Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. (Jonathan Safran Foer)

My parents came to the apartment and took all the necessary pictures. We drove out to the beach and Rider met us. He got in his required uncle-niece picture. It was bizarre to think of those dynamics now after all we had been through. I felt so disconnected from the number sixteen. I felt like I had lived so much that I was miles away from my age.

Nicky and I left my family with Rider. I almost cried because they were heading back to Philly that night and I didn’t know when I would see them again. I had been so long without them that I don’t know why it upset me to be away from them again. Maybe I wasn’t as far from sixteen as I thought.

I let Nicky drive my beamer to the hotel where prom was being held. It was interesting to sit in the passenger seat. It was interesting to cry. It was interesting to remember how close I had been with my family and how far I was from them now.

“I’m not addicted,” I told Nicky. He glanced over at me then looked back to the road. “I’ve only done meth once a day all week and today I haven’t done it at all and I feel fine.”

“That’s good,” he said.

“You think I’m addicted.”

He shook his head but he did think I was. All he did was drink. Maybe a line of cocaine if he was too drunk to know the difference but that was it.

I laughed with my “friends”, accepted my crown, danced with Nicky and cried. I’m still not really sure why I cried, I wasn't nostalgic.