"Brrrriiiiiinnngggg"

I wake up and wonder where I am. It's math class, well my nap class, but I nap in pretty much all my classes on days when I feel this sick. I've been feeling like this more and more over the last few weeks since I haven't gotten paid yet. Hopefully I'll feel better Friday night and can have a good weekend. I really need it right now.

After wiping the drool off my pale chin I begin to run to the door, hoping I'll make it before she can stop me.

"Oh Miss Williams, will you please start applying yourself in my class. You do want to graduate don't you?" Mrs. Krevat's broken down voice says to me right before I get out of the door.

"I'll try. See you tomorrow Miss." I run away as fast as I can. I wonder why she even asks me to try anymore. She tells all of her students like me to "try harder" even though she knows none of us will, including me. She won't have the heart to fail me so I don't need to worry about not graduating. I'll be like half the other kids on that stage... graduating with a D average and starting my job at some stupid fast food place the next day. Shows how much our generation cares in this city.

Bacon, New York use to be covered in farm lands where mainly pigs resided, making us one of the largest distribution places for bacon, ham, and other foods from pigs back in the 1970s, but that's ancient history now. 40 years later and there isn't a single farm in all of Bacon. Now the town is full of old, run down farms that will fall down if the wind is too strong, a few warehouses, and some hotels for people who want to visit New York City but can't afford to stay there and since we're only a thirty minute drive people will stay here for a few nights. The biggest commodity Bacon has is our drug factories. You can find pretty much anything here, from prescriptions of Adderall to the crazy stuff like Cocaine and Heroin.

After my next class I left school and headed to my boyfriend Ricky's house. I stay there most of the time to avoid my mother's "lectures" which usually are about me not getting the right kind of beer for her or because I walked in when she was with one of the many men in her life. Oh well, I don't consider her my mother. She would have to care about me to get that title and not one day of my nineteen years on this planet has she cared about me. I wish she aborted me, that would have been the sweetest thing she could have done for me, then I wouldn't have to be here.

"Oh sweetie are you okay? You look like your eyes are about to sink into your skull." Rosa says as I enter the kitchen. She runs over to me and gives me a big hug. "I love you Anastasia, you know that. I just want you safe." She gently rubs my back and kisses my cheek. I smirk and kiss her back. No matter how sick or terrible I feel, Rosa can always make me smile. I wish she was my mother and not Ricky’s but she reassures me every day that I'm her daughter and I'll always be a part of her family which some people believe since other than her being a few inches short than me and a few decades older, we look identical.

"Rosa, please call me Anna. You're the only person who calls me Anastasia and I hate it."

"I will call you what I want sweetie. Anastasia is a beautiful name and I smile every time I get the chance to say it so don't take that away from me."Rosa lowers her head staring at the floor like one of those innocent puppies on the animal shelter commercials.

"Whatever you say. I'll be upstairs if you need me." I walked through the living room to head upstairs but I stopped when I looked at the television to see Spongebob Squarepants making krabby patties at the Krusty Krab. I use to watch this show every day when I was a kid, but I haven’t watched it since. I wish I could go back in time to when the worst problem in my life was fearing Plankton getting the krabby patty secret formula. After staring in amazement at Spongebob for a few minutes I climbed up the steep stairs to the attic so I could get to Ricky’s room.

"Hey babe. How was your day?" I hear as I enter Ricky's bedroom.

"COMPLETE CRAP! I'm sick baby and I need help." I stumble over all the clothes and trash on the floor to reach the bed where I lay down, putting my head on Ricky's boney shoulder. I can smell the grease and burger stench radiating off of him before my head even touches his body.

"Anna no! We talked about this remember. We're going to get through the next few days and then we'll start to feel better. That way we can save our money and we’ll get our own place and start our lives together."

"I know... but one more time? Please. Ricky I really need to do it just one more time that way I know going into it that it's the last time and I can be prepared to never do it again." Ricky wipes my tears off my cheeks and pushes my blonde hair out of my face, brushing through it with his fingers and gazing into my eyes.

"Well Anna what did I say? We need to stay strong through all of this" He says as he points at my thigh. "That's why you got that tattoo didn't you?" I look down at my thigh. My jeans cover it but I can picture the words in my head, the words written across my thigh in Aabil script. "Stay Strong" written like music on my body with no silence or pauses in between.

