Vanessa took it extremely hard.  Cried and cried…which made me cry…and Ethan cry. =(  Everyone was in tears at my house last night.  I have no idea what happened.  She was fine except for being dead.  No visible marks except a scratch on her arm. =(  Maybe one of the cats or Mandy managed to pin her in the cage or something.  =(  All I know is that Vanessa said first her dog got stolen and then her squirrel died.  She wanted to know why she can’t have a pet.  It was terrible.  I had no answers for her.

…and the women of Texas rejoice.

Saturday Vanessa went with a friend of hers, the friend’s mom, sister, and niece to eat pizza.  When she got home from that, I got a text message asking if she could go to Cody’s (her boyfriend’s) and I said yes.  About 10PM I got a message saying, “I’m going to spend the night at Whitney’s.” and I texted back, “That’s not asking.  Come home now.”  The reply was, “Please!”  I said, “No.”  She said, “Too late.  I’m tired.”  At that point, I called, but she didn’t answer.  I then texted her back saying, “Your butt better find it’s way home now.”  I knew these messages were not from Vanessa.  I know her text style for one, but Vanessa also knows that she cannot TELL me what she’s going to do because I will automatically say no.  She has to ask for permission.

A few minutes after the last text message, I got a call from Vanessa’s phone.  It wasn’t Vanessa.  “This is Whitney.  Vanessa’s already asleep.”  It wasn’t Whitney.  I know Whitney’s voice.  She’s been calling my house since they were six years old.  I said, “Then wake her up.  She has to come home.”

About 1:30, I got a phone call saying, “I’ve got Vanessa’s phone and she’s here, but she needs help.”  I walked outside to see some girl I didn’t know offering me Vanessa’s cell phone from the gate.  She said, “Vanessa’s in the back of her car and she needs help.”  I took the cell phone and went to the back seat of the car.  Vanessa was laying there wrapped up in two hoodies that were not hers.  She had her face covered.  I was unwrapping her and trying to wake her up, when a spot of light caught my eye.  The girl had disappeared into a car waiting at the end of my drive way with it’s lights off.  Had it not been for the door light, I’d have never known what happened to her.

I shook Vanessa to wake her up and she started crying, “Just leave me alone.  I don’t feel good.”  I told her she had to get into the house and started helping her out of the car.  Once she was in her bed, I asked her what happened.  She started crying again, “We were going bowling.  Cody said he’d pay.  He gave me orange juice, but it wasn’t orange juice because orange juice doesn’t make me sick like this.  He lied.”

I said, “What else happened, Vanessa?”   She didn’t know.  All she would tell me over and over was the oj story and that she threw up.  Finally she said, “I hit my head on the dresser.”  I asked her where she was, but she didn’t know.  “At a house.” but she didn’t know who’s, where it was, or who was there with her other than Cody.  I asked her why she hit her head, did she trip or stand up too close or what.  She said, “I was throwing up and I hit my face on the dresser.  Chapman held back my hair.”

I said, “Vanessa, that’s not your shirt.  Who’s shirt do you have on?”

At that point, she was freaked out.  She had no clue she had on someone else’s shirt.  “It’s mine!”

“No it’s not.  It’s South Pole.  I don’t buy South Pole.”

She said, “Maybe it’s Cody’s.”

“It’s a girl’s shirt.  Who was the girl that brought you home?”

“Cody brought me home.”

“Not unless Cody made some big changes.  It was a girl that brought you home.”

I made her strip to be sure nothing else had been changed.  Everything else was hers.  That was a relief.  About that time, Cody’s mom called trying to locate him.  He didn’t go home.  I could hear his dad in a rage in the background yelling at me to wake Vanessa up and make her tell me where Cody was.  I told them she was in no shape to give information, but I did take the phone with me back in to Vanessa’s room so they could hear the same thing I’d been hearing.

“Vanessa, where’s Cody?  His mom’s on the phone.  he hasn’t come home.”

“I don’t know.  He told me it was orange juice, but he lied!  Orange juice doesn’t make me sick.”

“Vanessa, I know the oj story.  We need to find Cody.  Where is he?  Who was with you all?  Who should we call?”

“I don’t know.  Call Chapman.  Chapman’s his best friend.  He probably knows where Cody is.”

“He’s not answering his phone.  Who else should we call?  Where were y’all?”

“I don’t know.  He lied to me.  That wasn’t orange juice.”

