Annie stared at the ticking clock as she sat on her daughter's bed, waiting for Karen to come home from school. As the minutes dragged by she found herself wishing the basement light hadn't blown out. Then she wouldn't have come in here looking for the flashlight and she wouldn't have found…

She thought she and Jeff were good parents. They had struck a good balance at keeping an eye on their daughter while also giving her freedom and her own space. And from an early age they had taught her about the dangers of drug use. Naively she had thought it would have been enough, and that Karen would have had enough common sense to stay away from this stuff.

She tried to remember if she noticed any changes in her daughter's behavior. But all she could remember was the same Karen she always knew. This made her more uneasy. She felt like she wasn't doing her job as a mother if she couldn't notice that anything was wrong.

She had thought about calling Jeff at the office, but didn't have the heart to do so. Even at sixteen he still saw her as daddy's little girl. She didn't want to shatter that image just yet. And she knew Karen would try to manipulate Jeff and get sympathy out of him. When it came to Karen Jeff was a big softy, leaving her to be the disciplinarian parent most of the time. It might go better if she talked to her daughter one on one.

She looked out into the hall as she heard the front door open. "Mom, I'm home!"

"I'm in your room Karen. Can you please come up here."

She waited as Karen bounced up into her room. "What are you doing home so early? And why are you in here?"

"The meeting was canceled so I got the afternoon off. Please sit down, I want to talk to you about something."

Karen sat next to her mother on the bed, growing uneasy from her tone. Annie took a deep breath before handing her daughter the baggie of blue pills with smiley faces stamped on them.

Karen nervously took the baggie. "Where did you get this?"

"I found it in your bedside drawer."

She looked at her mother, her nervousness quickly turning to anger. "You went through my things?"

"I needed to use the flashlight and you borrowed it last. I was looking for it and I found these. And that doesn't matter. What matters is that you brought drugs into this house."

Karen shrugged defiantly. "It's just a bit of X. It's not like it's heroin."

"I don't care what it is, it's still drugs. How many times have you used this stuff?"

"Just once."

Annie looked at her daughter angrily. "Karen, don't sit there and lie to me. I'll ask you again, how many times have you used?"

Karen fidgeted under her mother's stern gaze. "I don't know. A few times. I don't do it all the time. Just sometimes when I go to parties."

"Well, I don't want you to ever mess with this stuff again. Using drugs can ruin your life."

Karen rolled her eyes. "I know, I've seen all the commercials and learned about drug use in health class."

"Well clearly you weren't listening that hard if you've done it anyway. What if you got arrested? What if you over dosed? Have you even thought about that?"

"Stop yelling at me. I'm sorry ok. I won't do it again."

Annie knew just from Karen's tone that she was lying and was just telling her this to get her to leave her alone. The two women say in silence for a few moments before Annie quietly said, "Karen, I know right now you think I don't know what I'm talking about. But I understand what can happen. More then you realize."

Karen scoffed glibly. "Sure mom."

"I'm serious. I never told you this, but I once had a drug problem." Karen looked at her mother with shock on her face. Annie took a deep breath and forced herself to continue. "I started taking pills in high school to help me concentrate. I was determined to graduate as valedictorian and go to a ivy league college. And I couldn't keep up so I started taking pills to help me study and raise my GPA."

Karen looked at her mother in disbelief. Her mother, straight laced all together only has wine on rare occasions Annie, once had a drug problem. This is something she would have expected from her Aunt Britta. Not her mother. "So what happened?"

"At first it was great. I was leagues ahead of everyone else in my class. I could study all night and be wide-awake for the test first thing in the morning. I thought I was unstoppable. So I kept taking more pills and increasing the dosage and pushed myself harder then I thought possible. I ended up hallucinating that everyone in school was a robot and ran through a plate glass window to try and escape them."

Annie let out a bitter laugh, but Karen remained silent, not finding anything funny about this story. "I ended up going to rehab and losing my scholarship to Princeton. My parents were so disappointed with me that they kicked me out and I had to live on my own."

Karen looked at her mother in shock. "Grandma and Grandpa kicked you out?"

Annie nodded her head. "Things are better now with them. But it was years before they spoke to me again. And afterwards people would whisper behind my back and cruelly mock me. I had to endure people calling me 'Little Annie Adderall, the crazy pill head'. I ended up losing everything. My reputation, my home, everything I had worked for."

"I had to live in a crappy apartment in a dangerous neighborhood because I had no where else to go. And the only college I could go to was Greendale community college. Although in the long run that was a good thing, since that's where I met your father and most of my close friends."

Karen nodded her head, pulling her knees in as she hugged them. "Does Dad know about all this?"

"Of course. It wasn't exactly a secret. And part about what I loved about him was that he never judged me due to my past. But Karen, it took me years to regain what I lost. What I'm trying to tell you is right now you might not think it's that big of a deal. But it can very quickly spiral out of control and before you know it you can lose everything."

Karen sighed deeply, really thinking about what her mother just told her. "I had no idea that happened to you."

"Well, it's not something I like to talk about."

Karen looked at her mother. "What happens now?"

"First thing, you're definitely grounded. For the next two months unless you are at school you are here. No cell phone and no Internet unless it's schoolwork related. And I'll be checking your browser history so I'll know what your doing on-line."

"What about dad?"

"Karen, of course I'm going to tell him. I'm not going to keep this from him."

"Can I be the one to tell him?"

Annie thought about it a moment before nodding her head. "Ok. He might get upset. But tell him we already talked and I already punished you."

Annie hugged her daughter. "You know we love you, and are looking out for you, right?"

"I know mom." Karen handed her mother back the baggie as Annie got up off the bed. As she walked to the door Karen said. "I am sorry. For disappointing you. And for what you went through when you were my age."

Annie leaned in the doorframe. "Thank you. Karen, I just want you to know that no matter what you do, I could never stop loving you. You know that?"

Karen nodded her head as she looked at Annie. Annie looked at her daughter for a few moments before gently closing her door.

As she flushed the pills down the toilet Annie knew it wasn't over. While Karen seemed to have listened that still wasn't a guarantee that she wouldn't still use ecstasy again, or maybe some other drug. Annie would have to be more diligent in watching her daughter and keeping an eye on her. But she also knew that she couldn't watch her 24 hours a day. There was only so much she and Jeff could do. Hopefully what she told her daughter had sunk in and stayed with her after today. Because she had a bright future ahead of her. And Annie didn't want her to mess it all up, like she almost did.