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I ran out of the house in my robe and slippers. The air was heavy. Looking at the house at that moment, it felt unfamiliar; darker, colder. It didn’t feel like home. In front of me: an ambulance, a fire truck, and a swarm of police cars. I stood frozen, watching the stretcher being wheeled toward the front door. My heart pounded, but my body wouldn’t move. The EMTs paused in the doorway.

They didn’t rush in like they usually do. No urgency. Just stillness. Then, they turned around and rolled the empty stretcher back toward the ambulance. A car drove past me slowly while I stood there, tears sliding off my chin and into my hair, soaking through my shirt. A pair of detectives stepped out, walking with the kind of calm that only shows up after it’s too late. This is how I found out my friend had died. She had been doing drugs for a while. That part wasn’t a secret. Not constantly, but enough that it started to concern me. Enough that it became part of her life. But it wasn’t addiction in the way people usually think of it. It wasn’t some long spiral downward. It was supposed to be just another night. None of us thought it would end like this. Not then. Not her.

What followed was a flood of emotions I couldn’t make sense of all at once: rage, guilt, confusion, grief. I wondered what exactly she took that night, and whether it was laced, but deep down I knew that wouldn’t change anything. Maybe it would give a name to the monster that took her. It wouldn’t undo what happened. It wouldn’t bring her back. And it wouldn’t erase the rage I felt when I heard people laughing in the same house where she had taken her final breaths. I wanted to confront the person who gave the drugs to her. I wanted answers from the adults who knew she was struggling and said nothing. I wondered what would’ve happened if one of us had checked on her. I wondered if I had done enough. I still replay it all. The texts I didn’t send, the signs I might’ve missed that day. The silence that followed.

Losing someone to drug use brings a grief that doesn’t fit in boxes. It is filled with gray areas. People want neat explanations, but there isn’t one. There’s guilt, anger, love, and a deep sense of unfairness that someone so full of life could be gone so suddenly. People try to make it make sense. Some even act like she brought it on herself. But none of that helps. And none of that tells the truth.

The truth is: she was human. She was funny, impulsive, kind, and struggling. She made a risky choice, one that ended her life. And she didn’t deserve to be remembered only for that.

And then there’s the silence. The way people hesitate to talk about it because it makes them uncomfortable. The way they downplay her loss because of how it happened. But I won’t do that. I won’t let her memory be flattened by stigma or shame. She was more than the choices she made. She was incredible. I carry her with me in the ache of missing her laugh, in the way I advocate now, in the way I speak up even when it’s hard. Because she mattered. She still does. And I will never stop talking about her.

So, here’s what I’ve learned, and what I want other young people to know: you don’t have to wait until someone is at rock bottom to check in. You don’t have to be perfect to say something, to care out loud, or to ask someone if they’re okay. But remember, you are never responsible for saving someone on your own. It’s not your job to have all the right words or to fix everything. If something feels off, it’s okay to reach out to a trusted adult, a school staff member, or a professional for help. We aren’t meant to carry this alone. And if you’re using substances, even just sometimes, please know that your life matters too much to take that risk lightly. If you’re grieving someone lost to drugs, whether it was addiction, experimentation, or something in between, your grief is real. Their life matters. Your love for them still matters. And their story doesn’t have to end in silence.

Written by Ashley Smith, a Youth MOVE Massachusetts Intern