This too shall pass.

2/1/10: I link back to this post often so I decided after lots of thought that I should edit it. When I wrote it I was still very angry and now that I feel more subjective towards the events, it is easier not to place blame on anyone.

I don't know if I'll ever get over this loss. How are you even supposed to get over a loss of someone close to you. It's like a very definite piece of me is missing. Every day I am coping and dealing but it will never fill the void, or answer the questions. Could we have saved her? Are the other people involved telling the truth? I know that the story doesn't add up and every day I think about it. I knew the path we were going down was a bad one. I got to a point where I said to myself "either I stop now, or there's no turning back." So I left the country for a while to get my head straight and figure out what was important.

I left behind my girlfriend at the time and stayed for 3 months. When I got back I learned that my girlfriend, Amanda, was cheating on me with my best friend, Carmon. So I left after a week and a half of being home, to go back to Germany.

I felt betrayed and lost that the two people I trusted the most would hurt me like that. I didn't speak to Carmon for a while but finally we decided to let it go. I missed her and I knew that no one or nothing could change the bond that we had. I wanted so much to believe that my life was back on track that I found a boyfriend and soon that turned into a Fiance. I returned home after another 3 months, with James being deployed in Iraq. I had doubts and soon cheated on him. The relationship inevitably ended.

I was enjoying my summer and making better choices, not great ones, but better. Amanda and Carmon were still together. I saw them a couple times and I forgave them because I was glad that Carmon could finally find someone to love after Sam had broken her heart. I still kept my distance from them to avoid any drama but it seemed like it followed me. I heard that Carmon was falling back into her old ways with hanging out with Sam and doing heroin. I told Amanda because I was worried, I didn't want her to go down the same terrifying path once again. With the depression, anxiety, and drugs. I didn't think Carmon could handle it. Of course Amanda didn't believe me, so there was some tension, but eventually it was forgotten.

My 21st birthday came around and I spent some days with Carmon and friends. The last time I saw Carmon alive was the day of my birthday dinner. We went shopping and she bought me a dress. We had a heart to heart about how we were best friends and nothing could ever get in the way of our bond. We understood each other to the very core of our beings. We felt for each other what no one could even fathom. Maybe she knew what was coming, but that day was the happiest day that we shared together in a very long time. She confided in me and told me that she had been hanging out with Sam and that she still loved her and she didn't know what to do. Amanda's parents were not okay with her sexuality and made that apparent often and it stressed Carmon out. She was tired of the trouble. When I think of Sam, I think of all the horrible choices we all made with drugs. I knew that neither of them were clean no matter how much Carmon lied about it. She kept telling me that since Sam was out of rehab (not the first time), she wanted to help her stay clean. I told Carmon that I would be there for her and help if she needed. Amanda and Carmon ended up going on a break so Amanda and I were starting to talk more. We went to the club with some friends on September 6th. The next day I get a call from my friend Emily.

"Carmon's in the hospital, Sam said she took all her Klonopin and she's not doing okay."

I immediately called Amanda.

"Amanda, I need to tell you something but don't freak out everything's going to be okay. Carmon is in the hospital."

Of course she panicked and I tried to calm her down. She went to the hospital even though we were all told not to. I waited, and waited. I was online talking to friends and I was sure that she would wake up, that she would be fine. "It's Carmon, she always does stuff like this."

Amanda called me.

"She's gone, Heather! She's gone!"

I screamed and threw the phone.

"NOOOO NOOO NOOOOO!"

My whole family raced to the living room to see what was going on and all they could see was me curled on the couch sobbing. In disbelief they tried to comfort me but it was impossible. September 7th, almost a week before her 21st birthday, she was gone.

Carmon and I fought a lot but we always knew that no matter what bull shit came between us that when one needed the other we would be there. I was always on suicide watch. I would rescue her no matter what. We would cry together about our depression and talk about how tired we were of living and stressing. For a long time I stuck around trying to save her, thinking that in the process I would save myself as well. All that did was drag me down and then I realized, how am I supposed to save her when I am so utterly sad and lost in this place? How can I give her the answers when I don't even have them myself? It was a lost cause. She was still always my rock, and the one person that could always understand me, as I understood her. We had been through the same things and experienced so much of life together, I could never let go, no matter how hard it got. Unfortunately I was forced to.

