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She started smoking a little over six months ago. It took the edge off, and people expected it of her. Heck, she just needed a little bit of time to find herself, away from Riley. Away from a new life that had ingratiated itself into her so that she was lost.
And if she found herself in a pack of Camel Crush's so be it. Why? Because Marlboro Reds hurt too much, and a pack of Newport's tasted like ass.
Anyways, she could be doing so much worse. That weird guy that slept outside of 83rd Street station in that weed tent, who she bought ganga, cigarettes and (occasionally) shrooms from, offered her samples of acid. She declined.
This was her exploring period. She was sixteen, and in the prime of her life. She moved away on from cheesy paintings about doors with secret meanings, and diner scenes. She was now painting sounds and music and visions.
And psychedelics and stimulants were needed to see everything deeper. Jimmy Page was coked up when he did Led Zeppelin II, Carlos Santana was dropping acid before Woodstock, and Maya Hart was painting how many colors are in the shade blue on shrooms.
She stopped caring. She stopped hanging out with Riley, Lucas, Farkle and Smackle. Why should she? Lifelong friends only last a life you can sustain. Well, she couldn't sustain that life.
Why was she hanging around a bunch of entitled Greenwich-sonians, when everybody knew she was Central Harlem trash.
She still hung out with Riley, nonetheless. But Riley grew a sneer whenever she looked at her do things she had to do. Well fuck her. She had to do them to stay normal. The normal she experienced two years ago was just plain painful and awkward, and she was enough painful and awkward.
She didn't give a shit. If she had lose herself to finally revert into "herself"; a "good badass", then she may as well have been a badass.
Girls like her smoke and drank, and went to frees's thrown by kids who went to Lab. Girls like her didn't give half a crap about other girls who cried at a drop of a hat, because some other girl was bullying her. Just end it.
She learned how to breathe in smoke, and exhale. She learned how not to give half a crap about life. She learned what happened when you smoke pot on an empty stomach, and how to properly consume shrooms.
She stopped thinking about stupid shit. Daddy issues. Does he like me? Does he think about me? Why does Mommy not care about me. Why is Mommy so obsessed with an acting career that ain't going to shit?
Just fuck everything. Because Bree Tillerson was throwing a party at her house in Williamsburg, and Maya needed something cute to wear, and a something to make the world a little less colorful and a little more vibrant, if you know what she meant.
She put on a dark smoky eye, and a bright red lipstick. She'd brushed her hair to the middle of her back, and had curled it. She put on a pretty skanky body-con dress from Demolition (with a partially covered slit that went down from her boob to the bottom of the dress), and thigh-high boots from Zara. She looked like a hooker.
It was a Saturday night. She could remember a time when Saturday night meant a sleepover at Riley's, with a roast for dinner with tiny potatoes and onions. It meant Scrabble, and it meant Riley going to be a midnight after two hot cocoas for dessert, and Maya going to bed at three in the morning, terrified Riley and her would clash. What a loser. They both were.
They were commended for not giving into the peer pressure. Well, that entire time she was under pressure. To escape the cycle of depravity and make something of herself. Well she couldn't do that. It was too damn hard, and all she wanted to do was retreat into herself, knowing that if she broke down into tears it wasn't because the Matthews thought she was trash.
Because she was trash, but now it was because she just was, not because she failed at being a better person.
She still thought about Josh. Holy fuck, she was still a loser. When she thought about jumping on his back just to have an excuse to touch him and be closer to him... What a pathetic, little girl.
Speaking of being touched... People were fucking disgusting on the train. She didn't even look that old. So why was that forty year old perv think that he could sneak his hand up her slit?
She was taking a L, on the L. The irony wasn't lost to her. And she couldn't even just walk away. She was in a pair of knock-off Jimmy Choos, and if she took a step on the wobbly train, she'd break something.
"Look, bozo. Don't touch." Her voice was firm and insistent, but all he did was grope her some more. And pretty soon, his hand reached up and started honking on her left boob, before she just lost it. She screamed bloody murder on the crowded train, and some big burly guy started hitting the pudgy old prick, and she was thanking the stranger.
And then suddenly, somebody wrapped her up in a large overcoat and she was shoved into E 105 St Station.
She was wrapped around a familiar scent of Allspice, and the voice that filled her dreams when she was twelve entered her ears. Josh. And he was fucking pissed. "What the hell Maya?"
"What gives, Josh? The problem was done with and over. I'm going to a free."
"What do you mean "what gives"? You could've been raped! Doesn't that reasonat at all with you? And why are you dressed like that, huh?" She was ignoring him at that point, staring blankly at his face, a little pissed off at parental lessons from an eighteen year old.
*The Brooklyn bound L train is two minutes away*
She shook her head. Her head was hurting and she was on edge. She could finish a cigarette in two minutes easy. "I'm getting on the next train, Josh. Bree's not gonna wait."
And she pulled out a loosie from her purse, and lit it up with a Zippo lighter. And before she could even take a puff, Josh grabbed both of her hands and put them behind her back. He took both the cigarette and lighter, tossing it onto the tracks.
"Stop. Just stop everything. I know for a fact that Corey would never let you in his house if you look the way you do, and if you effing smell like smoke. What happened?"
*The Brooklyn bound L train is approaching the station*
He wouldn't let her go. He just grabbed her wrists and just wouldn't let her on the train. The next train was gonna arrive in seventeen minutes.
She was pathetic. She couldn't even kick his shin, or else she'd get off balance and fall on her ass.
He looked stoic, and he looked calm. His face lost all of its anger when he threw away her lighter, and all he expressed was annoyance. "You know what's so sad?" His voice was lilting and his eyes were narrowed.
"What, Josh? Huh?"
"We were gonna go to the same party." She shrugged. "Whatever."
"Why are you doing this to yourself, huh? Why don't you go to Riley and hang out with her? Why do you need to smoke and dress like that?" He looked at her in the eyes, his eyes milky. "Is it because of me?"
She never wanted to punch anybody more than she did Josh.
What the hell was wrong with him? Did everything have to be about him? What a fucking prick. Was she spiraling out of control because all she could think about in her hum-drum life was how much Joshua Matthews didn't love her. She was losing her mind because all she could think about was how many days until she was finally able to love him, and how many girls he would have until they could be an item. No.
She looked at the ground for a solid ten seconds, and when she looked back up at him she spoke in soft measured tones. "Josh. I'm goddamn sixteen. I don't need to think about you every single day, believe it or not. Look, if you think that your such a prize, just play the long game with yourself. Because all I wanna do right now is go into Brooklyn and get hammered."
He shook his head. "I'm sorry Maya. That was wrong."
"Yeah, no shit. But it doesn't matter right, big man, huh?" She was still pissed off about her lighter, and the trains she'd missed. "What? You want a teenage girl to idolize you? To love you, and you just keep her in your back pocket to maybe think about her? She's your safety choice."
He looked stunned. Maybe it was what she'd said, maybe it was how old she looked, but he was speechless. "I never thought of you that way..."
She shook her head. She looked at her phone. "You know what? I'll just take an Uber. Just stew in your own self-aggrandizement."
To be continued...