Smoked Out

I woke up in the middle of a bed I wasn’t used to with a pounding in my head. The last thing I remembered was throwing up on the sidewalk in front of Talon. I sat up and looked around the room I was in. Band posters hung on the walls along with a single poster of a half-naked girl on the beach wearing leopard bikini bottoms and that was it. I rolled my eyes, guessing that this was Carson’s room.

I went to get out of the bed but stopped myself when I noticed that there was a body on the floor beside the bed. “Hey.” Talon said softly, clearly having just woken up from me almost stepping on him. “How do you feel?”

“Like somebody is inside my head jumping around like a maniac.” I said rubbing my temples. “I can’t believe I drank last night.” The full effects of what happened still hadn’t kicked in yet but they were beginning to. I looked over at Talon who had stood up now and was stretching. The almost-kiss before I threw up lingered in the air; the elephant in the room.

“Hand me your keys, I’ll drive us home.” He said reaching his hand out assuming that I would just hand him my keys. I looked at him stubbornly.

“No, I’ll drive.” I said sternly so that he would drop it. He raised his hands in defence and grabbed his jacket off the chair in the corner of the room. He led me through the house to the door. Carson was sleeping on the couch in the living room and Griffen was on the floor beside him. The place was trashed and so I grabbed a few beer cans and bottles off the entrance table on my way out and threw them in the recycling bin he kept beside his door.

We didn’t talk for a long time as I drove and I knew the radio would only make my head hurt more so I kept it turned off. I could feel Talon occasionally glancing in my direction but I pretended not to notice and kept my eyes on the road. I had never given in to peer pressure before, and I was really upset with myself for letting Carson trick me into drinking. Thinking about it now I really doubted he would work on the project with me this week and I felt myself groan as I turned the corner and into the parking lot of a McDonalds.

"What?" Talon asked, curious. I pulled the keys out of the ignition and began rubbing my temples; my attempt at rubbbing away my hangover.

"Just a lot of self-loathing coming from my end." I sighed. I leaned back in my seat and looked over at him, making no attempt to get out of the car.

"You're pouting," he said. "You need food. That requires movement." I scrunched my face at him and got out of the car, even though it felt like it took the remainder of whatever energy I had left in me to do so.

"You're pouting! Blah blah blah." I mumbled low enough so that he couldn't hear me. God, was I ever grouchy this morning. We walked in, ordered, and in a few short minutes we were sitting at a table in the corner making small talk to be polite. It was weird being polite to each other when we had never made an attempt at it before.

"Okay, can we just get the elephant in the room out of the way so we can not sit here awkwardly and actually enjoy our food?" Talon said, suddenly outraged.

"Um okay." I said, raising my eyebrows at him in a you-are-being-hella-weird way.

"What was last night?" He said. There wasn't a hint of a smile in his face when he asked this so I knew that he really didn't care about the almost-kiss.

"Last night was me saving your ass from murdering some random asshat." I said, wondering when I started swearing so casually. I think Talon was starting to rub off on me a little too much for somebody that's only lived in my basement for not even two weeks.

"You should have let me." He said stony-eyed. "He deserved it."

"I don't even understand why you let that girl get under your skin so much. She's clearly not worth your time and energy and it doesn't even seem like you cared about her anyway." The look I got from him would have given me shivers had I not ignored the anger in his eyes as well as I did.

"Fuck you." He said, pushing his food away and standing up.

"Are you just going to walk the rest of the way home?" I asked, expecting him to realize how stupid he was being and sit back down.

"I need a smoke." He said, turning around and leaving me at the table by myself. Why did he have to smoke so much? He was going to give himself lung cancer and die before he was thirty. I rolled my eyes even though he was already gone and layed my head down on the table, deciding that food was no longer a good idea for my nauseous stomach.

I wondered what Beverly and Amy were going to think of me and then decided that not telling them was the better option. Beverly would be furious with me if she found out I had bailed on her and went to my own party without her instead. I was in need of girl talk but I had no girls to talk about this with. My friends didn't understand my dislike for Talon and they definitely wouldn't understand why I had gone to a party with him, even if I explained that Griffin guilted me into doing so.

