In the middle of April of 2008, I met a 22 year old male from eastern Long Island at the train station in my home town. I was walking back from a night of heavy drinking at my friend's place not far from the station. It was raining hard, so I decided to wait under the train tressel until it lightened up. This is when I bumped into Thomas. He asked to bum a cigarette or a beer, I forget which, but he gave me five bucks for it, either way. I had no idea what I was getting myself into at that point in time. We struck up a conversation and became acquainted. At some point not far into our conversation, two kids walk up and make a comment about Thomas' shirt. They claimed that it was vulgar and they wanted him to get rid of it. I thought they were kidding. It was absurd, so I ran my drunk mouth, and Thomas ended up getting punched out. I started walking away, knowing that I didn't want to get involved anymore. I already felt bad about getting him punched. I would soon learn these situations follow him wherever he goes. I only get two blocks away when he runs up from behind me and offers to walk me home. The rain has slowed down almost to a stop now. I accept, reluctantly. Somehow, probably because I was wasted, he convinces me to take him home with didn't sleep. At all. If you know what I mean. The next morning, my father popped his head in twice. He didn't notice Tom the first time, but the second time when he found out, he was furious. He offered us breakfast, which I declined because of embarassment, and he gave us a ride to the train station. Thomas and I exchanged numbers. He gave me a fake number. I knew that because there was no area code and he claimed I didn't need one. Truth is he didn;t have any way to be contacted, but he didn't want me to think he was all about one night stands. He did want to see me again. I waited 3 days and I thought he would never call, but he did.

We started to hang out regularly. He would come out to Long Island or I would go into the Lower East Side of Manhattan. At first, it was only for a few hours a day and then I'd go home. I was still in college at this point and I had work to do, so I couldn't run around partying too much. But, soon we were hanging out for days at a time. He would come out to Long Island and stay with me at my mother's house for the weekend. I started to miss classes just to prolong the time I spent with him. After we hung out for a few times, he explained his living situation with a Ukrainian junkie named Lesha (sp?). He also told me he was a junkie as well. Well, he claimed that he wasn't doing it anymore, but I saw the fresh tracks and I knew better. He lied about those too and said they were "bug bites". After a while, I gave in to my pity and asked him if he wanted to live with me at my mother's house.

It was now early or mid-May. Within the first few days, he confessed to the fact that he was still using and that his habit was very bad. There was no heroin in my home town that I knew of. He was in trouble. He was going to try to go cold turkey and I knew that it wasn't going to happen. I tried to make him promise he wouldn't do it anymore. He stole money and possessions from me just to support his habit. We would go into the city once in a while, just so he could cop and I, unknowingly would stand by oblivious to the fact that he was making money by selling all of my material objects. Eventually, I gave into the drug as well. I tried it once, and from then on, I started selling my possessions as well. At this point. college was a thing of the past. I could not hold a job and I either had a withdrawal or a fail for every class. Besides the connections Thomas already had in the city, we discovered one in my home town as well. He knew exactly where to look. He asked the homeless guys that hung around the train station and drank all day. That connection wasn't reliable. In fact, he rarely had anything. That's why we were back and forth to the city so much. If we didn't take care of business, Tom would be sweating and writhing in bed, unable to sleep because of withdrawals. He puked nearly every day we didn't have it. The pain was tremendous, something I wouldn't learn until I was well into my addiction. When we weren't shooting dope, we drank like fish. In fact, that's all we did. We stole massive amounts of beer, drank it all, fell asleep, then woke up at whatever hour it was and did it all over again. After a while, Tom got tired of drinking all the time, so he found all of the numerous cocaine connection that were spread out across the town. Soon he was working for a guy who paid him in pure, uncut cocaine. I couldn't take it. I wanted him to stop. He was getting worse and worse, selling everything he could get his hands on. My brother got in on the action soon, as well.

Early June, my mother was starting to get aggravated with us. My brother had moved in at this point too and she was losing her mind with all of the drugs and destruction that was happening. People we barely knew started coming to the house and things would disappear after they left. At one point, I was getting into the cocaine as well. We were getting massive amounts for free at this house around the corner. They were all foreigners from Columbia, Puerto Rico, etc. What I didn't know is that when we were all done using up their supply, they expected me to fuck them all for it! I don't know if Tom said something or if that's just what they assumed, but I was put in a VERY awkward and horrible situation. I was left alone in my mother's apartment with two of these men and my mother. One of them kept my mother occupied and the other one was coming on very strong. He touched me in ways that were not welcomed. He grabbed my breast, and told me what parts of me he liked the best. It got to a point where I had to tell them to just leave. I had to get in touch with Thomas and tell him what was going on. He was working for the guy that was paying him in cocaine at that moment. The man who called himself "Papo" told me he would drive me there, but that's not where we went. I ended up all the way up Newbridge Road and I had to walk back. He kept reassuring me that we would go there, but it was only around the block! Why was I ALL the way down there? He wanted me to come into some apartment building, but I refused and just walked away. I finally got back and told Tom that he had to get home right away. I was shocked at his reaction to my tears, fear, and feeling of violation. It seemed like he just didn't care. At that moment, I should've just made him go back to the city, but for some reason, I just couldn't.

As June was coming to a close, so did Tom's cocaine run. He was arrested for possession and went to jail. In that period of time, my father discovered that I was using and remanded me to a rehab. I had warrants that I was picked up on and from the holding cells, I was sent directly to the psychiatric unit in the hospital. I was only supposed to be there overnight to get an evaluation, but because it was friday, I spent FOUR days there. For nothing. When I got out of the hospital, Thomas was out of jail and already at my mother's house. July came and my mother had had it with us. My brother was starting fights and I didn;t want to go to a rehab, so we skipped town and moved into the city. This was the beginning of my career on the streets as well as the beginning of a heroin habit that progressed quicker than anything I could've possibly imagined.