2 Megan spent her evenings hanging about on the Quayside with the men and women who accepted her as she was an outsider, just like them, she snorted, injected, smoked, swallowed whatever came her way cocaine, crack cocaine, ketamine, cannabis, LSD, ecstasy, whatever took her to a higher, happier plane at first she was experimenting with it, until she found herself craving her next fix and sleeping with the men who could provide it for her up against damp alley walls, behind warehouses on the wharves, inside hallways, behind bushes, on dirty mattresses the relief when blood stained her pants, when tests came back negative she slept with the women who took a liking to her discovered she preferred them her parents charged rent seeing as she'd ruined her life by dropping out of school she made sure to get up for work every morning, even when she'd come in at dawn completely off her face and her head vibrated to a concert of amplified heavy metal sounds and her brain cells were fused with vomit she snuck downstairs as her parents busied themselves in the kitchen she made sure to slam the front door so hard the house reverberated with after-shock as she headed for a McBreakfast of McSausageBacon&CheeseBagel at her McJob one night, unable to sleep, Megan made the mistake of returning to social media to spy on her former classmates the academic achievers were celebrating their 'A' level results, posting about the universities they were going to attend others were showing off the jobs they'd got, the boyfriends who'd proposed, the babies on the way, the countless nights on the lash where they'd had the best time of their lives clubbing-partying-festivalling- getting-drunk-high and being happyhappyhappyhappy happyhappyhappyhappy, with complexions filtered to perfection, waistlines digitally slimmed, their smiley friendships and relationships, and even
though she knew a few of these girls were annies, bulimics, had been bullied, were depressed, had social anxiety you wouldn't know it from their posts it was still a wake-up call she decided not to head off to the riverfront that evening to hang with her homies, her bezzies, who accepted her as one of them, who lived for their next hit, with their scabby dogs and petty crime lifestyles, who annoyed the hell out of the regular people who walked along the Quayside to visit its venues, restaurants and bars Megan went cold turkey when her parents went on holiday to Majorca Mark was at Camp America (of course he was), she stayed home, turned off her phone, watched her parents' videos to distract her, showered several times a day to rid herself of the sweaty toxins that made her stink, flushed herself out with water, got the shakes, scratched herself raw when legions of ants bit into her flesh, took enough painkillers to subdue the headaches but not enough to kill her went to sleep on Day Nine and slept (blissfully) through the night for the first time in as many months she woke up born again.