Benzos

My best friend took benzos a while back.
We were heading to a party. She ran off with my friend's dog while we tried to cross the street. I made sure someone was going to be with her.

I got bored of the party, and went back to campus. I ran into her, and Lyle, and Ben. I think I would describe their reaction to her behavior as "bemused." Anyways, she was moving as if all of her limbs were weighted. She was slurring her words and seemed unaware of her impact on the environment.
We waited in ODB while Ben and Lyle did something, lying on the floor. "I'm taking another one" she said. I asked what the recommended dose was, how many she had taken already... It had only been an hour since she'd first dosed. "I'm planning to take all of them tonight," she said. Her friend had sent them in the mail. I trusted him to give her the right dose.
She didn't seem happy. She didn't seem sad. She seemed in touch with her emotions, in the kind of way that lets them boil over before they're completely processed. But her emotions often get stuck in the processing stage. It seemed alright. She didn't want to remember, she said. That's why she took them.
We went to the GCC, because Lyle and Ben had things to purchase at Homer's. One of the rooms was still recovering from some kind of administrative Event. There were cookies, soda, fruit and water still sitting out. The tables were all covered in cloth, and the crumbs of whoever had used the room. There were still vases full of flowers.
Perhaps the most beautiful part of the night was right then. Lyle and Ben had departed to watch a film, and my friend and I stood alone in the room, watching our classmates walk by unawares of the treasure we had found. We could hear the hullabaloo of campus on a Friday night while we nibbled on our reclaimed loot. I stuck elements of the centerpieces in my hair, mostly roses and other blossoms. It  was pinned in such a way as to accommodate many of them, and my head felt heavy afterwards. I wanted to put some in her hair. "Only the ugly ones," she said.
We left. She had wanted to escape campus, and also talk to a boy who she worried had feelings for her. We sat, waiting for the night bus in Eliot Circle. She leaned on me, her head drooping and weaving from side to side. I held her. When someone walked by in the distance she yelled "WHY DON'T YOU REALIZE HOW SMART YOU ARE?" Impassioned, she continued this train of thought. "Why don't Reedies realize how smart they are? They're so stupid for not realizing it." I think she vented a lot of things that she'd been holding in.
Then things got a little darker. She took the last pill. She couldn't remember taking the other ones, and was disappointed that there was only one left.
We were talking about her happiness. She was unhappy at Reed. I said I didn't know how to make her happy here. She said that happiness wasn't the most important thing, especially here. I still thought it was important, and I thought that it would make everything else easier.
This conversation continued. I said "I love you so much." She said "You don't love me enough." We were quiet for a while while I cried. "Are you crying?"
"Yes."
"Oh." I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was to the effect of that was not the intention, or that's too bad, or I'm sorry.
The night bus came. She talked to the driver. He asked what kind of benzos she'd taken. "It ended in -azepam," she said. "They all end in -azepam," he laughed. Liana came, and was entertained by her uncoordinated, enthusiastic thoughts. She flopped around the bus. She refused to wear a seat belt and fell on the floor. She invited herself over to the house of some people we didn't know who were riding the night bus home. We explained that it wasn't a party, it was their home.
She asked me to marry her, seriously. I said I couldn't. She asked why. I said we were too young and it wouldn't work. She was unsatisfied with that answer.
We dropped Liana off at the HoL, and my friend was going to go with her. I thought about leaving her and just riding the night bus back to campus. I decided to make sure I felt comfortable with the level of supervision she was going to get.
Walking up the stairs to G's room, she said "I want to die." I freaked out and she laughed. No one else heard. She also asked me to marry her again. I said the same thing.
She fell asleep in G's bed. I decided that was safe. I walked home.
I walked back, taking the long way on Ceasar Chavez that would let me walk down Unicorn Trail (previously known as Rape Trail) to get home. I like it. It's dark and small and feels like my nighttime walks in Corvallis.
My path took me by the Hotboxxx. They were having a party. I thought about just going up, and joining them. I decided I was too emotionally fragile to crash a party, even if I was friends with a few of the people who lived there.
I walked home, and sat in Chittick. Jordan was there, and the common room was full. They were loud and happy and frivolous and I liked the idea of escaping into that. And I did, in a way. I didn't think about how my best friend had just told me that, at the very least, she was having suicidal thoughts. That she felt so alienated. I didn't think about it, but I still felt it.
I had texted a friend at the Hotboxx earlier, and he finally responded. They were not going to be watching the gay marxist porn he had promised me, but I should "vien rendre visite" anyways. I stuffed 40 whippets into my purse, and biked up the hill.
He offered me booze but I wasn't really in the mood. I had a bit anyways and we sat on his porch and I listened to the conversation. The party had shrunk substantially, and now it was just a bunch of tired people lounging around in the cold. I used my coat as a blanket, and gradually sank into my friend. First we were sitting next to each other, then he laid down and I leaned against his legs, then I ended up in his arms. Everyone else was inside, by then.
We talked, and kissed. It felt so much better, to be wanted in this simple way. "Do you want to get out of here?" he asked. When we got up, his couch was covered in rose petals that had fallen from my hair. We walked down the Unicorn Trail, and then onto the Psych roof. We made out there, till he said "I'm too drunk for this," at which point he walked back home. There was another pile of roses where my head had been.
I realized I'd left my bike in front of the Hotboxxx, so I went back to get it. He was walking towards campus too. I walked down the trail with him, and then got on my bike to go home.

This was the hardest night of my semester, I think. Kissing made it a little better. But I also don't know how to tell him what that night was like for me. We've since gotten a little more involved and it awful not being able to tell him that.

The next day, a dormie came up to me laughing. He said he had a "funny story" to tell me. His friend had been at the Hotboxx the night before, and he said she'd been annoyed that I had been cuddling with the boy. They'd had a "thing" of some sort, apparently. Then she'd been really pissed when we went off together. He then said that she'd been just fine once the boy had told her that we'd just gone off to talk and that's all.
I CAN'T STAND IT WHEN PEOPLE LIE LIKE THIS.
I texted him something silly and dramatic: "Did you lie to someone about last night?" No response.
I went to Canyon Day and talked to a nice carpenter/teacher who was very interesting and nice, and I interviewed the canyon manager to write an article for the quest. I drank apple cider. It felt awful. I called him. I think I texted him more. I wanted to talk to his housemate who was at Canyon Day, who I really admire and would take advice from any day, but he ran off before I could.
Finally, I walked by the Hotboxxx on the way to Safeway, and the boy happened to be outside. I told him what my dormie had said and asked him why this would be the case. He said that he was surprised and would look into it. Later he texted me that he'd talked to her and she was "fine" and sorry that it scared me. Not really a resolution, but I felt I had done what I could.

And the same thing goes for my friend. She doesn't remember anything she said, or did, that night. So I can't ask, hey, why would you say something like that. I can't say, oh, are you feeling suicidal? I can't tie our life, and thoughts back to that time because for her it didn't happen.

Later that day she came back to campus. She was still acting different, but insisted that the effects were gone. That night she made sushi for a party. Many people were drinking but there if there is one rule for benzos it's DON'T DRINK BOOZE. She took a sip after we'd all told her not too. I wondered if that was also... I don't know.

She remembers making sushi. She says that she must have been functional if she could make sushi.