After I got home on Sunday and my parents didn’t suspect I was out partying, I walked back to Damian’s house. It was mostly empty but the house was still littered with rubbish. Walking through, I felt like I was visiting a house after a zombie quarantine that had lost the fight. People lay here and there and I got a headache just looking at the mess. I went upstairs and found the master bedroom locked, so I knocked and Damian came to it.

“Hey,” I said. “Need any help cleaning up?”

“Uh, yes, please, thank you,” he said, so grateful it was practically dripping from his words.

I wasn’t so sure why I asked, since I walked the whole way there, anyways, and I wasn’t going to leave just because he politely refused help. He left the door open and went back into the room to pull on a sweater over his shirt and I got a chance to look around. The room was tidy and photographs and important things he removed from the other parts of the house were kept there – it made sense, I guess, to hide them in a room with a lock. There was a plate and some empty bottles of pop and orange juice and I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Prepared yourself for the invasion, I see?”

He gave me a look like a puppy being claimed at the pound and grinned. “Yeah, I guess you could say.”

We left and went around to each room with garbage bags each, throwing out everything we could and waking up near-naked couples who lay around. We made pretty good progress and we didn’t really have to talk much. I found some air freshener and sprayed it all around the house, opening all the windows and doors to rid the house of the scent of sex, booze and weed. All the garbage collected went into the garage and eventually the only people left inside the house were us and his stoner friends. “They’ll be in a terrible mood if you wake them up,” I agreed to that and then left his house – he thanked me several times for cleaning up and it made me feel good that I made a difference. I’ve always had this paranoid belief that anyone I witness not being treated well, or just socially inept, would eventually be pushed to the edge and take their own life. Maybe, if that was the case with Damian, I showed him that someone cared – that he had a friend.

The next day, I walked with Sebastian to Meredith’s house; he was completely oblivious as to my whereabouts the past few days and therefore I didn’t have to relay them to him. Mere came out of her house quietly and didn’t talk much. In fact, none of us did but right when I was going to ask what happened, she exploded.

“I can’t believe you did weed!” She spat at me (not literally, that would’ve been disgusting and totally uncharacteristic) and Sebastian looked at me like Damian would have – eyes full of shock.

I had to avoid their eyes to answer. “I’m sorry I—”

“What the hell, Charlotte?” This time it was Sebastian’s disbelief that cut through me.

I turned to Meredith angrily. “How do you know?”

She kicked a bottle on the ground with more force that she regularly would have; actually, she’d have picked it up and recycled it on a regular day but instead it hit a telephone pole and smashed into pieces. The harsh sound echoed in my head and prepared me for the disappointment and malice in her voice. “Ada told me. I can’t believe you couldn’t even tell me when it happened. You always said it was bad.”

I couldn’t say anything after that. I felt like shit. The two people closest to me were angry with me and walking with them the rest of the way to school was like walking on ice. It was as silent as a funeral home and I felt the same amount of dread. I lingered on the first floor in the opposite direction as Sebastian before heading up the stairs, just so I could avoid the terror that would be walking with Mere to our lockers. I opened mine up, threw my stuff inside and headed to the windows of the third floor until the bell rang. I was first to my class.

There wasn’t much I could do and my day just dragged on. Ada didn’t bear any ill feelings towards me, so I was free to walk with her, but it didn’t change the fact that I felt like I had been abandoned by my family. I did something terrible, and I felt the shame. I didn’t think this would happen – I didn’t think that my consequences would catch up with me this quickly, if at all. I wasn’t the first person to try smoking marijuana, so I wasn’t so sure why they were overreacting so much – was it because I didn’t tell them? It’s not like I could just call them up in the moment and go, “Hey, Sebastian? Meredith? I’m about to take my first smoke; just wanted to let you know! Okay, bye!”

