WARNING: depiction of drugs abuse and depression.

“Journal”

Life has been the same without any more surprises. I go to the library during school to review the lessons that were given to me by Sam before I meet him up after school. He mentions that I am progressing well and it does not seem like there will be an issue to speed up the pace. When we started to speed up the lesson plan, I found myself stumbling through a few places despite constantly reviewing even at home. I try to soak as much as I could like a sponge.

The lesson helps me forget about the incident with that guy but it did not stop me from having random faints. Sometimes I lose control over my body and start having shivers. I try to grit through it but there are days I felt like doing something to calm it. I felt like I needed something to alleviate this pain. For some reason, the milk tea I drank that day pops up in my head so whenever I felt like I wanted something, I would buy the milk tea.

Abby was surprised to see me buying milk tea so much and teased me about it. When she did that, ‘that guy’ popped into my head. Now, I can’t help but make a disgusted face whenever I drank milk tea cause he would pop up every time but I can’t stop drinking it.

“Do you mind seeing a psychologist?” Abby suddenly drops this random question out of the blue.

“Psychologist?” I am not exactly sure what that word means.

“Yeah. You were recommended to see one but we didn’t want to pressure you. Is it okay?”

The look on Abby’s face seems like she is nervous to hear the answer to that question. The way she says it, maybe it is not that bad at all to say yes so I ended up agreeing.

The moment I gave a positive answer to her question, her face started to light up in happiness. She starts to get jumpy and rambles off so fast I can barely catch her words. She left my room after saying something about telling my parents so they could set up an appointment.

Seeing that she left, I pulled out my laptop. After using it a couple of times, I can turn it on with ease. I quickly typed the word psychologist the way I pronounced it. Apparently, I have misspelt that word but it did not stop me from finding out the purpose of a psychologist.

Something about mental processes and human behaviour. I am not sure what this means but now I felt unsettled. I put away my laptop before Abby got back and pretended to be casual about it.

During dinner, my p-parents (a word that still feels foreign to me) did not speak much about it. Instead, they asked about my day and my health. It feels weird to have two people caring about me when I never had any.

Then again, it is not me that they are caring for. It’s their son. There are days I start to feel guilty about living his life but some days, I am just grateful to be alive. Even if it means I have to take over his life, I am willing to do this for as long as I can.

Things that he gets easily, I never had that option. Right now, it does not seem like I have any options but at least it is better than what I had before so I am happy.

A few days later, I almost forgot about the visit to meet the psychologist until my parents brought it up during dinner and told me that I have an appointment in a few days.

In a blink of an eye, I found myself sitting in the car heading to the doctor’s office. I expected to see a lot of white much like the hospital but surprisingly the office is a lot more colourful. It gives a subtle calming feeling and I feel a lot less nervous while waiting.

My mother accompanied me to the office and joined me inside when they called my name. She talked to the doctor for a moment before telling me to relax and left me.

Now, I am sitting awkwardly while left alone with this doctor. He is sitting in a big comfortable chair while I am seated on a weird-looking sofa.

“Good morning,” His voice leaves an impression that he is a gentle person. Similar to someone I know.

“Good morning,” I replied quietly.

“My name is Lancelot Philips. I’m here to listen to anything you want to say to me. Consider it as if you are talking to your friends but whatever you say here will remain in this room,”

When he said that, my mind immediately thought about my current situation. 

“What are you thinking about?”

It seems that I have been quiet for too long that made him ask that. I fidget in my seat and start to feel uncomfortable.

“Why do I have to be here?”

“There is no particular reason you have to be here but wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to talk to about anything?”

“I’m not sick,”

“Nobody said you were,”

“But they think I am,”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because… because… I don’t know,”

I remained quiet because I don’t know what else to say. Somedays I feel like they think I’m sick but my body is healthy. Then again, I keep having those weird fits frequently too. I wonder if I am sick.

I have been thrown into this body without notice and no one knows the true me. Sometimes I feel like nobody is looking at me but at him instead.

I look at Dr Phillips and realise he is just looking at me calmly with a gentle smile hanging on his lips. It didn’t feel like he was mocking me. It gives me a weird sense of familiarity once more. He has the same warm aura as Mama.

A feeling of sadness suddenly washed over me. If he was Mama, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell him what is going on.

“You… wouldn’t understand even if I tell you,” I want to tell him but I am scared.

“Why do you say that?”

I stay silent for a moment before mustering the courage to speak.

“I don’t know… I don’t know why I am here,” I try to be as vague as I could.

He did not respond to me but I feel like I could continue. I decide to speak but I don’t want to reveal anything too detailed.

“Sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know why I am here… I don’t know what’s my purpose in life. Is this retribution or redemption? I wonder why we ended up this way,”

I start to feel an overwhelming sadness washing over me. It makes me question my existence. I am not Luke but I am living his life. Does that mean I exist or have I long disappeared?

The more I spoke to him, the more I felt like I needed to see Mama again. He knows me as I am. Maybe he can get me out of this mess. Maybe he can answer all my questions.

“What are you thinking?”

“A lot but everything is jumbled up and I don’t know what to do most of the time,” I spoke with honesty.

Dr Phillips suddenly rises from his seat and heads straight to his drawer. He pulls out a nice black leather book that is still covered with thin plastic. He walks back to his seat and puts out the book for me to take before sitting down.

I hold the book in my head and look at him blankly. 

He smiles and said, “Whenever you feel like there is something you want to say but cannot, you could always write it down,”

I nod as a response and feel that it would be better to write it down. It is easier than talking to the man in front of me that I don’t know if I can trust.

“When you feel like you want to talk about it, I will be here. For now, maybe you can start writing in the book and next time we meet maybe you can talk about what you’ve written down to me. It can be about anything. Good or bad. It doesn’t matter.

Well, time is up but I hope to see you in the next session,”

He gets up from the chair, shakes my hand and walks me out of the room. When my mother saw me walking out of the room, she talked to the doctor to give her words of gratitude.

She walks around and I follow. She walks into several clothing shops and makes me try a few of them before buying a lot of them. I didn’t have to carry them as the shop says that they will deliver them straight home. It’s during this time that I see another gap between my life and his.

It hurts to see the money being spent but it is not my money. I can’t say anything. I realise I don’t have any money of my own despite being told I could use their money. I’m not their son, I’m not even sure if it is okay to use it.

After walking for so long, mother decides to buy us ice cream. The two of us took a seat at the corner of the shop and then she asked what I wanted. When I said I don’t know, she ended up ordering for the both of us. She orders two types of fruity ice cream. One is strawberry and the other is matcha.

She hands me the matcha ice cream while she grabs the strawberry ones.

“You’ve always enjoyed tea flavoured things so I ordered this for you,”

I don’t know what to say because I have never had any matcha before. I didn’t know if I would like it but I don’t want to say anything.

I scoop a little bit of the ice cream and place it on my tongue. The coldness seeps immediately and I can taste the bittersweet taste of matcha. It was a strong flavour yet I can’t say I dislike it. I continued eating it and slowly growing fonder over the flavour. It seems that I do like this flavour.

“How is your lesson with Samuel? Everything going well?” My mother starts to talk as she slowly chips away at her ice cream.

“It is. He said that I should try and wrap up some of the topics by this week if I could,” I answered her honestly as there isn’t anything to hide.

“That’s good but you don’t have to rush to learn everything. It’s much more important to understand what you are studying rather than memorising them,”

I nod in agreement and we both start talking about my everyday situation. I mentioned to her about Elaine and how she has been recommending me good fiction novels to read. They have quite imaginative plotlines.

She doesn’t interrupt when I start explaining what they are and sometimes we just end up staying silent but I didn’t feel awkward. Instead, it felt warm and comfortable.

We didn’t stay out for too long and ended up going back home after we finished the ice cream. I tell her that it was a nice time going out and she tells me that we can always do that often. She will always have time for her boy.

When she walks away to her room, I can’t help but feel sad for her cause I am not her boy.

I walk into my room and take out the book that Dr Phillips gave me earlier. When I place it down on table I notices another similar black leather book. If I remember it correctly, it was this book where I found the photograph of that guy peeking out of it.

I hold the book in my hand and feel its weight. I carefully looked at the cover and felt uncomfortable. I strengthen my heart and open the book slowly and that is when I realise, he keeps a journal too.

Now it feels like an invasion of privacy but I couldn’t put the book away. I pull the chair and slowly sit on it as I read the journal. The first few pages of the book feel like it is written by someone who never encounters anything difficult in life. The more I turn the pages, the more I see the change of tone. It seems that he has started to notice someone. His curiosity was spilling all over the pages. 

Slowly it turns into an obsession. He started to tail this person he was so curious about but ended up finding himself in a place where he didn’t know heads to tail. Then, he continued going there hoping to find that person there. He made a few new friends who taught him a few things.

None of them was good things. They started giving him this powder and forced him to try. The feeling when he first tried it was overwhelming. He could not stop himself anymore. From there, he finds himself spiralling down. Not knowing where it went wrong.

