Passed Out on Your Lawn

When morning came my band shirt was askew and Max was gone. My eyes adjusted to the brightness of my dim room and I found a note.



The scrawl was messy but even with no name it was obvious who had left it.

Thinking back I felt something. Not a new lease of life but something like that. Max’s insistence of making an effort to make myself and also him happy rather than wallow in self pity and self loathing gave me something to think about. It was worth it after all. We tried to have fun and consequently did. There was a way out of the darkness after all and it merely took a little effort. Now all I needed was something to do with this new found enlightenment. So I started to create a crass comic. Gotta start somewhere.

**

Knock knock.

“Yeah?” I responded in the disturbance in the early evening.

“Can we come in?” I heard Max’s voice behind the door.

“We?” I mumbled to myself, “Yeah,” I repeated.

“Hey,” Max opened he door and was followed in by another guy I didn’t recognise.

“Wow!” the guy exclaimed.

“Dakota, this is Ronnie. You wanna come hang out?” Max quickly introduced.

“Hey,” I nodded to the taller and slightly older looking guy with considerably longer hair, “Sure I guess. What’re you doing?”

“Just going to my place. The other guys will be over too. Your room is awesome by the way,” Ronnie told me.

“Thanks, man. Alright lets go,” I set my paper on the side and pulled my boots on.

Ronnie drove us to his house, which was empty save for two guys I’d seen around school.

“That’s Bryan and that’s Robert,” Max named them for me. “You know Dakota, right?”

“Hey,” they looked up from the TV screen showing an episode of Beavis and Butthead.

Randomly Bryan pulled his shirt onto his head and announced in a strange voice, “I am Cornholio! Do you have TP?”

I burst out laughing, as that was my favourite Beavis moment ever. Everyone laughed at his impression.

“Do not make my bum hole angry!” I replied in the same stupid voice.

“Oh my god that is so cool!” Ronnie exclaimed and hugged me from behind as everyone’s laugher grew harder.

“Now that the ice is good and broken, who wants pizza?” Robert asked wiping away an imaginary tear.

“Me!” we all called out.

They put on some form of Wrestling game like WWE or something while we waited for the pizza to be delivered. I was losing badly to Bryan so halfway through the match tried to pull the controller from his grip.

“Hey, hey stop cheating! Cheater, cheater!” he giggled and pulled away.

“I’m not a cheater, I’m an opportunist!” I squealed and reached over further to grab it while still pressing bottons with my other hand clutching my own controller.

“You’re cheatingggg!” Bryan moaned but laughed.

“Dee, you can’t do that,” Ronnie laughed.

“Like hell I can’t. Gimmie that damn controller!” I jumped on Bryan, leaving my controller on the floor and trying to pull his off him.

“Pile on!” Robert shouted.

“Pile on!” Max and Ronnie called a second later.

“Aaah fuck!” I yelled as I had three heavy bodies land on top of me.

“Fucking assholes! Get your asses off of me!” Bryan choked from underneath.

“Surrender then,” I giggled with the tiniest amount of air I had left in my compessed lungs.

“No! Max sort this woman out and get off me!” he repeated.

Suddenly I was being tickled and writhing around like a fish out of water and shrieking.

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” I begged.
I opened my eyes to find Max sat on top of me with The Devil’s wicked smile.

“You gonna behave?” he asked and stopped the tickling.

“Yes,” I panted, exhausted and defeated.

“Well ok then.”

“You gonna get off me or sit there all night?” I smirked.

He immediately got off and sat beside me on the floor. I looked round and found the other three elbowing each other and sniggering.

The doorbell rang signalling pizza had arrived.

After eating in a reasonably civilised fashion we grabbed some booze and went on a drive to some woods, bullshitting about the Blair Witch.

“The scariest thing in the woods is you, Dakota!” Robert remarked from the passenger eat as we pulled up.

“Fuck you!” I leaned forward and punched his arm.

“Too true,” Bryan nudged my shoulder.

“Dude, I didn’t come here to get picked on,” I rolled my eyes, “Go get your asses lost in the pitch black out there.”

It was late now and had gone dark. There were no lights to illuminate the part we’d driven to.

“Who’s coming to find a spot?” Ronnie asked climbing out of the car.

“I’ll wait back here if that’s ok. Come get me when you’ve set up,” I shrugged.

“I’ll stay with you,” Max volunteered.

“Have fun kids, play safe,” Bryan smirked as the trio wandered into the darkness with a flashlight.

Why this was a good idea was beyond me but it was happening. We flicked on the radio and Max sat up on the hood of the car leaning back onto the windscreen and I copied.

“Harassment aside, this has been fun,” I said.

“Yeah. Glad you get along with them.”

I faintly heard Girls, Girls, Girls come on the radio and jumped up to raise the volume. I jumped about and dragged Max to his feet. He made me laugh so much pulling stupid faces and doing dumb moves that I swear my sides were going to split.

“Dude, you should be a stripper!” I giggled.

“Tropicana’s where I lost my heart,” he pouted and thrusted into thin air.

Oh my god, I’m in love I thought to myself.

**

“Well somebody’s happy,” Shelly smirked as Monday morning’s English class rolled on.

“Yeah I’m ok. How’re you?” my customary gloom had vanished since Friday night and not since yet returned.

“Same old same old,” she shrugged. “Do anyone interesting over weekend?” Shelly asked as Max came through the door.

“Hey,” I said to him, “What?!” realising her words I hissed at Shelly.

“I meant anything. My bad,” she scoffed.

“Not really,” I glared at her with uncertainty.

**

“Hey, nice hair.”

“Hey, thanks. What’s up?” I turned and grinned at Max.

It was another Friday afternoon and I was ready to throw my books out of the window cause who wants to study. Also my mom helped me dye my hair jet black the previous night, which pleased me as I’d been waiting a long time to do it.

“Hmmm it’s snowing…so I’m ditching. You wanna come?” Max asked.
Him and I seemed to be turning into best friends pretty fast.

“Hmmm,” I considered, “sounds good,” I nodded quickly.

We basically walked straight out of the building after that class was over and ran down to the park.

“Hey, Max. Go long!” I called.

He didn’t react fast enough and I nailed him in the face with a snowball.

“Bitch!” he exclaimed and threw me in a big pile of snow.

“Oh come on,” I whined.

“Cold huh,” he smirked stood above me.

I glared up, surrounded by three feet tall walls of snow. I whipped my foot under him causing him to come crashing down beside me.

“Cold huh!” I mocked then laughed.

“I’m gonna kick your ass!” he gasped and we began throwing mounds of snow at each other and basically wrestling in the deep snow.

“Well, well, well,” Ronnie stood above us as we were in the middle of shoving handfuls of the frozen water down each others necks. I was on top of the pile and perhaps it looked…well you know.

“What’s up?” I nodded casually.

“I think Max probably is,” Ronnie smirked.

“Oh ha-ha!” Max rolled his eyes before grabbing my hips and pushing me off.

I had sort of, maybe, perhaps started falling for Max. This insane idea was not something I was very fond of but who can control their feelings.