Ecstasy

By Amira M.

Jen is a senior in high school, mourning the death of her parents. Her friends try to helpalthough their methods of doing so involve moving themselves one by one into her house. Her best friend, Alyssa, and Mitch, the guy shes dating, decide the best way to distract her is a party; its about time the senior class had a pre-graduation bash.

With Jens parents out of the picture, the party takes place at her house. Theres plenty of booze, but Mitch shows up with ecstasy as well. Jens friends say theres no harm in the drug, so they take the pillswith tragic results. After a trip to the emergency room, Jens life is even worse than it was before.

Suicide seems a comforting idea to her. She was once the cheerful girl next door. Now, she wants nothing more than to end it all. Her therapist suggests hospitalization, and Jen wonders how she got herehow one mistake could ruin everything. She has a choice; she can continue down her dark path or turn her life around if it isnt too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491723708

Amira M.

Amira M. has written all her life and finds traveling to be her biggest inspiration. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, with her husband, Ahmed. Visit her online at www.amiraslife.com.

Book preview

Prologue

D o you believe in heaven? I’ve had a million different answers to that question based on what was going on in my life. I remember when I was growing up and life was perfect. I used to be so thankful; I truly believed God had blessed me. I suppose with every tragedy that I’ve faced, my faith in God got a little weaker, until one day I woke up and realized no one was answering my prayers.

Have you ever thought about dying? Sometimes that’s all I can think about, and it suddenly dawned on me to wonder how I got here. I was a normal girl with a perfect life, and now, here I am, contemplating killing myself.

This was supposed to be the best year of my life—the last year of high school. My friends and I had all finally turned eighteen. We were adults, or at least pretending to be.

I’ve turned into someone I don’t even recognize and, worse than that, someone I don’t even like. I keep replaying everything in my head from the beginning, trying to figure out how I could have let this happen. How could I have let things get this bad?

All my decisions, even the little ones that seemed so irrelevant at the time, led me down this path. I guess I’ll tell you what happened, from the beginning …

1

How It All Began

E xcuse me? A party at my house? I don’t think so, I attempted to tell Mitch with an evil glare after he suggested it to everyone at the lunch table.

There hasn’t been a good house party in forever! Vanessa yelled.

That’s such a good idea, Mitch, Alyssa said as she smiled at me with excitement.

I can get my brother to pick up all the booze, Jeff added.

Jen, what do you think? I promise we’ll all stay and help clean up after, Robyn asked as everyone stared at me for a response.

I froze for a moment, trying to come up with some sort of excuse to not have the party without everyone hating me, but before I could even respond …

Guys, relax. Jen is going to have the party; she’s the best, Mitch said as he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him. He softly kissed my cheek and beamed at me with his perfect, bright-white smile and innocent green eyes, and I knew I was having a party.

2

Flashback

M y mother was in foster care all her life and never had any real family, and my father was an only child. Both his parents passed away the year I was born, so I’ve never really had any extended family. My parents met while they were in college and got married the year they graduated. My mom used to be a spa manager but quit when she got pregnant with me, and my dad was a dentist. I’m not sure exactly how much money they made, but we always lived a comfortable life. We went on nice family vacations and had a nice house, two cars—everything we needed. On top of that, both my father’s parents had been lawyers and left a generous inheritance for him when they passed away, so money had never really been an issue in my family. I always wished for a sibling, but there was a complication after my birth, so my parents weren’t able to have any more children.

A year ago, my parents were on their way home from their anniversary dinner and got into a terrible car accident. December 4 will forever be the day my life got turned upside down. They both died, and I was instantly an orphan; the court said that considering that I would be eighteen in less than a year at the time and that everything was left to me in their will and their mortgage was paid off, they would let me live independently as long as I met with a social worker every two weeks, continued high school, and continued therapy until I turned twenty-one.

The first week after the accident, I kept thinking it was some big joke; my dad had been a huge prankster. I was in complete denial. Every hour, I’d dial his cell phone number, just hoping he’d answer. After two weeks had passed, it really hit me, and I stopped eating and showering. I just slept all day every day. Then came the pity flowers and food from my parents’ friends and coworkers, which made me even more depressed. Eventually, I was able to pull myself together and started attending school again.