Tear You Apart

Desolation Row

Leah was waiting for me in Government the next day with the same apprehensive look she'd given me the night before.

"How are you feeling? You left in quite a hurry last night."

"Fine." It wasn't a lie. I was high as fuck. I tried to avoid smoking before school but yesterday had taken a huge toll on my already poor mental health. I needed to back off this girl I'd decided. She and her perfectly happy family were no good for me and vice versa. It was like mixing water and oil. No, it was like mixing gasoline with fire. I was already a caustic individual, capable of destroying things. With her in the mix, it'd only get worse.

"Alright," her eyebrows were furrowed and her expression motherly, but she left it alone. I was eternally grateful she wasn't one to pry.

Glancing down and twiddling with my black and green flannel, I was unable to meet her gaze any further. I did not want to talk to her. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I wanted to disappear in my head and be left alone. Thankfully the teacher came in and started lecturing.

I'd decided I would start eating lunch in my car. It would be easy to make up excuses why I couldn't hang around Leah and in the classes we shared, I would keep conversations to a minimum. I hadn't figured out how I was going to get around the project, but I'd come up with something. She was a smart girl; she'd get the hint. I only prayed I wouldn't have to be rude to her, it wasn't her fault I was a self-destructive mess incapable of having meaningful human connection.

Later that day when lunch rolled around, I made the excuse I'd left my lunch in my Jeep and had to go get it. Tallulah asked if I wanted her to tag along but I declined, encouraging them to go on without me. I felt somewhat remorseful for lying to them, but it was for the best. Operation Isolation was a go and the idea of being alone and being able to breathe again was not an opportunity I was willing to pass up.

I was sitting in my car ten minutes later, seat back as far as it'd go with my feet perched haphazardly on the door frame enjoying a Marilyn Manson song and nursing a joint and a bag of mini Oreos when a familiar voice interrupted my mastication.

"What are you doing?" his voice burnished yet somehow always serrated.

I glanced up over the edge of my sunglasses to see Leah's brother standing inches from where my combat boots were dangling. His blue-tipped ebony hair was disheveled handsomely just like last time and I had to suck in a breath. All the weed in the world couldn't subdue the swirl of emotions that flashed through the amygdala of my brain and spread to various other parts of me.

"What's it look like?" my own voice was airy as I fired the rhetorical question back at him. He was watching me with his oh so familiar glare as I held the joint in his direction. "You want in?"

It was as if I'd completely forgotten my original plan the moment he was in the equation.

He contemplated the notion momentarily before rolling his eyes and walked past me out of sight. I shrugged my shoulders and returned the marijuana cigarette to my own mouth and inhaled. Whatever... his loss.

I nearly jumped out of my skin as he appeared on the passenger side of my car and opened the door, hopping in easily and stealing the joint right out of my mouth with one hand to bring it up to his own and take a long measured toke.

"You think I'm stupid enough to stand out in the open and get high?" he growled. I couldn't come up with a response to his sane logic. To be honest, I thought he kept walking. I wasn't sure how I felt about sharing the small space of my vehicle with him.

The nebulous high preoccupying my brain kept my blood pressure surprisingly stable as I took in the scenario. Judd Birch was sitting in my Jeep smoking my weed and here I was trying to get away from his sister. It seemed preposterous, almost comical.