Blazed (18 page)

“He's got free coke.”

“Yeah,” she says, laughing. “But that's not all. Like, he can come off like a total asswipe who's in over his head, like at dinner. Two fucking days ago, he was telling me how much he liked James Morgan's books. It's just like with Kanye, though. He's jealous, which I guess is good, ya know. If anything, it means he still cares and gives a shit.”

“In the biggest dickhead way ever.”

“It's still something, though. Our history is so intense and so long, too. He's really all I've known since my freshman year, and he loves my family and he loves to be around me.”

“Do you trust him?”

Kristen starts to say something, then stops. She takes a drag and sighs.

“Kristen,” I say.

“Sometimes I do,” she says back. “When I'm actually with him I do.”

“But not when you're apart?”

“It's not that I don't,” she says. “It's just that there's all that coke and all those hot girls who buy from him so late at night. . . .”

Her voice trails off for a second.

Then, “It's just something I think about from time to time. But I don't think he'd ever hurt me like that.”

“Never think that way, Kristen.”

“What way?”

“That a person who loves you won't hurt you in the worst way possible. They will,” I say.

“But why?”

“I think it's easier to hurt the people you love the most because you know they love you and you know their forgiveness is easier to come by than other people.”

Kristen throws her cigarette out.

“They have a history with you. All those bonds you've formed, those superstrong bonds, that's what they're counting on to win you back over once they've fucked up and destroyed you. Fuck your history. Looking back and feeling nostalgic about someone who's hurt you is how you make your future miserable. So screw that.”

Kristen leans over and wraps her arms around my neck. “Thank you, dude.”

“Thank you,” I say.

She lets go and says, “James fucking Morgan eating dinner with my family. Insane.”

“Awesomest thing ever.”

Digging into her purse, Kristen pulls out the coke bullet and loads a hit, then smashes it.

“Want some?” she goes.

“No, thank you.”

“Boring, brah.”

I start laughing and go, “Drop the bro and pick up the brah.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I say.

“You're a weirdo, man.”

“Fucking normal compared to the rest of those vultures inside.”

“SHOW IT TO ME,” SHE
said.

“Show what to you?” I said back.

“You know, it,” she said.

We were at her house. Her parents were gone. We were in her bedroom.

“My dick,” I said.

“Yes. Your dick,” she said back. “I wanna see it.”

I was scared and anxious.

She'd been drinking wine coolers all afternoon. She was so drunk and I wasn't.

I went, “Why?”

She laughed. “Are you for real?”

I looked away from her but couldn't think of anything to say.

“Come on,” she went. “Just do it. Show it to me.”

I was so excited at the same time. So hard. I pulled my jeans and underwear down to my knees and there it was. My hard dick hanging all crooked and to the left.

The smile on her face doubled. She giggled.

“That's it,” she said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said back.

Then she set her wine cooler down and walked up to me.

She ran a hand down the side of my face. She leaned into me, her face just inches from mine. Her hand slid from my face to my neck and down my chest. Her hand stopped moving once it touched my dick.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I said back.

She jerked me once and I came. It shot all over my stomach and my leg.

It felt amazing. I felt so good. My eyes were closed. But when I opened them, she was shaking her head.

She said, “Really? That's it?”

“What did you want from me?”

“Never mind,” she said. “But that's it?”

I nodded.

She ran her hand through my cum twice. Then she licked the cum off her fingers.

“Tastes okay,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I guess. I can't believe that was it, though.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“No reason.” She shrugged. “Clean yourself up. You should go now.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Jaime. Really. Go now.”

Spring break, spring break, spring break, forever . . .

That's the only thing I remember thinking while I got dressed and hurried out of her stupid house.

JAMES AND SAVANNAH ARE SITTING
at a table in the heated patio when I come back in. They're both smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey on the rocks.

“Jaime,” I hear James say as I'm walking past them.

I turn around. “What's up?”

“Sit down,” says James. “I wanna talk to you for a minute.”

My first thought is to say go fuck yourself until I realize that besides Kristen, him and Savannah have been the only other people to be cool so far tonight.

I pull out a chair and sit.

“Hey,” I say.

James laughs and says, “It sucks, huh?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Tonight,” he says. “This. Your family doesn't give a shit about you and it's obvious.”

“I know, dude. So what?”

“I'm just letting you know that while you're in San Francisco, if you ever get too overwhelmed or feel like you're totally alone, come by the Whip Pad and say what's up.”

I can feel my face light the fuck up right now. “Really,” I say, not ask.

“Yeah, man. I mean it. And if you knock and I'm not there, tell Savannah and have her get ahold of me. These people suck,” he says. “These people only care about themselves.”

“Right,” I say. “I've figured that out.”

“It's obvious,” says James. “They don't have your back.”

“But you do?”

James twists his smoke out in the ashtray. “I don't know about that. But I'm sure I'm better company than these fucking monsters. Just look at them.”

“I don't want to.”

“Exactly,” he says. “You don't have to. You already know the truth.”

THE RVCA PARTY IS KILLER.
It feels like kristen and Tyler know everyone here. This is my first party too. If you don't count me wandering downstairs in the middle of the night in my underwear right into the heart of one of my mother's epic after-hour parties.

And all those strange faces.

The thick, hovering clouds of dope smoke.

The B-52's and Pretenders records blasting.

And my mother dancing by herself with a bottle in her hand. Or dancing with a much younger guy or younger girl or both.

