This is the first chapter of a story I’ve been considering writing. It follows four teenagers, Donnie, Tiffany, W.A.M.S., and Winona; with drug addictions in their everyday lives until they are all brought to the Cooperstown Detox. There, they are forced to live with each other and the other rehab members as they go through a rehabilitation program. The tensions get high between the four until tragedy strikes, and the lives of one of the four is taken. The plotline, names, and several lines of the story are based off of Fall Out Boy’s Folie à Deux album and other Fall Out Boy songs. The idea for the story came from the music of Fall Out Boy and the concept of Green Day’s American Idiot on Broadway. I own no rights to the lyrics and song titles used and I used http://www.plyrics.com/f/falloutboy.html to assist me.

Detox to Retox
Chapter 1- Donnie

“C’mon bro, it’s your own birthday party. You can’t not go!” Parker exclaimed.

“Yeah man and those babes from downtown are coming.” Danny said smirking. He put his arm around Donnie and eased him off the bed as if he was an accident victim, re-learning how to walk. That statement perked Donnie up a little. The girls from downtown were babes…and I’m sure there’d be some good pot… He thought.

“Fine, I’ll go.” Donnie said. Parker and Danny high fived each other like they’d just won the super bowl.

“You’re gonna thank us for this one day. It’s just what you need to get over…her.” Parker shuddered.
“Her” was Donnie’s, recently ex, girlfriend. Her real name was Roxanne Flack, but since the break up the guys avoided calling her that. “Her”, “She”, and “It” were Roxanne’s new names to them, but not to Donnie. He’d never tell the guys this, but he still liked her. More like loved her. Donnie wouldn’t admit it to anyone, though. He tried to convince himself otherwise for months and that’s pretty much what caused the break up. That and pot. Donnie wasn’t much of a drinker and he never did anything else, but to him, pot was good. It helped him relax and forget about his feelings for anyone but himself. Which when it came to Roxanne, he needed. About a week ago, Roxanne gave Donnie a choice, pot or her. He wanted to say her, but then he’d have to explain to the guys that he lo-liked her more than weed. So, in order to keep everything normal, he chose the drugs. Roxanne went on and on for hours about how upset she was which didn’t make Donnie feel any better. Parker and Danny tried everything to cheer him up. They told him every line in the book, “You don’t need her, you can do better, she didn’t respect your choices, her body wasn’t that great anyway, the girls from downtown are easier than she could ever be.” Everything, nothing helped at all, but today was Donnie’s 16th birthday and Parker and Danny were throwing the biggest party of the summer down at the beach just for him. There would be girls, drugs, music, everything necessary for an insane time and Donnie figured he needed it himself.
Donnie slumped back down, “And how are we getting to the beach from here, geniuses?”
Parker and Danny lifted up their long boards in sync as if they had rehearsed the answer to that question a thousand times before…which they probably had considering this party was the most exciting thing going on since the time they tried to crash Tiffany Blews’ end of the year pool party. They didn’t get passed the body guards assigned to watch the door.
Donnie sighed, “Alright, but don’t expect me to call your mommies to come get you when you get too stoned.” Danny and Parker looked at each other and smirked. To them there’s no such thing as too stoned unless you think you can fly.
After hours of trash talk and high expectations, they were on their way. If there was one thing Donnie liked more than weed and girls it was long boarding. Something about going down the sixty-degree incline on Main Street made him feel good. A wind-blowing-through-your-hair type thing. By the time they got to the beach a bonfire had already started, the alcohol was flowing, and the smoke was in the air.
Parker took a deep breath in as his board came to a stop, “Smell that?” he asked the others, “That, my friends, is the smell of a good time.” Donnie smirked and rolled up to the sand. He was greeted with cheers and thousands of happy birthdays. Only thing he could do was smile and say thanks as he made his way over to the drinks. He didn’t know what it was and he sure as hell didn’t care. He filled up his cup with the mysterious mixture and chugged it down.
The party began like every other party did; girls, booze, and talk of rebellion. They always talked about doing something stupid like shoving a teacher out a window. Things of little actual substance. Donnie knew it was party talk, something to impress the girls and make them seem badass. Typical partying for them until John came, then Donnie knew it was going to get crazy. John was the town’s drug supplier and since it was Donnie’s birthday, he knew it was going to bring something good. Donnie rose up from the sand in slow motion as if he had just discovered a long lost family member. They did that high-five hand shake thing that they’d done ever since they were little kids. It’s that sort of thing that let Donnie know John was trustworthy.
“Happy sixteenth, bro.”
“Hey, thanks. Thanks for coming man.” Donnie tried to get a look at what was in John’s bag of tricks tonight.
John laughed, “Don’t get ahead of yourself. This stuff’s pretty intense, don’t want you getting to it without me around, you know?”
Donnie head nodded as a reply. He was thankful for John looking out for him, but he had a little business to take care of and a lot of business to forget.
After what seemed like years of waiting, John opened the bag.
“I got this just for you man, went mad far to get it.” John did a lot with drugs, but never grew pot himself. If he wanted to remain the town’s only reliable dealer, he knew he couldn’t get caught with anything. “Let’s call it a ‘birthday blend’”
Donnie ripped into it was candy and he was a little kid on Halloween. The smoke puffed out of his body and up into the night sky.
“Hey hey hey, let your body get a tolerance”
“I’m good, man, I’m good.”
Donnie tried to blow a few smoke rings, the others just smoked to themselves and watched.
As the fire started to burn out so did the weed. Pretty soon the alcohol gone too. The more the time went by the more the high got to Donnie. Things started to lose their general shape and before he knew it, there was a purple haze over everything he looked at.
“Yo, you okay?” Parker noticed Donnie’s eyes glazing over and the color fading from his face.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. When’d you dye your hair, bro? Looks intense.”
Parker let out a worried laugh.
Donnie got an idea, “Hey, uh, how far is Roxanne’s house from here?”
“Not that far, go down the road and make a left, should be right over there.” John stated, letting out a raspy cough.
Parker and Danny looked at each other and sprung up.
“Maybe you should sit down, Donnie.” Danny put his hand on Donnie’s shoulder signaling him to come back.
“No. Something I gotta do real quick.” Donnie said with a confidence that made Danny and Parker think he was about to go to Roxanne’s to tell her off.
“Alright, but we’ll come with you….just in case.”
Donnie took off running. The world around him looked like Alice in Wonderland. He followed John’s directions “down the rabbit hole”.

