I'll Never Finish This Book

NINE

November 6:

"I'm tellin' you- the guy was a complete stranger, just walked up and gave me this bag."

"Eli, what's in that bag?"

"No clue."

"Well, don't be bringing it into my apartment," I waved my hands around. "Anything could be in there! Who in the right mind does that?"

"You already know I'm not in the right mind."

"Yeah, but I never expected you to do something like this."

"What do I do with it then?"

"Take it out of my apartment, that's what."

"Don't you want to at least see what's inside of it?"

I shook my head violently. "Definitely not. I'm not going to get mixed up in whatever this is." I knew better than to take things from strangers, let alone bring it home with me. He looked at me the way a child looked at their parent when they wanted a toy. That never worked with my mom, so I had to resort to other methods for getting a toy I wanted, and that method was always my dad. The puppy dog eyes never failed.

Shaking my head, I looked away to avoid having to give in to what he wanted. He wasn't giving up, and I was giving in. "Ugh, fine!" I threw my head back in defeat.

He smiled from cheek to cheek and slowly unfolded the brown paper bag. Part of me didn't want to know what would be inside, but another part of me wished he'd open it quicker. Moments later, we found another, much smaller bag. We looked up from it at the same time.

"Is that..." his words drifted off.

I raised my glasses just a bit. "It is."

"Whoa."

"Dude, you just got involved in a drug deal."

He handed me the bag. "It hardly qualifies as a drug." He was no longer interested and casually headed over to my couch and plopped onto it.

"No! I don't want this." I ran over to him and shoved the bag into his hands.

"Ah, takes me back to high school." He raised the bag up to eye-level and inspected it.

"You... got involved with weed in high school?"

He let out a laugh. "The way you said that! Who even says that? Got involved with! What are you, eighty?" He hunched over in laughter.

I impatiently stared at him until he was done.

"Yeah. But it was only once." He collected himself together.

"Only once," my words were drenched with sarcasm.

"Well, one time that led to a few more times after that."

"Yeah, I thought so," I laughed. "So, what are we gonna do with this?" I walked over and sat beside him.

He moved his legs so that I had more room to sit. "What else is there to do?" He didn't take his eyes from off the bag.

I knew what he was suggesting. "No. Definitely no."

He raised his eyebrows. "Why not?"

"Not this bag; you don't know where that came from."

"Oh, so if it was any other bag, you'd be okay with it?"

"You know that's not what I meant."

"It'd help with your writing," he sang the words as if that was going to make his idea sound better.