I walked into my English class and took my regular seat next to Katie, in the back of the room. She wasn't in her seat, but she's always late. No big deal. I got nasty looks from Hannah, one again. Not all that shocking, considering I outed her crush on Audrey to the entire school. The bell rang and Katie still wasn't here, but she's probably just finishing up her cigarette or something.

I went the entire day and I didn't see Katie at all. If she ditched, she would've invited me too. She probably just fell asleep at Frankie's house. Or she's with Jay, something like that.

"Jackie, hey. How's… everything?" Hyde asked me as I was walking out of the school.

"Have you seen Katie? She wasn't in English, she wasn't in lunch, she wasn't here," I said, getting more panicked as I said it out loud. What if something happened at Frankie's house?

"She wasn't in PE, you wanna go over to her house?"

"Yea, I think I'm going to. Will you come with?"

"Come on. Where does she live?" Hyde said as he started walking to his El Camino.

"Stone. 500 block."

We didn't talk much in the car, but I held his hand for comfort. For some reason I'm just really freaked out about all of this. She wouldn't ditch alone, I know that. Jay has to know where she is. He has to.

When we got to the house I ran up to the door and started knocking. No one answered.

"You looking for Jay?" some guy asked. I guess he lives next door.

"Yea, Jay or Katie. Do you know where they are?" I asked him.

"Jay moved a while ago. Went to Chicago. She was supposed to go with, but she didn't have enough money. She said she was staying here for a while though. I haven't see her since yesterday."

"How do you know?" Hyde asked, wondering what some neighbor was doing knowing all of that.

"Me and Katie are really good friends, same with me and Jay. They told me all that," the guy said. "Check by Frankie's if you wanna find Kate."

"OK, thanks," I said as I walked off the stoop and grabbed Steven's hand.

We drove there, Hyde actually knew the way there since he always drives there. I went to knock on the door when we got there, but he just walked in. I followed him. I walked into the living room where Katie and I would always go, and I expected to see her in her chair, and she would say 'are you and Hyde finally going out?' and blow my secret, but I wouldn't care. But she wasn't there. The room was empty.

"Who are you two?" some guy I had never met asked.

I turned around, and said, "I'm Jackie Burkhart. Is Katie here?"

"What?" the guy asked.

"Is Katie here? She wasn't in school, and I was kinda worried."

"She OD'd last night. Frankie's arrested, Jay's in Chicago. It's all just fucked up."

"What hospital is she in? She's ok right?"

"She didn't make it."

I felt faint. I could've fallen right there if I wasn't holding onto Steven's arm. "On what?" I heard Steven ask. Did it really matter?

"Heroin."

"She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't, you're lying. I know her, she wouldn't do that!"

"Jackie, come on. We should go, you should rest," Hyde said.

I nodded and we left. I didn't cry, I was too numb to cry. We went to Eric's house and I took a nap on his cot, I guess I was pretty tired cause I slept for five hours. I walked out and thanked Steven, then I left.

I walked to Katie's house and looked around for a key. "Here," the neighbor said, handing me a set of keys.

"Thank you. I guess you heard," I said, my voice was shaking.

"Yea, Jay's coming back. I feel pretty bad for him, I think he really liked her," he said.

"Yea. I have to go get something, so I'll see you later. I'll give you the keys back when I leave," I said.

"Take your time," he said, walking down the steps and into his house.

I walked into the little bedroom and saw everything how it was when I spent the night here. I went through everyone of her bins, drawers, everything. And I finally found what I was looking for: the tape recorder. I opened the slot and there was a tape in it. I sat down on the bed and pressed play.

So I met this girl Jackie today, and she's alright. She was raped a couple months ago, and she like, looks to me to tell her that everything'll be ok. I guess I couldn't tell her how my life actually is, cause she would probably slit her wrists now and get it over with. Maybe I should've gone to therapy. Whatever, fuck that. I just get fucked over every chance anyone gets. Whatever though. It's just so tiring, like, my head hurts all the time and I feel like I'm not living my life. Like all I do is smoke and then I smoke some more because the high wore off. I keep using all this shit to make the problem go away, but it just keeps coming back and it keeps getting worse. And I can't deal with it so I cut and then I smoke and then I cut and then I smoke and it keeps going in the cycle and it doesn't get better. I'm so fucking dead inside, it's insane. Like, I can't feel anything at all. I don't know why I even bother to cut, it's not even helping me anymore. I'm just so fucking sick of all of this, I should just kill myself now, not like anyone would notice.

Then her voice stopped. Well, there was more on the tape but I thought I was gonna pass out from listening to that part. She wasn't happy. Steven was right, she was drowning her problems with drugs and it eventually killed her. And now there's no hope for me. Unless I went to therapy, maybe that would've saved Katie.

I put the tape recorder in my pocket and dropped the keys back off at that guy's house. I walked down the stairs to the apartment and I went into Steven's little room. "Steven, I need to go to therapy. I need help. I need to save myself so I don't turn into Katie," I said as I hugged him.

"We can find you one tomorrow. Maybe Donna could help," he said, moving over on the bed so I could lay down.

"Yea, maybe she can," I said before I went to sleep. And for the first time in a long time, I didn't have any nightmares, and I felt completely safe. It's weird how I just lost someone who was always saving me, but how I also gained the confidence and security to let myself fall for Steven, really fall.