The caller ID said ‘Amy ❤️,’ but the voice on the other end didn’t sound like my girlfriend. It was slurred, shaky — and scared. She was at some club in Camden, couldn’t remember how she got there, and her friends had left without her.
By the time I reached the club she could barely stand. The bouncer helped me get her to the car, shaking his head like he’d seen this before. Amy kept saying she’d only had two drinks — a gin and tonic, then a vodka soda. She’d been careful. She always was.
A&E. A urine-test strip. A nurse with no expression: “Positive for GHB.” Three letters that changed everything. Amy wasn’t drunk — she’d been used as target practice by a coward with chemistry homework.
Seeing her half-conscious on that plastic hospital bed flipped a switch in me that’s stayed stuck ever since. This wasn’t just statistics or news stories anymore. This was Amy. This was real. And this wasn’t going to happen again.