"I got it to cover the scars, but yeah I guess you're right." Under the words are numerous scars, some date back to as early as my ninth birthday while others are as new as last week. At least on my thigh people didn't see them so no one ever noticed or asked me about them.

"Honey, Pablo's having a party Saturday night. If we go and you get your time in the back room, will you finally be done? We need to get on with our lives."

"Yes I promise! Then we can start our new lives together. All three of us."

My eyes slowly open with the sunlight from the window beaming into them. I close them and try to go back to sleep, but I realized something. It’s Saturday. I reopened my eyes and jump out of bed, crawling over Ricky in the process. He makes a few grunting noises and finally open his eyes. He looks over to me, using his finger to show that he wants me to get closer to him. He kisses me gently.

“Good morning Mrs. Sanches. How did you sleep? He sits up in bed with a smile across his face that could cross the Grand Canyon.

“I slept just fine and I’m not Mrs. Sanches, that’s your mom.” I’ve never pictured myself having a family and being a “Mrs.” anything. I always figured I would end up like my mother, depressed, alone, and with a serious addiction. Well at least not all of these are true.

“Sweetie I have to get ready for work. I’ll be home around six and then we can get ready to go to Anthony’s.” I can tell from Ricky’s monotone voice that he is not happy about going to Anthony’s party, but it’s something I need to do and luckily Ricky understands that. It’s just one of the many reasons that I love him.

“Thank you Sweetie, I’ll be here until you get back. I’m helping your mom with some things around the house and I’ll spend some time with Tommy.” I’m so excited and nervous for tonight that I know the day’s going to go by so slowly. I need to try to focus on what I’m doing all day rather than thinking of tonight. That should work.

“Ricky I have a lot to do today so I’m going to head downstairs and get started. Do you want anything for breakfast before work?”

“No thanks, we get free breakfast at work when we switch to the lunch menu.”

“Okay then, just make sure it’s fully cooked before you eat it. We don’t need you getting food poisoning again.”

The trip to Anthony’s apartment is a difficult one. First we have to walk fifteen miles to the bus station just to get on the bus for two stops until we reach the train station. At the station we need to get our tickets to Corona then once we get there we need to get on another train to New York City just to get onto another bus. It’s a terrible trip, but it’s worth it.

Walking into Pablo's apartment building was one of the happiest moments I've had in a while. In a little bit I will be reunited with my heart's true love. My heart's beating to the rhythm of the music from the party three stories above us. We walk up the stairs and my heart keeps beating faster and faster. Finally when we get to the door, Pedro is standing outside, staring at the door to the apartment across from him. His arms folded across his large frame.

"Pedro, what's up man?" Ricky says as he walks to Pedro. Ricky tries to give Pedro dabs, but he just turns his head to stare down at Ricky

"What are you two doing here? You aren't welcomed around here anymore."

"Come on man, Anna just needs to get in there and do her thing real quick then we'll be out."

"Dude you got fifteen minutes and if you aren't out by then I will kill you both with my bare hands." I feel speechless as those words come out of Pedro's mouth. I know the things he’s capable of but he wouldn't really do that to us... would he?

Pedro moves over and lets us in. As I entered all I could see was thick clouds of smoke in the air. The room was so crowded that I accidently walked into two couples who were on the floor.Once we reached an empty area for us to stand in I told Ricky that I needed to run to the bathroom before I did anything. I tried to navigate myself to the bathroom while interrupting the least amount of couples possible.

Once shutting the bathroom door, I walked over to the sink to wash my hands that reeked of tobacco since I was helping Rosa roll her own cigarettes all day so she can save some money. I can't stand the smell of tobacco but Rosa has always been there for me and lets me stay at her house rent free so I feel that it's the least I can to help her roll them since she has carpal tunnel and her hands get sore easily.

After I am able to smell my hands without getting queasy I just stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes look as if someone punched them so far into my skull that their blue color is hard to see. The whites of my eyes look gray, as if I drew them on with a pencil. The bags under my eyes go on for miles and my skin is paler than freshly fallen snow. I always loved playing in the snow when I was a kid. I would always pretend I was from Alaska and lived in an igloo. My older brother and I could play in the snow from the time sun came up until the police brought us back home at two in the morning. I miss when we were kids and nothing could keep us apart.

