Jawbreaker

The stars were bigger.

Closer.

I sniffed, opening my mouth and inhaling the crisp, night air. The cold air traveled down my wind pipe and made its way into my lungs, icing it as if I was congested and I had just used Vicks. It was only November and the night air was already this cold. I huffed, watching my breath form little clouds from my lips and imagined as if they were blocking the stars in the sky. I blinked and they were gone. My eyes looked around and instantly felt hydrated. Everything was clearer, brighter, and more focused. My ears perked at the sound of a quiet cricket. Wasn’t it too cold for it to chirp? I remembered reading about how they were cold-blooded, like most insects – or maybe it was all of them, and they chirped more frequently based on the temperature. I might’ve been wrong. I was probably wrong. My eyes shot back to the heaven sky above and I watched as the stars became larger and began wondering if they were getting closer and closer…

“Oh my god, you are so fucking blazed out of your mind.”

I turned my head to see Noah Folds lying next to me, giggling like a little boy. I smiled, fully aware of how dopey I probably looked, and said, “I see.”

He stared at me for a couple of seconds before bursting into full on side-clutching laughter.

“Oh my god! Oh my fucking god! I can’t believe I got Lucy Holden high. Ah god, I’m definitely going to hell for this.” He rolled over, tucking his head close to his chest.

I chuckled, my eyes squinting from all the hydration and clarity they were receiving. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I watched as he silently laughed to himself for a while longer before turning back to face me. He still had a few chuckles in him before he was able to say, “You and I both know this is your first time getting high.”

I stared at him, mentally nodding in my head in response.

He must’ve read my mind because he then continued. “And you’re not the type of girl to smoke a blunt on a rooftop with someone you’re not even friends with, ya know?” He sighed, stretching his arms over his head, and then smiling to himself, said, “Hehe, I bet that boyfriend of yours would probably kick my ass if he found out I got you stoned.”

“Why would Justin care?” I asked him, genuinely curious. “He smokes, too.”

Noah just looked upwards, shaking his head as if he was thinking, How stupid is this girl, and said, “No guy’s gonna be happy about another guy getting his girl high out of her mind. He’d be pissed as hell.”

I was silent. I didn’t really understand what the problem was. Justin would probably be happy if he found out that I smoked. Then he would probably think he could do it around me instead of having to do it behind my back with his bros. He knew that I quietly judged him whenever he got high, so wouldn’t this make him feel better if he found out that I had tried it? I just didn’t understand what Noah was saying.

But as I watched Noah silently making fish faces, opening his mouth and closing it, I thought that maybe it was best not to let Justin know about it and avoid him for the rest of the night. That was probably the best option, I told myself.

“Why are you even out here?” asked Noah. He had stopped making the fish faces and was now looking up at the stars, a blank stare in his eyes.

I was caught off guard by his question. There was a bit of hostility in his voice, almost as if he hadn’t wanted for me to intrude on his smoking time. Then again, he was the one that offered me a hit, wasn’t he? It wasn’t like he told me to leave him alone or anything, and he was the one that had opened the window to the bathroom and had forgotten to close it.

“I just saw the open window. And I smelled weed, so I…I don’t know.” I blinked heavily, unsure of what else to say.

Noah laughed, turning to me and saying, “Relax. I’m just fucking with you.” I watched him, as small creases formed at the corners of his blue eyes. He ran a hand through his messy, brown locks, and I continued to stare at him as he sighed to himself, his smile baring his perfectly aligned, white teeth.

I suddenly looked away. What the hell, was I just enamored by Noah Folds’ smile?
I looked back at him and shook my head. Of course not. It must’ve been the weed. I couldn’t trust my mental judgment at the moment.

And then a thought came into my mind. What was I actually doing, on a Friday night, at a party? With Noah Folds? I rarely ever went to parties and I had managed to stay straight laced throughout my high school career up until this very night. Was this really because I came to find out more about his relationship with Billie Jean? Or was there something else?

“You ever wonder…” I began, scrambling for words, “…if maybe our lives are kind of just, I don’t know, set out for us already?”

He was rubbing his forefinger and thumb together, as if he had a speck of dirt between them. He stopped and looked up at me from where he was lying down.

“What?”

I was sitting up, with my knees folded against my chest and my arms around them. I could feel my brows furrowing as I said, “Like everything’s predetermined. As if, the whole point to living, to life, is just to fulfill our destiny. I don’t know, like, we don’t have to really do anything. We’re gonna end up exactly where we’re supposed to be, no matter what we do.” My eyes were probably extremely blood-shot. They felt itchy suddenly.

He snorted. “That just sounds like an excuse to not try.”

I looked over at him, eyes wide.

Noah smiled crookedly, revealing half of his pearly whites as he said, “That predetermined bull sounds like an excuse not to delve into anything deeper. You’re only skimming the surface.”

I stared at him.

“So you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” I asked him, my eyes lowering into what probably looked like a glare.

His crooked smile turned into a full on grin. “Nah, but I sure as hell don’t believe that we don’t have control over our own lives. Every choice you make is your own, Lucy. Ain’t no one that can take that from you.”

“So what about God?” It slipped. I wasn’t sure why I said it.

Noah shrugged and propped himself on his elbows. “Sure, I believe in God. I believe he has a say in time. Like, when we come and go. But everything in between is up to us.”

“So, he gets to choose who leaves and when they leave?” I pressed. I could feel my palms curl into fists around my knees.

Noah began nodding as he said, “Yeah, maybe. Something like that. I mean, how else would it work? I wouldn’t know the mechanics of it, but I would say that would be the only plausible thing. Science doesn’t cover it all, right?”

He looked over at me, and I saw his mouth fall open slightly. His eyes watched me, quietly as I felt my fists shaking.

“What, this omnipotent being has a say in who gets to continue living their life and who doesn’t? Pray tell, how does he make such a decision? Does he look at peoples’ lives and think, ‘Well they’re not trying, time for someone else to take their place’ and just zaps them on out? What about the people that get to continue on with their lives? Huh? What was so special about them, that they get to go on fulfilling whatever it is that they were placed on this Earth to do? What right does one being have over another human being? What if, what if…” I could feel my entire body shaking at this point. I swallowed, hard. “What if, those people, the ones that get to continue living, aren’t really even doing that? What if they’re not even really living out their lives? Then what? Then who’s to say they deserved to stay alive?”

Noah was right in front of me. I didn’t notice when he had gotten so close. Suddenly, his hands were on both sides of my face and he was pushing my hair out of my face.

“Why are you crying?”

At the mention of it, I became fully aware of how wet my eyes felt. I lifted a hand to wipe away the unwelcomed tears, but Noah lifted my face to look up at him.

His blue eyes that were usually bright in the daylight had a mysterious shine to them in the moonlight. Everything else was dark and lost in shadows, but his eyes were vivid and shining, piercing in the night…

Those piercing blue eyes.

I broke away from Noah and turned around to climb through the window and back into the bathroom. I heard him shout after me but I was already out the door.