I am an emotional drunk. I think of all the mistakes I've made in my life. Getting pregnant so early, leaving Tulsa, getting an abortion, never telling Sodapop. I think of all these things and I cry. I sob violently until I end up passing out somewhere. Whether it be on the bathroom floor or the couch, I wake up the next morning with a pulsing headache.

It's started out when I got pregnant. I was seventeen. It was the fourth time Soda and I had sex. I never thought it would happen to me. We never used anything. We never talked about it. It wouldn't happen to us. It would only happen to those poor people we saw at the mall, buying baby supplies and sulking. Sometimes, I'd see girls break down right there in the middle of the store, crumpling into her boyfriend's arms, if she was lucky enough to have her boyfriend still there.

It's his. No matter what anyone says, I know it's his. I only told him that it wasn't his. I didn't want him to be tied to me like that. I didn't want him stuck to me. I knew he loved me, and he would stay, but it would get to be too much. I didn't want him to feel obligated to stay with me only because we had a child together.

I couldn't deal with seeing him every day. Seeing a part of him in that child, a constant reminder of what I could have had, what I left in Tulsa. I got rid of it. I had an abortion.

It's been five years. I think about all of these things and I drink more, which is never a good idea in any situation.

Last night, it got worse than it's ever been. I grab a postcard and let all of these thoughts and confessions spill out of me, ink to paper.

And I address it to Sodapop Curtis.

I wake up the next morning, curled up into the fetal position on my bathroom floor. A bottle of Jack Daniels clenched in my hand. I try to move but I'm sore all over from sleeping on tile. It takes me a few moments to get up, wincing as the pain shoots up my joints.

I moved out of my Grandmother's house two years ago, when I was twenty. I haven't talked to my parents at all since I moved to Florida. I've lived in a small one bedroom one bathroom apartment ever since. It's not much, but it works.

Sometimes I wonder how things would have turned out if I had stayed with Sodapop. I would be home in Tulsa, with our five year old child, married, maybe with another child on the way. I would be happy, unlike I am now. I wonder if he's happy. I hope he's happy.

I get into the shower, the warm water washing off the film of sweat clinging to my skin. I step out after washing my hair, drying myself off quickly. I look into the mirror. My eyes used to be so blue, now they've dulled to a light blue-grey. Dark circles stain my eye sockets. I'm a lot skinnier than I used to be, but not in a good way. There's nothing to me. Even when I stand up, my hipbones protrude like daggers. I throw on a pair of grey shorts and an old high school t-shirt that practically hangs off of me.

Stepping out into the kitchen, I pick up a box of crackers from off of the counter. I sit down at the small fold up table that I've never bothered to replace, and try to eat. I eat about four crackers and drink half of a glass of water before I feel so full I might explode, but I make myself eat more. I need to eat more. I need to eat. I won't waste away. Tears sting at my eyes.

The fact that I'm getting emotional over eating makes me even more emotional. I am a wreck. I stare down at the table, my tears ting-ing softly on the cold metal table. I pull at my hair, biting my lip, trying to hold back the tears.

I look up, trying to find something to distract myself with. I see a postcard sitting at the opposite end of the table. I begin to remember. I wrote a letter to Sodapop last night. I spilled my heart onto this tiny slip of paper.

"You can change things, Sandy," I say to myself, the sound of my own voice making me jump. But what if it backfires? What if he's angry about it? I only have his old address, it may not even get to him.

I decide to leave the house for the first time in weeks, putting on a pair of slippers and walking to the end of the street to send off the letter.

You don't have anything to lose when you don't have anything at all.