Alomst 2 whole years, such a short time yet, to high school kids it seemed like a life time. So many memories, those you cheerish and those you want to throw away in the trash can in the back of your brain. To everyone around us we had seemed so inlove and happy. We thought the same thing. We would become the high school sweethearts you would see in the movies. Yet, the movies are just that,a movie, they are fake. They don't mention the restless nights arguing over FaceTime or the built up tears from the emptiness after those silly arguments. They don't capture the pain that comes after the cheating. It all seemed too good to be true. The "I will never leave you" and the "I love You" must have been lies from him. Who would ever cheat on the one he claims to love and never leave? After almost 4 years now that pain that the movies never capture still haunt me to this day. Unfortunatley that pain and suffering has just damaged to the point of the idea of "love" being so fiction. Forgive and forget is a saying we tend to use. I can forgive to an extent but I will never be able to forget that my first love had never truly been a love.

On a dark, rainy Monday, a woman sat in a van in a part of Fulton known as “the flats” of Fulton; waiting for a “life long friend” to arrive. Rachel left her four kids home with her husband that she’s scared to be with.Worries that if she goes back she’ll have more bruises than the night before.

Finally, the friend taps the window, the woman rolls down her window, ecstatically asking if he brought what she's been desiring. He hands her a plastic bag with white powder, almost like flour. She hands him a simple $20.00 bill, then drives off, eager to get home.

As Rachel walks in her house, her two oldest daughters, Desiree and Jayda, ask her why she was gone for so long, but she does not respond. Her husband, grabbing both her arms,shaking her back and forth ,side to side very forcefully,asks her why it took her two hours to go to a grocery store and not buy anything. She does not respond.

Days went by and her children started to worry if she was okay. Desiree starts to get an idea of what’s happening but decides to keep it to herself. She already lost a sister at birth and grandma because of lung cancer and didn’t want to lose someone else.

Months go by, Desiree grows distant from Rachel more and more until she refuses to go there. One day, she couldn’t take it anymore. She decided to go down to her school's guidance counselor as soon as possible. Everything just spilled, word after word, tear after tear, so much crying that it was almost like she cried all her tears out of her body.

Days later, Rachel decided to pick her up from school. Rachel looked so tired and weak, almost like she had fought in a dreadful war with these substances. Desiree wishes these substances were fake. Rachel took her children to a hotel and explained to the older daughter that she had to get away from her husband for a while and this was the only place she could go.

As they walked into the room, Rachel dropped everything, baffled at the fact that she was staring at her husband in her room. As terrified as the kids were, the husband showed no emotion, except for anger. Scream went on in the room, punches, and yes, even more bruises. This was it, the daughter was done. Done with everything happening. As she went home that day, a safe environment. No one was home, she desperately wanted to end it right there right now but instead, she decided to call her grandma to make her aware of what is happening.

Few months later, she had gotten a call from her grandma that her mother was in rehab and was reassured that she was going to get better. Desiree felt relaxed knowing she’d get her old mom back again. A week or two later, the younger daughter, Jayda, had called her to inform her that her mom was sick, and she hadn't seen her in awhile. Jayda didn't understand, and Desiree didn’t want to scare Jayda anymore, so she just said that everything will be fine. Desiree hadn’t heard anything else about Rachel except that she is out of rehab doing much worse than before.

The next few weeks, Des went to school and was doing much better than before, then as she was doing homework after school, like always. Her dad came home with the news that she knew wasn’t good, she was told that her mother had just been arrested for the possession of drugs in her vehicle. At the time, all she felt was hatred, and confusion, but after a while, she began to feel hopeless and upset. It just seemed to get worse and never better.

Days went by, she began to seem more and more depressed, almost like her happiness was sucked out of her completely. After a few weeks, someone very anonymous had paid the fine of $3,000. Life for everyone began to seem a bit brighter day by day.

It was Thanksgiving break, and Desiree spent time with her grandparents and her siblings in Pennsylvania. Everything was good. She helped take care of a baby for the week and she enjoyed it. Until the ride home. She found out that her mother is pregnant and yet again is on drugs, only much stronger and deadlier. So now, Desiree may lose yet another brother or sister. After about 4 months, it was confirmed that Rachel was, in fact, pregnant.

Out of nowhere, Rachel had called Desiree to catch up for she hadn’t heard from her in what seemed to be a year. After what seemed to be 20 minutes of talking on the phone, Rachel had to say it and say it as quickly and painfully as possible. It took 10 minutes for her to finally spit it out and tell her that the child had died and was going to be a girl.

Desiree, in total shock, drops her phone and can’t do anything else but to drop to the floor. It was like her heart had only processed love instead of blood and it gave out. She hangs up the phone and refuses to talk to the mother who killed yet another sister. Years go by, Rachel loses all connection with family and starts to lose everything, her car, house, her friends, and now slowly losing her family. Everything was falling apart and will be hard to put back together.

Rachel began to grow weaker and weaker until one day she just needed to relax and knew just the way to do so. Needles and excess powder like substance was left on the bedroom floor and right next to it was a woman in her late 30’s with foam coming out of her mouth, her eyes rolled back, and skin as pale as a ghost. Desiree had been doing well, until the news that her mother had overdosed. Her world once again fell, everyone was devastated. The day of the funeral came, everyone in black, people saying their last words about her and everything she accomplished before this happened. After an hour of the speeches and words everyone surrounds the casket. Slowly people began to leave,until it was just Desiree in the room with the woman she called her mom. She thinks back to the days they had, good and bad, wishing that her mom would've gotten the help, or that she spent more time with her to help. This was a part of her heart that would be broken forever and what would seem to be an empty memory.