Crash

You know that feeling, where the pit of your stomach feels like its shrinking and expanding with every move you make, and you don’t know why? Where you’ll seriously sit down and think about what could possibly be making you feel this way, and nothing really comes to mind, but there’s obviously something bothering you? So you’ll probably just work hard on trying to unwrap this unnerving feeling, get it out in the open and face it… right?

Well, for me, I don’t do that. I try to push it down even further and cover it up with some sweet, sweet narcotics.

“You. Hand me that.”

I looked up to see the man I had met earlier tonight motioning his hand out at me. His ‘wife-beater’ t-shirt was hugging his chubby frame and his brown tanned skin glistened with sweat. He had no hair on his bald head, which held a giant tattoo of a hand looking like it was grabbing his skull. He was scary looking, but he offered me drugs for cheap, so I accepted. I remember Tyler Harrison talking about this guy, saying what great drugs he offered, but that was the only thing I really knew about him. When I met him, he had led me back to his house and once we were inside, he immediately crouched down and pulled out a whole huge stationary box full of different types of drugs in different baggies.

I looked down and handed him the small pipe he was motioning to and he smiled at me, revealing a gold front tooth.

“So what do you want? Weed? Coke?” He asked.

“Do you have any adderall?” I asked back. He raised an eyebrow at me and began to laugh.

“You think I’d have some lame drug kids in college use to stay up all night to study for their stupid exams?” He replied. I shrugged and he just reached into his box and handed me a bag with 5 adderall pills inside of it. “Well, I do.” He said with a laugh.

I didn’t laugh at all. I just grabbed the bag from his hands and stood up. I was not in the mood to be chummy chummy with Mr. Chubby Chubby.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked.

“Thirty,” He replied. I reached in my pocket and handed him thirty dollars and he nodded his head. “You sure you don’t want to try any harder stuff, little miss? Something that’ll actually make you feel something?”

“I’m good with this, thanks,” I replied. I turned to the front door, grabbed the doorknob and opened it. “See you around,” I called over my shoulder.

And then it happened. In a quick swift motion, the door slammed shut and I was being shoved against it.

“Come on, why don’t you stay a little longer?” He whispered into my ear from behind me. I could smell his grimy, sweaty body and I almost gagged. I was pressed against the door, the front of my shoulders erupted in pain. He then turned me around to face him. “We can take out some good stuff. I’ve got crystal,” He added. “We can have a little fun.”

“Get off of me,” I said, my body was shaking with cold adrenaline. He leaned forward and grabbed me roughly. He ruthlessly pulled me into his kitchen and pressed me up against his refrigerator. I shouted in pain at his roughness while he just laughed. He looked me straight in the eyes and I stared at his dilated pupils. He was definitely high.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“I’m warning you right now,” I said angrily. My hair was in my face and I quickly blew it out of the way frustratingly. “Get the fuck off of me.”

He laughed loudly, mocking me, making me even angrier. I then, with all of my might, kicked him in the balls, causing him to lean down in pain. I then kneed him in the face, hard, and grabbed a knife out of an open drawer. He was on the ground now and I quickly kneeled down and placed the knife right on his neck.

“Try doing that to me again, and this knife will be lodged in here, got it? Got it?!” I yelled angrily. I saw his hand reach up to grab me but I quickly sliced his hand with the knife. He yelled out in pain.

“You bitch!” He screamed loudly. “You bitch! You’re fucking crazy!”

I paused for a second to look down at him, holding his bloody hand.

“That’s what they tell me,” I replied. I dropped the bloody knife on the floor and walked back into the living room and out of the front door, leaving him laying there on the floor of his kitchen.

The next day at school, I was walking down the hallways aimlessly, feeling completely out of focus. I was jittery from the excessive amount of adderall and coffee I took this morning but yet was feeling more distracted than anything. The feeling in the pit of my stomach would not go away. The nervous, anxiety feeling that I absolutely could not stand. I didn’t understand this stupid feeling that I’ve had for the past few days and I couldn't understand why it wouldn't go away.

“Peyton!” I heard someone yell from behind me. I turned around to see Tyler running after me, he finally reached me, but was breathing heavily.

“I thought you were told by the big bad Micah Burroughs to stay away from me,” I said hazily. My words, I knew, were slurring over, but in my head I felt as if they sounded perfectly fine.

“I know, but he’s not here and right now I need to ask you what the hell you were thinking slicing Javier’s freaking hand!” He almost yelled. He was grabbing onto my shoulders now and I just looked up at him and smiled.

“He tried to do shit with me, Tyler, I wasn’t going to have any of that.”

Tyler’s skinny hands held onto my shoulders more tightly as he tried staring me directly in the eyes.

“I don’t think you’ve realized what you’ve done, Peyton. Javier isn’t just some other guy who deals drugs like I do. He supplies. He knows everyone. He’s going to tell everyone what you did, and people are going to try to do some bad stuff to you.”

“Like he would ever tell anyone he got sliced in the hand by a girl,” I replied while laughing. Tyler angrily shook me harder, causing my bookbag to fall onto the floor. A couple girls from around the corner were watching us, whispering to one another.

“Well, he did, Peyton. He told everyone you went absolutely nuts on him when he was just trying to hang out, and you took out a butcher knife and tried to basically shank him, until he put his hand up and you cut his hand instead. He then said he pushed you out of his house and now he’s telling everyone to be on the lookout for you,” Tyler replied.

“Are you kidding me?!” I replied. “That’s not what happened! That douche totally tried to have sex with me, so I kicked him in the balls, and then he tried again so I cut him with his own knife. I was the one who walked out of that house why he was laying there basically crying on the floor.”

“Does that even matter?” Tyler asked. “Like, seriously, does it? What should matter right now is the fact that you could get jumped by Javier’s friends any second. I’m just trying to warn you, but you’re obviously not getting it, are you?”

Tyler let go of my shoulders and shook his head at me before angrily walking away.

I groaned and leaned myself against a locker and head banged against it loudly. I turned to see
the two girls still watching. One of them I recognized was Becky De La Cruz. She tried to be my friend in the 4th grade, but I didn’t even speak to her as she stuck her hand out to say ‘hello’. All I had done was glare at her as she attempted to befriend me. Ever since she’s never tried to talk to me again. I couldn’t blame her.

She made eye contact with me before grabbing her friend’s arm and walking away, leaving me completely alone in the hallway. My hand was twitching and I felt like I had no control over my body at all whatsoever.

I had to admit, I was scared. I didn’t think of the fact that what I had done would have any repercussions. Now I had to be scared, I had to now watch my back to even stay in one piece. I quickly grabbed my backpack off of the hallway floor and began walking towards the school’s student parking lot. Right there, parked in the front was a black car. The windows were rolled down and a few men were sitting inside of it, smoking cigarettes and blowing smoke out of their windows. I knew they were Javier’s friends. It was obvious. One almost spotted me but I quickly ducked behind a trash can. I pulled out my cell phone as my eyes began to water with frustration and fear. I ran my fingers through my hair as I looked through my contacts. The first contact that came to mind was my mother. But I can barely even look at her face now after what she had done to my dad, let alone let her know about the situation I was in. I couldn’t call anyone in my family at all. They couldn’t help me.

I quickly scanned through my contacts, making sure I was still completely hidden. I shakily pressed on a number and put the phone to my ear. Each ring felt like it lasted agonizingly long, and each gap between the rings felt even longer.

“Hello?”

I paused for a second before speaking up.

“You know how I said I didn’t want to see you anymore?” I began to say. I took a deep breath. “Well, Micah… I lied. I need you, right now more than ever.”