Have you ever had the worst possible thing happen to you but then one of the best things happened, or know someone who has? Well that's pretty much what happened to me. Some people probably want to think “not that many bad things could happen.” but they’re wrong. I had lost my best friend of two years and six months due to a drug overdose in January. He was only 14 years old and got laced without knowing. He had become my boyfriend on my birthday and we were dating for the last six months before his death. Then around February, I had re-met with my biological father after almost eight years. But yes we weren’t dating that long but oh it felt perfect, I just wish I knew how bad he was getting…

On the day I found out he was gone, my mother and step-father wouldn’t leave me alone. I have had problems with my mental health and I got better with it but when I found out about him not being with us anymore, I broke. I couldn’t help myself anymore and I was extremely depressed for days. I have always bottled up everything, then having something even worse on top of all my other problems is a lot to handle. But I eventually got a bit better with the help of my friends and family. About a week later was his funeral, I'm gonna be honest I didn't want to go. A couple days before this his best friend had contacted me to see how I was doing and to see if I was going to the funeral, and he told me it was an open casket and I almost broke when he told me that. 

“His parents found him in his room with purple lips, unresponsive.”

I was crying every night and didn't go to school for multiple days out of the week because I simply just couldn’t handle being teased and with my own boyfriend being dead. I had cried so much but never in front of people, I don't like doing that so I guess I could say that's why I bottle everything up but back to it. At his funeral I saw his parents, he always said they loved me, I had even thought of them as my other parents. His mom was trying her hardest not to cry as she hugged me but she started crying as my mom hugged her and it was the worst when I hugged his dad, also known as the only father figure I saw before seeing my biological dad again. When I hugged his dad he balled his eyes out in my arms saying “I’m so sorry I didn't let him see you, that's all he ever wanted to do and now he's gone and you didn't get to see him.” almost blaming himself for what happened, which is exactly what I did too. I always and still do question myself to see if maybe just maybe if i did something like tell his dad then maybe he’d still be here. 

If he stopped doing drugs maybe he’d be here I’d like to think.. Although I had the time of my life with my lovely sweet boy, I miss him so much. He had made me the happiest person I've ever been. I loved him and probably will never stop. Yes it’s been almost five months since he passed but I still think of him so much and like to try and think that he's still here being happy as ever. I also knew that it was bound to happen sooner or later, friends or dating, strangers or not. His addiction was going to kill him, if he didn’t stop. He tried, believe me he made wonderful progress but then as he said before he overdosed to the point of death “I’m so sorry Ariel if i mess up again.” This hadn't been his first time overdosing, his mom and his dad were making him do drug tests almost every couple weeks to make sure he wasn't on anything, I thought he was almost 100% better but as I soon realized, I was extremely incorrect. Before we started dating he had tried ending his life with drugs many times and I always worried about him. Every Time I heard he was in the hospital I spammed his phone with calls and texts hoping he’d see them… I was so scared and confused on what to do, I didn’t want him to get worse, and I definitely didn’t want my mom and step-dad to forbid me to see him anymore if I told them my concerns about his drug usage, so I guess that's why I stayed quiet. I brushed off the fact it had gotten worse and kept hiding myself from the facts in front of my face. 

After the funeral I started hating to do things. I was angry, so angry. Anger is part of grief right? It wasn't fair. “Everything happens for a reason” yeah right. Why would this have a good reason? What is the reason? So many questions kept running through my head at school and at home. I kept dreaming about him and having nightmares of him dying in front of me,  and I was crying constantly. I hated it.

 Soon after I calmed down a bit I started researching again to find my dad because my mom wasn't doing it for me. I felt I needed someone more to help me through it. Keep in mind he still had visitation rights with me but didn't have money to go to court and fight my mom on it. I found my grandma's phone number on a random phone book website and called it till I got an answer. I explained almost everything and got my dads phone number. A week later I decided to do something absolutely so terrifyingly stupid; I lied to my mom and step-dad about where I was going and I said “I’m gonna sleep over at my friends” and they believed me, however now I gave them trust issues after “going missing” but they lie to me too and I think I had a good reason to, and because they would have never let me. This was only a couple months ago and now I see him, my step-mom, and baby brother almost every weekend. I had talked to my dad about my deceased boyfriend and he said “he sounded like a nice boy.” That's the only response I ever got from that situation. I was so happy I had gotten to see my dad but I soon realized it hadn’t changed. He’s still mentally not there, doesn’t listen, he still acts as if he’s a young and dumb 20 year old again. “I just want a good dad” I used to say that every night before bed when I didn't get to see him. It slightly still stands, yes he's in my life but he isn't in my life y’know? I love my dad but he needs to grow up and learn how to take care of me and my baby brother better. 

My whole idea on the overdose and re-meeting, is I'm now okay. For the first time in a while I'm okay. I get why my mom took me away from my dad, it was a smart reason. He was a marijuana (weed) user and looking back he could have put me in danger, but he's finally 6-7 years clean from everything and I'm not mad or upset with him anymore. It’s normal for me now. I feel normal. My boyfriend's death however I feel made me grow and mature more as a person. I miss him, yes but I feel better because I don't have to worry 24/7 about a boyfriend who could die at any time because of drugs from other people selling them. Like a weight was lifted, I know I shouldn't have felt overwhelmed dating him but I just worried because he was the first person to be there for me when no one else was. 

In conclusion of this terrible but also good ending event in my life I’ve learned that drugs are harder to quit than i had thought and my mom was right about my dad. I should’ve tried telling someone who could help my boyfriend but it was bound to happen with or without help, but i can't know that for sure. My dad isn't there mentally still as I now keep realizing and I figured it wouldn’t be the same from now on. Drugs are what took my dad and what took my lovely boy away from me. There’s even a whole article about what had happened. Drugs are serious and I’m just realizing now that nothing will be the same with or without help, my dad will probably always be out of it and not mentally there. My boyfriend on the other hand… Well, he’ll be gone forever because of his addiction. I just wish I had gotten both of them help before I lost my boyfriend and before I left my dad for the 8 years I left. There isn’t any way I alone can fix things and probably never get my dad mentally here. He loves me but I can feel he isn't here with me in his head. My boyfriend, as many people say, “he’ll always be there with you.” That makes me feel so much better and now I'm happy. Drugs are just the worst, right? I think so too, it does so much to the human body and isn’t good for it. That’s what i basically learned and my mindset on a lot of things now, because of this traumatic disaster, I learned so much about not only drugs but why people use them and how they impact others because both, my (now clean from drugs) dad and dead boyfriend have made me realize what it can do and how dangerous it is.