05 April 20xx

He saw me there. He grabbed me and dragged me out. Slammed me by the wall and punched it. He started yelling and asking me what I was doing. I couldn’t tell him that I was following him and ended up here. He tried to force me to tell him but no words were willing to come out.

Then he noticed it in my hand. His eyes went wide and I could see an overwhelming rage took over him. He grabbed it from my hand and threw it down the drain. When I saw that, I screamed back at him for doing that.

It was then, he looked at me in disbelief. He started asking me if I took it. I started yelling back asking him what his problem was. It didn’t matter if I took it or not.

He cursed at me and said I shouldn’t have taken those. I’ve become one of the degenerates. He said it was disgusting. He dragged me out of there and threw me onto his car. He immediately drove straight to my house while constantly warning me not to go back there.

Abby saw him roughly handling me and the two of them ended up arguing. He didn’t say where I was and why he was mad. Abby thought he was being irrational. I stopped her and said I was tired. I ran away from her.

Was what I’ve done so bad? Did he have to insult me like that?

Am I truly disgusting? Have I truly become a horrible person?

7th April 20XX

I try to stop from going back but I feel like the ones I have aren't strong enough. I can’t stop. I want it… I can’t go on without it… I need to go back there! They need to give me more! Why did he throw it out?! I need it! I need it I need it I need it I need it I need it I need it I need it I need it I need it I need it I need it I need it I need it---

On his last entry, his writing slowly changed from neat clean eligible writing and slowly turned bigger and messier over time.

I slowly close the book and hope that Abby has never found this book. I understand clearly what he went through. He met the wrong type of people and was pushed to try it.

My heart becomes severely uncomfortable. I can’t seem to calm down and I notice tears start rolling down my face. I start to get scared because I think I know what he wants. Now I also know why my body has been uncomfortable once in a while. The lingering feelings of wanting it was so strong that the body felt it. I didn’t know cause I wasn’t the one who had it but that didn’t mean that this body is clean.

Those things are new in the market. When Mama noticed the dealings, he banned it and the customers involved with its usage. He said that those things are dirty. They aren’t like the other things. They are far worse.

I had an encounter with it. I was told to send it to a certain group of people but the person taking care of me didn’t allow me to lose a single gram of it. He said it was expensive. I didn’t tell Mama about it.

Although they almost gave it to me, they didn’t because it was not easily obtainable. Nobody could recreate it. They had to save as much as they could.

The only reason why I was told to send it instead of him was that he was doing another delivery and was pressed for time. He made sure those guys sent me back after using me.

I hug myself and my body starts shaking when remembering. I started heaving and I could feel my heartbeat accelerating. Black spots start to appear and my eyes can’t focus anymore. My head felt heavy and I just dropped to the desk.

Need.

I need…

I need it!

My eyes are hazy. The corridor is long. I don’t want to be here but I can’t stop my feet. I’m not sure where I am anymore. It’s not the club. It’s probably the other side of it. I’m sure I am still in the same building.

I just…

I just need to find someone that can give me…

My pace is staggering. My body is heavy and I can only drag my feet across the floor. My whole body is shaking. It’s only two days and even the ones I had couldn’t stop the shakes. My mind is in chaos. They’re screaming at me.

Need.

I Need...

I NEED IT!!!

My legs stumble on each other. I dropped to the ground while my hand slid down from the walls. Everything starts to get blurry. I know I need it. I need to have it.

Please… Save me!

I could hear footsteps ringing loudly in my ears. They seem to walk past me but then I hear a voice coming from the top of my head.

“Do you need help?” A playful voice seems to echo in my head sending shivers down my spine.

I lift my head to look at him but it is too blurry and I can’t seem to focus at all. I try to reach out my hand to him. I could tell he is smiling. I’m no longer sure whether the shivers are coming from the withdrawal or because of him.

“Here take this,” He places something in my hand that I reached out.

I immediately noticed that it is exactly what I needed. I start to scarf it down trying to get every single bit of it inside me.

That man laughs maniacally and the people surrounding him laugh as well.

“Disgusting,”

He left after saying those words. I stare blankly as my eyes faze in and out. Slowly I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe. I start choking on my saliva. I tried to puke it out.

No no no no NO!

I don’t want this! I want to go back home! I don’t want this!!!

Someone, please….

Please, save me….

I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…

Heart

Disclaimer: The author cannot stress enough that drug abuse and distributing unpermitted drugs is illegal. If you find yourself in a negative space or mind, please reach out to the right people.

Sending all of you love. Take care and do know that someone out there does care.