Kayla was 12 years old when she figured out her mom’s secret. She had found traces of white powder on CD cases and even a baggie full of crystals before, but she hadn’t really known what it was. Late one night, she watched a TV movie with a cast of pot-smoking hippies. One of the hippies poured white stuff from a baggie onto a table and snorted it through a straw. That’s when Kayla put it together, when she knew what kept up her mom for hours, even nights, on end. Also, she knew what to do with the powder.

A couple nights later, Kayla made dinner for her half-siblings, her 2-year-old and 7-year-old sisters and 4-year-old brother, and put them to bed. Then she opened the door to her mom’s room, where Jamie lay across the bed in a stupor from which Kayla couldn’t have woken her if she tried. The room smelled like bad breath and Passion perfume. Kayla hated Passion perfume. She thought it made her mom smell old.

Kayla looked through the little knickknacks on her mom’s dresser. Jamie had maybe 50 of them – little brass boxes, candles of all colors and metal candleholders. Kayla liked to look through her mom’s little boxes and see what was inside.

She found the usual: earrings, a pendant, a lighter, marijuana ashes, a bud. Kayla was already a pot smoker. She even smoked it with her mom. But tonight she found something different. Lying on the dresser, among picture frames and candleholders, was a baggie of white powder.

It was around midnight when Kayla lifted the bag of meth from her mom’s dresser. It was bulging full. Kayla slid it in her pocket, walked into her own room and shut the door behind her. Usually her 16-year-old boyfriend slept here, on the double bed with her, but tonight Kayla was on her own. She tilted her full-length mirror and laid it on the carpet. Then she found a piece of notebook paper and rolled it up like a straw. She made neat, white lines on the mirror and snorted one. It burned the back of her nose and an entire side of her face. Kayla’s eyes watered. Her throat hurt. Her sinuses dripped a chemical taste into her mouth. She thought this is horrible, really horrible. But the thought didn’t last more than a second. None of her thoughts did.

Kayla felt smart. She felt funny. She had energy.  She listened to rap and danced. She sat down on the carpet and clipped pictures from magazines. She leapt to her feet, found glue and tape and stuck the pictures to the collage of hip-hop artists that covered her walls. She did a lot of things that night she doesn’t remember. What she does remember is the feeling of going; going, going, going all night. She remembers doing projects. She remembers that she felt like they were interesting, like life was interesting. Kayla wanted to hold onto the high, but she didn’t know how much powder to take. By five in the morning, she had snorted three or four more lines. Then she walked a few blocks to her best friend’s apartment.

Kayla rang Jesse’s doorbell and knocked, but no one answered. Jesse was asleep and, who knew where his mom was. In her group of friends, adults were hard to keep track of. She didn’t trust adults like she trusted Jesse, anyway.  Kayla had known him for years, and the two kids had done their best to look after each other. Kayla gave Jesse movement. He gave her permission to be still. Now Kayla’s mind was moving way too fast. And so she sat on his porch and played with rocks, waiting for him to take care of her.

Two years later, Kayla learned to smoke dope instead of snort it.  Smoking felt so good, it made the time she’d snorted seem like a caffeine overdose by comparison. Smoking meth made her feel like she was beyond smart, and she could get away with anything. Anything. It didn’t matter what other people thought of her anymore. It didn’t matter how what she did affected them. When Kayla smoked dope, she felt scandalous. Now life was fun. It was funny. It was sexy. It was hot. It was more, just more.

From the men in her life, Kayla got the good stuff. It turned blue after she melted it down in her little pipe, took a hit and then blew on it. The way dope hardened in a pipe made it convenient. She could melt down enough to last a couple days and reheat when she wanted a hit. Twenty dollars’ worth, which was just a little line in the bottom of a baggie, could last her all night if she smoked it.