The only good thing about today: I had plans to hang out with Connor and the friends I met at the mall at the skatepark after school. This meant I didn’t have to find Meredith, since the blue-eyed boy had a habit of finding me at my locker the MINUTE I was about to leave. I tossed my binders and textbooks up to the top shelf, grabbed my jacket, and as I slipped it on, he cut himself from the crowd like the stray minnow tossed by the turning tide and came to join me, to doodle all over my dry-erase board. I stared at it a little while, not sure what he was trying to make and he turned to me, the pride on his face fading when he saw my expression.

“What? Can’t you see it?” his questions were sincere.

“I honestly can’t,” I replied with much exasperation. “What is it?”

He frowned and used the marker to point at it. “It’s a puppy: those are ears, those are the paws and that's its head -- you honestly can't see it?”

I shook my head before giving him a pat on the shoulder, "Don't drop out of school to be an artist -- I think you'd do better as ... A businessman or something..."

"A BUSINESSMAN?" He gave me a look of mock offence. "How dare you?"

I shut my locker door and walked with him down the hall and to the first floor where we met the boys: Damian (looking more gracious toward me than before), Luke, Matt, Jeff and some girl that looked like a senior. I was humbled before her, since she no doubt had more experience and respect with them than I did. When we made our way to the skatepark (in our own, individualized methods: walking, skateboarding or BMX biking) Connor managed to whisper in my ear. "That's Abigail -- Jeff's girl. She's pretty nice, so I don't know how Jeff scored her. I think they share a class." It never really occurred to me that Jeff was older than I was -- well, actually considering his gauged ears and lumberjack facial hair, it wasn't a shock that lasted long.

At the park, I was a little preoccupied with the issue of my best friends suddenly ditching me for a mistake I made just one time, but after Jeff's girlfriend came up to sit next to me on the halfpipe they didn't use (too small, used by young daredevils and newbies). She smiled; she was gorgeous. She had a porcelain complexion, smooth and pale, and crimson lips that brought out the dusted rouge on her cheeks. She wore her hair up in a loose, messy bun -- the kind that I only managed to pull off when I was clad in sweats in the comfort of my home -- and her uniform hung off her frail body. As she pulled a cigarette (nicotine, not marijuana) up to the corner of her mouth and lit it, letting the smoke fill her lungs coolly, I wanted to use a grainy old film camera and just capture her. If I had the artistic ability to personify the seasons are beautiful people, she'd embody the winter season; cold at first, but warm once you got the chance to melt that ice. She looked like she faced many problems but had the strength to face through it all -- the strength of the strong, though barren, coniferous trees, holding through the rough snow storms and hail -- a strength I could only envy.

"You want a puff?" she asked me, serene despite the rugged edge of the cigarette she held out in my direction and the sin that dripped from it. I shook my head and she put it back in her mouth. "Yeah, I didn't think you were a smoker, but Jeff told me you took your first hit of pot like a real stoner. That doesn't usually happen."

I shook my head and brushed the bangs out from my face. "I didn't know what I was doing -- I've always taken those asthma puffers when I was little though so --"

Her laugh cut me off, startling me, but was sort of like silver bells or the carollers when they laugh in dulcet soprano tones while singing Jingle Bells. When she stopped, she scratched her cheek with the opposite thumb, cancer stick balanced between her index and middle fingers. "Sorry, it's just that --" she snorted with a lingering laugh again, forcing herself to continue. "-- it's just that people don't regularly describe their first experience of drug usage as a success with thanks to nerdy inhalers." My face flushed a hue towards her lips and she shook her black curls. "No, no, don't worry! It's cute, that's all!"

This didn't make me stop blushing, but I was able to laugh it off. Connor, up ahead, pulled a few, impressive tricks and I smiled as I watched. She must've noticed where my gaze went because she flashed her perfect, straight teeth and gestured vaguely to him, bringing up her next point of conversation. "So you're his girl?" I looked over but she was still looking straight at the boys. "Connor's girl?"

I blushed and bit at the skin on my lips, which suddenly felt chapped next to the perfection of Abby's. "Uh, well, I don't know."

