Chapter 11

Meet me at the park on 5th.

James stared at the grey text bubble on his phone screen, his heart pumping loudly inside his chest. If he followed through with this, this would be the second time. The second time he'd be buying from a dealer. The word felt foreign in his thoughts.

As much as James tried to convince himself that it wasn't bad that he still needed them, the little voice in the back of his head was getting louder and louder, telling him that he didn't need the pills anymore.

He was addicted to them.

But he wasn't… right? He wasn't a drug addict. He'd seen the movies; drug addicts had no homes, no money, no family… they were depressed, delusional, and went crazy without drugs.

That wasn't him.

It was Saturday and he'd gone one night without any pills. Now that he thought about it… it had been weeks since he'd gone a night without taking at least one pill. It had been even longer since he'd visited the doctor, who said he was fine and that his injuries had completely healed already.

But this morning when he'd woken up, he'd felt like he had the stomach flu. He was terribly nauseous and ended up throwing up after breakfast. His head hurt and his whole body ached.

He remembered something similar happening to him the night he stayed over at Carlos's home for a sleepover, the night he couldn't take any pills either. The next day he had thrown up, but he'd attributed it to guilt from having stolen that ADHD pill from Carlos.

The thought of the terrible thing he'd done made him want to throw up again, but he bit his lip and forced the thought out of his head and the bile down his throat. All he wanted to think about were those pills, and how he was going to get them next. That was easy; that was good.

JT and his secret meeting spot on 5th was going to help him out with that. The boy had convinced James that if he wanted to be a hardcore drug buyer, he had to stop meeting at school. It was too easy to get caught if he was going to be "a regular".

James denied that he was going to be a regular, but this morning after he'd thrown up for the third time, he'd texted JT for the address. He still had about 100 dollars stored up from the occasional birthday and holiday money he'd received every year and hadn't spent on clothes and cosmetics items yet. He grabbed all of it and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

Shockingly, his mom was actually home today, though it was the one day James didn't want her to be home. She'd made him breakfast, and they'd eaten together for the first time in weeks.

"James, sweetie, how are you feeling? Your face doesn't hurt anymore, right?"

James had sighed, almost rolling his eyes. "Mom, that injury happened like two months ago. I'm totally fine now." He replied, ignoring the voice telling him that he was far from fine. He tried shoving that voice back as far as he could, but it somehow always made its way back.

"Oh, of course. Time flies so quickly. How's school been going? How are your grades?"

James, ignoring the fact that his mom had never cared about his grades ("grades have nothing to do with owing a cosmetics company", she'd say, already deciding that James would take over for her in the future), shrugged. "Classes are ok, my grades are pretty good."

And it was true. With the extra energy he had from his oxy, he'd been able to get a lot done a lot faster recently. His grades, which usually hovered around high C's to low B's, were now low B's and high B's. He didn't think he'd ever be that good at school; that had always been Logan's job.

"Good, good." She nodded, looking satisfied that James was going to graduate high school and be her little puppet. That was how it felt sometimes; his parents were so caught up in their problems with each other and with work that they never seemed to care what James wanted. It seemed natural to them that James would want to follow in his mom's footsteps. But to James, it wasn't natural.

He wanted to be famous. Ever since he was 8 years old, he wanted to be a singer. Standing in front of thousands of screaming fans (screaming girls) and doing what he enjoyed the most- performing.

Because really, all the effort he put into his appearance was all a performance. Everyone watched, everyone paid attention. He wanted it to be that way for the rest of his life.

He took acting and drama classes whenever he could fit it into his schedule. His parents just thought it was to meet graduation requirements for electives, but those were James's favorite classes in the day.

He loved performing, immersing himself into a character and making it come alive. He loved the feeling of bright lights shining on his face, the echo of his loud voice throughout the audience, belting out high and low notes and reciting memorized lines.

But his parents would never understand that. Every time he mentioned acting or singing, his parents would shake their heads and talk about how that was a stupid thing to do, not realistic or feasible. They would never get it. They didn't get it.

James stood up and placed his dishes into the sink. "Mom, I'm heading over to Kendall's house." He said, ignoring the feeling in his stomach berating him for lying to his mother.

His mother just nodded and told him to have a good day. James grabbed the jacket with all his life savings and put it on. He walked out the door. Kendall lived about 3 blocks down, about a 5-minute walk. But James wasn't going to Kendall's house today. He was going to 5th avenue.

On the way, James felt like every sound, every breeze, every thought was louder times a hundred. He was so aware of everything. He was all too aware of how empty his pockets felt without his pills, how empty he felt without his pills.

Nothing felt like it mattered without his pills.

James was way past not okay, but he pushed down his worries and kept walking, one step at a time.

"James! You're back." JT grinned at him, like James had won the lottery or something.

James wrinkled his nose. JT's secret spot on 5th avenue was… strange, to say the least. It smelled like it did behind the school that first time, but worse. The earthy smell was stronger, and it almost smelled like something was rotting.

When James looked at the people standing, sitting, or even laying around, he thought the smell must be from them. They looked, well… like they were rotting. A bunch of them didn't even have their eyes open, and most were wearing battered clothing. None of them even looked up or greeted him. James didn't know how or why JT wasn't like them on the ground.

Then James looked closer. Some of the guys and girls had needles laying around them, scattered like leftover wrappers on the ground. Some of them had pill bottles and what looked like cigarettes but not as nice.

James knew JT was a dealer, but this was when it really hit him- this was a dealer. This was a spot where people came to smoke, get high, even worse…

James's parents weren't always around, but they had raised him to not smoke, do drugs, or drink illegally. He told himself that he needed these pills to help him, that his doctor had prescribed them for him, but that queasy feeling in his stomach didn't go away.

He almost turned back. He almost turned back and pulled out his phone and called Kendall. Kendall could help him out of this; Kendall always knew how to get out of sticky situations; he always knew what to do.

But then he imagined the disappointed look Kendall would give him. He would be a disappointment, like he knew he already would be in his parent's eyes if he did what he really wanted to with his life, and how he already felt sometimes around his friends. His friends, who were all better than him and who he didn't deserve as his friends.

His friends, who weren't addicted to pills.

As James handed over the money, way more than he'd spent the first time, he let the thought simmer in his mind.

He was addicted- no, no, he wasn't addicted.

The plastic bag was light in his hands, the thought finally settling in his mind like a layer of dust.

James Diamond was not addicted.