It begun in the summer, when he met her of course. She was in the book store. He had passed it plenty of times and often thought about stopping in but it wasn’t quite his thing. She caught his eye, and he smiled. Quickly fixing his smirk to not look so interested but he realized that he had already presented all he was feeling in the expressions on his face. He decided not to enter the bookstore that day. He decided to nonchalantly pass her way but her smile was implanted in his memory and wasn’t going any where.
He went home that day. Walked by his mother in the kitchen and his father sitting in the living room pretending to work on papers brought back from his office. He smiled at the new puppy his mother brought as it chew on his fathers bedroom slippers in the corner. His house looked like a home, scented candles graced the house with a warm vanilla smell and little league pictures of him hang delicately on the wall. He climbed the steps exhausted. He had an uneventful day but for some reason whenever he entered his house, or even walked down his street, his heart would sink and he would dread arriving at his destination. His home was small and his mother enjoyed cleaning the house and preparing dinner for when his father came home. The home he once knew was slowly falling apart. His father would not come home some nights and his mother began fixing drinks in the middle of the day as she sat out on the patio. There was an awkward silence that had fell across his home. No one questioned the current situation and it was left alone swept under the carpet. The image was still good, and in the end, that’s all they cared about. None of the neighbors saw his mother crying as she cleaned the downstairs bathroom or heard his fathers screams, antics and smart remarks left to destroy a young son and a lonely wife. In his room he thought about her. Her face was still fresh in his head. As the hot sun peered through his window he thought of what he would do next time he saw her. If he did ever see her again.
The next two weeks passed him slowly, like the rest of his time spent in that house would. He would escape for a few hours a day as he road his board on the streets of his neighborhood. People would wave and speak; he would return the favor only to ride off thanking God that he had his board and didn’t have to stand around and discuss meaningless topics with his shallow neighbors. He decided to skate to the park and chill out on the benches until the sun went down. And there she was. He couldn’t believe it. As he hopped off his board and began to approach her, he began to smile again. A smile that hadnt resided on his face in a long time. He straightened up, catching himself off guard he put his defenses back up and walked slowly to the girl anticipating what would happen. He startled her, and she begun to giggle, then laughing louder and louder she let her wails of excitement out as if the amusement was unbearable. This confused him, he wondered why this strange girl found this so hilarious. He hadnt done much, he never did. He couldn’t understand what could be so funny about him simply startling her. She cleared her throat up and apologized for laughing so hard. So she wasn’t insane. She might have been crazy he thought, but atleast she wasn’t completely insane. She introduced herself and placed her hand out to be shook. Her manners took him by surprised, he wasn’t use to the politeness and respect she was showing him. He took her hand and introduced himself, she shook it firmly, looking deeply in his eyes the entire time. They made small talk, but he soaked it all in. She spoke intensely, her feelings put in every word she said. They had a lot in common, but he let her talk more than him, hopefully showing her that he was good at listening since he wanted to make a strong first impression. She began talking about her parents and how they were pressuring her to become a lawyer or a doctor but she refused to conform and believed that she could do whatever she wanted, even if doing what she wanted was simply doing nothing. He wanted to bond with her by telling her he knew exactly how she felt but he kept his mouth shut and continued to listen. Her emotional words lay heavy on him and he began to drift off looking into the setting sun. He began to realize that soon he would have to return to his home that he dreaded so much. It would be dinner time soon and he needed to get back to avoid hearing his miserable fathers lecture on the importance of a man being on time. She caught his gaze and stared at him as he looked off. She felt the heaviness on his heart and wanted to break the surface of this quiet and humble boy. She caught his attention and he smiled and looked past her, avoiding eye contact with her. Her smile widened and she reached in her bright orange jacket pocket and pulled out a dutch. She didn’t say anything. She pulled out a bag of weed and started rolling a blunt right in front of him without even saying a word. He didn’t want to panic, but he had to be home, and he had never smoked before and feared that his coughs would tickle her and cause her to laugh uncontrollably once again. But she continued talking; her goal, to not make him nervous or scare him away. He figured it would be a good idea to leave at this point. She obviously wanted him to smoke with her but he had to get home, and deal with the emptiness that dwelled there. She cold see the gears in his mind turning and smiled a genuine smile, as if to say ‘I know exactly how you feel’. He picked up on her warmth and managed to say “ I don’t smoke and I need to be getting back to the crib”. She grabbed his hand, aggressively but intensely and said back, “You do smoke, you just don’t know it yet, and you don’t HAVE to go home now, you just want to”. She then begun to ramble about scaring him away and not having anyone to hang with being new to the area. He realized that her rambling was out of nervousness and begun to laugh. He laughed like she had ony a few minutes ago. He thought about getting high, and not getting home on time, and he laughed even harder. He felt the harder he laughed the more he was letting out. He was getting out all of the emotions he was currently feeling. He laughed out his stress, his anger, his displacement and his lack of hope. She saw him relieving himself and she grabbed his hand and led him off the bench. They walked alongside the sunset, instead of walking into it. The smoked her blunt and laughed at random small talk. They talked loudly without any regards to who was around or who could hear. He hadn't thought about his curfew or his parents. It was dark now, and they continued to walk and had rolled more weed. They smoked more and now spoke on a more serious level almost as if they were trying to crack into each other. Quickly shooting out questions to see if the other was as amazing as they thought. The moon began to get comfortable in the night sky and they walked back to the park knowing that soon they would both be forced to deal with something that was tougher than they carried it. He didn’t want to forget her smile. He stared into her face once more before walking off. No numbers were exchanged, only names and dreams. The last few minutes they spent together weren't taken for granted but they were solemn. Both of them trying their hardest to swallow the emotions they felt. He walked off into the direction of his home. Preparing himself for what was guaranteed to happen. The night would be long, but the reason was worth it. For the first time in forever he had felt a freedom that would soon become his addiction.
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