Out Of Hand

Author's Note: This is a story I started writing a while ago but never finished. Recently I found my notes on the story and I want to finish it. I am updating some spelling and grammatical errors but I am going to finish it.

This is my second attempt to write a Rent fan fic. This is a story from April's POV and is mostly a narrative. I have updated the title as well as chapters. This story was just a thought that I had. I hope people like it. It is going to be multi-chapters. Comments are always welcomed. Enjoy!

PS-Since there is drug abuse and some other stuff mentioned in this chapter it is rated PG-13, at least.

Chapter One-The Beginning

Okay, so things got out of hand. My life, in particular, is out of hand, especially right now. Tonight, well what can I say? Tonight got so out of hand, but I don't think that I have any other choice. The pain is just too much to take…too much to handle. Wait, let me back up. I'll back up and tell you about my life.

I grew up and lived a very privileged life. I was very lucky in the atmosphere in which I was raised. My parents raised my older sister and on the upper West Side of New York City. We also had a summer home in the Hamptons and on the beaches and resorts in Europe. I don't want to brag but my summers were filled with being at the beach and hanging out with the children of very famous and successful people in the entertainment industry.

My sister Julie and I used to be so close growing up. She is five years older than me. I was the typical little sister. Everything she did I wanted to do too. She is the smartest person I ever knew and the most beautiful too. She is the first woman in our family to not only become a medical doctor, but she is the youngest person to be the head of the gynecology department in a very prestigious hospital outside the city. I don't know how she did it.

I always felt the pressure to follow in her foot steps. I did inspire to have her stride and her admiration for something that I was passionate about, but I never had any desire to become a doctor.

I always loved school and loved learning. Despite the fact that my parents thought I was wasting my life, I still enrolled at New York University. I wanted to be an actress. I looked at the parents of my friends who lived in the Hamptons and all around the city. They did look glamorous but they worked hard. They had the greatest job, entertaining people. I wanted to do that. I wanted to be a good actress who could do anything.

I was beginning to achieve my dream at school. While in school I did a few commercials and got the lead parts in plays we did at school. By my sophomore year of school, I had even my parents convinced that I was heading towards stardom.

I worked hard but I also liked to hang out with my friends and do all of the things crazy college kids enjoy doing. I went to lots of parties and mostly did socializing and I stayed away from drugs and booze. I was so happy all the time; I didn't need to do any of that stuff. I had watched one too many special after school specials to start to experiment, but there is always a first time.

It was at one of those crazy college parties that I met Lucas. He wasn't just good looking but he was sexy. We got to know each other a little because we had the same agent. We also had some of the same classes. He was a year ahead of me. I couldn't believe this gorgeous man was into me. He had the most radiant green eyes and the cutest dimple in the middle of his chin. He was the first man I ever loved.

That night I didn't act like the prim and proper princess that I was raised to be. I let my hair down and I guess I never really got around to putting it back up. That night I was introduced to a world that I only knew from movies and television shows.

Lucas and I slept together that night. He was my first. I was stupid and blinded by his glowing persona to realize that he wouldn't be my last. He introduced me to a very dark world, a world that my parents had always told me only scum lead.

After that first time we slept together, he rolled off of me and reached into the drawer of his night stand. He pulled out a little plastic box that was supposed to be used to store pens and pencils. Instead of a writing instrument he pulled out a needle. I witnessed my first person shooting up.

Naively, I asked if he was a diabetic. He giggled at my innocence and gave me a kiss. He explained to me heroin helped him to relax. He said it was really safe and he liked the way it made him feel. He gave it to me to try. I said no at first. He told me he wouldn't do anything to hurt me. I was frightened but I gave in to him. I thought that Lucas cared about me and he wouldn't want to hurt me or let me do something to hurt me. I did it. It felt strange but I was all right.

Lucas and I stayed together for several months. He continued to show me a dark world filled with drugs I had never heard of and lots of booze and sex. As long as I had Lucas at my side, I figured I was all right.

While I was off gallivanting around, my grades suffered. I went from being on the dean's list and working very hard to barely getting papers done and barely passing tests. Then, over night the party life caught up with me. I began to skip classes and rehearsals. I was so strung out all the time that NYU kicked me out.

My parents of course were very angry and disappointed with me. They didn't understand what was wrong with me. I left my cozy apartment and moved back home. They wanted to keep an eye on me. They thought maybe since I began loosing weight that I was stressed out with the modeling and bit acting that it was taking its toll on me.

Meanwhile, my sister was finishing up medical school at Harvard University in Cambridge Massachusetts. She was still striving to make our mom and dad proud of her. My parents had no idea about my addiction, none the less how bad it was. They would give me over five hundred dollars a week for an allowance. I would spend it in just a few days on drugs for Lucas and I. I was going through money like it was water. When my money ran out, I went through the house and would pawn little items that brought in a lot of money. Crystal vases, silver frames, anything that would score us enough money for another high. My mother initially thought it was our cleaning lady. I could have asked my parents for more money and they would have given it to me, happily. The only catch was that I would have to tell them where it was going. Instead of me explaining myself, mom fired the maid.