She's gone forever. Those words pounded in my ears as I saw Amanda walking up to my house. My heart sank and my stomach did flips for days. I spent the first couple of days with Amanda at her house. We took turns sobbing and howling "why, why, whyyy?!" It was tragic and heartbreaking. There were so many questions, and no matter how many times we tried to mull over the story it didn't make sense. Still after almost a year, we have no idea what happened.

This is the gist that Amanda and I have pulled together from various people:

Carmon was hanging out with Sam, Amy (when I hear her name, I think heroin addict), and Amy's boyfriend. Just a tidbit of information, Amy was very pregnant at this point in time and Amy's boyfriend was a known heroin dealer. Apparently everyone except Carmon had done heroin first, then Sam blacked out and woke up to the sound of Carmon screaming at her "Sam! Wake up!" They were about to take her to the hospital when she did wake up. Carmon had supposedly taken a bunch of her Klonopin earlier in the day. Sam was drifting off to sleep when she noticed that Carmon went in the kitchen with Amy's boyfriend, to do heroin. Carmon eventually laid down to go to sleep. She had fallen asleep with her hand above her head, and hours later Sam woke up and realized that something was wrong because she was still in the same position. Sam started to give her CPR and wanted to call 911 but none of them wanted to get in trouble and it is my understanding that Amy and her boyfriend wouldn't let her. They put her in the backseat of the car and took her to an urgent care center in Falls Church, when Amy lives in Fairfax, not too far from the hospital. Sam originally said that Carmon had taken her whole bottle of Klonopin, but the doctors said there wasn't any in her system. Some people have said that she was conscious when she arrived but others have said that she wasn't. When I first heard the story I heard that she was without oxygen to her brain for six hours. I know that when Emily called me in the evening she was in a coma. She died later that night.*

There are lots of things that don't make sense about this story. First of all, if people were doing heroin in front of Carmon, I don't see her turning it down. Second, if Sam had almost over dosed don't you think that would have made her scared? Would she have done it still? My thoughts are no, but I have no way to tell. Sam claimed to have loved Carmon but in my opinion, if you loved someone you would've done anything in your power to have dialed 911. When we were going through Carmon's phone after wards we saw texts from Sam to her dad that didn't sound the least bit alarming. Those were timestamped for around 9am. She didn't make it to the urgent care center until around 11am. What were they doing in that time frame? Why did her texts seem so calm? Nothing adds up.


In the end, ultimately, you are the only one responsible for your choices. No one can force you to do anything, but they can pressure you. I remember the exact moment when we were all talking on Carmon's bed and Sam said she wanted to do heroin. We took pain killers all the time and I guess it seemed to her like the next likely step. Of course it involved us because drugs always took place at Carmon's house. Everyone took advantage of the fact that she lived on her own. It was a place to get fucked up and crash, not have to worry about shit. It was disgusting.

I don't feel like anyone involved in that night cares about how much they have affected the people's lives that loved Carmon. Actually loved her, not like Sam, but unconditionally. Real love. Every day I am missing a piece of myself. I can't even imagine the pain and sorrow that her parents feel every day that they wake up and realize that their worst nightmare is a reality. Their baby is gone.

It's strange because I feel like she knew. Almost exactly a year before in her journal she wrote about what she wanted her funeral to be like. The last time she saw all of her friends she talked about all the great times and we all had a blast. A week before, she went on a break with Amanda, as if to ease the blow, but not succeeding. She didn't speak to any of us for that whole week. Then she disappeared.

I know that Carmon was a sad soul. My aunt told me a year before it all happened, "If Carmon doesn't watch out she's going to kill herself." I never imagined that she would be right. I however am heartbroken that no one really tried to save her that night. Maybe in some twisted way, she is saved. Saved from all the horrible pain she felt every day that she was depressed. Saved from all the drugs and people that used her. She is now in her paradise. When she was in therapy she had to write about her happy place, the field of daisies with all the people she really loved and cared about. A real life Alice in Wonderland. She so badly wanted to live in a fantasy world. She had such powerful emotion and beauty. I never want to let go of everything we shared, I will treasure the way that she carried me through my darkest days for the rest of my life.

Carmon, I will always be your butterfly, and you will always be my shinning star. I know that all the people that harmed you will eventually have to face the truth and may justice be served.

RIP Carmon Therese Somers
9/19/87-9/7/08

* None of the events depicted in this post are proven to be true and are only my thoughts on what could've happened that night from the stories told from friends and family of Carmon.