Throughout my 15 years of life it has been a rocky road. I spent my weekends with my two favorite people in the whole wide world… My grandparents, that was before their divorce. I don’t remember how much longer after the divorce my papa remarried, then he got sick. Really sick.

Now my Aunt, she has always ended up with the wrong “friends”. My family always looked down on her, but me, I looked up to her. They say drugs suck you in, and they did suck her in. My Aunt wasn’t an aunt to me. But, I still looked up to her, almost like I had hope for her.

I knew what was happening, even when I didn’t. I think I started noticing when she wasn’t visiting my grandfather in the hospital. After school everyday I went and saw him. My mom would stop by where my aunt was staying that week. Pounding on the door. no answer. I could tell that something wasn’t right. My aunt, who wasn’t really my Aunt didn’t come. She didn’t go and see her dying father.

She was a sad person. The drugs gave her a rush of happiness, like when you wake up and see all the presents under the tree. Yeah, those drugs were her friends, the only ones that were there. The drugs got to her before the emptiness. Those drugs got her, they sucked her right in. Hid her from her family. They had their sharp claws holding her back, and here I am stuck in the middle, little me.

They think I don’t know. That I don’t realize how sick she is, or terrible she looks. They don’t know how what they say is cutting deep into my heart, she doesn’t know that what she is doing is scaring me. He’s gone now, she never said goodbye. She went to jail. Sitting there alone, detoxing hard. And me, i say i’m fine, but I’m not. It’s slowly killing me, hurting me deeply. I’m growing up without her, without my papa. Now, I’m 15, and I can say I have an Aunt again, she’s finally here. After 7 & 1/2 years. She doesn’t look sick. She has a steady job. She’s getting married soon. She’s my bestfriend.