London

I’d spent two wonderful years in Germany. It was a time of healing and growing. It was the greatest adventure that I had ever had! Yet there was always something missing. Even though I had a wonderful job, a loving boyfriend and beautiful clothes, and was living in the centre of Europe, I was not very close to God, and I missed Him. I also really wanted to study, and so I applied to a few universities in and around London. I could have studied anywhere in Europe as I had a Belgian passport – my mom is Belgian. But I had decided that studying in German would just be too difficult. Before the end of my two years in Germany, I was accepted to four universities.

It was honestly one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done: leave my perfect life behind to pursue a brand new adventure! I kissed my Mr Richard goodbye and boarded a one-way flight to London. I had cried and cried for many months before I left and I cried many more tears as I sat on the plane that night, realising that there was no turning back now. All I had in London were my aunt and uncle who had offered their home to me for a while, until I found my feet.

It took a few months, but eventually I had a good job in a call centre – and a brand new boyfriend. He was a blonde, blue-eyed boy from Leeds with such a strong accent that I often didn’t even know what he was saying!

We’d been dating for a few weeks when, one evening, he told me that he had brought me a present. He took out of his pocket a tiny package that looked like dirty crystals wrapped up in cling film. He unwrapped the plastic carefully and asked me for my pipe. (I had bought a small pipe in Amsterdam as a souvenir, and I used it to smoke weed.)

“What is it?” I asked him, curious.

“Crack,” Andrew answered matter-of-factly, as if it was an innocent, simple thing like chocolate.

“What do we do with it?” I didn’t know anything about crack, except that it was similar to cocaine. I had tried a line or two of coke before and it really hadn’t been such a big deal.

“Well, we smoke it. Come here,” he said. He had put a few tiny pieces of the crack on the gauze of the pipe and handed to me. “Ok, now I’m going to light the rocks, and as soon as I do, you must inhale through the pipe – OK?”

I didn’t hesitate for even a moment. I put my mouth round the end of the pipe and inhaled as deeply as I could when he lit the rocks and they crackled…

That was the turning point. That was the beginning of the end. It was the best feeling I had ever experienced in my whole life! The very moment I inhaled the smoke from the crack into my lungs, I shot up into such an extreme high that I couldn’t believe it! For the next half an hour I was as high as a kite, soaring above reality, chatting and spinning and wired and clever and free.

After some time, Andrew said that he had something else with him as well, but I was not allowed to have any. What he took out of his pocket this time is what would change my life forever.

***

What do you think Andrew took out of his pocket? Why would it change Michelle’s life forever?