I hoped Griffin wasn't expecting a ride home from me. I hadn't even thought to wake him while Talon and I were leaving the house this morning. I didn't need to add him to the list of people who didn't like me. So far, that included Talon and all of his friends. Minus Aurora, because she didn't act like she hated me much, though she did help her brother pressure me into drinking when she knew I didn't want to. In the end though it was mostly my fault. I shouldn't have done it if I didn't want to. I just let Carson get under my skin.

I looked up, wondering how long Talon was going to be smoking for and noticed a familiar hazelnut coloured head bobbing towards me. I felt my mood drop fifty percent lower as she reached my table, smiling at me with her pearly white teeth and green eyes like we were the best of friends.

"I thought you didn't eat McDonalds?" Oh, hi to you too. I haven't seen you in a while. Would you like to discuss the scissor accident again or shave my hair off like you did when I was in sixth grade?

"Hi, Lindsay." I said about as cheerful as a person who just found out they had an STD.

"Seriously though, Macy. I thought you only ate, like salads and stuff. I shouldn't have to worry about running into you at fast food places. It doesn't ever happen. We're supposed to keep our distance." I wanted to hit her. I rarely wanted to hit anyone, but nobody, not even Talon, could crawl under my skin as deep as my dear old cousin, Lindsay.

"Keeping your distance would require you to turn the other way when you see me." I wanted to leave now that she was here but I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing it was because of her.

"I couldn't help but notice that guy you were arguing with. Trouble in paradise?" I glared at her. "Oh wait, it's impossible for you to be dating since little Macy Crawford is too good for any guy that crosses her path."

"What is your deal, Lindsay. Will you back off?" I tried to sound threatening but from the look on her face I didn't think it had worked. I realized something then as she stared at me with the smuggest smirk I had ever seen her wear.

Lindsay didn't live here. She had friends here she sometimes came to see, but she's seen me out before and never bothered me. No, there was only one reason why she was bothering me right now with such a chipper attitude. She was here to visit my parents. Didn't she have school? She was only a year older than me but she should be in college right now. I started to collapse but stopped myself. Something bad was going to happen to me. Lindsay has hated me since we were little and has always done things to torture me while leaving no evidence for my parents that she was the cause.

"I'll see you at home, little Mace." She said, clearly having noticed my realization. I swallowed hard as she walked away and felt a breath escape that I must have been holding in without realizing.

I got up from the table, too impatient to wait for Talon to come back inside, and walked as fast as I could out of the building and over to my car. I wanted to cry but I wouldn't allow myself. Instead I sat down in the driver's seat and screamed so loud into my steering wheel I thought my ears would explode.

"What the hell was that about?" Talon said from the passenger side. I felt my heart jump so far out of my chest I thought I was going to die.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?" I shouted, throwing my arms in the air.

"Well I figured you were going to follow me out eventually so I had my smoke and came here to wait." He was smiling at me, clearly finding my anger amusing. "Clearly, I've upset you." Ugh.

"You have not upset me. I just wanted to be alone for a minute." I said, forcing myself to calm down.

"You were sitting in there alone for ten minutes." He said, confused.

"No, actually, I wasn't. But I don't want to talk about it and I would really like to drive you home so that I can take my car and myself and drive off a cliff." Silence. I hadn't experienced Talon without a witty comeback before.

"Well thanks for wanting to leave me out of the suicide mission." He finally said. "But I don't normally take these situations lightly."

"I'm fine." I said, sighing. "I'm just... exhausted."

"Do you want to talk about it?" There was an awkwardness in the air now that had never happened between Talon and I before.

"How do I know you won't use everything I tell you against me in all the future arguments I know we're going to have?" I sounded drained out. My headache had started to fade a little though the nauseous feeling stayed.

"Let me drive." He sounded playful as he looked over at me with steady eyes.

"No." I said, stubborn.

"Come on, I want to show you something." I studied his eyes looking for any sign of anger towards me that would indicate he was going to do something to piss me off. I couldn't see any.

