The worst part—the truly cruel part—is that Liam was still in there, somewhere. On rare, terrible mornings, when the high was wearing off and the withdrawal hadn’t yet begun, he would catch a glimpse of himself in a mirror. And for a moment, he would remember the boy with the volcano, the boy who loved clouds. He would feel a grief so enormous that it had no shape, no words. And then the grief itself would become another reason to use again. See? the addiction would whisper. This is why you need me. I make that feeling go away.
And somewhere, in a middle school somewhere in America, there is another boy with clear eyes and a working volcano. He has no idea that the path he is on is not paved with poor choices but with pain, with loneliness, with a pill that promises to make everything better. He does not know that the road to losing yourself is not marked by villains and needles, but by the quiet, seductive whisper of relief. a boy who lost himself to drugs
The vanishing was not sudden. It happened in slow, almost imperceptible degrees, like a photograph left in the sun. At first, there were only small things: a missed curfew, grades that slipped from A’s to C’s, a new set of friends whose laughs were a little too loud, a little too sharp. His parents noticed, of course. But they told themselves it was just a phase. Teenagers test boundaries; it is what they do. They did not yet understand that some boundaries, once crossed, become doors that only open one way. The worst part—the truly cruel part—is that Liam