Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Tough Stuff Read Online Free PDF

wouldn’t tell him why, but he found out on his own. Heroin. She had been doing heroin, and they caught her. She was only eighteen. She spent the next several months in rehab while Matt waited, guitar riffs, skate tricks—waited.
    When she finally did come home, things were different. Christy seemed distant and Matt didn’t know what to say. A few months later, they came again—the police. Matt was sleeping, and they knocked down the door. His sister was screaming as they dragged her away, this time to prison.
    I asked Matt what it was like, how that affected him. I tried to imagine hearing her scream. I wondered how it was possible for Matt to sleep when he knew his sister was cold and alone in her cell somewhere.
    â€œI couldn’t,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep.”
    â€œDid you visit her?” I asked.
    Matt was silent.
    â€œDid you ever talk to her about it, tell her how much it hurt you, tell her that you couldn’t sleep, tell her that you were afraid?”
    There was a long silence. “She’s okay now. She’s been clean for eight years. She’s great. It’s over. The drugs, it’s all over.” Matt spoke to the wind when he spoke of Christy’s past. His voice would fade out into oblivion and then he’d change the subject.
    When Christy was finally released from jail and then rehab, Matt’s family decided to move. They moved south, away from Christy’s reputation and the backstreets where Matt had conquered curbsides and half-pipes in the small town by the sea. Christy was clean and never again did Matt wake up to his sister’s arrests, or a cold sweat after the nightmares that plagued him while she was away. She had been clean for six months, and then two years, and then four. Matt went to high school and Christy moved back up north to go to school.
    â€œWere you afraid?” I asked.
    â€œNope. She was going back to school. I was glad. She was going to pursue her art. She was so talented, you know,” Matt whispered.
    I knew. I had seen her artwork. It hung in Matt’s room, in his kitchen and bathroom. She had even painted straight on the walls. Matt let her paint all over them.
    Matt and I dated during my senior year. He was my first serious relationship. Christy came down to visit Matt and the family pretty often, and whenever she came down, Matt would rush to be with her. She was the woman in his life, more than I ever was. Christy and Matt were best friends. They were like nothing I had ever seen. Matt would light up when Christy entered a room. He was so proud of her. She was his angel, his big sister, and everything she said was amusing, brilliant or just cool.
    I got the call a few months ago. Even though Matt and I had broken up over a year before, we were still close friends. The call wasn’t from him, though. It was from another friend.
    â€œBecca, look . . . I thought I should tell you. Christy died. She overdosed. Heroin. I’m sorry.”
    The air went numb, and the murmur of the TV in the other room muted. I dropped the phone and stared at the wall for what seemed like hours.
    â€œBut she was clean. Ten years now! She was clean . . .” I mumbled softly, my voice tainting the wind that blew on that rainy afternoon. I called Matt. He was with his family up north, where it happened.
    Matt told me, “She wasn’t supposed to die. She was going to be married in a couple of months. They had the date and everything. We found this picture of her. She was wearing wings. You should see it; she looks like an angel.”
    He wasn’t crying. I searched the blues of his eyes for a tear, but he was hypnotized. The shock. The impossibility of his earth angel lost somewhere in the universe. It was too much.
    â€œThe last time I saw her, she was so happy. I had my guitar and I was playing for her, and she was laughing. She was so beautiful and so happy. She was going to be a makeup artist. She