"Fine." I said, getting out of the car. "But this better be good."

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Two hours later I was standing on top of a cliff that was so high up I could barely see the ground. I had fallen asleep on the drive here that my hangover was pretty much over now and though I still felt tired, I no longer felt nauseous.

Looking out at the view I felt a calmness wash over me. The gray sky seemed to fit with the orange and brown rocks this cliff was made of, and I couldn't think of a time I had seen anything so pretty. You could make out trees in the far distance at the bottom but for the most part it seemed to be just dirt, but there was a stillness to it that drew you in.

"So who were you with while I was having my smoke?" Talon asked, bringing me out of my mesmorized state. I was standing at the edge of the cliff and he walked over to stand beside me.

"It doesn't matter." I crossed my arms over my chest, guarding myself.

"Of course it matters, it upset you." I turned to look at him, my mouth hanging open.

"I'm sorry," I said, shaking my head in confusion. "I just don't understand why you're being so nice to me right now."

"Because I thought maybe we could, I don't know," He ran his hands through his curly blonde hair and looked at me. "be friends?" I snorted. I didn't mean to laugh, let alone snort, but here was this boy who despised me for years, who moved into my basement and made fun of me, who blew smoke in my face even though he knew it bothered me, asking me to be friends.

"Why?"

"We live together for one." I shook my head at him.

"We don't live together. We live near each other." I said correcting him. He rolled his eyes at me and carried on.

"And for two, I never realized how much of an ass I had been to you when you didn't deserve it." What was he playing at? Whatever it was, I wasn't buying it.

"Is that why you took me here? To show me that you can be a sensitive guy who likes to stare at trees for fun and think about the universe just so that you can feel less guilty about the way you treated me? So that you could play on my drunken vulnerabilities and get close to me so you could screw me over later? Because I don't believe - there is no way in hell you really want to be my friend!" I was so outraged now that my heart was going a mile a minute waiting for his retaliation.

"How do you even come up with this stuff?" His eyes were flaming now, but I could bet mine were worse. "You know what, whatever. I'm done trying."

"You never even started, Talon. What are you talking about?!" He was so infuriating.

"Just leave, honestly, just go. You're pissing me off now." I was pissing him off? How about he was pissing me off? I wanted to slap the angry look right off his face.

"How are you supposed to get home? I'm not leaving you here. I may not like you very much but I'm not cruel." I started walking over towards my car. "Get in."

"I'll find another ride." His stubborn side was showing, but I wasn't about to make myself look like an ass by leaving him stranded in the middle of nowhere.

"No." I could be just as stubborn as he was. "I need you for directions and I don't trust you driving my car in your present state."

"You put me in this state, Macy! This mood is all your fault, I was just trying to make peace with you. But whatever, fuck it. I'm done. Now get the hell out of here because I am in no way in hell getting in that car with you." He pulled out a smoke and lit it, too far away to blow it in my face but still asshole enough to blow it in my direction. That was it, I had reached my Talon limit for the day and I no longer cared if he was stranded out here and attacked by bears. Have at him all the wild animals that inhabit these forests. Feast away!

I didn't say anything to him, just glared, as I got into my car and drove away without glancing in the rear-view mirror to see if he was even bothered. I drove half a mile before I started to feel a sharp pain shooting up my legs and pulled over to the side of the road. These pains had happened before so I knew it would pass and didn't bother to worry about it. Instead I took the time to think about how I didn't really want to go home with Lindsay there. In fact, I was scared to go home with Lindsay there.

What else was I supposed to do though? It was only mid-afternoon now and by the time I got home it wouldn't even be supper yet. I wanted to miss dinner altogether and pack my stuff and run as far away from my house as I possibly could. Not only did I have my high school enemy living in the basement I had always wanted, I now have Lindsay taking up residence in my room. I wanted to blame Anthony and my bad karma for this one too, but it was one speeding incident and I felt like my karma should have been run dry by now. No, this was a whole other level of karma. I really must have been a horrible person in my past life.