Free Sliding Into Home by Kendra Wilkinson

the sliding glass door was locked.
    My heart dropped. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t face my mom and the consequences that would follow, so I just went back to Mario’s place and stayed there for a couple of days while I tried to figure things out.
    The plan we eventually put together was terrible. I didn’t have any clothes or money to buy new stuff, so I needed to go home and get my things. Even though I was only three or four months into my sophomore year of high school, I felt like I was an adult and ready to move out of my house.
    Together, Mario and I marched over to my mom’s house, knocked on the door, and told her I was moving out. I wasn’t running away this time; I was packing my bags and leaving her, right in front of her face.
    I could see the disappointment in her eyes. A part of her didn’t believe it was happening, but another part of her knew there was nothing she could do to stop me. I felt bad, but I also felt like I was doing the right thing by leaving. It was time for me to be on my own.
    We walked out the front door—no need to sneak out the back anymore—and I turned and said good-bye. She just let me go, and I really thought that was good-bye for good. I was starting a new life.

    Moving in with Mario was not a good idea, to say the least. Deep down I knew that from the beginning, but I was never going to admit it.
    I quit soccer and softball, then quit school altogether. Instead of going to high school like a normal fifteen-year-old, I sat in an apartment and did coke all day long.
    Most days I didn’t shower. I just rolled out of bed, went to the living room, and did a few lines. The coke mixed with a lack of funds led to me not eating very much, and I got really thin and became a scary-looking, smelly mess of a person.
    Meanwhile, Mario was always talking about getting out of town and running away together to some luxurious place where we would be happy. But he was full of shit. He was never going anywhere. How could he?
    During the day Mario worked in construction, but that didn’t bring in enough money. Most of his funds came from selling drugs. At all hours of the day people would come in, usually without even knocking, to buy bags of coke from him. If Mario was at work it became my job to handle the drug sales.
    Some really fucked up people would show up at the apartment, and each purchase was different. Some would want a gram; others would want an eight ball, which is about three and a half grams. I’d measure it out, put in a Baggie, and make the sale. Everyone paid and no one messed with me because people knew Mario was a tough guy and was not fucking around. It was like our life was straight out of a mafia movie: we were the reigning mafia couple and everyone knew to be afraid of us.
    Whenever we were out of coke, we had to go see a guy who washigh up the food chain in the drug-sales industry. He lived about fifteen miles away in the more upscale town of La Jolla, and his house was a real drug den, with lots of guns and scary people everywhere.
    At one point Mario and I were in trouble because we weren’t making enough money selling coke (probably because we were snorting all of the merchandise). We didn’t have a TV and we were out of food so we had to go to the dealer and try to return the little bit of drugs we had in exchange for cash so we could live. Both of us were nervous, but we felt like we had no choice. We were like two crackheads heading over there, begging for a few dollars back. I don’t remember if we ended up getting our money, but I lived to tell the story and at that point I guess that was good enough.
    Just staying alive was a top priority during my time with Mario. I knew my limits with coke so usually I did a few lines and that was it. As much as I loved getting high, I was not trying to hurt myself. I was past my depressed and suicidal days and I wasn’t going to go back to that dark place. However, I felt like I was alone in this new world, so I