"She made it to the top and didn't want to go any further," Kevin said.

"She had incredible drive," Deborah said. "She wanted something more out of life than she was given. She was very smart. But I thought she was smarter than this."

'Personable and confident'

"See, this wasn't in keeping with her personality at all. Everybody's shocked, even the people who knew her best," said Central JROTC instructor Sgt. Hugo Solustri.

Solustri favored making Amber battalion commander last fall.

"When we choose a commander, the instructors look for someone who can lead the rest. Someone who made others want to do what she wanted them to do. Someone personable and confident," Solustri said. "And Amber had all those things."

She had a quiet presence. Not boisterous, but stirring. When she entered a room silently, the excitement jumped a couple notches. But, he said, she could be a pit bull, especially over the extracurricular plans to benefit the cadets.

Before transferring to Central, Solustri said she called about the JROTC program. Did it have a rifle team? What about a drill team?

"I've never had a student do that," he said. "She was almost interviewing us."

'Just her usual self'

"I have no idea why people do it," Lollis said. "If you think about it, kids can get high on all kinds of stuff around the house. They get some kind of rush from it."

He said people inhale anything from propellants in aerosol cans to fumes from gasoline. Some concentrate it in a plastic or paper bag, and others huff from canisters. It's cheap, easy to find, legal to carry and never shows up in drug tests.

Users say it makes them feel euphoric. When the effect fades, they breathe more. They're not breathing oxygen, needed by every cell in the body. If the toxins don't kill them, they die of hypoxia.

"There's a reason it's illegal," Lollis said. "It's because it's dangerous. When people experiment and breathe chemicals, it causes brain damage and damages the heart. And, as we know now, it can kill."

Most parents have no suspicions their children use it.

"We did. We suspected something, but we couldn't pinpoint it," Kevin said.

"We noticed it one day after she'd gotten off work. Her eyes were glassy," Deborah said.

"And there was a smell. It was a sweet," he said. "They say when it comes out of the pores, it has a sweet, pungent smell."

"We'd been looking for all the other signs of drug use, but nothing fit," she said.

"She was acting normal. No personality changes," he said.

"Just her usual self," she said.

That was three days before she died.

'I had to do this for her, too.'

"It was that infamous knock at the door at 2 in the morning," Kevin said. "Two Lexington police and a sheriff's deputy. And when they say, 'Can we come in ...?'"

"You already know," Deborah said.

There was business to take care of, papers to sign. Generous to the last, Amber was a major organ donor. Deborah said it was hard to deal with sorting out donor information not two hours after her daughter died.

"I opened and closed her body bag. I was the one who identified her. I looked at the pictures of her after she died," Deborah said. "I had to do it. I carried her inside of me for nine months. I took care of her for almost 18 years. I had to do this for her, too."

Police gave her parents Amber's phone.

"It was her lifeline. She was never without it," Deborah said. "We went through it and texted all the people she had saved in there."

"There were about 90 or more," Kevin said.

"And people called and texted for hours after that, asking about her," Deborah said.

Plenty of potential

"This was some experimental new thing," Solustri said. "It hadn't gone on long at all, I don't think. I know she didn't mess with that stuff while she was in JROTC, and I'd bet everything on that."

It's been over a week since Amber died, but Solustri said the cadets talk about her every day. She wasn't the teen who came to school and left at 3:15 every day, Solustri said, but was everywhere in the school. Planning, cheering, tutoring, being Amber.

"The contributions this girl made for just being 17, there's no telling what she could have gone on to do," Solustri said.

'Check that everything's normal'

Deborah and Kevin wanted Amber's funeral to be special.

"We didn't dress her up. She was buried in jeans and a sweatshirt. It was clothes she'd packed to go visit friends," Deborah said. "She had hot pink fingernails the funeral home painted for her. And she had her sunglasses holding her hair back."

They put her cell phone close by in her coffin. They left it on so Amber's friends could leave last thoughts with her.

The Talleys talked to their daughter about drugs and alcohol and unprotected sex but never dreamed this ending. Now, they're left with questions and disappointments and a lesson.

"If a parent suspects their child is doing anything, check up on them," Deborah said. "Go out back and check the air conditioner. Make sure there's nothing pried off and no screwdrivers laying on the ground. Check that everything's normal."

Heather J. Smith can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 228 or at heatherj.smith@the-dispatch.com.