She kept going, despite my answer. "Connor was a neighbour of mine, so I've known him for a while. He's a cutie, that bit's for sure, and he's got a pretty solid personality -- good guy." I felt good that she approved of him -- I don't know why I felt that way, but it probably had to do with the fact that she was reassuring me of what I saw in him -- but the tone in her voice implied she was not done, just like you always know when someone's about to say 'but'. "He's great, but he's terrible in relationships. He's a narcissist, and a little selfish, so don't get too attached."

Her warning sort of worried me. Don’t get too attached. Was I attached to him? Was I wrong to be? Terrible how? A bunch of questions whipped around in me and I didn't really know what to make of her. I have a feeling, though, that the was the entire definition of Abigail -- I probably wouldn't know what to make of her ever, and maybe that added to her allure and confidence over her hold on Jeff.

"To put it plainly: he's a flirt," she blew a ring of smoke from her mouth and instantly I was reminded of Lewis Carroll's famous literary masterpiece.

It was as if I was Alice and she was the great Caterpillar, giving me useful advice that I didn't know how to interpret. Does that mean that Connor was using me? That he didn't like me?

"Now," she continued. "I'm not saying he's not into you -- he seems like it -- but make sure you don't scare him away if you guys do get serious. He's like a fox -- frightening and cool, but easily startled when faced with the enemy that would be, in this situation, a serious relationship." Another puff, she took. Another kick flip performed in front of us. "He's not the kind of guy that would do romantic things. Just... Don't have too many expectations."

I had to leave early, for reasons completely unrelated to our conversation, but it still echoed in my head when Connor gave me a goodbye hug and a kiss. It would be easier if I could read him like a book, or ask him how he felt about me. The thing was, though, that Con and I didn't really have serious conversations about love, or anything; we talked and talked on about silly things and trivial facts, but something like a conversation about feelings didn't seem like something he'd have with me. Forbidden territory, it was. I couldn't just suddenly bring it up. "Yeah, toast is great. Anyways, Connor, I've been meaning to ask if you like me or if you're just using me. No rush, take your time." Scenarios like that didn't work out well in real life -- just in books and films and soap operas, where the characters fates are mapped from the beginning. I remembered Sebastian's conversation with me, out of the blue, and it made my heart ache. I already missed him.

The rest of the week was no better. It consisted of the same schedule (foreign to me as it may have been). I'd wake up, but Sebastian wouldn't be at my door. I remember catching sight of him walking from my porch and back to the street without ringing the doorbell and I almost ran out to him, but I remembered we weren't on speaking terms and went back to breakfast. I purposefully left for school at eight, leaving me only enough time to put my stuff away in my locker before I had to go on with my day. Lunch, I had Ada to keep me company. Her friends weren't as dull as I had first felt they were when Meredith and I sat with them, but that was probably because I was desperate enough to have any company at all at that time. After lunch, I went to fourth period and then left with Connor for the skatepark. Some days, Abby would be there but most times she wasn't. That was okay, though, because I had become a regular.

My remorse for the loss of my closest friends eventually turned into wrath; why should I apologize to them? They're the ones who overreacted -- they're the ones who should apologize to me for taking such irrational actions! This was high school -- it's not like I can relay every bit of my life to them! So I've been changing, I still know them as my best friends, I still remember them every single day, but why should I be punished for that? Nobody disowns their kid for going through puberty, do they? If anything, they embrace the fact that their kid is learning to be able to take care of himself!

Now that that feeling of guilt was out of the way (which took at least a few weeks of torture) I could properly enjoy the friends I had found in Damian, Connor, Abigail, Jeff, Matt, and even Luke. They were great: they accepted whatever choices I decided to make and they didn't get too protective over me. They let me breathe and helped break the vice grip of stress around me. I felt like Peter Pan and they were my Lost Boys: we were free to do whatever we liked and didn't have to face any sort of consequence.

And I liked this feeling.

Labels: nanowrimo