dissociation

 Allie had the tendency to complain.  However, the winter of 2004 was about the coldest winter I ever felt and she the only friend I had.  Her old man's house seemed enormous in the outskirts of the valley's village scene where we would watch bad Jack Black movies and shoot pool.  Her pops would cook the greasiest burgers and my favorite zesty French fries when I'd come to visit.  Often her bff April was around who had the tendency to be rude, but fun.

Allie's brother, Ryan whom I went to school with frequently gave me shit. Two years years earlier he was at my first hardcore show the night we drove up to Syracuse while I was flunking out of high school.  Somehow I convinced the old man to front me twenty bucks to hang out with my knuckle head friends for a night of debauchery in the salt city.

"Let's get up front for sing alongs," Ryan yells at me as Poison the Well goes on.

I show up to school the next day, my ears ringing wearing my torn hoodie from a small club of kids fighting for position at the foot of a small stage.  Maybe life is going to be okay?

2005, Allie is one of few people to visit me on the third floor of Binghamton general's psych ward.

"I think you're a really great guy," she says after handing me a full length letter.  The night before she showed up too, but the medication creates a reaction in my jaw causing my wisdom teeth to feel like they want to pull their way out through my face.

Maybe ten years later I find out Allie is gone, through a Facebook post.  Her friend tells me who ever she was shooting up with just left her there for dead.