Finally, Cody’s mom realized what I’d been telling her, Vanessa was in no shape to say where Cody was.  She didn’t even know how she got home.  She said if they found Cody, they’d call me and if I found out any more information to let them know.

The next morning, I woke Vanessa up before I went to work.  She was mad and upset.  “Cody lied to me, mom.”  I told her I didn’t care about that at the moment.  I wanted to know about the missing 5 hours of her night.  I told her I her I wanted answers when I got home.  Someone had to know what happened and she’d better find out.  About that time we got a phone call from Whitney saying that Cody had called her that night offering her $20 to take Vanessa home.  Whitney told him she wasn’t taking the blame for his trouble and hung up on him.  She called to make sure I knew she wasn’t part of what happened the night before.  I told her that I knew she wasn’t, but that she should have called me to let me know what was going on.  She said if she’d realized how bad it was, she would have, but she hadn’t wanted to get Vanessa in trouble.

I got a text message while I was at work saying that they found Cody hiding at Chapman’s house and that he blamed everything on Vanessa.  I got a phone call from Cody’s dad asking me to call them back.  I called them on my lunch hour, but they didn’t answer.  I left a message.  I called Vanessa and she told me that his parents had been calling her saying that she was a bad influence on Cody and that she needed to tell me what she’d done.  I was mad.  Vanessa was mad too.

When I got home from work, Cody’s parents had called and spoken to Chapman and his girlfriend.  Apparently that story didn’t match the one Cody had been telling them because they kicked Cody out of the house.  He turned 18 last week so he’s officially an adult.  They threw him out of the house.  At that point, Vanessa’s story changed.

“You shouldn’t be mad at Cody mom.  I’m okay and that’s all that matters.”  She then went on to tell me that she knew she was drinking oj with vodka in it.  She said she chose to drink and the only person to blame was her for making a bad decision.  When I started asking her questions about what else happened though, she couldn’t answer.  She still had no clue.  She didn’t know where she was, but they told her they were in Maybank.  Later, that changed to Chapman’s house in Kemp.  Cody left because he was scared when she started puking and passing out and someone called Chapman to come get her and take her home.  Then the story changed to Cody didn’t leave, he was passed out.  She remembered Chapman saying he needed to take her to the hospital and she told him she didn’t want to go because she’d get in trouble.  He then called his sister to come and bring a change of clothes for Vanessa.  She put her in the shower and cleaned her up, changed her clothes, and helped bring her home.

What the true story is, I don’t know.  What I do know is that she was mad at Cody up until he got kicked out of his house.  She lied to me.  She let someone else drive the car when she knows she’s not supposed to.  She lost her car and she’s grounded.  She asked me how long she was grounded and I told her until I was no longer mad and upset and I felt like I could trust her again.  We went over all the things that could have happened to her.  She said, “It doesn’t matter.  I’m okay and that’s all that matters.”

I said, “You are okay, but it’s not because you all did the right thing.  Everyone did the wrong thing including me.  I should have taken you to the hospital when you got home, but I didn’t do that either.  Everyone did everything wrong and by luck, you’re okay.  That’s not something I want to leave up to luck.  Let me make this clear, if you ever come home in an altered state again, you’d better be sure that whatever is in your body is something you want me to know about because we’re going straight to the ER.  I will not be left wondering what happened again.”  I also told her that my job is to raise a responsible adult.  She wasn’t being responsible and neither were her friends.  The legal drinking age in Texas is 21 and she hadn’t even turned 17 yet (she did on Tuesday).  My moral issues aside, what happened was at the very least against the law and therefore against my house rules.  I expect her to follow the law even if she doesn’t follow my rules.

It’s been quiet at my house.  I’m mad at her.  Not for drinking (if she did.  I’m still not convinced there weren’t drugs in her oj to start with).  I’m mad that she felt the need to lie to me.  I’m mad that she has been so smart and responsible and for whatever reason, she blew that and my trust.  My feelings are hurt.  We’ve discussed many things and she’s never felt the need to lie about it.  She always levels with me and we discuss it like adults.  This time, there are so many lies (some of which I think simply because she’s relying on other people to tell her what happened.)  I cannot understand why she’s no longer mad at her boyfriend.  I can’t understand how he is still her boyfriend.  She will not be allowed to go anywhere with him ever again, but I’d feel much better if that was her choice rather than me having to make that choice for her.

So, there’s my drunken teen story.  I hope it’s the last one, but I don’t think it will be.  She’s 17 and might not have any more episodes, but I still have one more kid to go.