Relative Fiction | ✓

18

There were all kinds of ways to be high, and to get high. Over the last few years I'd done everything from huffing spray paint, to tripping on molly, and wigging out on too many mood stabilizers.

But high on fucking life? That was a new one for me.

Three weeks and two days was the longest I had been clean since...well, since my first joint when I was 14 under the bleachers at a football game my freshman year of high school. Three weeks and two days was all it took for me to fall flat on my face onto the god damn concrete for AJ Ricardi, but through all the blood and muck and initial shock, it still felt like floating on a cloud. Three weeks, two days, one kiss. A real one this time. She had the same effect on me that getting high did, but without the crash that came afterwards.

I sat at my kitchen table, absentmindedly brushing my fingers over my lips. At first I thought it had been another daydream, but the way the taste of her and her vanilla chapstick lingered on me proved otherwise.

"Why are you up so early?"

Stella came sauntering into the kitchen in a tie-dye matching sweatsuit, but her hair was done up in a way I'd grown to know over the years as "show ready." She reeked of hairspray, and I was sure I'd set us both on fire if I lit a cigarette too close to her.

"I uh...I'm going for a run in a little bit." My knees bobbed restlessly under the table, watching her dart around between cabinets for her morning tea and toast ritual.

She barked out a laugh. "You? Running? Is it because AJ runs?"

My face blanched. "I...uh...well, I mean...wait, how do you even know her name?"

"You talk incredibly loud on the phone, lover boy." She studied me as she took a sip of her tea. "But anyway, don't you think it's a little creepy if you just show up and happen to be running while she's running? You look like a stalker."

I pressed my fists into my thighs. "For your information little sister, she runs by our house every morning. Who's stalking who?"

I gave her a knowing smirk, which was met by another eye roll of hers.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night." She paused and looked at me again, and as I braced myself for another stab from her, she sighed and shook her head. "Kai, just be careful, okay?"

"Me?" I croaked out. "Careful of what?"

"Well, I don't know," she shrugged. "Aren't you supposed to be focusing on getting better, not finding a girlfriend? If you get hurt, I'm just worried..." her voice trailed off, taking another sip of tea to force down the rest of her words.

"Wait." I held my hand up. "You actually think she's going to hurt me? And here I thought you had such little faith in me as a human being."

"I don't know, okay?" Stella barked. "But I do know that if you do get hurt, you're ill equipped to handle that." She sighed and leaned against the counter, her voice dropping to a soft whisper. "It freaks me out. That's all."

I groaned and rose from the chair. "Well don't be. I'm fine. I'm great, actually."

"I know." She turned away from me. "That's what scares me the most."

The silence that followed said more than enough. With every high of mine came an inevitable crash. But not this time. I wouldn't let it.

✗✗✗

Right on schedule, AJ came running down the beach, past the dock I sat on that jutted out into the sand. I jumped up from the splintery wooden steps, took a deep breath, and ran after her, immediately met by that all-knowing smirk that made my heart feel like it was being put through a meat grinder.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

She didn't stop, and I found myself struggling to get words out and run at the same time. My lungs crinkled and burned as I shuffled along beside her, kicking up sand in the only pair of beat up Nikes I owned.

"Figured I'd see what this whole runner's high thing was about," I chuckled, but it came out more like a dying cat hocking up a furball.

She shot me a wary glance. "You know, it might be helpful to stop smoking first." She slowed down, standing over me as I stopped and leaned over with my hands on my knees.

"Duly noted." I nodded.

"Kai..." she sighed out. "I'll ask you again. What are you doing?"

I squinted up at her, the sun's rays beaming and blinding as they illuminated her from behind. "What..." I couldn't even get a whole sentence out without feeling like I had been punched in the gut. "What are you talking about?"

"I know you don't run," she replied flatly.

"I mean..." I still struggled to catch my breath. "Can't hurt to try right?"

AJ took a step back and turned towards the ocean. I watched a bead of sweat trickle down the side of her reddened face as I waited for her to speak, every moment in silence as long as a lifetime.

"Look I uh...I was going to talk to you about this later." She kept her head down, kicking around a clump of sand with her sneaker. When she finally turned to face me, whatever air I desperately tried to keep in my lungs just whooshed out, leaving me gasping and suffocating.

"I thought about this a bit, and well...what happened the other day..." she paused and glanced away from me again. "It probably shouldn't happen again."

I swallowed back the sick feeling bubbling up in me. "Oh...uh...okay..."

"It's not that I didn't want to..." The tiniest smile pulled at the corners of her lips. "I just don't think we should be so intimately involved when you're still trying to figure your own problems out. I don't want to hinder your recovery in any way, especially when I'm the one trying to help you, and...it was selfish of me to do that. I'm sorry."

She was sorry, but I had already flown too close to the sun. I was burning up, and nothing she said or did could change it now.

"It's fine," I blurted out. "I get it."

It was so not fine, but in the end, I shouldn't have been surprised. She wasn't made for people like me...but I'd do whatever it took to make me right for her, even if it killed me.

I gave her one last glance over before backing away.

"Wait, aren't you coming for a run?" she asked.

"Apparently I have to stop smoking first and uh...today's not the day for that," I called back.

She gave me one last faint smile and shook her head before turning away and continuing her run down the beach. I watched her until she was nothing more than a speck against the vast sea of sand, and even though she was far away, I still couldn't breathe.