Every second of it like some blurry dream and me pinching my skin as hard as I could to see if it was real and it always was and everyone was smiling or crying and one time I saw this man with a mustache wearing skinny jeans punch a mirror cos he saw a ghost and he hated ghosts more than anything.

Toast hasn't played yet. Some DJ is spinning records. Tyler disappears with two girls.

I look at Kristen. “Customers,” she says. “Not worried.”

I grab her arm and go, “You think Dominique might show up here?”

“I don't know. Call her and find out. Don't be a pussy.”

“We're kicking it tomorrow,” I say.

Kristen stops moving. She puts both her hands on my face and goes, “That's my fucking boy! See what happens when you loosen up, man? The bitches start showing up. The hot bitches come right at ya.”

“Ha, ha. I still don't trust it.”

“You trust me, don't you?”

“I don't know.”

She kisses the side of my mouth. “You're lying so much when you say that. Of course you trust me. You've been opening up to me since the second I caught you stripping in the basement.”

• • •

When Toast finally takes the stage, Kristen is so hammered. Neither of us have seen Tyler since he bailed with those two “customers.” She's acting like she doesn't give a shit, but it's not true. Every time I look at her, she's scanning the store with her eyes. Totally preoccupied with getting a visual of that piegrinder, and it makes me mad because the fun has been sucked out of her. This tension exists. I feel it. She's disconnected from the moment, and it's such a shame. Dude's not worth it. Nobody who makes you spend a fucking second of your life feeling anxious about what they are doing while you're not around them is worth that second, let alone a kiss or a high fucking five.

It's really creasing me.

I'm also bummed at her for even being in this situation.

I ask her if she wants to go to the front of the crowd with me. She says no. I don't wanna stay back with her, though, and watch her not have any fun so I roll up there, swallowing half of a blue on my way.

Kristen was right. Toast is rad. Their raps are fucking dope and hilarious. Nasty as hell too.

Plus, they're really pretty and got good style. Like, the whole crowd is jumping. Arms in the air, talking shit back to the girls cos they're asking for it, everyone smoking weed except me.

Thoughts of all the assholes and bitches I go to school with slam through my head. None of them are doing anything even close to as cool as this. That's one of the things that's always kept me going during all those times they've tried to crush me and embarrass me for no reason whatsoever. How it can't last forever. Those years in that private school and being forced to be around them and interact with them. It does end and then you get out and you go into this gigantic fucking world where nobody knows or even cares that your mother acts really strange and drinks a lot and fucks a lot of people. They don't care that reading a book or watching an amazing movie or just listening to records in the basement all by yourself was more fun than going to some shitty kegger or lame school dance. They don't care that you weren't fucking popular and had no friends. It's not funny to them. They won't try to shove you
around and stick notes on your back and wipe their hands on their friends because they accidentally touched you.

None of that bullshit.

All those bands and books those assholes and bitches will eventually get into and love and swear by, well, I was indulging in that while they were finger-banging some drunk, passed-out girl. Or crying because they found out their boyfriend was the bro doing the finger banging and their best friend was the girl who drank too much and passed out in the wrong place.

That's what's kept me going.

Knowing that it does end eventually.

Knowing that when it does, that new, gigantic world that awaits me is full of Beach House and Youth Lagoon and Noah Cicero fans.

I'm looking around the room right now. The killer hip-hop show I'm in the middle of. All the pretty kids in the room who smile at me when I look at them, who won't trip me just to get a few laughs, who shave lines into their hair too, and who know what a bad day really fucking feels like.

Right after Toast finishes their last song, “Burnt,” I look over my shoulder and see Kristen and Tyler arguing. She seems really upset, and he's waving a finger in her face.

I push myself through the crowd as quickly as I can. When I finally get to them, I hear her say, “Screw you, Tyler. You disappeared for a fucking hour with those bitches. Screw you.”

She turns away from him. He grabs her arm, but she yanks it loose and starts walking away.

“Kristen,” he shouts. “Just stop it! You're being a cunt.”

He lunges at her and tries to grab her again.

Me, I jump in between them.

“Let her go,” I tell him.

Kristen races outside, and Tyler shoves me.

“Mind your own business, dude.”

“Fuck you,” I snap back. “Leave her alone.”

“This doesn't concern you, Jaime. That's my girlfriend.”

“Then treat her like one, man.”

“Fuck off,” he says.

He tries to get around me, but I step in front of him.

“What's your problem?” he says.

“You,” I tell him. “Just give her a few minutes.”

Tyler looks over my head and makes a face. “Ya know what, fuck both of you,” he says. “Look at her.”

Kristen is standing outside on the sidewalk, and this dude is lighting a cigarette for her.

“Fuck that,” Tyler goes. “That slut.”

“Are you serious right now, man? You bailed with two chicks the second we got here.”

Tyler rolls his eyes. Shakes his head. He's sweating like a pig, too. It's taking everything I have in me not to punch him in the face.

“You're nobody,” he tells me. “Nobody.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You're here for a fucking week and that's it, dude. I've known your dad longer than you have. He likes me better.”

“Shut up,” I say.

“You don't know anything about these people or their lives, man. None of this is your business. None of it.”

He looks back over my head.

“Look at her,” he goes.

Kristen's talking to two other guys now and laughing.

“Typical,” says Tyler.

I don't say anything.

“Seriously though, bro,” he goes. “Like, stay the fuck out of my way, okay? You're nobody here. Nobody to those people. You think they want you in San Francisco, man?”

“Shut the fuck up,” I say again.

He starts laughing and goes, “The second that bitch needs to get high again, it'll be like none of this even happened.”

Tyler flips me off after saying that and stomps off.