After a failed attempt at applying a boat load of make up to my face to make me look semi normal, I fixed my long blond hair into a pony tail and reentered the madness of the party to find Ricky before I went to the back of the apartment. On my walk through the apartment all I could smell was the stench of skunks. I placed my hands over my nose in hopes that the scent of the soap would help hide this disgusting odor. After walking up to three different men I finally found Ricky.

"Be safe and quick back there Anna. I'll be here waiting. I love you Anna with all my heart and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you without all this drama."

I kissed Ricky and walked towards the back bedroom of the apartment. My palms were sweating more than Eli Manning when he's playing in the Super Bowl and the Giant's are losing going into the last quarter. I placed my hand on the doorknob, but my sweat made it hard to turn. Once wiping my hands on my shirt I turn the knob and enter the room.

The mahogany desk in the center of the room is surrounded by at least a dozen people. Men and women, short and tall, young and old. The only thing they have in common is their addiction. One of them turns towards me. I almost felt like I was staring into a mirror. Her hair was slightly darker than mine and she was a few inches taller than me but our faces shared the same, worn out qualities. Our eye even looked the same shade of lead gray.

It took a few minutes for me to realize that now everyone was staring at me.

"Anna what are you doing? You shouldn't be here." Anthony shouts as if I was one of his employees that walked in on him with a woman. I could see the fury he felt on his amber red face.

"That's no way to treat your little sister, is it Anthony?" I say while continuing to wipe the sweat off my dripping wet hands. "I just need to talk to you alone."

"Fine. Just let them finish their hits." Anthony responds, nodding to everyone in the room to continue their "business". Suddenly one of the men placed his nose on the table, followed by a large inhaling noise while the woman who looked like me wrapped a thick rubber band around her upper arm and proceeded to inject herself with a large needle.

After everyone in the rooms needs were met, they exited, leaving me to stare at Anthony until the door was fully shut.

“Seriously Anna what are you doing here? I told you that I didn’t want you around here since you’ve been acting so crazy.”

“Oh shut up! I’m not the crazy one here. You’re the one who shut your sister out of your life because of drugs. I’m your sister and isn’t family supposed to stick together?”

“Well what do you want? Let’s just get this lecture over with.” The veins on Anthony’s face look as if they are about to jump out of his skin and wrap themselves around my neck.

“Anthony, you need to get out of this life! You can do so much more with your life if you just stop with all the drugs and parties! I haven’t been able to sleep for weeks because I’ve been so worried about you.”

“Well if you just gave me the money you owe me then you could be out of my life forever.” He begins to stutter his words and trips over the chair behind his desk. The anger is still shown on his face, but I know that’s not the only emotion he’s feeling.

“I told you I don’t get paid every week but you’ll get the money soon. You know I was low on money after I had Tommy and Rick has been working his ass off to help support him and his mother. Look, I just came because I wanted to give you one more chance to get out of this world and come with me, Ricky and the baby to start over. You can make us a family of four. I really want you to come with us.” I notice Anthony is staring at the floor. He seems lifeless. His eyes are open but it seems that he isn’t seeing anything that is happening right now. “Anthony, Please. I can’t imagine you going down the same path as mom. I want better for you. You’re the only real family I have left besides Tommy and he needs his uncle in his life.”

“Oh stop Anna! You don’t care about me or what happens to me. You just want me to come with you so you can have your way like always. I’m the older one here. You should be listening to me so listen up. I’M DONE WITH YOU! IT’S MY LIFE AND I’LL DO WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT WITH IT!” Anthony is out of breath. I’ve never heard him speak like this. Anthony was always the sweet older brother who I looked up to, not this monster who yells at me with his hands in fists as if he wants to punch me. He’s staring at me but I feel like he’s just looking through me and not at who I am, the sister that just wants him to be happy and healthy.

“Ant, I can’t help you get better if you won’t help yourself. Tomorrow we’re leaving to start our new lives and I promised Ricky that this would be the last time I try to convince you to come. You can’t even imagine how hard this is for me. Leaving the only man in my life I’ve looked up to behind to just waste away with all the drugs. This has been really hard for me so please just come with us.”

“Not gonna happen Anna! Happy? You got your final answer, now just leave and never come back! I’ll live my life the way I want.”

“I just want you to live.”