Revised Timed Effect Essay

                When I was in 8^th grade, I had a lot of family struggles that I was dealing with. I couldn’t connect with anyone and I felt lost in the world. The friends I had didn’t know what to do or what to say. Dashiell, however, did. She was a girl in my class and she was the most happy-go-lucky person I have ever met. She picked up on my distress and immediately took me in and we became instant friends. Over the next couple years we grew closer and closer. We were like sisters – everyone knew that if they saw one, the other one was close by. We did everything together. That was until her parents got a divorce and she moved out of state. As soon as she moved, she stepped onto the highway of self-destruction; and following that was the loss of my trust, distancing of our friendship, and her damaging decisions.

                The first stop she reached on her highway to Hell was the loss of my trust. Since she moved to Arizona and New Mexico, I was very worried that she was going to get into bad drugs. She promised me that she wouldn’t. However, that promise didn’t stay long. She felt guilty about it, and so avoided telling me what was really going on down there. When she first told me, I gave her a second chance; but, it became a long road of lies and broken promises.

                Since I could no longer trust her, we became distant. She knew it, and I knew it. We talked maybe about once every three or four months. I didn’t know anything about her anymore. She became someone totally different then who I remembered. I tried to help, but nothing worked. She was wrapped around the finger of the drug world and couldn’t escape. It was then that I realized that she was on the fast track to ruining her life, and all I could do was sit and watch.

                Finally, she reached the one place I hoped she would never see. She hit rock bottom in her life. She dropped out of high school, quit her job, ran away from home, and started couch hopping. Nobody knew where she was most of the time. Her family members would call me to see if I had heard from her – which I never did. Doping, drinking, and getting caught by the cops were practically everything she did. I lost my best friend. All I could do was just think of the good times and move on with life.

                Her parent’s divorce caused devastating effects to Dashiell’s life. Those effects caused me to lose my trust in her, shatter our friendship, and caused her to make horrible decisions for her life. Somehow, somewhere, she managed to get away from the drug world. She is now sober and in Maine where she should be. Our friendship is starting to revive, and hopefully, she will make better decisions for herself. I can now hopefully say that she is no longer on the path to self-destruction, but instead headed towards the road to success.