CARSON, Jada S

[Deleted]

_____________________________ This upcoming May it'll have been three years since my last drink, pill, line of coke; you name it, I don't do it anymore. And I quit without a recovery book, an AA meeting, a patch or an intervention. I really wish it took any of those. Instead it was Greta, the girl who had been through everything with me - from moving to Hollywood to my sobriety. Apparently there was a lot of coke found in her system. I know this obviously, we snorted stacks of it before the party, more of it at the party, and had planned on doing more once we had gotten home. I wish we'd stopped or had at least found another way home, but we had to drive that silly fancy convertible I'd begged Finn for. The dumb little vintage Porche, it makes me sick. She was driving, she took an Instagram of herself in the car, I think the caption is: "when the wife lets you drive." I remember what happened, if only I hit my head hard enough so that I didn't. We ran a red light, we were hit by a Toyota caravan - no kids, thank God. I was wearing my seatbelt, she wasn't. They told me that but they didn't have to, it was obvious in the fact that she flew thirty feet straight into the pavement. I broke a few ribs, my nose and an arm. I heard screaming and for what felt like ages I was wondering who was screaming, only to realize it was me. Crying and screaming, watching shiny red spill from the broken figure of my best friend. Greta died on impact. When I picture her face at her closed casket funeral, I imagine the flesh rubbed off like bits of eraser. It's the only way I can see her now, that imaginary image. I quit that day. I couldn't touch it, and I could barely it in the house. I changed, I'll be the first to admit. Life became of a game, in turn I became less fun. My focus changed and some things didn't make it. _____________________________ Cosmopolitan July 2008 _____________________________ When I left home at eighteen to become an actress, I thought it would be simple. In my hometown everyone fawned over me, I was easily Portland's most famous, in my high school yearbook I was even voted most likely to win an Oscar. My parents told me it would be difficult, what they really should of said was that I was terrible. When I look back at my cancelled HBO show now, I cringe. I wish I'd saw then what I see now. Finn Grayson was my golden ticket, so I thought. When I first saw him I thought he was Justin Timberlake, but Greta told me otherwise. Finn Grayson, big deal. At first it was about the money, I think he's always known that. I was a struggling actress who'd maxed out all her credit cards on pretty dresses and was paying serious hooky from her landlord. I may have looked the part but my bank was telling otherwise. Sure, I was getting into parties but I wasn't getting the roles. Half my problem was not knowing the right people (the other half was that I'm garbage), but Finn could fix this. He was my way in. When he cut me out was when I realized the complexity of it. I cried so hard it felt like my eyes were falling out, I'd never been that upset over anyone previously. I woke up and went to bed thinking about him, hoping that he'd call. I was sick about the fact that I couldn't have him. I was angry and confused at myself, but I didn't blame him. Eventually he did come back. I believe that everyone comes into your life for a reason. Even if they don't stick around, they deliver you some place else. Finn and I were everything at the time, we aided each other toward change before we abandoned the idea of us. And although now we can't stand to be in the same room, I still hold fond memories. Like when we had just gotten back together when I was twenty-one, we spent the morning rolling in soft linens. He held my chin in the palm of his hand, our eyes flirting and then we both lean in with harmony to kiss. Or, like he was so kind to my mother. Even when I was ticked with her for invading where she shouldn't have, he was nothing but gentle. How silly he was as well, it was so frequently that I would forget our age difference. I really did love him, so much that my heart threatened to explode. But like I said, people change. When Greta died I became depressed, that mustn't have been an easy thing to handle. I quit drugs and alcohol, and I expected him to withhold from it as well. He couldn't. I matured, he didn't. We started wanting different things, and when neither of us could give to each other any longer, we threw in the towel. Of course, it was a lot more dramatic. Dishes broke and I flushed my wedding ring down the toilet, but that's the truth of it. We just weren't right.

ciara , resident , alyssa