It was one of those November nights when the temperature suddenly
free-fell below freezing. We had the bad luck of having a white Thanksgiving.
I knew where she would be.
This is where she started going every Thanksgiving,
after stomping out of the house with teary eyes.
It was this little bench that someone dragged in the middle of a meadow
as a practical joke. It was a horrible joke since no one ended up seeing
the little bench in the big meadow centered in the middle of the woods
barely anyone goes into anymore.
There she was. She was on her back, gazing up at the sky.
Her hair spilled over the edge of the bench,
like seaweed.
The tiny little batter-powered portable lamp she brought with her
barely illuminated her relaxed figure.
It was eerily quiet; the only barely audible sound was the soft crunch of my feet
against the layers of snow that covered the beautiful meadow.
The snow seemed to be a thick, muffling blanket, gagging nature of its voice.
As I drew closer, my breath visible in the sharp air,
I could see the smoke that was much too thick to be her breath.
Smoke.
When I was close enough that the sound of my footsteps reached her,
she turned her head slightly to see who it was.
She must've decided she didn't care and turned her head back towards the sky.
I sat down on the snow in front of th bench, swallowing my discomfort, and said nothing.
She brought what seemed to be a cigarette to her lips and inhaled.
When she exhaled, she closed her red eyes and it seemed like
all the stress and worry was leaving her body.
I wrinkled my nose at the puke-inducing scent of the smoke, but said nothing.
After a long time, I couldn't take the silence anymore.
"Why do you do it?" I asked.
"I don't know." She took a long drag and held the smoke in for a long time.
She exhaled, in a huge gust of air.
"I guess I do it for t h e t h r i l l o f i t a l l ."
I was silent, trying to make sense of her words.
"What do you mean?"
She didn't answer for a while, watching the remnants of the smoke
spiral upward in a eerily beautiful way.
The words poured out of her like the gush of a steam engine.
As if she had wanted to say this for so long, but hadn't known
the right person to tell or the right words to say.
"The adrenaline. The sudden feeling of excitement and pleasure...
The rebellion. It just feels good to not be in control.
It's fun. For a while, at least. I know it's horrible...
But, shouldn't we be able to do what we want? Blow off a little steam and be able
to have fun while we can? That's what being a teenager is for, right?
I mean, I have great grades. Straight A's; it can't get better than that.
It is possible to be smart and make bad decisions.
I'm making the wrong decisions for the right reasons.
I'm ashamed of it. I know it's wrong. I've become everything I thought I never would.
Does it really make me a horrible person?"
She looked at me with a mix of trust and fear.
"RIght," I replied, my mouth dry.
She smiled and put the cigarette to her lips. "Thanks, Kylie."
I wanted to stop her. I couldn't. I couldn't fathom her reasons for doing drugs,
but I knew I couldn't stop her.
"What does it feel like?"
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
She smiled tightly. "It's great. You can forget about
everything bad in this world for a while.
There's a long list of bad things I need to forget, and it helps."
"Take care of yourself. Don't get hurt. Or caught."
"If I haven't been caught by now, I never will be."
She smiled mischieviously and walked away,
taking the nauseating smell of weed with her.
I watched her walk away until the crunch of her footsteps faded.
The old Keira was gone.
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