I would sleep in until one or two in the afternoon. This hadn't concerned my parents. They were still thinking I was stressed out. My parents were so clueless. They came to their own conclusion that school just wasn't for me.

Lucas was a frequent visitor at out home. My parents loved him and didn't see anything wrong with him. They adored him. They had him over a lot for dinner or lunch. He was good at pulling a blind right over their eyes. I think since their dreams of me graduating form school wasn't going to work; they put all of their hopes and faith in Lucas. I think they hoped that he would end up being my betrothed. They had no idea about our dark world.

Lucas, whose parents were also wealthy but lived in California, loved the things my parents owned. He too helped me find goods to pawn. He would go right into their dressers or desk drawers and just take money. He took anything that he felt was worth value to feed his addiction.

The longer I stayed at home and with Lucas, the worse my problem became. Things started to change when I didn't make my flight to Boston to see my sister graduate from Harvard (by the way, she was number one in her graduating class). Instead of being with my family and applauding my sister on her accomplishments, I was alone, at Lucas' apartment. He told me he had to run out to a friends' apartment to pick up more "candy."

He did return, but he returned with another girl. I hurt so badly from being hung over and strung out and not taking care of my body. Neither one of them acknowledged my presences in the room when they walked in. They were all over each other and couldn't wait to share their "goodies." There was nothing better than a little drugs after sex.

Lucas and I broke up. It turned out that the girl who he was involved with came from a more affluent family than mine, which meant more drug money. When I was preparing to leave, he promised me he would call. He was never made good with his promises.

After that, I promised myself I would get back on track. I would stop using. After all, I wanted to be an actress and I couldn't on that stuff.

When my family returned form Boston, they were all furious. I had been able to avoid their calls but I couldn't avoid them presences. I had told them that I missed my plane and the airline wouldn't refund my ticket or let me switch it. I also said that I called and left messages with the concierge at the hotel, but obviously they never got it. My parents bought it but my sister had her suspicions, which she should have.

A few days later Julie had walked into my room. She caught me while I was changing my shirt. I hadn't used in several days and I didn't think anything of it. She saw my arms where I had shot up. She asked me what I was doing to myself. I tried to tell her I had a hard time giving blood. She told me she knew the marks were from drugs. I was flabbergasted. I tried to deny it but I couldn't give her some lame ass excuse. She wasn't my parents.

Julie reached out to me in her own way, of course. She gave me an ultimatum. She said she knew of a group therapy she could get me into without telling my parents. The other option was that she would tell them for me. I knew my parents would have flipped out. I knew that they would have thrown me out of the house. I promised Julie I would get help.

My sobriety lasted only a few months until Julie's next accomplishment. She and her high school boyfriend were engaged to be married and were going to become parents. She was three months pregnant. I was so happy for her but the weeks that followed I was stressed out. I was planning both of her showers and organizing everything. I didn't know what to do and I didn't know how to handle the stress.

It was the day I went shopping by myself in SoHo. I ran into a "friend" of Lucas'. Of course by friend I mean dealer. He told me that Lucas' landlord suspected that he was using drugs. He was having a party that got completely out of hand and the landlord called the cops. They busted Lucas for possession of drugs. The "friend" said he was serving a three year sentence.

After exchanging a few more rounds of small talk, I told the dealer I needed some drugs. It was the only way that I felt I could de-stress. I didn't know how else to deal with it. The therapist certainly wasn't helping me out.

We met later that night. Since Julie was handling all of my money and was still watching me like a hawk, I had to retreat to an old bad habit. I had to pawn something. I found the first necklace that Julie's fiancé bought her. It wasn't overly expensive, and I just wanted a small rush so the drugs wouldn't be that much money. The necklace was the perfect item to pawn. The "friend" liked it. He said he was going to give it to his daughter, which kind of creeped me out.

Soon after that meeting I all together stopped going to my therapy sessions. I thought I had everything under control. I had new friends. I found people who had lives that were parallel to the one that I had lived with Lucas. It was another avenue that was fast and filled with sex, drugs and booze. I would be gone on highs that lasted for days. I stopped going home all the time. My parents questioned me, of course. Looking back I knew they were worried about me. God, I knew they just loved me and wanted me to be safe. I think they were catching on to what was happening to me. Julie might have even clued them in. I think they chose to believe that my behavior didn't happen in our family. They put themselves into a state of denial.

The end of the road of over looking me and my problems came the last time I stumbled into their home. I think I had been wasted for almost two weeks. I hadn't called that entire time. I was living life in the fast lane and was constantly high. During those two weeks I screwed up big time. I missed Julie's wedding shower.

After arguing for over an hour and me being stubborn and refusing to seek help, my parents gave me ten thousand dollars and told me to leave. They told me I was welcomed to come back home at any time as long as I cleaned up my act. As long as I was sober. Other wise, if I continued my lifestyle of partying and leading the wild life that I was, then I was dead to them. That was that. The summers at the beach house in the Hamptons had ended as well as my dreams.

Author's note: Okay, this is the first chapter. I am going to try and not make all of the chapters this depressing but this is a very informative chapter. What did you think?