Caution: Words Haunt

It felt so good. We had gone to Zach's house. A miricle in disguise was scribbled on a post-it on the refridgerator: "Hey hon. Had to go outta town for the week. There's plenty of food, assuming you don't get the munchies. If you do, you know where the pizza money is. -Mom"

"Sweet. It's cool if I stay then, right?" I asked hopefully.

"Why, you'r dad on the rag again?"

"Dude, my dad's gotta see a specialist cuz he's been PMSing for about... fifteen years now." we laughed darkly. That was another thing that Zach and I had in common. We couldn't stand our families. His was good, but only when it was only him and his mom. Every now and then, a dysfunctional cousin or uncle would stay and fuck things up for a few days, but only about once a month. Mine, well... Mine just sucked.

We sat on the floor with my baggie spilling out onto it. "We need to grow up and be civilized. Pour this on the counter next time." He pretended to scold.

"But... it's tradition!" I debated. He chuckled lamely. He pulled a razor blade out of his pocket.

"Mr. Emo aren't we?"

"No. I'm just Mr. OCD-not-gonna-waste-any-of-this-so-i'm-making-straight-lines-thank-you-very-much." He stuck his tongue out at me and proceeded to form even lines. Four strips neatly lay in front of me as I sat there. Funny, it always seemed as if there was more in the bag than on the floor. Zach looked up at me and smiled, then pushed his nose to the white lines and inhaled greedily. I did the same to mine and felt split- I was happy and felt complete, yet another part of me was oddly unsatisfied.

I flopped backwards onto the floor and looked up at his ceiling. He moved next to me and did the same. "You really like her, huh."

I sighed, "I wish she could see it if it's that obvious."

"She does. In fact, she asked me the other day if you were really gay. When I asked why she was asking, she said because she was bi... You do stand a chance, ya know." He replied optimistically.

"Oh please. You've been out of school forever. How did she ask you?"

"It's called myspace dumbass." he laughed. "Is it so hard for you to believe that you can be loved despite your problems? Think about it, people love me and we're practically the same! Just, you know, one of us has boobs and the other balls. Same thing, just different location." he laughed again at his lame joke. I know he was trying to make me feel better, but sometimes people have to realize that life's not just a joke...

I closed my eyes. "Hey, no. Last time one of us closed our eyes after this stuff, SOMEBODY freaked out and told my mom the whole story." he said, recalling a time when we had been smoking and he got tired a half hour later and crashed. I was thirteen. Was it really so hard to imagine that I would be a little concerned? Grounded for three months with no playstation was better than risking his life.

"Hey, do you ever worry that this could kill us some day?" I asked after a moment of silence.

"Well, we knew that from the start, but it's morbid to think about. Why, you feeling ok?" he asked, sounding suddenly worried.

"Yeah, it's just, I don't know. A little part of me thinks that maybe Hannah has a reason to hate smoking. Like, maybe we should both quit. For our health..." I trailed off when I saw his face.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Zach, I can't do this alone. I see you and all I can think is 'my best friend. We should smoke/shoot/snort sometime soon.' and maybe if you quit too, I could think normal things like 'we should go to the movies' or 'we should go to the mall.'"

"Dude, we do go to the mall and movies. By the way, you owe me one because I paid for you last time." He reminded me.

"What I'm trying to say is... we should probably help each other quit." I finally became blunt. Damn, guys are either stupid or love acting oblivious. I'm undecided as to which still.

Silence fell.

"You wanna go watch a movie?" He asked.

"So then..."

"Come with me." He led me to the backyard. He grabbed a shovel and started digging a hole that had been dug up a few times before. Five minutes later, he struck gold.

A few shoe boxes were under the dirt. In them were seringes, baggies, a bong, you name it. "What the Hell is this? An overdoser's paradise?"

"This is my 'pot-hole'" He said.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me. What?" I was confused at this point.

"Yeah, see I was going to quit last month. I put all of my shit in here and cleverly named it my pothole. You know, like those annoying things in the road, but it's called that because it's a hole that holds all my pot? Well, yeah, anyways. I dig it up periodically. Everytime I do I remind myself that I'm making a choice to either quit or put it off another day." he explained.

"So, you wanna put it all in here and try to quit?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "What I'm saying is, you can try as hard as you want, but it's the hardest thing to do. It's the monkey on your back that thinks your hair smells like bananas. It will never let go." he was looking down now.

I sighed and breathed in the damp air. The rain had stopped some time ago but it was still cloudy and beautiful. We had always loved the rain. I looked up at the sky. Was there a God? Could he help us? Would he?

"Hey, you wanna go watch that movie I owe you?"

Zach looked up at me. "Yeah. Transporter three just came out." We went into the house so I could grab my wallet. It was already four thirty. We wouldn't have a hassle at the movie theater.

If there is a god and he wants to help us, he's obviously telling us that we need to wait.