The Framing

The high

January 4th 2016 7:50am
I stood by my locker. I watched everyone else move around me, and shut me out. I had been waiting for Jeremy, but I haven't seen him all day.

The bell for homeroom rang and the hallways quickly cleared. I made my way, but saw something in the corner of my eye which made me jump.

"Are you alright?" I asked and turned my head. Jeremy was walking slowly down the hallway, but he didn't seem like he was mentally there.

He didn't respond, and I walked up to him. His face was all wet and sweaty and his eyes were extremely bloodshot. "Jeremy, are you sick?"

"No, I'm just not feeling it." He muffled lowly and fell on me. I kept both of us up, "What is wrong with you?"

"Everything apparently." He said.

I realized that this was a lot more than I could handle. Because I soon smelled what I had hoped wasn't going on.

"Jeremy did you come to school high?" I asked.

"Maybe. I don't really know."

I put his arm around my shoulder. "Well we can't have you be in school." I said.

He followed me to my car, he really didn't have a choice. I strapped him in the back seat and drove him to his house.

I got out of my car and helped him up. "Can you walk?" I asked.

He nodded his head. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

Jeremy didn't look fine. I've been to parties and things where people do this, and it's never this bad. I think it's his medication mixing in with the drugs.

"Jeremy can you tell me the date?" I asked once I sat him down on the couch.

He looked up at the ceiling for a while. "I think it's Monday."

Well at least he wasn't wrong. "Can you be more descriptive?"

He paused again. "It's 2016."

I could see where this is going. I went to the kitchen to get him some water, anything to flush his system out.

"Here, drink this." I said and handed it to him. He accepted it and made little slurpy noises.

"Do you remember where you put the marijuana?" I asked.

"In my room on my bed." He said.

I went upstairs to his room, which was a total disaster. I saw a zipper bag on his bed and I took it. There wasn't much left of it, so I just dumped it out the window and threw the bag away.

I went back downstairs and saw him curled up on the couch. His eyes weren't shut, but I could tell he was dead tired. "Do you want to take a nap?" I asked.

He nodded his head and shut his eyes. I went to the closet to get a blanket and put it on him. I sat down on a chair and just looked at him, he was so helpless. So needy. I felt like I couldn't let him out of my sight or else he would die, and that feeling isn't going away.

I went on my phone, every minute I would look back up to see if he was awake. It was very quiet in his house, I miss his aunt. And I miss Jules. But she wouldn't be very helpful in a situation like this.

At around ten o'clock, I got up to get a glass of water. I wanted him to wake up so I would have someone to talk to. I was beginning to get very bored, but the silence was better than school.

I sat back down and started playing more games on my phone. I heard a grunting noise eventually and saw a moving lump. Which was Jeremy under the blanket.

"Are you awake?" I whispered.

"Yeah, I am now."

I laughed. "Well, what do you want to do now?"

"Nothing really. Just sitting here is fine."

He stood up and I could see his face. He looked a lot better than he did before, but he was still a little loopy.

"I don't think that drugs and your medicine work well together." I said.

He smiled. "Thanks for taking me home, I don't think I would do too well if I was still in school."

"You're welcome, we needed a break. Even though we just had two weeks."

I haven't had a great past few weeks. It's been an emotional roller coaster ever since the knife was found. Something so stupid caused all of this to happen. But I never would have met Jeremy if it didn't.

"How did you manage to take me out of the school and not get caught?" He asked.

"Well the doors under the back stairs are never locked and they lead right out to the student parking lot. And by the way, I think your car is still there."

"Oh my car is in the shop right now so I took the bus." He said.

"Well do you have anything we can play with?" I asked.

He went to a cabinet and took out a Nintendo GameCube. "Did you ever play Mario Kart growing up?" He asked.

"Uhm, fuck yes?" I said. "Give me a controller loser."

I had to sit closer to the TV because the controllers weren't wireless. "You do know that I am beast at this game, right?" I asked.

He selected a cup and we started to play. I was in 1st place for pretty much the whole race while Jeremy hovered around 5th.

"I told you I was going to win." I said.

"Yeah, whatever."

We continued to play and at the end, I won by a landslide. I came in first each time.

"It's been like ten years since I've played this game!" He said trying to defend himself.

"Same here." I said.

He turned the TV off. I didn't know what to do now so I went back to the chair I was sitting in before.

"Just promise me you're not going to do anything stupid again." I said.

"I promise."