Chapter Two

Chapter 2

Tucking her rather wild, lengthy red wavy hair behind her ears, Melanie stepped into the large bus, holding her bus ticket tightly in hand and immediately scanning for her seat. When she found her assigned seat; second chair, three rows to the front, she hurried to seat down, overwhelmed by a rather unnerving feeling settling in her stomach, causing her to feel nauseous.

With a sigh, she relaxed her head on the seat. Her nausea partly occurred because of the fact that she had serious motion sickness and was now sadly travelling a long distance, eight hours to be precise. She didn't possess adequate money for a plane ride so she had to take what her money could be buoyant for.

The other reason, however, was because Melanie despised where she was headed back to; her home town, Westbrook. Her body tingled not to her delight with the mere thought of it. She just barely managed to finish college, barely, and now, with no thought of what to do with her life, she was headed back home. Home indeed. Her head ached. The fact that she was returning, broke, jobless-- and without a life in general, increased the tension and panic in her entire system.

She was simply a failure-- a big utter failure. How much more pathetic does life get?

The fact that she was a failure was completely her fault. Being a recovering addict, who moved in and out of rehab for smoking, taking cocaine, pills... Like changing clothes for the past five years and not giving a damn about fixing her wrecked up life was, utterly, entirely her fault and doing.

At least she had a degree. That was a complete mockery of a degree. It was just gifted to her as a pity present. The college got so tired of seeing her face, over and over again for years. The girl who belonged in rehab. That was the nickname given to her. She earned it though. When in rehab or when she had gone to physical therapy, she should've fought, tried to get her life in order, to make something out of her pitiable life-- but no, she kept falling, failing and never trying to get up. She simply fell and failed again. And again.

Now, when she fully regretted it, she was stuck rock bottom. She didn't know how to get up anymore-- there was no one to show her the way. No one.

After sinking in the reality of how much a hoax her life was, she tried to stop drugs and drinking in general. She was still trying. At least one accomplishment would mean something to her. Just one would be enough. After coming out of physical therapy just two weeks ago, she made a resolve to try and quit drugs for real this time. Most times, it took just two days for her to be with a bottle of alcohol, a cigarette in hand, cocaine, pills or whatever got her high in her system or pockets for later. The highest amount of days she had ever stayed without drugs was four but now, it was two weeks. A whole, complete two weeks.

Her system itched for drugs, desperately, most especially at night. She would wake up in need of it in her system, anything to retain her calm but she held it, she fought, successfully, though leaving scratch marks, faint bruises on her skin from the deep scratching and her eyes weary of sleep. At times, when she couldn't take it any longer, she would cry herself to sleep, waking up tired and terribly weak.

No one offered any help to change her-- no advise-- nothing. They just simply took it as 'Her way of life' and left her to do whatever she pleased. Even her so called friends never tried to help. They only recognised her when they held a party, which contained drugs or had various users. All of her friends had already graduated, years before her. All had jobs, most were married-- and all forgot her.

Now recollecting, more misery overwhelmed her as she realized how much she let her friends continue to ruin her. They never cared-- never bothered to help. Those that were already married or planning to never sent her an invitation card or even informed her. They evaded her totally. They got rid of the bad influence in their lives. She was the bad influence though she never promoted anyone to join her in the act of drugs, drinking and smoking. She did it alone and now had to fix it alone. Alone.

She also planned to do the same to everyone when she returned back home; turn everyone to strangers. Melanie wanted to be alone in her fight-- she always was but this time, she wanted it to be for real. No friends, relationships-- nothing. She would figure it all alone although deep in her psyche, she knew it was partly impossible. Loneliness caused her to run to drugs as a companion-- and so would the same loneliness help her get her life straight again?-- that's if she truly had a shot at getting her life back-- or a life for that matter. Could she possibly, just possibly be someone again? Was there something for her in this life-- or almost impossibly, someone?

Melanie deep down wanted a relationship-- though a healthy one, not one that would drag her back down that horrible path like her former relationships did. But again, who would want her? Who would want a person that didn't know what to do with her life? Who would want to be someone that had a shameful past, no present and had no obvious future. Who would want to be a drug addict that wasn't able to get her hands off drugs no matter how much she tried and a person that hurts herself; physically and emotionally to take her mind off the intense craving for drugs? Her arms and wrists were the most victims of it all. There were currently filled with fresh pink scars and purple fading ones. To keep anyone from knowing, she always wore long sleeves, most especially sweaters and it tore away detection not like anyone would've still scared if she didn't hide it.

A familiar smell suddenly attacked her nostrils and clouded her senses; Cigarettes. Someone was smoking in this bus. Though not far, it was detectable and very for a deep user like Melanie. She wanted it. The smell of the burning cigarettes began to intoxicate her system. It pulled her and slowly, she felt like she was falling, losing her will, though she fought terribly to keep herself unscathed. Her hands began to shake terribly, her feet tapped on the floor and her head throbbed more and painfully. Her fingers dug into the chair, scratching with immense force.

As much as she tried to keep herself calm and prevent herself from getting an attack in front of everyone, she couldn't. The smell had to go, she needed to stop inhaling it but then her body magnetized towards it. With a resolve to leave the bus, it began to move. She was stuck. The tapping of her feet increased with rapidity and Melanie felt like she had been injected into a hell hole.

"Go away!" She wanted to scream, yell, but she couldn't. It would cause an unwanted scene and she didn't want everyone to figure out she was a struggling addict.

"Miss." Someone called beside her. "Are you okay?" Melanie turned to the edge of the bus meeting a lady, who sat beside her, brunette and young, probably in her late or middle twenties, with worry stricken on her face. "Do you need anything?"

The woman was seated beside an open window and then, hope blemished in Melanie.

"Yes. Can we switch seats? Please?" Melanie's voice came out hoarse and volatile. Soon, she felt she was going to pass out if she didn't stop inhaling the smell of the unknown cigarettes.

"O... Okay sure, let's switch." The lady agreed with a small smile, surely feeling odd about the whole situation and request.

"Thank you." With the last strength Melanie could muster, she stood, the lady following suit and they exchanged their seats. Hurriedly tilting her face to face the windows, relief surrounded Melanie as fresh air replaced the pungent smell of cigarettes. Resting her head on the seats, she closed her eyes, allowing her system to slowly function to normal.

When everything finally stabilized, the questions began to storm once again in Melanie's broken mind and only one stood out amongst the rest.

Could she ever be Melanie again?