We Owned the Night

I woke up the next morning feeling pretty shitty and was still mad at myself for leaving Bianca when she needed me. Up until that point, I had beautiful long dreads, but for some reason that morning while I was watching TV and sulking, I decided to comb them out. Change, I guess it was. For me, it sort of represented a new beginning. Out with the old, in with the new, I thought to myself. Half way through however, our apartment had turned into a party scene.

Matt's father, Gaetan, came over with his friend Guy to hang out, drink and smoke with my dad. It was a beautiful Saturday; nice and sunny and warm. All three of them were sitting on the porch smoking their joints while I was in my room combing out my dreads. I slowly watched as my strawberry blond hair started to appear. It had been six months since I had normal hair, so it felt so weird to be looking at myself in the mirror.

I heard a phone ring outside, and Gaetan answered. They talked for a bit, then hung up, "Oooh, Sam, my son's coming over!" He yelled from the porch.

I immediately froze and panicked. My hair was a mess! I only managed to comb out about five dreads so there were just some random patches of hair, and I had cut all the extensions out so it was all short in the back. As my dad walked in the house to tell me again that Matt was coming over, I vigorously started to comb out more of them. Maybe if I just got the ones on top, I could pull it into a ponytail and hide the big mess...

About five minutes later, though, Matt was there. I heard him talking outside from my window, and my heart started beating. I was already super stoned, too, which made my nervousness even worse. This was not how I wanted to meet him for the first time.

Thinking everyone was outside, I walked to the kitchen to throw out the dead hair from my dreads and there he was, sitting on the couch rolling a joint.

“Sup?” He asked perfectly calm.

“Not much…” I replied, heading to the fridge to get something to drink.

My chest was pounding and I was trying my hardest to seem calm, but I doubted that it was working. Quietly, I returned to my room with my glass of water in my hand, and shut my door. How could my father do this to me? I wasn’t ready! Grabbing my comb, I continued working out the dreads, one by one, as fast as I could. I just needed to get the top done, so I could at least put it into a ponytail but it was taking so long and time was going by too fast. I was missing my chance.

There was a knock on my door, and I heard Matt say my name from the other side.

I froze for a second, then opened the door and asked “Yeah?”

“You wanna smoke a joint?” He asked me.

“No, I’m fine,” I said, knowing that I should just get over it and go talk to him, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“Are you sure?” He pushed.

“Yeah, I’m sure…”

“Last chance,”

I laughed, “No, really, I’m fine,”

“Alright then,” He said, and turned around and left.

I sighed, letting my breath out. Why couldn’t everyone just go away? I turned and looked at myself in the mirror, frowning at what I saw. I just felt so ugly in that moment; I didn’t want to be trying to impress a guy. The setting was all wrong, the people were all wrong. I felt more comfortable with people my own age, not my dad and his old friends.

After about an hour of working on my hair, I was finally able to pull it back into a ponytail and feel good about myself. Everyone was in the living room now. Taking a deep breath, I opened my door and stepped out.

My dad was standing up, holding a bottle full of smoke, “Here, take this,” He said to me, passing me the bottle.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Just take it,” He insisted.

So I opened it up, and inhaled. I really didn’t want to be getting stoned, considering just a few days ago I had had an anxiety attack while high and I still hadn’t quite recovered from it. At the time, the more I smoked, the more nervous I got. But I was just so used to smoking, that I couldn’t say no when it was passed to me.

Sitting down on the couch, my dad ushered me over, “Sit down,” he patted the spot between him and Matt.

I rolled my eyes, but sat down anyway. This was so obviously a set up that it annoyed me. I really just wished my dad would let me do things on my own. As I sat down, my dad scooted towards me, pushing me closer to Matt. I gave him a dirty look, and he laughed.

“Matt, let’s do some BT’s!” My dad said.

Matt laughed, “Man, I feel like I’m getting high with my buddies right now!”

I laughed to myself, as I was thinking the complete opposite.