Addict In Black ✔

Chapter Fifty-Nine

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE: CASUALTY

You are not an alcoholic or an addict. You are not incurably diseased.
-Chris Prentiss

As students they told us to put aside all other interests to complete our work. We're taught to partake in time fillers instead of doing what we really enjoy. So then when we happen to have a day of no work, we don't know what to do with ourselves other than work.

We forget what it means to be spontaneous.

We learn to sit at a desk, read, write, study, answer questions, create new ones, focus. And I think that's one hell of a shame that outside school, work, outside of depression and anxiety. Outside of it all, we have absolutely no clue who we really are, the only thing I see people knowing is who they want to be.

See, the big problem with this is that strict parents don't raise obedient kids; they raise people who have abilities to tell how mad someone is by how they breathe, to tell who is walking to your room just by the sound of their footsteps and get panic attacks over slamming doors.

Strict parents don't raise great students; they raise kids who freak out over a B+ when that's the highest score on the test, who end up taking Adderall between classes or mellowing out with the pot heads after school for just an hour of calm and then become overachieving perfectionists later in life who can't take time for their family.

Or sometimes, they raise people like my Micah who need help.

And sometimes, they raise abusive men like my father.

Now I'm on the stand, having to stand up for and stand against those same people.

"AJ Ferro," My lawyer, Emmeline, calls me. She's still looking down at her papers but I know she's completely focused on me. "Do you remember the last thing you said to your parents in your suicide notes?"

Slowly I nods, hands clasping on my lap. "I will bleed for better reasons than you this year."

"What were those better reasons, exactly?"

"Death."

"Objection!" The other team's lawyer, whose name I keep hearing but for some reason can't process it, shouts out. "Relevance?"

"Denied Mr. Leta, continue counsel." The judge says, demeanor harsh and cold.

Mr. Leta. Mr. Leta. Mr. Leta. Mr. Leta.

Looking as if she's smirking on the inside, Emmeline stands up and walks over to the other lawyer's desk and sits against it.

This woman is just really, very nicely, not giving a fuck.

I like it.

"What were your parents reactions to you trying to commit suicide due to their actions?"

"Objection again! Carter cannot prove that my clients are at fault in anyone for a single person ending their own life. It wasn't attempted murder."

The judge thinks for a second before she nods, "Sustained."

"Let me rephrase," Emmeline crosses her legs. "In your suicide notes you very clearly stated that if in your opinion, your parents were good parents, you wouldn't want to die. That is fact. After you attempted and they read those letters, containing those words and your feelings at the time, what were their reactions."

"But she just...she said the same thing in a different way!" My mother exclaims.

"Counsel!" The judge bangs her gavel. "Please inform your clients that this is what a court room looks like and that is what lawyers do. If they cannot contain themselves, I will dismiss you here and now. Answer the question, plaintiff."