D-Amphetamine Salt Combination. 20mg. One pill every morning by mouth, never on an empty stomach. That's how it was supposed to go. That's how it did go…for a while. But even WebMD can tell you that Adderall is addictive. It can make you go days without sleep. You can plow through homework like nobody's business. It lets you focus on one thing for more than 30 seconds at a time. It makes you seem…normal. You feel normal. Sounds great…right?

I had been on Adderall since I was eight, right after my mom died. I was a scrawny pale kid, but the pills seemed to help with a lot…the stress, the inability to stay focused and sit still. It was good. It became familiar, a habit, part of a routine. I would wake up, shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast with my dad, take the Adderall, and then catch the bus to school with Scott. It was easy. It was what I grew up doing. Then things got okay, I didn't seem to need Adderall on the daily. I took it less and less, and eventually stopped all together. I though I was okay, I thought I was normal. Then I hit high school.

I got swamped with papers and projects and worksheets and textbook readings. I didn't have time to get off the bus with Scott and hang out at his house and eat everything in his fridge before walking home and doing the same to mine. I went straight home, said hey to my dad and then holed up in my room, doing homework and studying until the early hours of the morning. Some days I forgot to eat dinner at all, but would be too tired to drag myself down the stairs and make something. So I learned to fall asleep to the sound of my growling stomach, and the weight of a textbook lying open on my chest.

A few weeks ago, (or was it only yesterday?) I was rummaging through the medicine cabinet in my dad's bathroom for some Advil. The headache had shown up right at the beginning of Economics 4th period, and had gotten progressively worse as the day went on. What I stumbled upon, however, wasn't a painkiller, but rather an old bottle of ADHD meds. My old ADHD meds. I read over the label; my real first name taking up more than half of the name section. I read the directions, the side affects, and finally the purpose of use. The three ways to describe my personality were crammed into the small space on the label: "Hyperactivity, Anxiety, and Inability to Focus." Below that, was something much more interesting and unfamiliar: "This drug may also be used to treat certain sleeping disorders, (narcolepsy) and help patient stay awake during the day."

I smiled to myself, because this is exactly what I needed. I needed to stay on top of my school load, and to do that, I needed to stay awake. It was perfect. I had taken these before, hadn't I? I knew what they did to me, as well as what they did for me. I shoved the bottle in my back pocket before digging further in the cabinet for any more bottles I might not have finished as a kid. I pulled out three more, each with a decent amount of capsules in them. They were all the same; D-Amphetamine Salt Combination. 20mg. One pill every morning by mouth, never on an empty stomach. I opened one of the bottles and placed a pill in my mouth, swallowing it dry. It was easy, like muscle memory.

I closed the cabinet and walked back to my bedroom, forgetting about the headache that seemed irrelevant now. I sat on my bed and placed all four pill bottles in front of me. I opened them one by one, dumping the pills in a small heap on my sheets. I began counting…1,2,3...all the way up to 47. 48, if you include the pill I just swallowed. It was a good amount, they should have lasted me at least a month and a half.

They didn't. Here I was, 3 weeks later. I sat on my bed, binders sprawled out and worksheets sticking out of closed textbooks. Four empty bottles lined up in front of me. 46 pills in 21 days. The last one was in my hand, rolling around as I cupped and uncupped my palm. Here we go. I thought as I threw the small capsule into my mouth. I swallowed, and it was gone. I immediately felt strange…alone almost. Like I my best friend had just left town for a week. The worst part was…I wasn't even thinking about what I had to be doing to my body, or the chemical levels in my brain. All I could think about was how I was going to get more.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked up the number for our local pharmacy. I held my finger over the screen. Are we really gonna do this, Stiles? I thought to myself. I looked around at the textbooks and the binders and the empty worksheets that needed to be filled out. Yeah. We're really gonna do this. I tapped the number and brought the phone to my ear. I took a deep breath as I listened to the steady ring.

"Beacon Hills Pharmaceutical, how can I help you?"

"Good afternoon," I began. "I'm calling on behalf of my son to refill a prescription."

"Okay, and what is the name?"

"Stilinski."

"Alright, give me one second…" I could here her typing though the phone. I moved the phone away from my mouth and took another deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. "It says here that the last prescription refill was over 9 years ago. Is that a mistake?"

"No, no that's correct. We took him off of the medication when we thought he would be okay without it, but recently he has started to slip into old habits, and we would like to see if the medication will help him like it did when he was younger."

"I see. Let me double check something with my manager here, and I'll let you know what we can do. Sound okay?"

"Yes, that's alright."

"Alright, stay on the line, I'm going to put you on hold for just a moment."

She clicked a button, and cheesy elevator music began playing on a loop through the phone. I put it on speaker and placed my phone on my bed. I stared at it pathetically for the next 8 minutes, trying to somehow will the pharmacist to come back on the line.

"Mr. Stilinski?" I jumped and grabbed at my phone, nearly dropping it as I did so. I turned it off speaker and pressed it to my ear.

"Yes, hello."

"You're all set, the prescription will be ready for you to pick up within the next 24 to 48 hours. All there is left to do is the bill. Can you give me your address? Your card may still be in the system, even after almost a decade."

I chuckled, trying to sound as much like my dad as possible. "The address is—"

"Oh! Hold on, we actually already have your information. Not very many Stilinskis in this town. Would you like to put it under your name or Claudia's?"

"Mine, put it under mine."

"Okay! You're all set. Come by to pick up your son's prescription anytime after the next 24 hours."

"Wonderful. Thanks for your help."

"My pleasure, have a good rest of the day."

"You too." I hung up.

Did I really just do that? Holy shit. I grinned, though no one was around to see it.

24 hours. Only one day. I could afford to lay off for one day…

Right?

More to come!