyes. It was upside down this whole time, stupid.

But still in cursive.

I walked over and splayed out in front of the sun-kissed window where rays of the sun scattered and shattered through the steel bars and bled out into the room in fragments of gold, and the words burned in front of my eyes. I couldn't drag my eyes away much as I would like to. I blinked once, twice, eyelashes fluttering open and close as I tried to fathom the idea of what was inscribed hurriedly onto the piece of paper.

My vision blurred.

Was this-Was this a drug prescription she never told me about? That she didn't want me to know about? That she didn't want dad to worry over? Did this count as a breach of trust? I didn't know what to think. What was I looking at? I wanted to look away but I couldn't.

The paper gets snatched out of my fingers, catching me off guard, a light sizzle of a shock bolting through fingers that touched mine for the briefest of moments before I could examine it more and I turned around in shock to see my mom.

She looked furious, eyebrows turned down, mouth pressed shut into a slim tight line-but was that a flash of guilt?-and had her arms across her bosom, pressing down her soft skin under the weight, and asked me, “What's the meaning of this? Why were you looking through my things?" with eyes flashing in fury. What I didn't know however that would soon become the most animated I'decer seen her.

I looked down at my shoes, ashamed of my actions. "I'm sorry ma."

"Go to your room. We'll discuss this later." I took her instruction as my cue to scurry my feet out of her room and back into mine. It was then that unnoticed my shaking legs. I tried to calm down my loud thumping heart with calm breathing but they came out in panicked rasps that I couldn't control.

My hands shook as I borough them up to my face and bared myself in it as I slid down my wall to cry.

Later, I heard my mom calling me from downstairs and with quick hand swipes wipe my tears away. Although my head feels light and aches in undesirable pain, I hastily stand up and go out of my room to meet her.

She stared at me for a few seconds, making g me feel uncomfortable with the silence between us under her scrutiny, and then said “Dinner is ready.” My head whips upwards from staring at the floor towards her in a quick flash of hair and head merging together the second to stare at her in confusion.

What did this mean? I’m not one to misunderstanding what a person wants, at least I think, but what she had just said left me feeling g confused. We’re there any indicators I missed? Were we not going to talk about it? What did this mean for us going onward?

During dinner when dad had come back, she kept giving me this short glances that she didn’t think I’d notice. Conversation wasn’t as fun and merry on the dinning table like it always had been. Something in the air had shifted, I could feel it. But what?

Eventually, she came to my room and made me promise to never tell anyone what I saw in that paper. Confused but willing to appease her so she wouldn’t be upset with me anymore for fear that our relationship would be ruined and damaged if I didn’t, I agreed.

End of flashback.

Closing my eyes with a sigh, I fall back into restless sleep that never makes me feel less heavy with the responsibility of taking care of one person than I have to, no matter how many times I cry in my dreams for it to take away this pain.

This consuming burden will never leave, will it?

Absentmindedly, almost like it’s a thought I’ve had all day like but didn’t want to acknowledge, I wonder how Eliza is doing. Her friends ate being selfish, even for whatever reason that they’re upset.

Surely, they shouldn’t take this long to apologize for doing her wrong.

I do hope she’s okay. Just because I had a bad ending to my day doesn’t mean other people should……….