The Unbroken Cycle.

My name is Amy, named after my mother, and it’s Spring 1998. I’m back in my hometown in Houston, Texas. Though it’s known for its serious drug abuse problem, I missed it here. I got a job as a waitress at a diner and moved in with an old friend. I like her because she gives me these pills that help calm me down. I know they’re depressants but they look a little different compared to the ones I used to take. Although it doesn’t pay much, I like my job, living paycheck to paycheck really sucks though. You get to speak with others and eventually make a bond with the regulars, I guess strangers find comfort in telling strangers their life stories. A couple of months go by of waking up, going to work, and falling back asleep, I see a new face at the diner, this time it feels different though, they look familiar. I realized an officer, a sheriff actually, walked in. I read their badge, and I could tell that he began to analyze my face as if he had the database built into himself. His stern, mellow look quickly turned to a smile that glowed brighter than the sun, it was my father! It was a couple of years since I’d seen him, and he looked the same, but with a depressed, run-down look to him. It becomes pretty easy to read the faces of others once you work here for a while. I almost sprinted toward him and we quickly hugged, I hadn’t felt so happy in a long time. I asked my manager if I could take my break now and he said yes. We sat down and talked about how our lives have been, he said he was happy to see me again. After my mother died, which is why I left town, my father only focused on his work, which got him promoted to sheriff. This only worsened his mental and physical health. I was so worried for him that I practically begged him to try to get better, with tears in his eyes, he told me that he would try, for the both of us. After this I excused myself to go to the bathroom, I needed to calm down. My mom taught me that whenever I’m too excited or happy, I can’t control my actions. With this in mind, I quickly took my pills. I came back to the table we were sitting at, but my father left, but he left a note with his phone number on it, saying “Call me! -Dad”. Another few months went by and we spent these months going to many places, places we couldn’t go to before due to my mother’s addictions, We went to plenty of theme parks, shopped at the mall almost weekly, and he even took me to Spain, which is my mother and I’s dream place to visit. More than enough tears were shed these past months, but they were happy tears because we were no longer alone, the only one missing was my mother. It was already Fall, and my dad showed me an advertisement for a corn maze that opened up. So one slow afternoon, my dad came to the diner with two tickets in one hand and a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen. I was so happy I felt like I could jump all over the place, but I began to slightly panic, this emotion was too strong, but I didn’t have my medicine, and I somehow forgot about them, and for once in my life, I let myself truly be happy. My dad drove me back to my place and I quickly got changed and prepared my stuff, this time not forgetting my pills. We drove to the maze, listening to our favorite songs while getting there, and immediately ran into the maze. After some hours of running around and talking some more, it was nighttime. We decided to start going back to the entrance, but we quickly noticed that we were lost. I began to panic and hyperventilate, and my dad came up to me to comfort me but I smacked his hand away. I apologized profusely after noticing what I did, and I started tearing up, he told me he understood how I was feeling and I felt a little better. I asked to be alone and he complied. I took out my bag of pills but remembered I didn’t have a drink and I needed to be calm fast, so I took out my credit card as well. I started pouring the pills into my hands so I could break them into a powder, but didn’t know how much, due to the darkness and the tears in my eyes, but it didn’t matter, I needed to calm down as soon as possible. I quickly crushed the pills with my credit card, somehow my friend made them easy to break. I sniffed all of them and began to feel the effects immediately, then the harsh realization hit, I poured too many. I tried to get up since I was kneeling to crush them against my knee, but I just fell. I tried to place my hand on the ground but my vision was so blurry that I could barely see it, but I managed to get up. I started walking, but I was so dizzy that I had to take my steps slowly.I wanted to panic, but my body didn’t allow it, I was calm, and that was forced to be the truth. I fell again, and this time my father heard, so he called my name, “Amy!!”, and I called for him, and although my words were incoherent, he heard me and ran towards me. I was losing control of my sense of time, so I didn’t know how long it took him to find me, it felt like an eternity, but he was here now. I am now in my father's arms, as the life in my body starts to run out. “I’m sorry Dad”, I try to say, but he can’t understand me. I can hear him crying, but I can’t react, I feel so at peace. Now that I think about it, everything I talked about before, was my life flashing before my eyes, my favorite memories. I failed my father, I promised him that I would stop, I even told him I did, and here I am now, dying as my mother did those years ago, overdosing and in my father’s arms. I was simply another burden to my father in the end, and now everything is beginning to go dark, I am dying. So with whatever life is left in my useless, pathetic body, I tried my hardest to say, “I love you Dad”, one last time. Somehow, he understood, and with tears rolling down his cheek, he said “I love you more princess”. And right after that, I passed away, in my father's arms, hearing his voice, filled with sadness, just like my mother did.