After what seemed like miles and miles of running into nothing but a sparkling black hole, he discovered the light; Roxanne’s porch. In reality the porch was nothing special, made out of wood with one of those outdoor swinging chairs older people and little kids loved. It was dusty and old looking, but at this moment through Donnie’s eyes, it was shinning with hope and possibility. Through his lens, the doorbell appeared to be a glistening diamond. In reality, it was a small electric button that appeared to be yellow with age, but used to be white, shiny, and new. Donnie’s eyes widened as he pushed it in and the wonderland around him stopped. Roxanne was also nothing special. She had red hair that came down slightly past her shoulders, ordinary green eyes, and an ordinary figure to her. She was wearing a gold sweatshirt and had the hood propped up on the back of her ordinary head. To Donnie, she was dressed head to toe in gold shimmering lights. She had a crown placed neatly upon her head and was the most gorgeous woman he had ever laid his eyes on.

“Can I help you?” She spoke. In reality her voiced conveyed that she was annoyed and bothered by Donnie’s appearance, but Donnie’s world filter her voice to a hopeful sound of an angel. Instead of telling her off as Parker, Danny, and John had hoped, he just stood there staring as if his brain had fallen out of his feet on the way over.

“I confess, I messed up, dropping I’m sorry like you’re still around.” Donnie finally spit out. Parker, Danny, and John all smacked themselves in the head in sync. Donnie continued on, “And I know, you’re dressed up-“

Parker walked over to try and stop him, “Hey kid, you’ll never live this down.”

Donnie didn’t even feel the hand pulling him back as he went on, “Cause you’re just the girl all the boys wanna dance with, and I’m just the boy who’s had too many chances-“

“Why don’t you just drop dead?”

And that’s what Donnie did. The Angel in front of him faded to black, as did everything surrounding him. Donnie felt a rush, a slam, and then nothing at all. The last thing he heard was someone yell, “Call an ambulance!”